James Ballantyne

Tag: death

  • When we take care of them, they take care of us.

    When we take care of them, they take care of us.

    As I walked home from town the other day, I noticed the sad sight of this butterfly on the pavement in front of me.

    Nearly dead.

    Prematurely dead on concrete that wasn’t its destiny.

    I walked past at first, my heart somehow ached for it.

    And then I went back, slowly, no one was around and so….gently, lifted it up, its wings so so delicate in my open palm, and still reflexing, or having its last few beats. I so so gently placed it over a wall and into a garden, so that at least it could spend its last few hours on soil and not pavement. Slightly closer to where it was meant to be.

    A colourful butterfly dying a premature death, probably hit by a car and then concrete.

    A soul less death after spending so long in its life to be, finally who it was meant to be, the end of the cycle. (possibly unless it laid eggs)

    It at least had a slightly softer death rather than a sudden one.

    And I said goodbye to it, and walked on, for at least in that moment, it had been cared for.

    And I heard a voice saying to me, as I walked away from it.

    You did not go through being small.

    You did not go through being silenced.

    You did not go through scraping around on the floor.

    You did not go through being afraid.

    You did not go through eating fifty times your body weight.

    And then…

    You did not then die a thousand deaths

    or

    sink into a darkness

    or surrender to change

    nor melt into a secret sacred home

    nor hide away nor stay

    to then emerge

    and fly…..briefly….only

    to live a curtailed life.

    You did not change to live a soul less concrete life

    You did not die, only to die again and again

    The cocoon doesn’t have a return door.

    You can’t go back.

    The universe is waiting for your flight,

    The universe is waiting for your colour,

    The universe is waiting to look up and watch and wait for you to dance upon the wind, and be interrupted by your joyful wonder.

    You were chosen for this life,

    You were chosen for this life to be life,

    You were chosen to be light and in the light,

    You were chosen for colour and to be colour,

    You were chosen from the beginnings of silence,

    From before colour and before time.

    To radiate eternity, poured out from hearts sacred colours.

    Time to truly fly.

  • The poem I had to write first.

    This is the poem I had to write first a few weeks ago, it was the one that had to unclog the bottle.

    (TW; Suicide )

    Mr Hecker, You were wrong.

    I once wrote a poem in which I died at the end,

    but my teacher said it wasn’t allowed.

    ‘James, you’re not allowed to die at the end of a poem’ he said.

    So now, 30 years later,

    I’m writing a poem about writing a poem in which I died at the end.

    A poem about a poem

    My last poem was ‘not allowed’

    And this is the first one since

    This one is.

    Allowed.

    This one.

    Because Mr Hecker you were so right

    And yet so wrong

    And ever since I wrote a poem in which I died at the end

    I haven’t been able to write a poem.

    Even if you meant well,

    Did it ever occur to you to worry why I died in a poem?

    Did you not wonder, what was wrong with my soul?

    And why I had to die at the end?

    Why the boy aged 15 in front of you had poetic endings in mind?

    Yet you saw me too.

    You saw me and thought I could be head boy

    But.

    I couldn’t be head boy, nor deputy or barely a prefect

    because nothing about me wanted that moment,

    nothing about me wanted that moment on a stage,

    I wanted to be heard and seen, crying from the inside out

    I could barely represent myself.

    But, Mr Hecker, I treasure that,

    You believed in me, well beyond what I could even consider.

    Sitting in class surrounded by dreamers,

    Whilst I was crying inside, wondering how to survive.

    Alone, trying to make it.

    I died in a poem

    So you could ask me why.

    I died because creativity died

    and my soul had gone away.

    I died because I had to survive

    and lost boys dont live that long

    and dying felt like peace, thats what I said in the poem.

    So, today, I kind of knew

    That the first poem I wrote

    Had to love the moment

    when 15 year old me

    wrote a poem.

    Because today, I write a poem, about that last poem

    The one in which I died

    Because, today, I am alive.

  • Feeling (truly) safe now.

    Three days ago my mum died.

    Yeah, thats quite a start to a blog isnt it.

    I mean I could have warned you, or said something reflective, or a nice quote. But no.

    Three days ago my mum died.

    And the hardest thing about it, so far, has been trying to share this news, to friends (who know my story) and maybe all of you who have followed it on here, to illicit the kind of response that seems appropriate.

    My story. My survival and rebuilding story.

    Because, for so long my life wasnt about me, and even most of what I wrote here, wasn’t about me. She dominated… and im almost reluctant to give this news attention, but I almost want to share because it means that the story ive written about here, has completion, or reality. Its not even as if in writing this I feel like i’m processing, or hurting or sharing pain, its more just acknowledging the reality.

