Citizen's Income

My recent postings on human rights has caused me to think about the means to ensure that rights become effective, rather than simply formal, rights. Effective rights requires the distribution of resources, and one of the most radical ways to place real resources into the hands of all of us in a manner that treats us as equals, entitled to liberty and the opportunity to pursue our own conceptions of the good life, would be a Citizen's Income. A citizen's income is not a minimum wage, but a non-means tested income which is provided for all citizens on the basis of their personhood and their membership of a nation state. The common criticism is that such a policy would encourage 'free-riders' or surfers who idle all day on Malibu beach. There are two problems with this argument, firstly, the empirical assumption that surfers make no social or economic contribution. In fact, in the UK, surfing communities generate significant local income in the form of retail, sporting and tourist activities. Secondly, the moral judgement that idling is generally a bad thing, which would, of course, depend upon what one means by idling. Ivan Illich wrote 'The Right to Useful Unemployment' in order to recognise a far wider range of social contribution than waged labour, and a recent defense of idling based upon sustainable living and the freedom to choose written by Tom Hodgekinson called 'How to be Idle'. See the Idler website: http://idler.co.uk.

Faded

I don't know if it is the medium of blogging or my state of mind, but reading back through some of my posts I am unimpressed with the spelling mistakes and poor grammar. Eventually, I shall go back and correct some of the worst, but at the moment, I feel like a faded negative of myself. All the vibrant and fluent parts of me are flattened and hollow. I am there, but I am without colour. Originality, incisiveness, rationality have all been kissed by the poision apple, and they are in hibernation. I am only able to speak or write in short, sharp yelps.

Refreshment

A soft summer rain had been falling all day today. Well, of course, wimbeldon starts next week! There is something special about rain that allows you access to the garden - scents and colours are intensified by the moisture - tiny details, such as the droplets upon petals, attract the eye. The musk from the new flowers on my rambling rector was heady, and the sky was a lambent dove grey.

I take such sweetness as a gift, and of hope that there are tomorrows in which my girls and I will live in fullness.

Fruiting

I have been sick. The year has passed and I thought I would be passed grieving, but it appears that this is not so. For the past week, I have been unable to work, or think, or even feel - exhaustion has pressed into every part of my mind and body. I am heart-sick and weary. Yet, I have taken some harvest from the garden - the strawberries have been as sweet as the summer sun, and the potatoes are flavourful and comforting. Now the courgette flowers (those which have escaped slug damage!) are bursting with outrageous colour. I caught one unfurling in the evening - it had taken on a strange, other-wordly glow as it caught the light of the setting sun within its transparent petals.

I found these lines from Marvell's 'The Nymph Complaining for the Death of her Fawn' (1681)

'I have a garden of my own,

But so with roses overgrown,

And lilies, that you would it guess

To be a little wilderness'......

'Had it lived long, it would have been

Lilies without, roses within.'

For the moment, all my harvest seems as blighted and withered as a nuclear winter, but I remain hopeful for the 'roses within'.

African Widows and Human Rights

This is an extremely thorough, 'full immersion' account of the plight of African widows:

http://www.crisisstates.com/download/forum/HIV/901widowsaids.pdf

The Politics of Everyday Living

Anyone who reads my blog might be wondering about how to catergorise it. At first glance, it is concerned with a personal journey through grieving, but I also indicate my research interests in political theory and have one or two posts of a political nature. I make no apology for this - I am of the Aristotelian persuasion that 'man (and woman and child) is a political animal', and I agree with Hannah Arendt on the importance of political action for living a fully human life. For me, politics, in the broadest sense of well-being and human flourishing rather than simply maximisation of self-interests, is about every day living. My children's education, the home we enjoy, our relations with others, even the tragedy of sudden death, touches the political at every turn. Therefore discussions about human rights, whilst also talking about how to run a home or research a project, are essential.

Eleanor Roosevelt said of the UDHR, 'Where after all, do human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighbourhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world'

Human rights do not belong to governments, international insitutions or even NGOs. They belong to us - ordinary people engaged in the ordinary activities of living and dying. We should reclaim both the duty and the public pleasure of talking about them because by doing so, we extend our capabilities for sympathy with the suffering of others, coming to realise that they suffer because they are human in exactly the same way that we, ourselves, are human.

