Peace of mine

Highs & lows. Ups & downs. Happiness & sadness. Joy & sorrow. The past couple of decades or so have been packed with both for me. The circumstances I grew up in & my natural personality have led to an eventful & dramatic life so far. Of course, being polar opposites all those adjectives above exist purely because of one another, right? I don't think it's rocket science to suggest that there is a yin and yang thing happening here, that there's no happy without sad, no joy without sorrow, so on and so forth. Every one of you reading this has been up and been down, has been high and been low. That's life right? 

One rather odd sensation I get when I contemplate my life as a whole is the oddly linear manner in which I have experienced it, how sadness has led to happiness. I have little memories before the age of 9 or 10, but from that point on things were rather bleak for a long period which I've written about in sufficient detail, often enough that you're probably as bored reading about it as I am writing about it. Once I began to emerge from the darkness, the view became a lot brighter in a hurry. That is not to say I've not experienced my share of tribulations along the journey, but the trajectory has largely been upward . If I were to map out how much I have enjoyed my life at any given time between the ages of say 10 & 34 on a chart with 0 being "bleurgh, not so much" and 100 being "fuck yeah, this rocks!" it would probably look something like this:

Which is fine & dandy, and listen, you won't hear me complaining. But it leads me back to the whole yin and yang thing. I am happy now because I've experienced enough trauma, pain & sadness to leave me with a drastically altered world view. Such that a life which could be seen or experienced as mundane or ordinary by some is borderline bloody utopian to me. I am aware enough to know that the person I was growing up, regardless of circumstances, didn't really know how to be happy. It just doesn't come naturally to me. Angst? Now that I can do. Melancholy? BOOM, that's my thang. Anxiety? I'm your man. Overanalysing? I'm your huckleberry! Joy, though? Joy was foreign. I learned joy. I learned happiness. Gratitude is a great teacher. 

That being said, it's fair to conclude that emotions & feelings don't exist in a vacuum, that one must exist in opposite to another, right? There is no relief without frustration, no confusion without clarity, etc. But like any rule, there has to be one single exception that proves it. For me, there has been: peace.

There are many emotions or feelings you could present as an opposite to peace: anxiety, confusion, angst, anger. All of these things are a barrier to peace of mind, but I struggle to identify any of them as it's genuine opposite. Because if they were, than surely at some point I would have stumbled upon sustained peace of mind, the type which would perhaps curb my enthusiasm for this constant self exploration. Truthfully, I never have. In my head operates a washing machine of sorts, a constant spinning drum  filled with thoughts aplenty. At random one pops out and I contemplate it and this fires a feeling, a sensation in my body - happiness, misery, stress, purpose, motivation, depression - something, anything. Try as I might to unplug this washing machine, or better yet, just cut the wire, that bloody washing machine just doesn't stop. I have meditated, younger me read self help books, I've attended meetings and I go to therapy. I've listened to Eckhart Tolle explain "the power of now" through audiobook. And I have experienced flashes of stillness, moments of peace. Nothing prolonged. It's like I'm just fundamentally not wired to be peaceful. I know people who are borderline zen, near Buddhist monks, and they don't seem to be working hard at it. 

Wait. Maybe that's the idea? 

Peace...where are you?

I think I could live to be 134 and I still won't be someone to whom peace of mind, stillness, and calm come all that naturally. However, I am mightily pleased to have met someone who teaches me a little every day about peace. She could well be a buddhist herself - mindful & present, capable of achieving a zen like stillness at a moments notice. This is her:

Ok ok, I know, you didn't read 700 words just to get to a photo of my daughter. Truthfully though, I'm not being facetious. I am a firm believer children are some of our greatest teachers. If you can't learn from a brand new person, one who has not been saddled by societal expectation and emotional baggage, then from who can you ever truly learn? I often wish I had met Carra a couple of decades I ago. I would have realised a lot sooner that I have done ok because I came into the world with a personality just like hers, and let me tell you it's bloody hard work being in a busy brain like ours sometimes. Which is not to downplay its rewards, merely to point out that from Carra I have learned that some people just come into the world wired. She wanted things from the moment she could want, desperate for her first words, her first steps, her independence in every little task. Bayley, on the other hand, is the flip side of the Murphy-Warren genetic coin, in many ways the opposite of her sister. She is the eye of the storm, the mellow number in the middle of your favourite rock album, a moment of calm amongst the chaos. She is a big, warm cup of camomile tea when the world gets too much. I only wish I had met her sooner as well.

You see Bayley just is. That's it. She just is. She has wants & needs like you or I or indeed like any little person learning to communicate, and she is not shy in expressing this. But she does not overcomplicate things. Once her needs are met, she is at peace. I could tell you once her needs are met, she is happy. I recognise though, that behind that happiness is that peace. She is so at ease with herself. I very firmly believe people have energies, aura's, their own individual presence that you can sense and feel when you are with them, and the more sensitive & open you are, the more you feel it. With Bay, there is just this extraordinary sense of tranquility, and it's so powerful. Sometimes I will be stomping about the house in a hurry, getting ready to go out or completing chores and I will catch her watching, almost as though she's pondering "What's all the fuss old man?". 