    On a human level, she died 9 months after being diagnosed with cancer, and it accelerated fairly quickly, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, yet also there is something in the relief of such an illness not dragging on.

    But I didnt feel the need to see her, there was nothing I needed to hear, say or see, and I am at peace with this.

    Peace. Thats an interesting word.

    If there has been a word that this has all felt in the last few days, it has been safe.. and safe is a bit like peace. The world is safer, for me and many others.

    I know other people might have different opinions or have had different experiences of her, I can’t imagine anyone who met her didnt at some point feel any sense of emotional eggshell walking, or the force of abruptness, some of you might choose to ignore these things.

    (Ive already had someone share their story yesterday to me of being on the received end of her rudeness, and my last conversation with her (March 2020) involved being shouted at on the phone and being told that covid was being over dramatised…. )

    It’s almost like I didnt want to give this news and her any attention, yet somehow, there is some attention I need to give this or should, because it is important, and big.

    Should. Thats an interesting word.

    Should.

    What should I feel.. when my life abuser dies?

    Who also played the role of mother.

    What should I feel…

    Is there a should?

    Is there a should about what I feel?

    Because..

    If you’ve known me personally this year, you will know that ive been very real and present with my emotions, safe on the inside, doing a lot of crying, happy, feeling this year.. safe… and ive felt like life has been from my heart, open.. to feel, receive and give…

    And I know what numb and suppression feels like – I had to do this for 40 years. This doesn’t feel like that. Neither does it feel like denial.

    I have space to feel, safety to do so… yet…

    Its not even as if I haven’t ‘gone there’ to find a good memory, or moment… but when I have… its not been met with a sense of grief, or happy, or anything… its just a memory.

    And the memories that have emerged, have all been negative.. and because of therapy and where I am at.. they have also been met with self love, and care… but also.. just a memory.

    A thought, a past thought, that feels distant.

    Maybe I was already ready for this.

    Maybe I had already gained life despite, or maybe realised my own self in such love and power, that she had emotionally and physically disappeared…. and the grief I gave myself safety to feel about 8 weeks ago, was the grief of what might have been .. with loving supportive parents, not those who I had to navigate, hide away from and avoid emotionally.

    Maybe when I read this book in November, (and thank you to Meghan, for sharing it with me)

    Im glad my mom died by Jeanette McCurdy

    – it gave me permission to feel what might be a reality in the nearer future than anyone thought a few years ago. (mum was only 68)

    It also helped me see what I have had to do to make my story public about what I suffered. Yes im not the only one who has done this, but not many write about their mothers publicly. It also helped me know that others have stood up to them, yet Jeanette did this when her mother was dead.

    (I raised complaints and made safeguarding statements in the last 4 years against her, when she was alive. I made others aware of her, in professional places. Yeah, you didnt know this, and this adds to all of this)

    Jeannettes story is full of heartbreak, anger and coping. Mine has been too, and you have read this.

    But im not raging, angry or feel like any sort of fight, thats been done. That fight had been 4 years with all those processes, and it nearly killed me last summer, I was empty.

    I had to finally let go, and do life for me.

    Neither …i’m not glad, happy, or even feel like dancing on her grave stuff… even if that would make for a good blog title or book cover, im not cruel, and that can be sensationalist, and its not that.

    But today I dont feel in that place, I haven’t all year.

    Its calm. Its peace. Its safe. And even writing this today isnt being met with anything other than these feelings. Feeling held and whole, love full on the inside, peace, calm, safe.

    And, I didnt wait until her death to find life, or feel safe, this been apparent all year, but now..it feels complete.

    I have let things go and doing so has felt light, for different things this year.

    So this… feels like… a release? maybe.

    It’s almost like… it’s over.

    I had created life for myself in almost every way that didnt involve her, except any processing of the strings of old abuse, and I am utterly proud of what that has been for me, its been massive.

    I know what I have had to do. I know what I have done.I know who I am. I know that I am love, I feel full of love and joy, in myself that feels so so deep.

    I do wonder if other feelings and thoughts will emerge in the next few days or weeks, and maybe they will, maybe they won’t, and they won’t hurt me, it won’t hurt me to feel them.

    This might be one of the may pieces I have written that to you feels really big as you read this… but as I write, it just feels like ‘just a part of my story, part of the reality, part of me feeling my way through all of this.

    Im truly safe now. Thats what this feels.

  • The Truth will make you Free (but….

