My Mother My Mirror Read online

  But strangely, by the time he got back the moment of passion had gone, and my body also decided against it by giving me an early period; so we continued to flirt but do nothing about it for another couple of months. The day that it finally happened was the day of my forty-fifth birthday party. I thought I would give myself a special present, so I invited him to stay afterwards, and we spent the night together.

  After all that time, it was a bit of an anti-climax. The anticipation had been far more exciting. He stayed a couple more times after that, and then the whole thing fizzled out. But I had betrayed Jamie. I struggled with whether or not to say anything, then decided I hated being dishonest so I told him, and then wished I hadn’t. He took it very seriously and said he’d have to go away and think about it: he would let me know the following weekend whether he wanted to continue seeing me. I spent the next few days in paroxysms of anguish and regret; but in the end he did take me back and our relationship, such as it was, staggered on.

  I feel self-conscious about this period of my life: yes, I was acting like a teenager – worse than that, a rather desperate teenager who tended to choose the wrong people and didn’t have enough self-respect to say ‘no’ to men that didn’t really love her. I did have loads of fun, but I see now that I had a lot of growing up to do. I’m writing this book as I approach my sixtieth year, and I’m hoping that by the time its finished the story of my unrequited heart, which is closely connected to my experience with my parents, will finally be laid to rest. It can easily take a lifetime.

  I was still doing everything I could to sort myself out. The gestalt course was difficult: after the initial introductory term, which had been supportive and useful, I was thrown in with the big girls and was having a very different experience. All these women (and the vast majority of them were women) seemed to be having their first taste of personal power, and using it to make my life a misery. I felt scapegoated for my sensitivity and vulnerability: nobody wanted to team up with me in any of the exercises; the continual message was that I should be more ballsy and tough. It was a familiar place to be: as a child I had always felt I should be stronger and less easily hurt – which was probably why I put up with these gestalt ladies for so long, even though most weekends would end in floods of tears as I resolved to give it only one more chance.

  There was a point towards the end of the two terms when I finally plucked up the courage and told them I was leaving, and managed to articulate why. This gave rise to a general confession of the fact that they had been a bit mean to me, and after that I stayed until the end; but it was hard to grow and learn in such a judgemental atmosphere. However, just after that there was one weekend that was useful.

  A friend and ex-colleague of Carmen’s had come as guest facilitator for the Saturday and Sunday. She even looked a bit like Carmen used to look – dark, bohemian and glamorous - and had a similar sense of superiority and leadership. I can’t remember the piece of work I was doing, but I do remember finding myself in a horribly familiar place of emotional and mental paralysis. This woman was trying to induce a response in me: trying to get me to react to her taunting criticism – and because she reminded me so much of Carmen, it was beginning to work.

  For quite a while I was locked into my familiar numbness and unable to respond; then I began to feel angry, and in the end to shout at her. I felt like an old machine jerking back to life for a moment and then dying again, but it gave me a taste of something that could be my liberation. Lying in bed that night I returned to the feeling of anger, and it filled my whole body with a power I had barely touched on before. All of a sudden I knew that this was just the tip of the iceberg: I was furious, and at that point I could see no end to my fury. I knew that I needed to vent it for hours and hours and hours.

  Shortly afterwards someone told me about the ‘Hoffman Quadrinity Process’ – an eight day residential course which aimed to heal the wounds of the past on every level: emotional, intellectual, spiritual and physical. I remember telling one of my gestalt colleagues about it just before I left, and her scorn of what she thought of as a ‘quick fix’ that could never work. How wrong she was. If I had known what it was like to be truly supported, I definitely wouldn’t have stayed so long in the relatively abusive environment of the gestalt course. The Hoffman Process gave me a big dose of support on every level, and healed me more than anything else had done up to that point in time.

  34

  The Hoffman Process

  The Process began at home. I sat in my bedroom at the back of the bungalow, writing at my desk. The Hoffman Institute had sent me a thick form, full of in-depth questions about my past, my parents and my relationship with them. Just answering the questions got me thinking... How much had I copied their ways of coping with life? How much had I purposely done the opposite, so that I was still bound to them by my negative reaction? Were there still messages deep inside that caused me to presume I was unworthy and unlovable? At this point I believed my early years were only part of the reason for my later struggles; by the end of the Process I was convinced that just about everything stems from that time. Of course my soul may well have chosen this situation on purpose in order to learn particular lessons, but that’s another story.

  A few weeks later I drove to the large country house in Hampshire where I was to be staying for the next six days. It was a rigorous routine: up early each morning and straight downstairs to be asked immediately, “How are you?” It wasn’t enough to reply, “Fine” (fucked up, insecure, neurotic and emotional) – the teacher was looking for moment-to-moment awareness of what was really going on, on a deeper and deeper level, and this intensive course was designed so that there was an absolute minimum of opportunity to slip away and pretend everything was OK and avoid the pain, as we had been doing all our lives to one degree or another; so for me that simple early morning exchange was often tearful.

