My Lemons

~ "When life gives you a lemon, you peel it and find it, instead, to be an orange. That is because, one of the first lessons of the human condition is that one should not spend their life turning something bitter into something sweet, as lemons into lemonade, but rather realise that nothing life gives you is ever as sour as a lemon. Everything is rich in opportunity and vitamins for the soul, just like an orange." ~ By ME (18/05/2014)

I don't reckon dying is pretty. But death can be beautiful. It's quiet and peaceful and on beautiful sunny days like this, the deceased can be the only people to 100% benefit from it. Unattached, they are part of the gorgeous weather and are free to enjoy it. They take each day for what it's worth down to the core. They appreciate it like humans are unable to with our multiple thoughts about what to do next, or what we ought to be doing, regretting that we didn't wear our shorts and saddening at the fact that the day will soon end.

This Saturday, I had a desire which on the surface seemed morbid and I was entirely unable to explain it to myself. 

One of my best friends had put me up for the weekend. Whenever I do the Saturday and Sunday shift at work, she always does. But this weekend marked the second time in a row and I hadn't properly thanked her beyond words. On my lunch break, I took a walk into town to Sainsbury's to buy chocolate and a bunch of white and yellow 'seasonal flowers'. 

I paid and as I walked back to work with this bouquet perched on my arm like an army soldier holds a rifle in parade, a sudden urge swept over me. Suddenly, I didn't want to be heading to work. I wanted to be going to a cemetery and spending the boiling sunshine with someone who was no longer alive. I wanted to appreciate the day, buy flowers and mark a grave with them. Then sit in the sun besides their headstone and reminisce. It felt the best way to make the most of the day. But I don't know why that felt so blissful, so perfect or so right. 

When we were to younger, we used to read grave stones with mum. She took us round various places, some local and some on our trips to the new forest, and she instilled in us a courage - one that told us not to be afraid of dying, not to dodge death and to be respectful to those who had passed on. It gave us a love of quirky literature and a respect for other people's lives. 

  We would walk around and see who was who. Who had been a mother, a brother, a great grandmother or a friend. Who was the oldest and, sadly, who was the youngest. We would look at freshly covered graves with mini gates to Heaven. And gingerly run past the spots that had been broken in. It was something we had always done and something we were indifferent to. 

But, we were incredibly fortunate. Apart from our Grandad, who I knew only from photos and the memories that I had fabricated from them, no one close to us had died. We had little experience of death or of a death so personal. And so, with my flowers in hand and my lunch break counting down, I realised that I had no one to sit with. I wanted to put flowers on a grave that wasn't full and talk to someone who was still alive. 

  There was no one who could fulfill this deep desire of mine. Which, looking back, of course was very lucky. It was comforting to know that all my family and friends were alive and well. 

When I go to se my auntie, there's this place I pass on the train line. It's called Brookwood and it's the UK's largest cemetery. It's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Just vast expanses of fields covered with graves. And people knelt down tending to them. There's flowers everywhere and barely a soul walking around. It's so tranquil and beautiful.

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Having the job that I have means the absolute world to me! I have no words to describe how much I love it. When I come out to go home I feel exhilarated by the people I am fortunate enough to work with. By the customers I meet in store. And just by the fact that I am worth something - that I have something that is vital to the clockwork of the company. I am a member of the team that is so crucial to the sales we make and the people the brand attracts.

It's such a wonderful feeling to be part of that. And so, when I lost my job, I felt absolutely devastated.

I wasn't fired but I was told that the only alternative to working all summer and not getting to see my family was to head out to Dubai and resign. It was an obvious choice but it was so upsetting to do it. I felt that I had come so far since getting my job, that to lose it would put me at a loose end and back to where I started: frantically searching websites for any and everything that advertised a vacancy and having countless emails that told me that I was unsuccessful. (I still get them - even now. 5. Months. On.)

Yet, the thought that I had after being told this news by my manager was not anything like I've just said above. That came after. My first thought was simply this: 

"God has given me an opportunity."

And, for a momentary lapse in my sadness, I felt like I wasn't losing at all. 

Since being at uni, religion has had such a deep influence on me. I've learnt so much and been able to deepen my faith and relationship with God. It has been fantastic and for that one thought to be my first in a disheartening situation, most definitely tells me that I'm going somewhere and that I am better for it. 

And so, life threw me my lemons and I ate them like oranges. Perhaps knowing that my job is coming to an end, like dying, isn't pretty and it does still hurt. But when it's over, I can begin to mould things anew. And the prospect of that, is rather beautiful. 

Finding your sanctuary

University leaves so much unlocked potential for the individual. Societies, clubs, clubbing, new faces, lectures. The increased freedom and focus on self can lead, either, to a slow but sure regression or - in the majority of cases - a bountiful exertion of one's happiness and ambition.

With a routine, that I have now had to plan myself, the importance of management is evermore crucial. This morning I set off to rekindle my love of the church. It was a small affair; not many in the way of congregation numbers - well, certainly fewer than I had previously known. But what was lacking in individuals was made up in general happiness, ambiance and devotion.

I sat as far from the altar as could be. Not for dislike of being new, but for the simple reason of losing my voice when the hymns began. Singing, largely, was never a quality I admitted owning, despite the 'pop star' phase of year 3 - a career move I took very seriously.