The Kindness of Strangers

The space that my children and I have for grieving is secured by privilege - we live in a peaceful, wealthy western democracy with welfare support and employment opportunities. The slow pace of life I described in my previous post which is conducive to healing and hopefulness will be unknown to most widows around the world. Women's rights are often widow's rights. Widows in many countries constitute one of the poorest, and most marginalised groups of people; when they lose their husbands, they lose their humanity. Hannah Arendt said that the worst thing that could happen to a person was if they became merely human - bare life without a place in society or respected identity. Many widows belong nowhere - they are simply human life. They are blamed for the death of their husbands, and consequently they can be stripped of their property, ousted from employment, rejected and abused. Needless to say, their human rights count for nothing because they have been deprived of the fully human status which would support their claims.

WRI (widow's rights international) is an NGO which says alot more about this - they provide case studies and money for the documentation of human rights abuses. The respecting of women's rights is closely linked to the implementation of socio-economic rights (of education, welfare and work), and needs to be seen in a context of sensitive economic and social development which includes initiative such as micro-financing (see links below).

http://www.widowsrights.org/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6047364.stm (micro-financing)

http://www.microloanfoundation.org.uk/

Micro-financing is controversial; some commentators refute that it is effective in helping the poorest. An alternative is to think about global redistributive justice (from the wealthy to the poor across the globe, not simply within the nation state). The difficulty here is that we have no sense of cosmopolitan citizenship which would legitimise (and give moral force to) the idea of helping distant strangers.

Sun Blessed

I have found that the intensity of grieving requires a steady, calm way of life, sustained by friends and family. When I take time in the sunshine to pick strawberries, then the physical knots of anxiety and loneliness ease for a little while. I can no longer lead the hectic existence of a multi-tasking mum - everything has become local, small-scale, slow-paced.

Today, I decided to link my blog to some directories and to make some links to sites that I enjoy or are useful. This, of course, makes it a more public endeavour, and I am grateful to those who have already commented or linked me to their neighbourhood (I think that is the term). I understand that it is 'blogging etiquette' to reply to comments, but, being a techno slow-learner, I have not worked out how to do this. So, I thank you and hope you will be patient.

Grief and Bereavement Arena

I stumbled across this very useful resource created by the publishers, Routledge. They have developed an online and accessible space which is shared by professionals on death and bereavement, and those who have personal experience of bereavement. This seems to be a good step in the direction of a general education about death which needs to take place in society and in our schools, along side the now well-established general education on sex, childbirth and parenting, or even personal finance education. Children should learn about the end of life, as well as the beginning of life, and a more modest view of our physical mortality (including a greater acceptance of the ageing process) should prevail.

http://www.bereavementarena.com/

Green Widow

Kate Boydell is the founder of 'merrywidow' and the author of 'Death and How to Survive it'. She has helped many widows and widowers on their hard journey. Here is an article she contributed to which was prompted by the death of Natascha McElhone's husband:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/portal/2008/05/30/ftwidows130.xml

Natascha is pregnant with their third child and for those who are in a similar position Greenwidow is an organisation which offers help:

http://www.greenwidow.com/

Public Widows

This post is a bit of work in progress. I am drawing together a few media articles on prominant women who have been widowed. The following is the BBC programme, 'The Widow's Tale'. More coming...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/relationships/tv_and_radio/widows_index.shtml

9/11

An extremely interesting item on the research work of Susan Faludi, examining how society has treated the 9/11 widows:

http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,,2257969,00.html

Masked

Carnival time - only three years ago. Always ready for a drama, the children are masked and ready to go. Now, we put on our masks every day, but it gives us no pleasure. The children must wear their happy masks for schools, and I must wear my competent mask to the office. It's not that people expect us to be over grieving, but they do expect us to be alright - to be functioning, capable and engaged. Yet, a grieving person has no control over their mental fogginess; their loss of concentration; the way the hours slip by and nothing seems to have been done. I am convinced something happens to the chemistry of the brain. There is improvement (and I hold out for the full return of my mental functioning), but it is not improvement on demand. All you can do is till the ground for the improvement to grow - for us, this has meant a slower, steadier life with a few friends; a regular routine of being at home and going out to school/office; and letting each person do their own thing with no demands that they should be behaving like this or like that.