  It was very, very thorough; and I felt deeply held, honoured, respected: loved in a more all-encompassing way than I had ever known before. Gravity was given to our early experiences of betrayal. For once in my life I felt that someone was looking directly at my childhood pain and saying, “No wonder you responded in the way you did: it was truly awful. You did the very best you could in impossible circumstances. You are to be applauded for an incredible feat of survival... And here at last is your opportunity to let go of it all and start a new life: your life, that life that you were never able to live because of the battle you had to fight merely to keep your head above water.”

  We were told it was no mistake that we found ourselves here at this time, and it did indeed feel very timely: I was ready for this. There were four or five teachers who worked together, taking it in turns to conduct different parts of the course; and each teacher was allocated about five students, so that we all had as much individual attention as we needed. Our personal teacher was there to answer any questions and to make sure that we had thoroughly understood and absorbed each part of the process before moving on to the next stage.

  There were little exercises to check that things had sunk in; in fact the days were rich with ‘tools’: exercises, games and methods drawn from a wealth of pooled experience, all designed to help loosen our hold on negative mind habits, see what was holding us back, surprise us into letting go, make us realize how precious life is and what a waste it is to stay stuck in the past. There were regular visualisations, taking us back to a tranquil inner sanctuary in which to find peace and strength for the work that was to be done; there were periods of writing, and in-depth talks to explain the process, and as the days went by an increasing number of opportunities for play. But most important of all, so far as I was concerned: there was a huge amount of catharsis.

  First we focused on mother: writing the answers to questions that made us aware, in great detail, of what went wrong and what it was specifically that we had been carrying around all this time: the guilt, the resentment, the grief, the fear. We were taken to a point where we were deeply angry about it al
l, then we wrote down the salient points on separate pieces of paper, were given a baseball bat and a large cushion and proceeded to beat the hell out of it, ranting and yelling the whole time about that fucked-up bitch of a mother who had put us through such shit. When we had thoroughly vented about one issue then we went on to the next piece of paper. I was amazed at how much furious energy was locked inside my phoney-peaceful self. For the first time I realized it wasn’t her dominance that had so deeply upset me so much as the neediness behind that, which had threatened to swallow me up.

  When the anger was truly spent, the next day we moved on to compassion: to imagining what our mothers were like as children, what had happened to them to make them the way they were; to seeing that they had done their best with what they had been given – and eventually to forgiveness, and even remorse for all the suffering that we had perpetuated through our own ignorance and fear.

  Then we went through exactly the same process about our fathers. Again I was surprised how much I found to shout about, considering that Shelley always seemed to be the innocent party. It’s hard to resent something that isn’t there, yet in the end that was what I was most angry about: his ineffectiveness, his lack of solid emotional presence. I also realized that I had imitated his method of coping rather than rebelling against it: his stiff, reserved, constipated ways, his withdrawn nature, his body-denial and his criticism, which I turned upon myself.

  As the week went by I felt as if I was being reborn: every stage of childhood, from tiny infant onwards, was given the chance to do it all again: to feel deeply loved and cared for, to express the pain and let it go. Under the guidance of spirit, I slowly learned to integrate my inner emotional child, who had been left behind in the growing-up process, with my intellect and body, so creating a complete adult. The teachers, and increasingly my fellow students, offered unconditional loving support, so that at last I began to feel I was an intrinsically loveable person; and now that I knew that myself I no longer had to spend my life proving it to everyone else.

  The week reached a rich climax of celebration and congratulations; then we were sent off to spend two days in quiet contemplation. We had tapes of talks and music, notes to remind us of everything we had learned, and instructions for a couple of final writing projects, in order for all the changes to sink in and settle in body, mind and soul. I spent my weekend with Kharis, who lived not too far away in a house where she kindly offered me my own living space, just joining her and Nigel for meals. There was plenty of opportunity to walk through woods and fields. I remember striding along listening to music, feeling a great sense of inner freedom and new beginnings.

  In one of the exercises during the Hoffman Process we were asked to imagine our ideal future, and part of my dream was to live in a beautiful old house in the country. Sure enough, a few weeks after I got home a wealthy friend of mine, for whom I had done a lot of cleaning and odd-jobbing over the past few years, was looking for a new tenant for the other part of the Georgian mansion she occupied. The building was in fact divided into four, but it was large enough for each of these portions to be a very decent sized home, of which Gwen owned two.

  After three years on an estate of retirement bungalows, I didn’t need any persuading. And so it was that Judy, Simon and I found ourselves living in a country mansion with great big rooms to run around in and plenty of garden to explore. The kitchen was so huge it was almost a problem: I got tired walking from one end to the other, and had to organize things so they weren’t too far apart. I brought my Welsh dresser with me, which fitted in beautifully, and my big pine kitchen table which stood proudly in the middle of the old wooden floorboards; but most exciting of all, at the heart of the kitchen was a bright red AGA such as I was familiar with from both my childhood homes.

  This was far more my sort of place, and I had a lovely time spreading out and filling all the rooms with hangings, rugs and pictures that had never looked quite right in the bungalow. I untangled plants from the loops they had been forced into in a more restricted environment, and encouraged them to begin their journey up and around the tall and elegant Georgian windows. They enjoyed their new home as much as I did, and were soon producing a wealth of lovely green fronds.

