The satisfaction of hunger is of course one of life’s primary needs, perhaps the most basic and the most important.

Earlier this week I noticed that I had consumed a first mouthful of food without tasting it.

In swallowing without tasting perhaps I was inherently focused on satisfying my hunger at that particular moment.

But, hold on a minute, I’m hardly starving, it can’t be that long since I last ate something, I am fortunate that my food supply is constant and guaranteed unlike for so many in this world who go hungry.

In swallowing my food without tasting, I deprive myself of a key aspect of the process of eating, which prior to being swallowed is the mastication and tasting of the food.

Tasting is to enhance the food experience, it is to widen the process of eating from basic function to a higher level.

To taste, is to go on a journey of the mind, to feel the heat, to enjoy the flavour, to experience the texture of the food before it is dispatched to sustain life.

I think swallowing without tasting is akin to reducing my life to a mechanism, to a process and it is to deny the opportunity within my life for noticing the world; for being in the world;  for living fully in the world.

To swallow without tasting is to risk a life lived as an existence, rather than a life lived as an experience, with periods of darkness and light which deepens the  very essence  of our limited time on this beautiful earth.

My next blog will be: Overstretched

William Defoe

I have noticed recently how comfortable I feel at the start of each day, at the point at which I put on my clean underwear.

The feel of the cotton, as it begins to resist the pull of my thigh, as they are pulled up over my buttocks to the hips – snug, tight, fresh, clean, comfortable.

The way the cut of the shorts creates space for, and supports my private parts  – safe, secure, supported, fresh.

Contrast these feelings then with the end of the day when, quite honestly it can be a relief to get them off!

A feeling of irritation around the waist where the band has rubbed against my skin.

A feeling of loose, unclean, unfresh, uncomfortable material which has long since stopped performing at a standard of cleanliness for which they had been intended.

They once clean underwear drops to the bedroom floor and I step out of them with my right foot and then flick them with my left foot into the air to catch them in my hand – I learned sometime ago that to catch them in my mouth, although perfectly feasible is oh so unadvised on so many levels.

So, by the end of the day, my clean underwear has been on a journey, and by the end of the day that journey reaches its end.

It is important I think, to be thankful for the journey, regardless of the feelings at the end point.

The journey took me forward feeling supported and safe.

The journey prevented injury and discomfort throughout the day.

The journey had its moments of joy and sorrow; light and darkness; sunshine and rain; dry and dampness!

My clean underwear, signifies for me, purpose and journey; movement and still; the cycle of my life and the forward capacity to the start of the new day.

My next blog will be : Swallowing without Tasting

William Defoe

There is a momentous turning point in the life of “Forrest Gump” **  when having run the length of America and back, following the death of his wife, he suddenly stops running.

This moment in the film, has always held a fascination for me, because the life I lead is often punctuated with an unbearable sense of anxiety, which manifests itself in a variety of ways in my mind; in my body; in my words and actions; and in my silence and tears.

Last week, a heightened period of anxiety and intense emotional pain came to an abrupt end in the middle of the night.

I can’t recall experiencing a moment like it before in my life, but I knew that this heightened period of stress and destructive mood swings had come to an end – it was my very own turning point.

Often in the past, when I have been in midst of a dark period in my life, I have looked for the intervention of some outside stimulation to bring me out of it; perhaps a kind word, or an empathetic ear; perhaps a long run or an inspirational read; perhaps a social occasion which has unlocked my mood.

This turning point was different because I woke up at 3.00 am in the morning and all the negativity in my thinking seemed to have dissipated; all the assurance in my mind of the future course of my life was turned instantly to the opposite; all my feelings of needing to be alone, melted into a need for community and love.

And so, instead of waiting to be held; instead of waiting for events to take their course; instead of reveling in my low mood; I reached out my hand and my arms and soothed with my body and words and tears, so that those close to me could recognise that I had returned to them.

I think I have learned for the future, that turning points can have their origins from somewhere deep, deep, deep within, and that it might be a place for me to consider looking when next the time comes.

My next blog will be: A Helping Hand

William Defoe

** Forrest Gump is a 1994 American comedy-drama film based on the 1986 novel of the same name by Winston Groom. The film was directed by Robert Zemeckis and stars Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise, Mykelti Williamson, and Sally Field.

When I was 14 years old my mother came into the kitchen unexpectedly where I was washing up after a family meal and she was shocked and concerned to see that I was actually crying.