So I sat and stood to sing when the time came, all the while, during organisational pauses, taking in the peachy coloured walls, the static of the chairs, the decked flooring. It certainly wasn't the image of a typical church, save for the religious memorabilia decorating the hall and the willing congregation, amongst whom sat the formally dressed family and friends of a toddler who was to be baptised.

I got thinking in those moments; what is a church? This building didn't have the age-old, stained glass, musty smelling character of what is usually taken as a church. But did that make it an less of a church than an 17th century stoned work of architecture? It was, however informal, by definition, still a church.

Religion in general is an idea of concept. There is very little concrete about a service and other particulars. Of course, there are the formalities; holy scriptures and communions, declarations of faith and pilgrimages but those aren't the things that necessarily underpin religion and, more specifically to this case, a church. So, if it is only a matter of conception that creates religion and Gods, might we all go to church in some form or another regardless of whether we are religious or not?

In its simplest terms, a church is a place of worship. A more close-fitting definition would be a common place of worship. Is this then applicable to a commodity such as a bed?

Who doesn't like bed? Or sleep for that matter? A minority of the human race. The bed is a place of common love.

In church, our reason for being is God. In bed our reason for being, mostly, is sleep. In such circumstances, therefore, our beds are like our own personal churches. My bed will not be the same as yours. Though it may look the same, the meaning of it will be different. Yet, you and I are commonly joined in the notion of going to bed and sleeping. Similarly, my notion of God will not be the same as yours. Perhaps, you don't even believe in God. Or you may not believe in just one but many. Still, whatever your values, we are joined in thinking and evaluating the world through our own dynamic system of beliefs.

When you're welcomed into a Parish, such as I was this morning, you are given a wider appreciation and room to think. You don't have to agree with the conventions of service or practice because every worship is different.

I suppose, in the end, what is important, however, is that you, eventually, find your own sanctuary and church whether it be in the actual building, with you family and friends, or in that bowl of warm buttered popcorn sitting beside you.

Books and the Monks

  The quaint village stereotype is so easily found on the Isle of Wight. Scouting various bookshops today, I witnessed the absolute intrinsic hold of little villages. As I'm starting Uni there's a few course texts that I need to get and, since it's a chore I absolutely LOVE, my nan and I have been scouring nearly all of the islands bookstores. We've been to the usuals; WHSmiths, Waterstones but, being as cheap as I am, I'd much rather get them second hand, then marking the pages with annotations and giving them away when I'm done won't hurt quite so much. We've looked it Charity shops but often the book supply is frugal so we've taken to older shops stacked to the ABSOLUTE brim with paperbacks in all sorts of conditions. That smell of weathered parchment and musty covers is much like a drug; it's an addiction that leads me to add to my ever expansive bookshelf of unread novels. 

  I found a couple of the titles I needed but freezing and in need of a hot chocolate we went next door and ordered a drink and some cake. It was only very small but beautifully laid out in a way that is so common in seaside towns, particularly those of Cornwall. 

  We moved on to yet another bookshop afterwards. It was a shop with every wonder you could think of (apart from the novels I needed!)

  It was a house, renovated into a bookshop. Three storeys high and separated by section into the different bedrooms of the house, it was a book lover's paradise. You can probably imagine how ill I felt by it all! It was magical by all standards tucked away as an unassuming shop decorated like those newsagents that no one but locals or passing travellers go in. If the cashier hasn't told us about the layers of books we wouldn't have known the scale of novels. So the ground floor and hallway were made up of the new books; penguin classics, nature and poetry. Taking the door to the left lead you to the base of the stairwell and out the back of the ground floor, lay shelves and shelves of second-hand thrillers and normal fiction in what was, effectively, the kitchen. Various others were stacked under the stairs. As you took the flight to the first floor, the walls were lined with alphabetically ordered fiction, the front bedroom was a collection of war, history, true crime, nature and gardening books, with the neighbouring room full of philosophy, religion and English literature. Back down the hallway, a small airing cupboard was opened with numerous children's titles joined to a smaller bedroom housing EVERY children's book ever desired; Rupert, Enid Blyton, Harry Potter, magazines, Roald Dahl, everything. And, what was more, if those categories weren't enough you could take another, equally long staircase to find adult's health, psychology, arts and creator books on the third floor. It was mesmerising and I was so so lost in the variety and reasonable prices. 

  But, at 3:05pm, the wonders of the day were far from over. 

  There is something so intoxicating about a place like Quarr Abbey, our next stop. Spontaneously and despite the rain, we had decided to visit in passing. The serenity, the smell, the exclusion, the divinity and the leisure of the pigs that roam the grounds was just divine! 

Places like this are a true mark of unfailing beauty. Churches and monasteries never fail to captivate me. I always find myself there. The church is such a wondrous place for me. I always think on how it became; how religion was so deeply upheld. The multiple religions that float about today; Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam to name but a few, are all upheld today as there were in their origin. Whilst the world has changed; things have become, others extinct and yet, though many can guess at the rate of inclination in members, religion prevails. 

  I often think I'd like to be a nun. And then I think again. I have deep admiration for such servants of God. The devotion of their lives in accepting religion in the most remarkable way through embedding themselves in such ancient forms of society. It's inspirational. Regardless of whether you are religious, places of worship always have something to offer; if not a special place, perhaps peace of mind, silence or hope in the knowledge that religion is only one stem of belief in a system of unique thinkers.

All in all then, I had such a lovely day full of many o the things I love; books, walking, nature, eating and religion!