The art of disconnection
Feeling like an outlier isn't always something that is inflicted upon us, sometimes we do it to ourselves quite deliberately.
This week I’m posting a piece I wrote a few years ago. I have an assignment to finish and I’ve left it late having used up two days travelling to Scotland earlier in the week for the latest in Daisy’s (my dog) stem cell treatment.
I’m not complaining. It was a glorious trip in many ways, not least the magnificent walks we had along the river Tweed and the proliferation of wild garlic we witnessed which, rather delightfully, they call ‘Ramsons’ in Scotland.
Spending time alone amid stunning countryside with only my trusty hound as companion made me think a lot about disconnection and how it’s sometimes glorious, sometimes not, and sometimes borne out of something that felt, at one time, a necessity.
The short essay that follows was not written with the theme of disconnection in mind but illustrates how we can come to rely too heavily on ourselves and then find it hard to reach out when we most need to.
There’s another one on the same theme next week.
I’ve got better at being connected, but I am reminded sometimes of how much growing I still have left to do.
When I’m out walking with my sister and our dogs the conversation invariably turns to childhood.
This week, for reasons I can’t recall, we were discussing desserts.
“I don’t remember Mum making many desserts,” I said. “Apart from the chocolate sponge with chocolate sauce.”
I can picture the oblong shallow tin with the dimpled bottom in which she made it and see myself sitting at the kitchen table with my back to the wardrobe (in the kitchen!) that had no clothes inside it, only boxes of paper and envelopes that we would dispose of thirty years later after her death.
I would have come home from school for lunch and ‘The World At One’ or ‘Just A Minute’ would be on the old radio with the dial to tune it into stations still marked as ‘Home’ or ‘Third’ and ‘Light’.
My sister was incredulous and spent the majority of the hour-long walk recalling all of the various puddings we’d eaten during our childhood, and as she listed them I found I could remember them.
Talking about our parents and childhood invariably makes my sister melancholic. She uses affectionate phrases that jar with me because they feel like a life we didn’t lead but may well have wanted to.
Walking along the path by the side of the school the dogs are sniffing by the hedge looking for bits of sandwich strewn carelessly by the children as they wander home.
My sister asks the question I don’t want to answer,
“What would you say about your childhood? Would you say it had been happy?”
The phrasing of her question suggests hope I’ll acknowledge that it was.
“No.” I answer, “I would say that my childhood was very unhappy.”
I can tell she is taken aback even though she stays silent.
Shortly after my mother died we were tidying her house readying it for sale.
We’d cleared out the masses of unused fabric from the drawers in my mother’s bedroom, got rid of my father’s extensive record collection, removed the can of Campbell’s oxtail soup that had been supporting a worktop since the early seventies, and emptied the wardrobe in the kitchen that had never contained any coats but instead provided home to boxes of papers and used envelopes that my mother was saving for heaven knows what.
That evening, I invited my brother and sister for dinner, probably the first time we had shared a meal since we lived together at home, eating chocolate pudding with chocolate sauce.
The conversation was rich with reminiscence and eventually, there was a lull as we each retreated into our thoughts.
“We didn’t have a bad childhood did we?” my sister said and my brother nodded in agreement.
I said nothing while thinking silently, “I did”.
I didn’t understand why they saw things so differently and wondered if things really had been so much better for them, or whether they felt that way simply because they wanted to.
Back on the dog walk and feeling my response may have been a little brusque I offer some detail.
“I was unhappy because I hated that Mum and Dad spent all of their time arguing. Mostly I felt as if I were caught in the crossfire and invisible. Perhaps it was because I’m the youngest.”
“Oh Graham, I didn’t know that.”
“I spent most of my childhood afraid that Mum would leave us.”
The words hung in the air with the elderberries.
“Mum always felt she was closest to you. She used to say that you were the only one on her wavelength and that me and Adrian were ‘just like your father’.”
“That’s because I always worked hard to get onto her wavelength. It felt safer than staying on mine.”
It was an unusually hot day for mid-September and it seemed only to be getting hotter.
The conversation slowed as we made our way up through the trees and back towards the main road.
I break the silence.
'“Can you look after Daisy next Saturday? I’m away on a training day.”
“Sure. What’s the training about?”
“It’s called “Intimacy - The Impact Of Attachment On Adult Relationships”.
We reach my house before hers and, before carrying on along the road she says,
“I’m sorry Graham, I didn’t know.”
I nod and feel sorry too, that it’s taken over forty years to tell the truth to my sister.
This week on “Sideways” we’re discussing the benefits of silence. Martin gets upset at my suggestion it’s OK to laugh at a funeral, and I feel grateful for window cleaners.
That’s all for this week. Thanks for being here. I appreciate you.
See you next time.
This is a powerful piece! It's honest and explores the complexities of family relationships and memory. The details you use to paint the scene of your childhood kitchen are vivid - the radio program, the wardrobe full of paper, the chocolate pudding.
I can't wait to hear more about the theme of disconnection next week, and the impact of your attachment style on adult relationships. Sounds like a fascinating training day!
Poignant