out and about with Rob

I meet a friend every month for lunch. We have a meal but the most satisfying thing is the conversation. We go to the same place each time. We’re well known there now. Almost don’t have to order, because they know what we usually have. You see that little habit saves us thinking and wasting valuable talk time to make decisions as trivial as what to eat for one meal. We sit down and away we go. It’s a rolling maul of a conversation – starts in the middle and ends before it finishes. It’s in my diary as “the office.”
Yesterday was July office time. We talk about each others families, what’s happening work-wise, theology, politics – all the usual stuff of two blokes who know each other so well. Then we discovered crystal sets again. How this happened I can’t remember, but next minute we’re two kids again under the bedclothes trying to listen to wireless comedy when we’re supposed to be sleeping. We roll out the names – Life with Dexter, The Navy Lark, The Goons, Hancock’s Half Hour … Ron and Eff and Jimmy Edwards. Suddenly we were laughing and giggling like kids, remembering how we’d made a crystal set, and how terrible the reception was, but how much fun it was too. I remembered I’d had a Starfighter crystal set with a nose cone you pulled in and out to change the station. We had a great time at the office, being back in our connected past for a while. Then we looked at each other and said – well, let’s see if there are any others who could make a crystal set these days. Let’s make one. We might. Or might not. But it was brilliant.
Then, as we do, we got a little serious for a bit and wondered if the kids of today ever get the chance to make things like we did as kids. You know, get a hammer and nails and make a hut, or cardboard and sellotape and make a building (or a mess). I told my mate about a time in church recently where a 10 year old boy made a paper dart out of the bulletin. Great fun for him, but the best bit was some old blokes showing him after church how to make it fly even better. Chaos as the dart flew round the morning tea gathering. And laughter. Ah those are the days! And I intend to have more of them. Now, can I remember how to make a crystal set!

A strange day today.  It started well enough, and ended well enough, but in between!

Today I have been a repository of others’ pain – part of what I do.  First appointment was to help organise a funeral, but with a difference.  The person for whom the funeral will happen is still alive. She is part of the process of deciding how best to celebrate her life when she succumbs to her cancer.  It has been a privilege to walk a little of her journey and to sense how one can face the ultimate with dignity and courage, a sense of humour and inevitably to work through regrets.  All of us are being changed by this time of preparation.

An old folks home service – I always stop off at the hairdressers as she helps the residents look stunning.  Today though the hairdresser was less smiley.  No wonder.  As we exchanged our usual greeting she told me her marriage came to an end this week.  Like a bit has been ripped out of my guts, she said, trying to find something forward-looking to think about.  She smiled, but through the gritted teeth of pain.  Too soon to be cheery!

Then, after the short service, a new bloke in the room stopped to chat with me.  We discovered that we knew someone in common, from my Dunedin days, a neighbour of ours had been a workmate of his.  What a small 2 degree world we live in!  That was the opening of a door however.  He went on to tell me another tragic story of relationship breaking, after 52 years of marriage.  Again, close to tears, he tried to put a brave and positive face to a gut-wrenching time.

I left, worn out.  But somehow also profoundly moved by being the repository of so much pain in one morning.  But then again, I also realised that is what I’m paid to do too.  To listen but not solve.  It reminds me of the root meaning of comfort – to be strong with someone, not to smooth the time, but to lend strength when someone is at a weak place.  Sometimes a day is like that.  Whether I like it or not!

I wonder what tomorrow will be like.

I’ve just been reminded that I haven’t blogged for a while.  (Thanks Marg)

It’s not that I don’t have anything to blog about either so …

Right now my project is collecting stories of men at work.  Old men, young men.  Retired and starting out.  A fascinating exercise where I sit and listen, but often watch too.  The face gives it away as they talk about their jobs, ancient and modern.  Would they do it again I ask them.  Some say an immediate animated yes, others grimace and say no, they’d do it differently next time.  One man did the same thing for 26 years.  Others changed their careers.  A uni student shared his dreams with me, already he’s not sure he’s on the path he will stay on for long.  another talked about his now dead wife, and with tears said he’d do it again as long as he could have the same woman sharing his ups and downs.  It’s a humbling time for me, and I have all these stories on my computer, voice files that represent the ultimate in trust – telling someone else about our lives.  Next week I’m going into hiding to begin writing it all up, and then will come the editing, and the eventual launch with all those blokes hopefully there to celebrate the Sharpest Tool in the Shed.

A side line has been several recent conversations with both men and women about facing the next part of life and wanting to make some value-based changes.  Doing something not just for money, but for the love of it, and out of a sense of compassion for others.  Time and again, I hear similar things.  So, as I feel that way too, I’ve begun exploring what might be a next step in the ongoing saga of my life.  Not clear yet.  But living in a mist is not always a bad place to be sometimes!  Who knows, I might even go vist my long-lost cuzzie and have a good laugh again!