I watch how she interacts with the events and circumstances of the day with bemusement. She goes to sleep around 9pm. We have a baby monitor camera in her room and I'll check on her when I go to bed myself. Most nights she's fast asleep. Some nights she's wide awake. Just lying there, staring into space or snuggling a teddy. Not a peep out of her, no major tossing or turning. Just chilling in the quiet dark of night. In the morning, most days I get up with her. I wake up between 8 & 9. I go into her. Sometimes she's lying there, wide awake and bursts into conversation when you open the door and you know she's been awake a while but didn't feel the need to call you. Sometimes she's dosing, sometimes she's still fast asleep. Without exception, once she wakes and becomes aware of my presence, she smiles. Not a grin. A big broad smile. Pure joy. She picks up one of her animals. "A goggy" she says, showing me her dog, before adding "woof woof". We go downstairs, her commentating as we walk. "Caca" she points at Carra's room. "A bath" as she points at the bathroom. And on it goes. We get dressed, make breakfast, sit down. She potters about doing her own thing and coming back to me intermittently as the day goes by to show me a toy or explain what's happening on the TV. All the while, she's just so chilled. She hears music, she starts dancing. She sees an animal on the TV, she makes the accompanying noise. One of her favourite TV characters is in peril, she goes "UHOH" and frowns, pointing concernedly and telling me there's trouble. Wherever I wander in the house, she follows. Each room is a wonderful novelty, the bathroom has the sink, the kitchen has all the presses, the toy room has, erm, toys, and the living room has the big window into the outside world. We go about our day and she's just consistently settled. This is not to say Bayley is perfectly behaved 24/7. She understands the concept of protesting when things aren't as she wants. But it's minor. A squawk or a moan for a couple of seconds, then she moves on. She doesn't carry around her upset about X that she didn't get, or dwell on being told off about Y. She just settles straight back in to herself. 

It is present in her interactions with people too. The very few people who get to spend a lot of time with Bayley - which is basically MT, myself & the Warren clan - get to understand her. I often get the feeling that a lot of people I know have little sense for Bayley's identity, past that she's the younger kid, and I feel sympathy for her. Where Carra's personality - vibrant, extroverted, contagious and expressive - plays well to an audience, Bayley is at her least settled when she's with a large group of people, thus making it harder for people to get a feel for her, to understand this wonderfully soft little person who graces my life. And that's a damn shame, because a kinder, gentler soul you could not hope to meet. Going out and about with Bay is great fun - she is happy to see random strangers - she waves or blows kisses, she tells you about the toys she has with her. When it's time to go, she cheerily waves "guy-guy" (bye-bye) to all around. Older folk tend to appreciate her greatly! Her sense of calm is very much present in how she develops. She took her time beginning to speak, and took her time beginning to walk. She is just in no hurry. Where Carra was desperate to start and frustrated when she struggled with a new hurdle (which was rare), Bayley takes things as they come. She has difficulty with certain sounds or syllables so she improvises. "Gaga" is dada, for example. She finds S's & M's hard, so Mum is 'Buh' and shoe is "fooo". Far from being a source of frustration for her, she is happy with her lot. She has learned to communicate & as long as she's understood, she does not get upset in the slightest. She can climb the stairs on her own without problem, but where Carra was desperate for us to get rid of the baby gate and give her freedom, on the rare occasions the gate is left open, Bay toddles over and closes it. What's the hurry?

Bay loves people, and...

Smiling!

I could write many more words about the wonder that is Bay, but I have a need in my heart to share my favourite experience with her, the one that inspired this blog. All my words can help you understand how Bayley moves through the world, and how it is to live with her. It can't make you understand the intangible though. The energy. The aura. And that is what I want to get across. I often listen to music while I'm cooking. Late one evening, in the midst of a busy day, I was preparing dinner and listening to random songs. Bayley wandered up to me and sort of tugged at my leg. I turned around and saw her innocence smiling back up at me and I was inspired to pause my doing for a minute, and instead focus on being. Just as I picked her up the song changed. "New Years Day", a sombre but gorgeous little love song by Taylor Swift came on , and I held her. We gently swayed to the music, neither of us making a sound. I think it was about 3 and a half minutes before we were interrupted but it felt a lot longer, and you know what else it felt? Peaceful. That's where Bayley brings me, to peace. That is her energy. The picture below captures it. She just snuggles in, so relaxed, so centred. She doesn't want. And then I don't want. In that moment everything washes away - stress, joy, worry, happiness, anger, relief...all the good and bad, and I just feel completely still. I just am. Since then, I have been able to capture that feeling and sustain it on my own at times, to go back to that place. To just pause and take a break, find a moment of serenity. I have to tell myself not to chase it, but let it come. I owe it all to my little teacher. I hope when she's old enough she reads this and knows how much she changed her Daddy's life for the better. I love you Bay, you're 'mi tranquilo' & I can't believe my luck that you're ours. I wouldn't change a thing about you. 

I will hold on to that peace, I will hold on to that tranquility, and like the song says - "I will hold on to you".