Enter Owen

The Capacity for Love

It’s not an original experience, I know, but I did spend some time feeling bewildered about whether or not I would be able to love a second grandchild as much as the first. Bewilderment is now in the past, faded to nothing, evaporated into a faraway haze. Reader, it is a truth universally acknowledged that the chambers of the heart expand mightily when love comes a-knocking.

Hello there, Owen Thomas                                                      

Fortune has smiled upon this baby. He arrived and we learned his name, second son to Harriet & Chris, brother to Samuel Miles, nephew to Emily, grandchild to Sally & Tony. Plus he has another family of cousins, an auntie and a grandma in the Midlands. And there’ll be a whole tribe of neighbours and friends around to create “Owen’s village.”

The basics

It’s easy to forget how, for a good number of weeks, it’s all about the food, the poo, the wee, the comfort, the sleep. Oh, the sleep, please Grant Them Sleep! And this time around there’s a 2-year-old to care for, keep entertained, and integrate into the newly fresh routines.

The future – the hope and the promise

Eleanor Roosevelt said “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” I know I can be irrationally sentimental, but it is hard not to see Hope and Promise in the presence of a little baby – no cynicism, no worries, no knowledge of evil, no pressures from social media or society – just survival and growth. Potential.

Two brothers

Sam has already shown tenderness to his younger brother, talking to him, reading to him. What kind of relationship will Sam and Owen develop as they live together in the same house for at least sixteen more years? So much potential for silliness, skirmishes, support and love.

Reach for Shakespeare

Sam can already identify the image of Shakespeare and he has a couple of books with characters from the plays. So far he has enjoyed Extracts from The Sonnets, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo and Juliet (minus the stabbings.) What came into my heart when I held Owen for the first time was Ophelia’s line from Hamlet:

"We know what we are but know not what we may be."

The stick-together families

Cockeyed Optimist
I have been accused on more than one occasion in adult life of wearing rose-tinted glasses. Of being too optimistic, too annoyingly positive; of being too prepared to see another person’s point of view. Of being a glass-half-full kind of sap. A dupe. Too gullible. (I could argue it’s the Libran in me.) Like Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird, I try to imagine that I will never understand a person “until you consider things from his point of view…. until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” It’s very hard to do with some people in some situations but it usually allows me to store negative feelings in a box called There’s nowt so queer as folk and sleep at night, counting my own blessings.

Edgar Guest
The “People’s Poet,” Edgar Guest, was introduced to me by pupils I taught when they selected some of his poems to recite at Music and Poetry performance evenings. He was born in England but lived most of his life in Detroit, USA, and his grand-niece, Judith Guest wrote the novel Ordinary People, that was made into one of my favourite films in 1980. Edgar Guest’s poems are undoubtedly sentimental and unlikely to be studied for examinations, but they capture clichéd truths for cockeyed optimists like me and two poems, in particular, have resurfaced from my subconscious as my loved ones begin emerging from Covid-19 Lockdown.

See it Through by Edgar Guest

When you’re up against a trouble,
    Meet it squarely, face to face;
Lift your chin and set your shoulders,
    Plant your feet and take a brace.
When it’s vain to try to dodge it,
    Do the best that you can do;
You may fail, but you may conquer,
    See it through!

Black may be the clouds about you
    And your future may seem grim,
But don’t let your nerve desert you;
    Keep yourself in fighting trim.
If the worst is bound to happen,
    Spite of all that you can do,
Running from it will not save you,
    See it through!

Even hope may seem but futile,
    When with troubles you’re beset,
But remember you are facing
    Just what other men have met.
You may fail, but fall still fighting;
    Don’t give up, whate’er you do;
Eyes front, head high to the finish.
    See it through!

The Stick-Together Families by Edgar Guest
The stick-together families are happier by far
Than the brothers and the sisters who take separate highways are.
The gladdest people living are the wholesome folks who make
A circle at the fireside that no power but death can break.
And the finest of conventions ever held beneath the sun
Are the little family gatherings when the busy day is done.

There are rich folk, there are poor folk, who imagine they are wise,
And they're very quick to shatter all the little family ties.
Each goes searching after pleasure in his own selected way,
Each with strangers likes to wander, and with strangers likes to play.
But it's bitterness they harvest, and it's empty joy they find,
For the children that are wisest are the stick-together kind.