    The Truth will make you Free (but….

    it may piss you off first)

    On a walk back from town this week, in the bookshelf of Darlington’s new LGBT Bookstore I saw this book.

    I seriously laughed out loud.

    The Evangelical Christian I used to be would have got angry at this violation of the Bible verse.

    Today I thought I would do some digging, The quote could originate from a book by Jamie Buckingham, and if so, is the same Jamie Buckingham who wrote about forgiveness in the Christian context back in the 1990’s, ‘Risky living’ was one of his books. Anyway, I digress.

    Because, the Truth will set you free, even if it will piss you off at first, completely encapsulates the process of healing struggle after abuse, not that different to the oppression context Gloria writes this in from a feminist perspective.

    Individually though, I got faced with choices and decisions and raised awareness about my past and my behaviours that were hard to face, very hard.

    But knowing the truth about myself and these things, in the present of the realisation, gave me the choice, to do something about it or deny them, run from them. Deny and Run was what I had done for the previous 40 years. That gave Lies Power.

    Acceptance of the truth is what makes us free. But our..sorry my ego, my protective parts wanted to wrestle with them first, deny them any reality, deny I wasn’t ok, hide behind a mask, maybe it didnt piss me off, but parts of me were screaming inside.

    Today. I see the book and smile. I see the book and realise the work. The journey ive been on and these last few weeks I seems to have a number of reasons to go back, birthdays do that dont they, as do Facebook memories, as do meeting people and being vulnerable with the story. So I see how I responded when confronted with the truth of what happened to me. So I see myself more clearly through that lens, and the behaviours I used to self soothe and survive and the consequent damage.

    Today I sit and sense peace, I sense joy, i sense freedom. And in these things, to give and receive, to love, share and be loved. To be me.

    The truth of me, that I am worth and deserving of love and happiness, also was something that would proverbially piss me off. But, again, it is the truth that loves is power, love from within heals, our bodies, minds and souls. It has done mine.

    The Truth about Love, will set you free, but our wounded hardened selves might want to feel pissed off by it first.

    Death and Resurrection, the ongoing day to day. Surrender and Acceptance.

    The ‘and’, that gap between, full of tension, fear, worry and change. the Holy Saturday in the death and resurrection cycle.

    On the same theme from Paulo Coelho’s new book, Maktub.

    The Human Race has committed its worst crimes in the name of Truth.

    Men and Women were burned.

    Entire civilisations were destroyed

    Those who committed sins of the flesh were cast out. Those who sought a different path were marginalised.

    One of them was crucified in the name of the ‘truth’ but before he died he left a magnificent definition of Truth.

    It isn’t what gives us certainties

    It isn’t what gives us profound thoughts

    It isn’t what makes us better than others

    It isn’t what keeps us locked inside the prison of our prejudices

    the Truth is what sets us free.

    ‘Know the truth’ he said, ‘and the Truth will make you free’

    Paulo Coelho, Maktub, 2024

    (just be warned, it may piss you off first)

  • Deckchairs.

    No not these ones.

    You know the ones I mean.

    Not the beach ones, the ones that get filled with sand, or get fought over by those who’ve paid the tourist tax to hire then on a British cloudy (but was sunny that morning) kind of day.

    No, I don’t mean these ones.

    Im thinking about the ones that get referenced in the times of personal, collective, or organisational despair.

    Because, there’s nothing more despairing that when someone trots out that phrase. The one about Rearranging Deckchairs on the Titanic.

    For, at that moment, there does not seem to be anything more despairing. Imagine, (and it may not be that difficult to imagine, given that most of us have seen ‘that’ film) what it might have been like, seeing or feeling the iceberg hit, and being the ones to know that there would be only 2-3 hours left. Time spent trying to convince only those who had read the news that the ship couldn’t go down. But it could.

    If you weren’t able to read this, then neither you or I have been in such a situation, such a perilous state of emergency with almost no escape. (or you’re reading this and you survived a miracle).

    But let’s just imagine, for a moment, that this is you, what would you do?

    Given the utter pointlessness of the situation, do you clamber on to what is worth saving? Why not just sit an eat a meal in the slightly sinking cabin? Sing along with the band? Watch a favourite movie? Hold hands and enjoy the final embrace of a loved one? Dance or play the piano? Say a prayer? Save others, try and save yourself?

    Deckchairs – would re arranging them even cross your mind? At that moment?

    If we’re prone to depression, despair and cynicism – or when we might be told often enough that the company, organisation, institution or ideology is waning on its final death-knell – then it can often feel like there’s no way out, no alternative, no escape.

