Three Important Words That Begin With ‘L’

Sunday and the twenty-second COVID blog.

Many of my blogs begin due to something said or overheard in conversations. My belief that we are all connected and the reason for my blog is constantly confirmed by these discussions.

In previous blogs I stated that this summer my holiday has been spent catching up with my family and my friends. This week has been no exception. It is in a different way perhaps, with our world being so strange but it has been important.

The final week of August is now plunging headlong towards my soon to be ‘new normal’ working life and the gentle meandering of the school holidays will become a distant dream.

Part of me is looking forward (all be it with a little apprehension) to the busyness of normality. Lockdown has taught me things I know I would never have had the chance to find, had I not been given this time.

Indeed, I think we have all learned things about our world and our own personal growth.
We were given the unique chance to stop, think, and assess, a chance to discover the things we feel are the most important to us as human beings and to ourselves as individuals. Our own values may vary but I believe there are three words that are incredibly important to us all and two that without, we would not exist.

This first word may seem obvious but it has a host of connotations. This word is something I have been craving, I have missed its hustle and bustle it’s loud, bold, voice, and it’s hushed tones, it is the reason we are here.

‘Life.’

As much as I enjoy solitude, I also enjoy the sounds of life; the noise of people, its cacophony of laughter, excited chatter, its anthropology.

The title of Benjamin Zephaniah’s poem ‘People Need People’ epitomises life. We need people to share our lives, It’s what helps us to survive.

I missed a big part of life this week, I missed seeing our students, my students, receiving their exam results. This year they were posted online. I missed the noise, the tears, the joy, even the disappointment; I missed hugging students, I missed saying well done, I missed the high fives, saying it really is alright, that it really will be ok. I missed sharing in their lives.

Instead, I whooped loudly on my own in my kitchen when I read their results on my laptop, the results they ‘finally’ deserved. I missed the importance of life in that moment.

The second word has the power to change the course of almost everything and there are as always differing ideas. Some believe we make our own, with which I agree to a certain extent. Then there is a train of thought that it all depends on being in the right place, at the right time.

‘Luck.’

A friend recently said that opportunity is a matter of luck, particularly when dealing with the ‘Arts.’ You may be incredibly talented in your chosen passion but unless you are in the right place at the right time your efforts and hard work can count for nothing.

That being said, I think it is a mixture of the two. We all know that someone who seems forever lucky. Those that have everything constantly fall into their laps while others stand on the sidelines, waiting for the next catastrophe. I like many, have always felt I belonged to the latter.

This week I will be totally relying on luck for several reasons. One of those will be joining a part of something that once I arrive and register, will be totally down to luck and chosen completely by random. The opportunity to have my voice heard in this arena is immense and I am hoping that fate will be on my side but I have a feeling I may be watching rather than participating.

So, just for now the thought of this fortuitous event feels quite wonderful.
As always if things go awry I will resort to my cast iron defence that it simply was not meant to be but for a short time, it was fabulous to dream. Dreams I believe are important and I refuse to stop.

The final word is truly the most special word we possess in our vocabulary. There are so many layers to this tiny word, yet it is a word that so many find impossible to say.

I think in this I have been lucky, I grew up with a Mother who said that very word at the end of each day. “Night God bless, love you.” The words I then repeated to my own children each night and now my Grandchildren.

’Love’

A recent discussion with another friend on how she had never been told as a child those three little words expressed how hard it was for her to share with other members of her family that was, until she had children of her own. My Mother too had not heard these words from her own Mother and so she was determined her Daughter would always know she was loved. A generational change, making it easier for the next.

There was a telling moment I read recently in the heart wrenching autobiography from one of my favourite poets Lemn Sissay. Having been brought up by foster parents and then transferred to a children’s home it was a word he did not hear when growing up. Something he said stayed with me. This cruel lack of basic human kindness, while he was in the care of the authorities. “they never said l’m in this job because I love you.”

I have often told my classes that I love them, usually it is when they have been particularly awesome in asking and answering questions or they have made me laugh, just a simple “I love you guys.”

It has always felt important to tell them how great they are and that they know I care about them. Thankfully, I know I am not the only teacher to do this. Never once though has it crossed my mind that there may be someone hearing those words for the first time.

There are so many types of love and I have found it particularly difficult of late reading recent posts on social media so vehemently against the different sectors of humanity. Love for our fellow human beings sadly seems to be so noticeably lacking.

My granddaughter Elizabeth who is four, told me this week “ I love you more than ninety-nine hundred miles away” I’m not quite sure how she came to this figure but I’m definitely taking it. My grandson Oliver simply said after I had read him a bedtime story “Grandma, I love you.”
I think we should be far more childlike in our approach in telling our family and friends that we love them. It matters.

We so often do not tell the people that mean the most to us we love them, we presume they know. We avoid this word and sometimes it becomes too late and the guilt then joins the void they leave inside us.

I hope this week we will begin to hear the sounds of life. I hope that luck is on your side and I truly hope that someone tells you, they love you more than ninety-nine hundred miles away!

With Love,

Joy xxx