Böcker av Brenda Eldridge

The almost inescapable presence of TV advertising and social media in our lives means we are being constantly bombarded by information. News can be about devastation by natural forces, or the unspeakable atrocities of man's inhumanity to his fellow beings. We are exposed to the appalling behaviour of so-called world leaders and wonder why our young people find it so hard to believe in anything. Closer to home we struggle with broken relationships, illness, tragedy and loss. Coming to the end of 2023, I stopped to look at poems I had written during the year and was reminded of the small things that quietly filled me with joy and hope. They're things that aren't what would be called newsworthy but still they have value. As well as the big traumas, life is about noticing the simple pleasures...

Vivid memories prompted by hearing a few stray notes playing sent me wandering through my very rich life to renew my love of particular pieces of music and songs. When I started writing poems, I recognised that, for me, music is like ekphrastic poetry. A composer responds to something and in turn there is my response to the composer. From my own experiences, I was reminded how my mental image or emotional response to a piece of music was not necessarily what the composer had in mind. Being more aware of the silences throughout a piece of music or when it comes to an end, I started to write about silence. In doing that, I realised that in our ordinary lives it doesn't exist. What is silence? It appears to be a momentary pause between one sound and the next - a heartbeat. Even if everything else can be blocked out, we can still feel or hear our own heart beating. Having got that far, I explored places where there was 'silence' and discovered what I could really hear.

Unexpected challenges to my self-confidence and then reading The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli sent me on an exploration of time and memory. Rovelli took my understanding of time to pieces from a physics perspective and put it back together again from a philosophical one. I've been aware for years of those famous words of Descartes - 'I think, therefore I am.' Rovelli is saying something similar, that it is our memories that make us who we are. Rovelli says everything is made up of atoms and photons and more besides, and they are in constant motion - hence the term 'dancing dots'. I love the notion that a rock isn't rock-solid at all, but a mass of dancing dots. And if everything in the universe is made of dancing dots, what of our thoughts and our spirits?

One of the important things I learned when my poetry was first published was that, no matter how much time and effort I put into ensuring the poems were in what I thought was the right order, my readers would more likely randomly select a piece that caught their attention. It is no different when putting together a selection of poems from several volumes except that when Jude Aquilina did the choosing, I ended up with a very different image of me the writer than I had been aware of before. No longer locked into their chronological order, there emerged in the poems a more balanced perspective. The important things don't change. Depths once touched are always evident. Courage, strength, spirituality, wonder, bewilderment, joy and sorrow are all represented. Above all else, beating within the words and images there is a very thankful heart.

Lives hold promise and promises. Keeping one promise might mean breaking another, for life is anything but simple. I had promised myself I would not go back to England - or, if I did, I would stay there. I did not want to pull myself up by the roots to leave it again. But I also promised Stephen that I would go anywhere with him. We had often spoken of going to England - his daughter still lived there - but we were both mindful of my promise to myself and why I made it. When the opportunity came along for us to go to Scotland to fulfil Stephen's long-held dream to explore Scotland by train, I took a deep breath and said, 'Yes, let's go.' Then his daughter moved from England to the Netherlands so inevitably our trip was extended. I was troubled that I had broken my promise to myself. But things never turn out as we think they will. In making this trip, I found my life had become like a Celtic knot. I found my place again in my childhood family, and in the world. It is said that home is where the heart is, and that proved to be true for me. Connecting is not a holiday travelogue. It tells how I made connections - connections that unified a lifetime's experiences.

As a child I drove my mother to distraction with my constant question, Why? After a stream of these endless whys I can still hear her exasperated voice saying, ';Why because.' and I knew that was the time to stop at least for a while. Nothing has changed. I am still asking questions. These days I know there are no specific answers but it can be fun exploring possibilities. Wise woman or philosopher? Is there a difference? I have no piece of paper that says I'm qualified to be either or both, but my life has been an amazing journey of experiences and in this collection of essays I am using them to try and understand the world I live in and perhaps be more aware of how I might be affecting others.