Cosy

I have not felt such a strong 'nesting instinct' since the children were tiny babies. I take it to be a phase that I shall pass through, but, for the moment, I have yielded to the desire to wrap us in warmth and security. So, of course, we need our security blankets! I bought these two welsh blankets from Jen Jones because we were feeling cold all the time, even in the warmer weather, and duvets did not seem to answer to our need. I find the small details of colour and texture restful; taking time to be attentive to subtle shades has helped to ease some of the anxious stress & pain that clamps onto my chest. It brings a little relief. I also have a light green durham quilt which I bought off ebay, and I think about the woman who would have stitched it. In her time, early death would have been far more common than it is today, and she would have been experienced in mourning. Mourning is a practice that we have lost, along with many household handicrafts. Did she stitch her pain into the quilt? It is not beyond the realms of possibility. I do not have her skill, but I have stitched my pain into the fabric of our lives - whilst we live fully, we grieve fully.

The Life of a Dad

I have not required my children to do anything or say anything that they do not wish to. A friend provided them both with the materials to create a memory book. My eldest has not wanted to, but the youngest has recently taken up the idea and made a beautiful book of photos, drawings and comments.

Forget-me-not

About a month after I had been widowed, a friend phoned and asked me how I was getting on. My parents had returned home, the funeral was over, the financial mess was starting to make itself known, my eldest daughter had nearly given up attending school. I was in a terrible state of intense physical and mental anguish, and I was choking back tears that were as corrosive as acid. 'I am not good,' I replied, 'Not good at all'. 'Is it because you have to do everything?' my friend asked. 'No, it's the grief,' I said. Of course, at one level, my friend was correct - to suddenly become a single mother after years of a well-made marriage in which family duties were shared does not make a person feel very good. But at another level, my friend misunderstood the intensity of the grief I was experiencing - an experience for which I had no background knowledge and nobody to guide me. And I was utterly taken up by it - I was in a fire of pain that admitted no other person, acknowledged no other duty, and took all of my attention. Other friends came and rescued me - fed my children and sat with me until my parents returned. I was as incapable as a new born lamb.

As early as the week after my husband died, people would talk about remembering him. I found this incomprehensible. Memories seemed (and still seem) inappropriate when that person's presence is everywhere vivid and vital. It has taken me a while to sort this out, but this is how I understand it - I cannot remember him, but I can never forget him. My whole being is patterned by our shared life and, whilst I am working hard at becoming an individuated person again, I cannot recall memories, but I can remain aware of his influence in my life and those of our children.

The three of us

Three is too few - it feels like a wobbly stool. The only way I have managed to survive the last year is because of the generous support of my parents, but we have agreed that they need to spend more time at home for their own rest and recuperation. This means we have to become a three - a three that must become strong. Yet we are knotted inside our separate selves and find it hard to connect properly with one another. So I took the photo of the roses to show myself how three can sit amongst the thorns and still be beautiful together.

Widows Worldwide

Being widowed is devastating, but in some cultures it is life threatening. Here are a couple of articles from Open Democracy on the vulnerability of widows to violence and violation of their human rights:

http://www.opendemocracy.net/blog/5050/widowhood_and_violence

http://www.opendemocracy.net/blog/nepals_widows

Shabby Chic for the Soul

Shabby chic and vintage are everywhere on our high streets and most of it is alot of expensive tosh. For anyone who is grieving, or suffering a trauma, however, shabby chic, done in the right spirit, is beautifully fitted to our circumstances. Shabby chic can be forgiving, flexible, relaxed and affordable. Mismatched china from charity shops and vintage blankets from car boot sales arranged in a way that pleases you, then it does not matter if the pots and pans are stacked up; the ironing lies around in piles; or the floors are scattered with children's art projects - it simply looks as if it is part of the style. I think the key is to keep colour palates consistent in each living space; so, in the kitchen I have greens, blues and some pinks; in the dining room, whites, pale blues, creams and a little red; and in the lounge, sunny colours of yellow, terracotta, green and rosy red. The point is to experiment and not to be too concerned that it is a bit rough around the edges - it is a style which is freeing and beholden to nobody.

