Letter From The Highlands
February,
2004
By Anne Perry
I apologise for the last letter being late. Actually I sent it a week early and it got ‘lost in space’. I did not resend it because I did not know it had not arrived. We must get a better system devised.
This one too will be early. So much has happened, and the mountain of work ahead of me is a veritable Everest. I have two books to turn in, final drafts, by April 1st. That is, they must be on the desk of my editor in New York, so they must leave here about March 20th. The 520 page one is completed, first draft, and the second draft should not be too difficult. The other, roughly 150 Pages, I have not done more than the outline so far. And I am going to Leipzig in Germany at the end of March, so I must prepare for that also. It is business, of course, but should be most interesting. I have been to Germany two or three times before, and always enjoyed it enormously.
It has been a difficult winter, full of profound changes. My friends and I have all lost people very close to us. Lewis and Sheila have lost their father and husband respectively. He was a quiet, kind and very decent man, and not yet seventy. Lewis has three sisters, so that leaves him the man of the family at 23.
One of my dearest friends whom I have known for over quarter of a century, lost her only surviving sibling – her older sister. My dear friend and neighbour, who has helped me in work and in the friendship of life, lost her mother two years ago, a brother last year, and a sister this winter. And on January 19th my mother died, eleven days before her 92nd birthday.
I was not sure how I was going to feel about it, knowing that of course it had to come. We were very close. I feared I might find it almost impossible to bear. Whatever you think, you cannot tell in advance how you will feel when the time comes.
She had a stroke two years ago (Feb. 16th) and could no longer speak except a few words, seldom strung together. I went to see her in the nursing home four times a week, but we communicated mostly through our eyes. I was watching her become more frustrated with herself, and further away. I had begun to feel it was time she went on to the next stage of existence, free from the restrictions of a body which would no longer do as she wished, and a mind checked and imprisoned by the inability to speak.
But still I thought that when the final break came I might grieve so deeply it would be terribly painful.
Instead I find I am happy for her, and feel her closer to me than when she was physically here, but mentally bound. I am so fortunate I can never be grateful enough that I had the chance to say to her all the things I wanted to: how much I loved her, admired her courage all her life, how much I owed her, and tell her we will all be alright, and so will she, and above all to thank her.
NEVER leave until tomorrow any good thing you can do today. Never leave gratitude unexpressed, quarrels un-mended, apologies unsaid, if they are needed. Never leave anyone unforgiven or excluded. Take all your chances for good now. One day there will be no tomorrow to catch up. How terrible to have to say ‘if only I had’, instead of ‘I’m so glad I did’.
I know that is easy to say, and can be hard to do. It takes two to keep any relationship a good one. I am immeasurably fortunate that my mother and I were close. It does not always happen, and I certainly was very far from perfect. I was blessed to be given so long to work at it! Thinking on all these things, I can only be grateful.
Hollowed Deeply
Perhaps these are the times when you discover how much you really believe, and how much you only want to! I am surprised by how blessed I am. I asked for the Lord’s help when this time should come, and I have received it abundantly. It must be equally available to everyone else. We all have loss, confusion, grief, fear and pain at times. Life is meant to be that way, or we learn far too little, and it does not include the strength. Hard winds come and we will be torn up at the roots. There must needs be the bitter, or there CANNOT be the sweet. If we are hollowed deep then we can hold much joy, or pain. If we are cut but shallowly, then we can hold little of either. To care is to be hostage to failure, but not to care is to deny life itself. Surely all these experiences should bind us closer to each other?
I have just been down to see my literary agent in London, or to be more accurate, St. Albans, which is where she lives. It was an interesting trip down. Simon drove, as usual. We set out and had gone an hour and a half through snow storms in the mountains of Aviemore, when my car became very erratic and we had to turn back and pick up his four-wheel drive vehicle, which is stronger, and better in snow anyway.
We only got as far as Edinburgh that night, and Luton near St. Albans the next night. It was all glittering sunshine, but behind the glass. The terrible snow forecast did not come until the third day. Then when we were at my agent’s house working, there were blizzards and thunder and lightning. Very dramatic. Unfortunately we saw lots of motor accidents, and many cars off the road.
We stayed in a hotel and walked every day on ice-caked pavements to Meg’s (my agent is called Meg, like my friend and neighbour) every day. We worked all morning and afternoon and most of the evening for three days. We covered the second draft of the Victorian book, a Pitt, the whole of the outline for the next Christmas story, worked yet again on the outline of the third World War One book, a little on the outline of the fourth, and threw around ideas for the next Victorian story to be done – a Monk.
It is very stimulating to the mind to hear other ideas. Meg has the rare and very valuable gift of making me question myself without also making me doubt myself. And there is all the difference in the world between those two. Doubting your own value, worth and ability is totally destructive. If you believe you will fail, then you will never start. Certainly you will not work and strive with energy, passion and hope.