There are some who seem to fancy that for gladness they must roam,
That for smiles that are the brightest they must wander far from home.
That the strange friend is the true friend, and they travel far astray.
They waste their lives in striving for a joy that's far away,
But the gladdest sort of people, when the busy day is done,
Are the brothers and the sisters who together share their fun.

It's the stick-together family that wins the joys of earth,
That hears the sweetest music and that finds the finest mirth;
It's the old home roof that shelters all the charm that life can give;
There you find the gladdest play-ground, there the happiest spot to live.
And, O weary, wandering brother, if contentment you would win,
Come you back unto the fireside and be comrade with your kin.

Today is the day it all starts

Soft blessing of rain
On Friday 16th August 2019 the extended families of my (Leapling) niece, Rebecca, and her fiancé, Marc, gathered under a beautiful pavilion with a countryside view at King’s Croft Hotel in Pontefract. Rain fell like a soft blessing and the service was friendly and profound, as it should be when two people commit to each other in public in front of family and friends.

All the senses in play
Weddings unite. All our eyes were bathed in filters of happiness. All our ears were treated to wishes and hopes, desires and dreams for the couple and for each other. We had a wonderful feast of food and drink. All our hugs and kisses, dance moves – fast and slow – smiles and tears of joy and nostalgia reminded each person of other occasions, other people, including those who were absent and were missed, and other situations. You can’t help contemplate your own life when you see someone embarking on a new phase of theirs.

All the elements throughout the world
Why is marriage still a desirable rite of passage? Before the year 1184, religious leaders in England had nothing to do with weddings and the ceremony itself was only allowed inside churches in the 16th Century. For most of human history, the joining of two people together has been a secular affair, from the pagan woodland ceremonies (using the four elements of Air, Earth, Fire and Water) to the community handfasting represented onstage in Shakespeare plays like As You Like It and The Winter’s Tale. But throughout history, in every country in the world, in very different settings and buildings, following customs and rituals as varied as the people on the planet, humans still want couples to succeed when they join together formally.

Family and friends
I've always loved being a member of an extended family catching up at get-togethers. And it’s always fascinating to get a glimpse into the work and leisure lives of the couple being married. I can honestly say it was a day where goodwill was palpable, where love was, indeed, all around and in the air.

Daddy bear
The father of the bride, my beloved brother Chris, gave a speech from the bottom of his Little House on the Prairie heart. Did he blub a bit? Yes he did. Did I love him all the more? Yes I did. Aaron read the following, the final line of which provides the title of this post, though I’ve always thought (probably the form tutor in me) that every day is a fresh day, a new day, the day it all starts again….

Just two people in love
Today is a day you will always remember
The greatest in anyone's life
You'll start off the day just two people in love
And end it as husband and wife.

It's a brand new beginning, the start of a journey
With moments to cherish and treasure
And although they'll be times when you both disagree
These will surely be outweighed by pleasure

Secrets of marriage
You'll have heard many words of advice in the past
When the secrets of marriage were spoken
But you know that the answers lie hidden inside
Where the bond of true love lies unbroken

Today is the day it all starts
So live happy forever as lovers and friends
It's the dawn of a new life for you
As you stand there together with love in your eyes
From the moment you whisper ‘I do'

And with luck all your hopes and your dreams can be real
May success find its way to your hearts
Tomorrow can bring you the greatest of joys
But today is the day it all starts

Shall Earth No More Inspire Thee

Mother's Day at the Bronte Parsonage Museum

Mother's Day 2019
We chose to be in Haworth on Mother’s Day. It may seem counterintuitive since the Brontë Parsonage was a home bereft of a mother. Mother Maria died soon after the famous family moved to the town of Haworth from Thornton in Bradford. Therefore, the Parsonage (during the years 1820 to 1861) relied for maternal influences on Aunt Branwell for 21 years, on home helps Tabby Aykroyd and Martha Brown and the sisterly love and mutual support of Charlotte, Emily and Anne.

When imagination once runs riot
Every time I walk round the Brontë Parsonage Museum (and I have done it over 20 times now, including the times I took students there) I spot something new or feel something different. This time I found myself imagining the love, rivalry and intensity of the sibling relationships; how they must have been constantly aware of where each other was in the house, the changing dynamics when each of them left for a time, the circumstances that brought each of them back. And the changing atmosphere when, one by one, they died.

