Kindness
I receive an unexpected gift today. A beautiful hand crafted silver dragonfly, wings picked out in shades of blue, hung from a delicate silver chain. The friend who gives it to me says she calls it Emergence, to commemorate a year of breaking free, of standing up and saying Here I am. The gift is not required in the professional relationship we have. What she has given me in the preceding year has been far more important – she has listened, judged only a very little and at my request, and pointed the ways out of the maze I was floundering in. The kindness and thought that goes into the dragonfly gift, on top of all that has gone before, touches me deeply. Dragonflies are my special insects.
Now that the key to the maze has been found, the panic has receded, the flood of tears and words has ebbed, what now? It feels as though I am in a waiting room of the mind. The train to nowhere has been and gone. Here the air is still, my breathing is slow and the old railway clock hanging just outside keeps time quietly. There is no frantic haste to write anymore, nor is there the fear of missing out on life. The trains to what could have been and where life was headed, have left this station. So I wait now, in that quiet room in my mind, unaware of the timetable or the destination of the next train. I can spare some kindness these days and forgive myself for missed opportunities and the words I didn’t say.
Now there is time to draw a deep breath and think back. To appreciate the many acts of kindness friends, and strangers who became friends, have shown me when the rage threatened to engulf my life. The friend who took control as mine slipped away, allowing me to breathe and breathe. The friend who lived in my city and whom I met once every couple of years, who became a constant rock of support and hard headed advice. The husband who quietly picked up the slack, as I grieved and mourned the loss of self. A man as sceptical as he is about new age self-help and therapy, pushing me to get help and therapy. The son who held on tight, wordless hugs that said everything. The son who handed out nuggets of wisdom in only the way he can, doling them out when he heard the silences on the other end of an international call.
The kindness of strangers. The taxi driver who looked away while I sat silently in the back of his cab and then said, “Take care of yourself, aunty” as I crept away, ashamed of a lack of control over the tear ducts. The neighbour who brought me a little clay bird from exotic travels, its yellow back and orange beak cheering up my days. The same neighbour who sometimes asks worriedly why I have let myself go, why I don’t smile as much, why I am so distracted from life. How to tell her that the worst is over, I’ll be okay? So I straighten my back, laugh a little louder and reassure this kind woman.
It is almost February again. My favourite month in this city of usually hazy skies and dusty trees. February is a kind month. The air is still cool, the sun warming up but nowhere close to the fury it will shine down on us in the next few months. And best of all, is the breeze! A breeze that is scented with the flowers blooming in our short lived spring. A breeze that blows away the dirt and haze, leaving behind a sky like a Madonna’s cloak. A breeze that the kites ride like a highway in the sky, wings stretched to catch the upwind, black specks against the blue of sky and gold of sun.
There is a garden opposite the sea. It is filled with trees, so that very little light penetrates to the ground. It is a dark and rather mysterious green place. I see a creeper has been trained to clamber all over the canopy of the old trees. Right now, the creeper is in full bloom. The fusty trees, a banyan at one end and another that cannot be easily identified from a passing taxi at the other, are swathed in bright pink blossoms. Smothered is actually a closer description. The reach of the creeper is fully visible because of the riotous swathe of colour across the dark green of the trees. It is a magical sight until one spares a thought for the trees. Is the creeper a parasite, sucking away the trees’ nutrients? Is it insiduously smothering the trees, strangulating them in its thin yet wiry grip? Or is it harmless, simply draping itself over the tree tops to drink the sunlight it needs to bloom so delightfully? It occurs to me that some people in our lives are a bit like that creeper – beautiful, flamboyant but it’s hard to be certain if they mean well or if the beauty is only to distract from a distinct absence of kindness.
I think about an old friend. We have, once again, had a falling out but this is nothing new. Except this time, I’m not even sure if it is a falling out or just another step away from one another. I waited for a call on my birthday which never came. I believe this is kindness too. When friendships die, the kinder and gentler thing to do is to simply walk away as my friend is doing. What good could come out of bitter words and cloaked accusations? Confrontations and discussions are the ways of war. Peace lies in letting go and leaving it behind, not in flogging a dead thing.
Kindness – look for it even in cruel people and terrible circumstances. It reveals itself, admittedly in strange ways sometimes, to those who seek it.