In the rush of the discovery she was quite insistent that I told her what was the matter, and I recall in that moment, telling her, that I hoped I would get married and that I wanted to have children  but that it was inconceivable that I would ever be able to take off my clothes in the presence of a girl and so my hopes and aspirations would come to naught.

Her response was kind and re-assuring and she lead me to believe that when the time came, I would be absolutely fine and that I was feeling like this because I simply was not ready, but the time would come when I would be.

I’m sure she laughed to herself, but she did not make me feel small or ridiculed for my teenage tears.

Of course she was right, the problem changed over time into keeping my clothes on in the presence of a girl, not taking them off!

After a recently prolonged period of intense emotional pain, which has been very destructive to my mental state and within my family, despite my best intentions,  I have been trying to find a place in the past which signaled the start of my anxious life.

I recognise that my emotional strife did not start with the teenage tears in the kitchen, but my anxious nature had certainly taken hold at that time and it has resulted in a life of suffering, which I have not quite been able to overcome.

My mother says that a fall in pregnancy may have deprived me of the nutrients I needed to feel safe in that safe space, and being a small baby at birth, the period of separation from my mother in the first two weeks of my life (in hospital without her) affected again the security of the bond between mother and child.

Perhaps!

Perhaps not!

Perhaps I was sensitive to the economic and social conditions in which I was raised.

Perhaps I suffered as a result of not being able to fit in with my male peers at school.

Perhaps I was isolated because I had no interest in playing football or any other sport for that matter as a child.

Perhaps it was the periods of bullying and threats at school which affected me.

Perhaps some trauma occurred early in my life that I cannot recall which robbed me of my sense of safety.

Probing into the past has helped me to understand the here and now, so that I can lift up my head and say to myself,

“I survived”

despite it all

“I’m alive”

despite it all

“I will thrive again”

My next blog will be: Turning Point

William Defoe

The wedding vows which I made nearly 30 years ago contain these words:-

“to have and to hold from this day forward”

and these words too

“for better for worse, in sickness and in health”

I think we are all more inclined to hold when things are going well, particularly when there is a time of celebration and joy within the circle of our family and friends.

I think we are more inclined to hold when we are confronted with a physical sickness or a death within the circle of our family and friends.

Is the promise to hold (in a heterosexual marriage) made by the man, to the woman, or is it supposed to be an act of love and care which is both given and received in equal measure?

I have felt recently a yearning to be held, but my words and actions have hardly made that wish a realistic aspiration.

It’s not easy to expect someone to hold you when things are not so well, but this is the time when it matters the most.

It is in the worst times, and especially in times when the mind feels weak, that words should be hushed and all the effort, all the restorative love, all the future and the now should be put into a hug.

To hold is to be with someone you love, in that dark place, despite the pain and despite the hurt and that for me is the full meaning of my wedding vows.

My next blog will be: Teenage Tears

William Defoe

This week I decided to take a risk.

I entered into a text exchange with a family member with whom I had fallen out.

Things had been said between us, which cannot be unsaid, but the worst of it was my anger which would not be rested in the heat of the moment, leading me say things which I do not mean.

The intervening days have been difficult, mainly because I felt so ashamed and disappointed that all of my efforts to be calm, all my investment in strategies to keep me safe in the face of provocation had evaporated in the stressed moments of my meltdown.

Then there was the regret, and the opening up of the memories when these outbursts have happened before, such a raw disappointment which was hard for me to bear.

Next, there was this feeling of hopelessness for the future of broken aspirations to do better in which my relationships become warm and loving and open to accepting how things are, rather than how I wanted them to be.

So, I sent a text!

An invitation to meet and be together.

It was a risk because I could have opened up the poorly healed wound between us, but I knew in my heart that it was better to face in, than face away.

The initial reply was cool and curt.

My next text, followed up with an expression of my disappointment and sense of failure and how I wanted to listen to the effect my behaviour on them.

What followed over two days was a text exchange in which I had at least conveyed my regret and I had read back words which gave me hope that we could both move on.

The text exchange, took out of the encounter the quickness of the mouth to say unformed words, the quickness of the eye to betray sincerity, the quickness of the face to cry.

The text exchange felt almost clinical and sanitised in its directness, but it was a vehicle for measured and reasoned communication, which created the environment for a meeting and an embrace to take place very soon.