Shall Earth No More Inspire Thee
The extra incentive to visit on Mother’s Day was the opportunity to enjoy a unique audio-hiking experience. The Parsonage Museum have commissioned composer Adrian McNally to set to music a selection of Emily Brontë’s poems. Adrian composed by day at Ponden Hall (historically a place that sheltered Branwell, Emily and Anne along with servant Sarah Garrs during the Crow Hill Bog Burst, a thunderstorm and mudslide in 1824.) Adrian then practised and performed the music on the piano you can see today in Mr Brontë’s study (played by Emily during her lifetime, also by Anne.) Rachel and Becky Unthank (folk group, The Unthanks) have performed and recorded the poems and the Parsonage have devised a walk up onto Penistone Hill so you can listen to the songs/poems as you follow a 45-minute climb and descent onto the nearby moor.

Song Cycle in order of audio experience in Haworth
1. Deep deep down in the silent grave
With no-one to mourn above
Here with my knee upon thy stone
I bid adieu to feelings gone
I leave with thee my tears and pain
And rush into the world again

O come again what chains withhold
The steps that used so fleet to be
Come leave thy dwelling dark and cold
Once more to visit me

Was it with the fields of green
Blowing flower and budding tree
With the summer heaven serene
That thou didst visit me?

No ‘t was not the flowery plain
No ‘t was not the fragrant air
Summer skies will come again
But thou wilt not be there

2. She dried her tears and they did smile
To see her cheeks' returning glow
How little dreaming all the while
That full heart throbbed to overflow.

With that sweet look and lively tone
And bright eye shining all the day
They could not guess at midnight lone
How she would weep the time away.

3. I’m happiest when most away
I can bear my soul from its home of clay
On a windy night when the moon is bright
And the eye can wander through worlds of light—

When I am not and none beside—
Nor earth nor sea nor cloudless sky—
But only spirit wandering wide
Through infinite immensity.

4. Shall Earth no more inspire thee,
Thou lonely dreamer now?
Since passion may not fire thee
Shall nature cease to bow?

Thy mind is ever moving
In regions dark to thee;
Recall its useless roving -
Come back and dwell with me.

I know my mountain breezes
Enchant and soothe thee still -
I know my sunshine pleases
Despite thy wayward will.

When day with evening blending
Sinks from the summer sky,
I've seen thy spirit bending
In fond idolatry.

I've watched thee every hour;
I know my mighty sway,
I know my magic power
To drive thy griefs away.

Few hearts to mortals given
On earth so wildly pine;
Yet few would ask a Heaven
More like this Earth than thine.

Then let my winds caress thee;
Thy comrade let me be -
Since nought beside can bless thee
Return and dwell with me.

5. O evening, why is thy light so sad
Why is the sun's last ray so cold?
Hush our smile is as ever glad
But thy heart is growing old.

It's over now; I've known it all;
I'll hide it in my heart no more,
But back again that night recall,
And think the fearful vision o'er.

The evening sun in cloudless shine
Has passed from summer's heaven divine,
And dark the shades of twilight grew,
And stars were in the depth of blue,
And in the heath or mountains far
From human eye and human care,
With thoughtful heart and tearful eye,
I sadly watched that solemn sky.

6. High waving heather 'neath stormy blasts bending,
Midnight and moonlight and bright shining stars;
Darkness and glory rejoicingly blending,
Earth rising to heaven and heaven descending,
Man's spirit away from its drear dungeon sending,
Bursting the fetters and breaking the bars.

All down the mountain sides wild forests lending
One mighty voice to the life-giving wind;
Rivers their banks in their jubilee rending,
Fast through the valleys a reckless course wending,
Wider and deeper their waters extending,
Leaving a desolate desert behind.

Shining and lowering and swelling and dying,
Changing forever from midnight to noon;
Roaring like thunder, like soft music sighing,
Shadows on shadows advancing and flying,
Lightning-bright flashes the deep gloom defying,
Coming as swiftly and fading as soon.

7. Lines
The soft unclouded blue of air,
The earth as golden, green, and fair,
And bright as Eden's used to be,
That air and earth have rested me,

Laid on the grass I lapsed away,
Sank back again to childhood's day;
All harsh thoughts perished, memory mild
Subdued both grief and passion wild.

But did the sunshine even now
That bathed his stern and swarthy brow,
Oh did it wake—I long to know—
One whisper, one sweet dream in him,
One lingering joy that years ago
Had faded—lost in distance dim?

That iron man was born like me,
⁠And he was once an ardent boy;
He must have felt in infancy
⁠The glory of a summer sky.

