Land of the midday night

One of the things I would love to see, but probably never will, is the midnight sun. If I were to travel North to somewhere like Tromsø in Norway around the middle of June, I could stand on the elegant bridge across the Tromsøysundet Strait and watch the sun set over the water, then around midnight it would hover briefly just above the horizon before ascending once again to start the new day.

Of course what goes up must come down, and every year around Christmas time, the sun never quite manages to rise as far as the horizon. The sky begins to lighten around midday but then darkens once more and falls back into night. In Tromsø it requires a special kind of courage and endurance to keep your spirits as Winter approaches. The days get shorter, darker and colder and then disappear altogether into perpetual night. You need to stay strong to survive, but each year some inhabitants find they no longer have that strength; that is why there is a tall fence along the Tromsø bridge.

That is also why all over the world above the Tropic of Cancer, around the middle of December, there are festivals of light: Christmas, Saturnalia, St Nicholas Day, Saint Lucia, Hanukkah, Yule. We need the reassurance of good company, laughter, food, bright colours and light. Some authorities call it a superstitious attempt to rekindle the sun, but that is just a metaphor. We are really keeping the light alive in us.

Spare a thought for those who are alone this Christmas, those whose light has been taken away, whose loved one has died, those who find no joy in the tinsel and glitter. For some, Christmas simply adds insult to injury.

For the twelve days of Christmas the year holds its breath, the days refuse to lengthen, but gradually at first, then faster and faster as we move towards Spring, the light returns. For us too, in our lives, like a miracle out of nowhere, after sorrow, we find peace. May the spirit of peace bring light into your life this Christmas.

Just remember in the winter

Far beneath the bitter snows

Lies the seed that with the sun's love,

In the spring becomes the rose

The Rose, Amanda McBroom

Forty Years On

Forty years ago I stood at the altar next to my beloved, repeating the marriage vows after the minister, surprised to find they were different from how I remembered, somehow finding just enough voice to be heard down the aisles, full of trepidation, full of confidence anyway, with my life spread out in front of me like a pile of presents waiting for me to unwrap them.

I wrote my speech on a scrap of paper on the way to the wedding reception. Jenny the bridesmaid, aged 4, ran up and down between the tables shouting while I strained to make myself heard. My new bride and I slipped away to the nearby canalside to have some romantic photos taken by my old school-friend Tim. Eventually we said our goodbyes to all the friends and relations and were driven to the railway station, thence to Devon for the honeymoon. When we changed trains at Exeter, the friendly and sharp-eyed train guard made sure we had the carriage to ourselves.

Two weeks later we were on our way to Gadaffi's Libya, where I would take up the post of English Language Teacher at the Petroleum Institute. That was followed a year later by a similar assignment in Saudi Arabia. Those two years changed my life. Returning to England I retrained as a computer programmer, bought a house, and brought forth a child.

Twenty years later my children had flown the nest or were about to, my parents were dead, the computer work had finally dried up, my house was sold, and my dream of becoming a Church minister was history. At this point my life as I knew it came to an end.

I bought myself a canal boat to live on and the next twelve years were spent wandering the watery wilderness. As the old song goes, “Life goes on, long after the reason for living is gone”. Probably the only reason I can sit here writing this now is because my wife never gave up on me, which I suppose proves I married the right one, no-one else would have stayed the distance. I survived as best I could, taking whatever work came my way – shop assistant, driver, chambermaid (yes!). Canal life was beautiful but hard. I remember one night searching for firewood in the pouring rain so that I could light a small fire, as there wasn't enough money to buy fuel for the stove. All through this – and more – my wife stuck with me, keeping me going, because I just didn't care any more.

There's a great passage in Ezekiel where the prophet is taken in a vision to a valley where the bones of Israel's dead warrior's lay strewn. God asks: “Man, can these dry bones live?”, and all Ezekiel can say in response is: “Only you can answer that” (my rendition). That was exactly how I felt about my life, and so apparently did God. Because bone by bone, piece by piece, he reassembled my life.

It hasn't been easy. I'm older and I hope wiser now. Almost all the older generation who witnessed my marriage have gone from the Earth, Gadaffi is dead, my best man (and best friend) won't talk to me, my children are forging careers in art and music, Jenny is managing a holiday business in France, my photographer friend became director of a well-known company, left (to run a hotel, lost it) then made a heroic come-back. Time passes.

I don't know what the future holds in store for me, but I hope I will live it authentically, and I hope I never stop until I get to the very end. This weekend the two of us will celebrate with a quiet couple of days on the coast and a meal out. I think we deserve that.

Roll on, the eclipse

The great American preacher Mike Yaconelli once told the story of how he finally met his all-time hero Henri Nouwen. He had been so excited about actually meeting the great man that he got lost on the way there and arrived late. When the door opened Nouwen greeted him with a bad-tempered peevish rant about a spoiled dinner and a wasted evening.

It's hard when your hero lets you down.

There was an episode of the 1980s cartoon series Brave Starr on this theme. As his one-time hero is led away in handcuffs, Brave Starr asks: "How could you? You were my hero." To which Jingles simply snarls back: "I never asked to be your hero".

And there's the rub. It's our fault for putting someone on a pedestal if they eventually fall off. The drama is entirely of our own creation.

I like people. I really like people. I see the best in everyone. I want it that way. That's my problem. It's my fault that for me, everyone must be good if I'm going to like them. As soon as they seem to me slightly less than perfect I can like them no more. To my credit I will continue seeing only good for as long as I possibly can, but I have my limits. Then a trap door opens and they are gone out of my life for good. Behind me the street is lined with metaphorical corpses. Undoubtedly this is a bad attitude, and my punishment is to stagger from one disappointment to the next.

Well, they say the eclipse is a time of renewal. Roll on!

I comb the rubble of a shattered world to find the bright face of an angel
And say again and say again that I have written this - this is for you.

(Clive James)