I will journal the text exchange word for word into my journal, so that I can mark out the kindness and the directness from my loved one and ponder over what was said in text.

And also to reflect back on my own sense of yearning to be better, my yearning to be loved, my yearning to love unconditionally, despite my broken soul which I had too conveyed..

My next blog will be: Hold Me

William Defoe

I have this continual feeling of being out of sync with those around me, with whom I share my life.

The best image I can conjure up of the situation, is the varying orbits of planetary paths in the solar system, which skirt around the sun on their own axis and orbital path.

Every so often the planets align, perhaps in a direct line from the sun, and depending on their proximity, they create an eclipse or a shadow over which their imprint is bathed on the other.

There is strength in having my own unique orbit within my family, because it signifies to me the importance of my individualism and freedom to be who I am, but this feeling of being out of sync, does not feel to me like a strength, it feels like a burden.

This otherness in my spirit, separates me in mind and spirit; and even in the body for periods of time from those whom I love.

It makes it hard for me to feel loved and to be loved and to give my love.

This feeling is so heavy and destructive that it saps my strength and cools my good intentions.

I have been trying to overcome this feeling of being out of sync by making an effort to connect.

These attempts to be in community, to connect with family, individually and privately and quietly is like swimming against the tide, but I must do so in order to save what is precious to me.

Experience teaches me that these periods come and they go, and that no matter how far my orbit traverses outwardly, eventually the gravity of my star will pull be back towards the light, back towards the warmth, back from out of sync.

My next blog will be: Text Exchange

William Defoe

If there is one aspect of crime which I cannot watch as an entertainment, say in a film or a drama, it is the vile crime of rape.

If I even get a sense that a rape will occur as the story unfolds, I will switch off the TV.

The reason is, that despite feeling entertained in shoot outs and bombings and throats being slit (in a film context); I can’t tolerate the emotional effect a rape scene has on me long after the scene is over.

A few years ago, I was watching the opening of a drama on TV when a man and his wife stopped their car to assist a man whose van had broken down.

In the next instant, the man giving assistance was knocked over the head and without warning the scene flashed to a rape of his wife.

I could not get out of my chair quick enough to stop the image and the disturbing image has lasted with me ever since – it affected me emotionally because it was so unexpected and so vile.

So then, I come to the subject of my blog,  Jill Saward, who died earlier this week at the age of 51, leaving behind her husband and three sons.

Jill Saward, at the age of 21 was violently raped in her own home by two men out of a gang of four who broke into her fathers vicarage in Ealing and raped her, whilst beating very severely her father and boyfriend.

Jill Saward waived her right to anonymity, to fight for victims of sexual crime so that their needs were put at the forefront of the criminal justice system.

As well as forgiving her rapist tormentors, whose sentences were less than those given to the ring leader of the gang, she turned her attention to counselling and supporting victims of rape.

I never met her, but remembering how appalled I was when her ordeal was major news in the UK, and being of a similar age to her, and being a man of deep sensitivity, I wanted to write this testimony to her.

MAY SHE REST IN PEACE.

My next blog will be: Out of Sync

William Defoe

There is always a strange moment at the point at which I am pulling out into traffic when I feel a mixture of apprehension; of exhilaration; of a heightened awareness, and a kind of nervousness, until I am sure that I have established myself in the traffic flow, and I am fully aware of all the vehicles which are in proximity to mine.

In fast flowing traffic, there is a sense of having to catch up, to be at an immediate peak of responsiveness until the established flow allows me to settle into the journey.

These feelings which I experience as I am pulling out into traffic, are similar to those I experience when I walk into a room of people, particularly when for that moment the focus is actually on me.

The outward signs of formality in the moment of the various greetings and introductions, masks within me an inner nervousness which is hard for me to explain.

Increasingly, the needs of my soul, calls me to pay attention to all that is around me in the moment and it is hard to do this, in the moment, if the external environment requires a response or a reaction or a signal that I am in control.

I think the learning from the experience of pulling out into traffic for me, is that despite the intensity of the immediate moment of entry into the flow, there will be a time when the routine nature of the journey will allow me to focus inwardly, whilst remaining alert to the changing space in which my car is travelling (or substitute “life” for “car”).

It is the knowledge that a time will come for me to focus deeply on the introspective, which enables me to stay calm and alert in those moments of extrospection.

My next blog will be: Jill Saward

William Defoe