Though storms untold his mind has tossed,
He cannot utterly have lost
Remembrance of his early home—
So lost that not a gleam may come.

No vision of his mother's face
⁠When she so fondly mild set free
Her darling child from her embrace
⁠To roam till eve at liberty.

Nor of his haunts, nor of the flowers,
⁠His tiny hand would grateful bear,
Returning from the darkening bowers,
⁠To weave into her glossy hair.

I saw the light breeze kiss his cheek,
⁠His fingers 'mid the roses twined;
I watched to mark one transient streak
⁠Of pensive softness shade his mind.

The open window showed around
⁠A glowing park and glorious sky,
And thick woods swelling with the sound
⁠Of nature's mingled harmony.

Silent he sat. That stormy breast
At length I said has deigned to rest;
At length above that spirit flows
The waveless ocean of repose.

Let me draw near, 'twill soothe to view
His dark eyes dimmed with holy dew;
Remorse even now may wake within
And half unchain his soul from sin.

Perhaps this is the destined hour
When Hell shall lose its fatal power,
And Heaven itself shall bend above
To hail the soul redeemed by love.

Unmarked I gazed, my idle thought
Passed with the ray whose shine it caught;
One glance revealed how little care
He felt for all the beauty there.

Oh! crime can make the heart grow old
⁠Sooner than years of wearing woe,
Can turn the warmest bosom cold
⁠As winter wind or polar snow.

8. Remembrance
Cold in the earth - and the deep snow piled above thee.
Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave!
Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee,
Severed at last by Time's all-severing wave?

Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover
Over the mountains on that northern shore;
Resting their wings where heath and fern-leaves cover
That noble heart for ever, ever more?

Cold in the earth - and fifteen wild Decembers,
From those brown hills, have melted into spring:
Faithful, indeed, is the spirit that remembers
After such years of change and suffering!

Sweet Love of youth, forgive, if I forget thee
While the world's tide is bearing me along;
Other desires and other hopes beset me,
Hopes which obscure but cannot do thee wrong!

No later light has lightened up my heaven;
No second morn has ever shone for me:
All my life's bliss from thy dear life was given,
All my life's bliss is in the grave with thee.

But when the days of golden dreams had perished
And even Despair was powerless to destroy,
Then did I learn how existence could be cherished,
Strengthened, and fed without the aid of joy.

Then did I check the tears of useless passion -
Weaned my young soul from yearning after thine;
Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten
Down to that tomb already more than mine.

And even yet, I dare not let it languish,
Dare not indulge in Memory's rapturous pain;
Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish,
How could I seek the empty world again?

9. The night is darkening round me
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.

I'll come when thou art saddest,
Laid alone in the darkened room,
When the mad day's mirth has vanished,
And the smile of joy is banished
From evening's chilly gloom.

I'll come when the heart's real feeling
Has entire, unbiased sway,
And my influence o'er thee stealing,
Grief deepening, joy congealing,
Shall bear thy soul away.

Listen! 'tis just the hour,
The awful time for thee.
Dost thou not feel upon thy soul
A flood of strange sensations roll,
Forerunners of a sterner power,
Heralds of me?

I would have touched the heavenly key
That spoke alike of bliss and thee;
I would have woke the entrancing song,
But its words died upon my tongue.
And then I knew that hallowed strain
Would never speak of joy again,
And then I felt . . .

The night is darkening round me
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.
And I cannot, cannot go.
And I cannot, cannot go.

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring

23rd March
Today always prompts reflection. It’s my Mum’s birthday – 23rd March – born in 1926. My memories of Annie Elizabeth Veronica Johnson (née Penn) usually centre on her devotion to me and my siblings, her sense of humour and her generous spirit of curiosity. My regular mind’s-eye-image of her is sitting on the rug in front of the fire, leaning on the cushion of an armchair, reading a historical novel or family saga. I always think it’s fitting that her birthday arrives soon after the official arrival of Spring with sunlight increasing, buds beginning to burst, lambs taking their first jerky steps around the Yorkshire fields and an atmosphere of rebirth, renewal, resurrection and regrowth. Happy Birthday, Mum!