    And that can be what we tell ourselves, when things feel futile and pointless.

    But there is a subtle difference, always, between whatever our situation is, and to those stuck on that ocean liner in the early 1900’s.

    We have Time.

    And, in the main, we also have more Choices too. (even if we can’t think of them, thats our inner critic lying to us again)

    That time thing though, is the crucial thing.

    Even in the midst of despair and hopelessness, there is time, and, in the midst of that time, there is still you, able to note and notice the time.

    So what if the ship of your mental or organisational health is starting to tilt, wobble and begin to sink?

    Maybe rearranging the deckchairs might take a colossal effort at that time, panic setting in, but it’s important to do something that seems menial, just to give other people somewhere to sit. Maybe it is time to sand down the decks and give it a proper paint job too, because thats just what you need to do in the midst of that state of despondency, just to paint the floors, be useful and do so maybe even with the tiniest of proud smiles on your face. Well done you, that takes effort just to do that one thing. It wasn’t pointless at all, was it, no, not for you.

    There might well be other things to do, on that sinking ship, that show bravery, courage and creativity – or maybe were creative, that showed bravery and courage: drawing, painting , songwriting – or just looking out from the deck at the sea beyond, trying to catch a glimpse of whales, puffins or other sea birds flying in the distance, just because thats what you love to do – and loving what you do in the midst of that despairing spiral might just be exactly what you need to do. One brave showing up for yourself step at a time. Binoculars might just give perspective.

    Dancing on the ships deck might seem the most ridiculous, but there are no rules at that point of paralytic fear and hopelessness, if you want to dance and smile, shake it out, then let the critics judge, its only your recovery that matters – and even if we might feel that the situation is a disaster , we might as well enjoy ourselves, might as well see what happens when we give ourselves time to have fun – like go to that movie, football match, or play darts on the ship deck.

    Life is going to throw us curveballs all the time, some as serious as Titanic ones, some far lesser, sometimes these challenge our expectations, sometimes they question our realities, sometimes, maybe all times, we have time, we still have complete responsibilities for the choices we make, we can try something new, reassess, and emerge far far different, and look back and realise, that it wasn’t pointless re-arranging deckchairs on the titanic after all.

    Maybe, just maybe, it was the absolute right thing to do, in that very moment after all.

    and… surrendering to the final inevitable, might just mean that the important things, like those birds in the binoculars, come into sharper focus than ever before, like joy, wonder and life..

    References

    A Therapeutic Journey by Alain de Botton (2023)

  • Different Growth.

    The hacking was brutal

    By darkness of night, they acted alone

    To fell

    To cut

    To wound

    Cutting deep

    Cutting through

    Exposing the raw, pure flesh of the core

    A spectacle

    A ridicule

    A supposed triumph

    At your expense

    And yet

    You Stood

    You Stayed

    You knew

    What was true

    and that was deeper

    Than one cut or bruise could muster

    Even if it felt like all of your life had been destroyed

    It

    Wasnt

    It

    Just felt that way

    There’s time for loss

    Time to reorientate

    Time to regroup

    Time to be held

    Protected at such a raw tender time

    Nurtured once again, or for the first time

    Those roots stood firm

    Invisible strength in the deep

    Like a stump that stood

    A Tree cut

    Roots

    Lived

    in the deep

    Truth that you always knew, held firm

    Slowly

    Gently

    Those roots give energy, and power to grow again

    New

    Never the same old growth from the bruise

    Its not meant to be

    Instead

    Be

    New.

    No

    Going Back

    No being that person again

    Plant those roots of love, of peace and truth

    Its time to grow a new you again

    Its time.

  • For Freedom

    As a bird soars high

    In the free holding of the wind

    Clear of the certainty of ground

    Into the grace of emptiness

    To fulfil new voyagings,

    May your life awaken

    To the call of its freedom

    As the Ocean absolves itself

    Of the expectation of land

    Approaching only

    In the form of waves

    That fill and pleat and fall

    With such gradual elegance

    As to make of the limit

    A soronous threshold

    Whose music echoes back along

    The give and take of memory,

    Thus may your heart know the patience

    That can draw infinity from limitation.

    As the embrace of the earth

    Welcomes all we call death,

    Taking deep into itself

    The tight solitude of a seed

    Allowing it time

    To shed the grip of the former form

    And give way to a deeper generosity

    That will one day send it forth,

    A tree into springtime

    May all that holds you

    Fall from its hungry ledge

    Into the fecund surge of your heart.

    (John O Donohue)