Tameka Empson and The QI Elves!

I’m so excited because tomorrow I’m going to be reunited with my parents for the first time in 18 months! I signed off an email to my Dad the other day, “when I see you I’ll probably cry”. He replied “I definitely will”, which got me going immediately! It’s a typical pandemic story… so many of my friends have been through similar long distance separations in the last two years. But in some ways, we’ve barely been apart. I think of life before video calling and instant messaging. Years and years ago, I used to call my parents from phone booths with cards and collect calls…or think of them while I travelled through foreign landscapes, writing things down on paper to tell them when we’d next reunite. 

These days we can eat meals together online and take each other on walks with our phones. I can be on call for tech support and give my opinion on new furniture. My mum’s always ready with advice on pie crusts and seed sowing and of course to give long distance hugs when tears fall. But to be finally reunited in person is a gift I’m thrilled and deeply grateful for. For all the fussing and fighting that can go on in a family, as I get older, I’m more aware than ever, how investing in these relationships with love and kindness brings strength of heart and mind. I’m a bit of a word nerd and the other day I heard about the Tamil term ‘kattu maram’; it means ‘tied wood’ and happens to be the origin of the English word ‘catamaran’. Typically the kattu maram is a raft made of whole logs bound together with rope – strong enough to sail on both rivers and ocean. 

I’m seeing this raft in my mind, riding the waves as they rise and fall - each log as important as the other…Bound tightly together with ropes of love and an attitude of service, I see my family, friends, community, more easily navigating the uncertainties and troubles of this world, helping each other stay afloat and find happiness in higher purpose. And I know, more than ever now, we don’t need to be physically in the same location to be bound together. But I’m counting down the minutes til those hugs arrive!!!