What is all this juice and all this joy?
Sally’s birthday is less than a week before my Mum’s birthday. Having safely returned from the Trans-Siberian express with remarkable memories, I imagine this year felt extra-comforting to receive cards, flowers, books, toiletries and promises of future “experiences” involving chocolate and wine. Spring promises sun, promises the explosion of nature, promises more walks in the countryside. Winter is behind for a time. Spring feels to be earlier this year than last. To conclude I’ve copied below a Gerard Manley Hopkins sonnet about Spring, not an easy poem but a great one if you let the sounds enter your soul. He’s a peculiar poet with his sprung rhythm and exclamatory phrases that bounce into your brain without being grammatically attached to anything else. Time to spring into Spring.

Spring by G M Hopkins

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –
    When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
    Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
    The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
    The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
    A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,
    Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
    Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

What's in a name?

Me, cousin Ann, Sally, Dan, Ellisa, Logan. god-daughter, Lisa

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet
A recent Christening in Ossett saw Ellisa Anna Clara christened in the magnificent but freezing Trinity Church, Ossett. An early question about each new life on Earth is what to call the new baby. Ellisa Anna Clara was blessed with a trio of names paying tribute to important members of her ancestral tribe. Celebrities often make the news with their decisions, like Gwyneth Paltrow’s Apple and Angie Bowie’s Zowie – I’m assuming the Mums had more say than Chris Martin and David Bowie in those cases – but they have to take a bow before the choices of Adelaide Zappa (and her husband Frank) with their offspring’s names: Moon Unit, Dweezil and Diva Thin Muffin.

Ellisa's family and godparents, Mum and daughter, niece Jess and Chris. "How far that little candle throws its beams - So shines a good deed in a naughty world." (Shakespeare in Merchant of Venice)

What’s in a name?
It’s strange that, after a day or two, the baby (the child, the teenager, the adult….) become(s) the name they’ve been given. So my own children quickly became Emily and Harriet (though particular variations occur regularly…. Em, Emilia, Haz, HarrietRose….) and no doubt Ellisa will now forever be Ellisa, as her brother Logan is impeccably Logan, until either of them suddenly start wanting to be called a variation. Somewhere in America, no doubt Mrs Zappa found it unremarkable to shout “Moon Unit, come and get your tea! Dweezil, tidy your bedroom! Diva Thin Muffin, what time do you call this?!” Perhaps, like Zowie Bowie (who now prefers to be known as successful film-maker, Duncan Jones) Moon Unit, Dweezil and Diva Thin Muffin go by more ordinary names these days…. The most exotic (real-life, non-celebrity) name I ever heard about was Allegra Star Hoopengarner-Blaha; and a favourite name on one of my registers as a teacher was Fraser Rumble which, to me, sounds like someone who will one day be a hero.

Sally, Chris, brother-in-law Mick, sister Teresa and Jess

Meanings of names
I was named Antony (without an ‘h’ and I take pride in the lack of an ‘h’ since it was good enough for Shakespeare in Antony and Cleopatra.) My sister Teresa and I are godparents to Ellisa’s marvellous Mum, so it was a privilege to come full circle and witness our god-daughter having her own child named and celebrated in high style. And lovely to catch up with the extended family news. Names start to mean the people they are but there is a long tradition of trying to trace the origins of names, so I spent some time doing that for some of the guests at the Christening:

• Ann = “favour, grace” (Hebrew from Hannah)
• Terry = “ruler of the people” (Germanic from Theodoricus)
• Lisa/Ellisa = “my God is an oath/my God is bountiful/devoted to God” (Hebrew from Elizabeth)
• Dan = “God is my judge” (Hebrew from Daniel)
• Logan = “from the little hollow” (Scottish)
• Nick = “victory of the people” (Greek from Nikolaos)
• Daniela = “God is my judge” (Hebrew, feminine form of Daniela)
• Eliana = “Daughter of the sun” (Greek/Latin)
• Livio = from Livy (Titus Livius) who wrote a history of the city of Rome (Latin)

• Antony = from Roman family name Antonius, possibly meaning “priceless” (Latin)
• Sally = “lady, princess, noblewoman” (Hebrew from Sarah)
• Emily = “aiming to equal or excel” (Latin from Aemilius)
• Harriet = “rules the home” (Germanic from Heimirich to Henry to Harry to feminine form)

• Mick = “who is like God?” (Hebrew from Michael)
• Teresa = from Saint Teresa of Avila (16th century nun), possibly meaning “harvester” (Latin)
• Jess = first used as Jessica by Shakespeare in Merchant of Venice (probably based on Hebrew name Iscah from Bible meaning “rich”)
• Chris = “bearing Christ” (Greek from Christopher)

Siblings forever - Logan and Ellisa