The Voice of Question
And yet if you never question yourself you will never learn, certainly you will never change what is wrong or weak or simply not the best you can be. Recently I have come to value even more intensely the voice of question, the one who dissents and says ‘but why?’. ‘Why do you believe this?’ or ‘I don’t see it that way’. Are you sure? Explain it to me’. It is largely in trying to explain that I realize why I really do believe what I do – or in many cases, I don’t! Often I have only part of the picture, it needs adding to, or adjusting, or something taken from it. We are all wrong sometimes. The only real tragedy is when we are too arrogant or too cowardly to look at something honestly and see where it needs alteration. To be wrong now and then is human. To remain wrong when you could have corrected it is tragic, and deeply to blame, because then it is not honest error, it is deliberate choice.
There is no need to be unpleasant, one can question amicably and politely. It is not fault-finding, it is not quarrelsome, it is not rude or critical. It is honest seeking after truth. If our beliefs will not stand up to scrutiny, then they deserve to fail. In fact they already have.
I was obliged – or perhaps I should now truthfully say helped – to examine parts of my stories and see where they needed to be much better, more consistent, more emotional, more logically following on from previous lines, more complete, more honest to human behaviour, and more compassionate. It is exciting! To help someone become better is surely one of the greatest gifts you can give another person?
Of course it hurts when you thought you had it right, and then are told that it doesn’t make complete sense. But if it doesn’t, then it doesn’t! Turning away from it fixes nothing!
Wouldn’t it be wonderful in life if we had the chance to go back and rewrite scenes and make them better, more honest, kinder, funnier or more generous? Or at times just to have them make sense?
But isn’t that what life is for – to do better today than we did yesterday, and better again tomorrow? Is it not what friends are for, to help us hold up a mirror to some of our thoughts and actions and perceive them more clearly so we can see for ourselves where they can be improved?
Freedom to agree is worth nothing at all. The Devil grants that. It is only God who allows us freedom to disagree as well. That blessed voice of dissent is the one who warns of danger, the watchman on the tower who tells us to stop and think before it is too late.
If they who see do not warn, then we are told that our blood is on their hands. What comfort is that, when the blood is spilled anyway? If you are the watchman and you see the danger and cry out, then your hands are clean. And if clean hands are your only concern, then you are in good shape.
But surely a person worth anything is more concerned to save the lives and the happiness of those in his care than with the state of his own hands – i.e. conscience? Is it any comfort to you to know it wasn’t your fault if your child is killed, or their passion, their laughter and their happiness destroyed? Not if you love them. You want to save them, not excuse yourself from guilt.
We must keep the voice of warning, the honest question: ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Why do you think that, or believe it?’ ‘Have you thought of this? Or that?’ ‘I don’t agree – explain to me!’ If you can’t, then perhaps your thoughts need a little adjustment, or even a lot. We all feel things wrongly sometimes, or incompletely, or add bits that are mistaken.
Is it wise? Is it kind? Is it honest? Am I honest in saying or doing it? Or does it just make me feel justified, superior, safe? Safety is fine sometimes. At others it is only another name for cowardice, for staying in the comfort zone. Or to put it differently, for staying in Eden and accepting the Adversary’s plan to dare nothing, risk nothing, and in the end, gain nothing - which means to lose everything that we might have been.
Treasure the people who question you honestly, who have the courage to disagree. They are the ones who may teach you what you most need to know – that you were right! And why you were right. Or that you were mistaken and need a little changing. They are friends, not enemies. We all have to learn. They are easier teachers than a bitter experience can be, which often comes too late, and only after painful, and sometimes irreparable damage has been done.
A Hall of Mirrors
Can you think of a worse hell than to be shut up for ever in an endless hall of mirrors when all you see are reflections of your own face, your own voice, your own opinions given back to you? Is that not the final loneliness? No one to add to your knowledge, your experience, no face or voice that is unique and alive and different?
It is in reacting with others that we are at our best, not in admiring images of ourselves. To love is to give, and to receive as well, to talk and to LISTEN, not merely to wait until the other person stops speaking so we have our turn.
There is so much to discover, to practice, through which to grow wiser and kinder with. In Relief Society at the end of January the teacher suddenly said that ALL relationships in life, family, friends, colleagues, are part of the learning for that most important of all eternal human relationships. That is a very profound thought. It leaves no one out. It does not make those without husband or wife, without children or without siblings or parents, feel excluded, as so many things can do. No one needs to be without a friend, unless they are emotionally ill, and such people are not accountable.
I telephoned Mary, the teacher, afterwards to thank her for her comment, and her reply was simple – ‘It was not me speaking, it was the Lord!’ I felt very good about that, very right. It was such a powerful and beautiful thought that it was instinctive to believe it. Others I told felt exactly the same.
Perhaps it would be helpful to remember that everything we do is part of preparation for eternity. All that you think, say or do becomes part of who you are, and in the end who you are is all that you take forward with you, good or bad.
Let us remember that, and make it the best we can, however many tomorrows there are to do it better. Let’s make it a good year.