  The sitting-room had a large log-burner in front of which I put a deep-piled sheepskin rug, and a window from which we could see the lawn, flower beds and trees. Then upstairs there was a landing and a box room, where Gwen kept her collection of antique teddy-bears; and we each had a nice bedroom to ourselves.

  It was great fun for six months, then Gwen and I had a disagreement. I had got to the stage where everything was just as I liked it, which had taken a lot of happy effort, when she decided she wanted to sell her part of the house, go travelling and live in the box room on the occasions when she was back in England. To be fair, she had mentioned this possibility when we first moved in; but somehow I wasn’t expecting it to happen, nor had I anticipated just how much the place would begin to feel like mine... Anyway, I grumbled a bit, and then regretted it, but by that time she had decided that if I had any doubts it certainly wasn’t going to work sharing a living space. However much I tried to persuade her otherwise, her mind was made up: she wanted us out by Christmas. And really, I wasn’t quite sure if it would work living at such close quarters. But I was very scared about being homeless.

  Now that I knew we had to leave, I wanted to find somewhere else as soon as I could: it was horrible to feel so insecure. I began a frantic search of estate agents and newspapers, eventually finding a little cottage in Torbryan that was advertised at a reasonable rent. This was the hamlet, if you remember, that Jamie and I used to walk to from Ipplepen, for an evening by the log fire in the pub.

  The first time I ever went there had been in a similarly homeless state, soon after our return from Wales. I was having therapy then, and a recurrent theme was my need for somewhere that I could truly call home. After one such session I stopped the car in Torbryan and got out to go for a walk. It seemed like such an idyllic little valley, with its fairytale white church and old thatched cottages. I opened a wrought iron gate, also painted white, and made my way along the side of a stream, past beech and oak trees. To my right a few sheep were grazing on the short-cropped grass which sloped up towards some woods; the banks of the stream were scattered with pink and yellow flowers.

  I walked through two or three fields, then suddenly out of nowhere there appeared the most magnificent Victorian mansion, nestling in the heart of the valley, with the footpath running right through the grounds. It had a beautiful conservatory, and lawns sloping down to where the water from the stream had been used to make a series of little lakes for fancy ducks... all framed by the big old trees that grew up the slopes on either side. If only I could live somewhere like this! My longing grew even stronger.

  This was a few years before; since then I had seen the price of property in Torbryan and it seemed it was far too exclusive and choice a spot for me to be able to afford. But now here was this cottage to rent, right in the middle of the village between the church and the pub. I went to see it, and it seemed ideal. The advertisement said no children and no pets, but I was determined to do everything I could to get it. I would just have to persuade them that my cat was harmless and my children were angelic.

  I met a father at the children’s school who made regular deliveries to the farm that was renting out the cottage, so I asked him to put in a good word for me. It was being let through an agency, but I had a strong feeling that if I could find out more about the owners I would stand a much better chance; so next I went to the pub and asked about the farmer and his wife. Nobody seemed to know very much, apart from to tell me, in a mumbled undertone, that they ‘tended to keep themselves to themselves.’

  It was a terribly anxious time: I couldn’t sleep for worrying. It was between me and a couple of other people. I kept ringing up the estate agents and asking them if a decision had been made. Eventually I plucked up courage and knocked on the farmhouse door
myself. It was opened by the jovial, bearded farmer, whom I attempted to charm as much as I could. I explained that I was a single mother with an innocent cat and two well-behaved children, and then offered him a little extra money for the monthly rent.

  At last, after two weeks of torment, I got a call to say that I had been considered the most worthy applicant. And so began eleven years in a dear little cottage in the heart of a tiny and very pretty Devon village.

  35

  Torbryan & the AUM

  Here at last was a place I could make into a real home for the three of us. There was something very pleasing about the fact it was sandwiched half way between the lofty heights of the fairytale church and the murky warren of the ancient pub, with its thick straw roof and deep inglenook fireplace. The concrete path leading to the lynch-gate was directly outside the back door, and we would sometimes stand at the landing window watching a bride walk through amidst showers of confetti. After a few years the lime-wash became streaked with green and grey, and a team of people came to paint it white again. They let us climb right to the top of the tower and take photos of our little house and of the village and fields down below. As for the pub, it wasn’t even worth taking my slippers off: a few yards round the corner of the front garden wall, then in through the thick oak door to lounge on one of the generous sofas in front of the fire.

  My landlord and landlady turned out to be an extremely friendly, down-to-earth couple, and I looked forward to ambling down the farm track on the tenth of every month and handing the rent to Hazel, along with chat about the weather and the state of the cottage, the farm, the family... I remember when I first got there, how shocked she was at how many times I had had to move. Having been living in the valley all her married life, in the home occupied by Edward’s family for several generations, she could hardly imagine a life of so many changes, and her sympathy gave me a warm, reassuring feeling that this place was not somewhere from which I would have to suddenly move on.