alert to the quiet stillness that is at the heart of every rock, flower and tree.
Here in Connemara, there was no reason to run anywhere. She had no alternative other than to ‘be’, and it was this surrender to the moment that made her realize just how hollow her
life had previously been. She wondered now, as she strode down the hill towards the sea, whether she had been deliberately running into a future of promise with William to release her from an
unsatisfactory present at home. And what
was
her present?
Why
was it so unsatisfactory? The stillness enabled her to see her situation more clearly, as if the answer had always
been there, unnoticed, a small voice fighting to be heard against the racket of her running. It was unsatisfactory because it hadn’t belonged to her. She had been living the life her parents
wanted for her, but it wasn’t the life she wished for herself. She was tired of the constant struggle to conform to their expectations, the relentless effort of pretending to be something she
was not, as if she had been wearing an ill-fitting suit and had now, at last, burst out of it.
She realized, as she walked past the abandoned house on the beach, that she was also running from herself. She didn’t like the person she had become or the person she would grow into were
she to follow her sisters’ carefully prepared path into a materially comfortable but soulless existence as Mrs William Sackville. There was something dreadfully empty about the routine of her
daily life in London: the parties, the air-kissing, the fair-weather friends, the shopping and lunching. There was no depth to it. It gave her no sense of fulfilment. She braced herself against the
wind and walked up the sand just out of reach of the waves. Leonora and Lavinia would laugh at her if she told them she was sick of holidays in St Barts, sick of reading glossy magazines by the
pool that promised happiness with a new a lipstick or handbag, sick of skiing in St Moritz, sick of the people – the endless shallow people who live for invitations and for moving in the
right circles; the heaving mass of superficial, socially upwardly mobile
people
. She chuckled bitterly, astonished by the sudden clarity of her vision and the fact that she was talking out
loud like a woman possessed. Her mother would take her to visit her therapist, her father would stare at her in bewilderment, shaking his head once again at the child he had never understood. But
the truth was, none of it made her happy. Oh, there were moments of happiness, many of them, but they were as fleeting as bursts of sunshine; deep down in her soul she was restless – and
unhappy.
She had always had a strong desire to create something. Whether a book, a poem, a song or a garden – she didn’t know quite what yet; she just knew that she wanted to express herself
somehow. As a teenager she had taught herself the guitar, but when she had requested lessons at school her mother had screwed up her nose and replied that she didn’t want her daughter joining
a band ‘or anything silly like that’ and signed her up for extra French lessons instead, because apparently, according to her mother, every young lady should speak French. So she had
formed a band to spite her and written pop songs with her friends, performing at school concerts her parents weren’t invited to. She had dabbled at writing stories, been very good at art and
had sung in the choir. But she had fallen in with a gaggle of rebellious girls and spent most of her teens behind hedges smoking cigarettes and bitching about authority, rather than doing the
things that would have made her spirit grow. She regretted all that wasted time now. She regretted having let the creative part of herself wither. But it was never too late to let the sunshine in.
There was still time to write the book, compose the song, plant the garden. Right now, life seemed to be opening up for her like a surprise door onto a vast new
Here in Connemara, there was no reason to run anywhere. She had no alternative other than to ‘be’, and it was this surrender to the moment that made her realize just how hollow her
life had previously been. She wondered now, as she strode down the hill towards the sea, whether she had been deliberately running into a future of promise with William to release her from an
unsatisfactory present at home. And what
was
her present?
Why
was it so unsatisfactory? The stillness enabled her to see her situation more clearly, as if the answer had always
been there, unnoticed, a small voice fighting to be heard against the racket of her running. It was unsatisfactory because it hadn’t belonged to her. She had been living the life her parents
wanted for her, but it wasn’t the life she wished for herself. She was tired of the constant struggle to conform to their expectations, the relentless effort of pretending to be something she
was not, as if she had been wearing an ill-fitting suit and had now, at last, burst out of it.
She realized, as she walked past the abandoned house on the beach, that she was also running from herself. She didn’t like the person she had become or the person she would grow into were
she to follow her sisters’ carefully prepared path into a materially comfortable but soulless existence as Mrs William Sackville. There was something dreadfully empty about the routine of her
daily life in London: the parties, the air-kissing, the fair-weather friends, the shopping and lunching. There was no depth to it. It gave her no sense of fulfilment. She braced herself against the
wind and walked up the sand just out of reach of the waves. Leonora and Lavinia would laugh at her if she told them she was sick of holidays in St Barts, sick of reading glossy magazines by the
pool that promised happiness with a new a lipstick or handbag, sick of skiing in St Moritz, sick of the people – the endless shallow people who live for invitations and for moving in the
right circles; the heaving mass of superficial, socially upwardly mobile
people
. She chuckled bitterly, astonished by the sudden clarity of her vision and the fact that she was talking out
loud like a woman possessed. Her mother would take her to visit her therapist, her father would stare at her in bewilderment, shaking his head once again at the child he had never understood. But
the truth was, none of it made her happy. Oh, there were moments of happiness, many of them, but they were as fleeting as bursts of sunshine; deep down in her soul she was restless – and
unhappy.
She had always had a strong desire to create something. Whether a book, a poem, a song or a garden – she didn’t know quite what yet; she just knew that she wanted to express herself
somehow. As a teenager she had taught herself the guitar, but when she had requested lessons at school her mother had screwed up her nose and replied that she didn’t want her daughter joining
a band ‘or anything silly like that’ and signed her up for extra French lessons instead, because apparently, according to her mother, every young lady should speak French. So she had
formed a band to spite her and written pop songs with her friends, performing at school concerts her parents weren’t invited to. She had dabbled at writing stories, been very good at art and
had sung in the choir. But she had fallen in with a gaggle of rebellious girls and spent most of her teens behind hedges smoking cigarettes and bitching about authority, rather than doing the
things that would have made her spirit grow. She regretted all that wasted time now. She regretted having let the creative part of herself wither. But it was never too late to let the sunshine in.
There was still time to write the book, compose the song, plant the garden. Right now, life seemed to be opening up for her like a surprise door onto a vast new
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