Children who are Grieving

Children who are grieving need very special care and attention - this is frequently unavailable. Schools are ill equipped to give the kind of individuated support that will bring a child through the worst and they misunderstand the capacity of the surviving parent to mediate between them and the child. I would attend meetings for my fourteen year old and speak with great resilience and clarity - as soon as I had left the room, however, I utterly forgot every word that was spoken and every plan that we had been made. The parent is not being obstructive, but the mind and body can cope with only so much - your whole being is withdrawn to a place beyond proper communication. My fourteen year old has grieved with the strength of an adult but without an adult's defences - her's is a genuine tragedy.

Those who can help include Winston's Wish, and, in our case, Daisy's Dream

Dreaming

My dreams have altered. At the beginning I met my husband in my dreams, and I experienced a mixture of anger and relief. I told him - 'you know the life insurance did not pay out'; he replied, with his lovely smile that always brought me round - 'I know, I'm sorry'. I wanted him to return to me and yet, I wanted him to go - I did not want to be haunted. Dreaming of the dead has a strange allure and yet brings with it a feeling of distaste, as if a forbidden barrier has been crossed. I can't say I relish the experiences but I cannot prevent them from happening.

After a major bereavement, the veils between life and death become thin - sometimes it is hard to discern which side of the breach you are on. It occurred to me that the time would come when I would know more people who are dead than who are alive. I think that death then loses all its fearsome presence - how can it be frightening to walk the path that so many you have loved have already walked? This does not diminish life - instead small details spring from the background: the petal of a rose; the leaves jewelled with dew; the light in a child's eyes; the tea made fresh and hot from the pot. Life becomes precious in the shadows that draw around to comfort and sustain.

The Strangeness of Grief

In her excellent radio programme, 'I don't know what to say', Barbara Want (widow of Nick Clarke) discusses the first eighteen months of her bereavement with those who ignored her and those who helped her. What she communicates with eloquence and grace is how the shrivelling of social patterns of grieving expands the suffering of the bereaved. The comments of those who failed to offer her support but who (bravely) responded to Barbara's request to discuss their reactions - 'you were wearing sunglasses and were shut away' - suggest that they felt her lack of responsiveness was her own fault for being 'inaccessible'.

I think it is very important to highlight the agony that these small acts of neglect cause those who are in the early stages of grief - it adds to their disorientation and confusion as they realise that they have been ousted from their place in society (i.e. as wife, husband, parent, child). A young widow is particularly vulnerable - after all feminism has only had a few decades, but the archetypal figure of the Widow has had millenia to become rooted deep within the human psyche. I remain astonished by people's reactions - their ignorance, silence and fear. I am amazed by the Strangeness of Grief - its capacity to exile us from living; its wierd physical and mental manifestations; and its endurance.

Return

I have re-found my blog. And what I entered in my last post seems touched with a certain foresight. I took the path through the woods, leaving behind me all comfortable defenses, and wandered in wild and desperate ways through the darkness. Grieving for the sudden death of your spouse is an journey into, not enlightenment, but knowledge. You do not become wise but you do become aware. Most people are too terrified of death to accompany you on your journey - the simplest expressions of human warmth and of acknowledgement of your grief is beyond them. I do think the lack of acknowledgement has been one of the hardest absences to bear - the suffering person you have become is invisible, literally without presence - a shadow as ghostly as the memory of your loved one.

There are a few who step forward - and I have become interested in what enables some (very few) to encounter the bereaved. I think they have something in common with the rescuers of Jews during the holocaust, and there was an interesting item on Radio 4 today about the 'Heroic Imagination' - a study of the characteristics of those who undertake extraordinary action. Another perspective is offered by Frankl who said of the survivors of the Nazi concentration camps - 'we knew that the best of us did not return'. I know that I am not one of the best (my qualities are ordianary), but I do know that I have returned and will do so from whatever wanderings into the wilderness may be required of me. My capacities are being increased, although I do not introspect on what those are and how they might be employed. I simply take the next corner......