LISTS

I am a lister.
List can also mean a kind of unstable though that may be spelt differently (Note to self – find out)

I have written lists since I was a very young child. On reflection, I understand I was trying to create safety and order. My lists were Sellotape that held me together, as well as being places I could write down heavily disguised from myself, wishes, hopes and dreams.

Over all these decades I have continued to List.
I have notebooks full of lists.
I regularly strike a highlighter pen across the current list that has become unwieldy and chaotic, turn the page of my dedicated to lists moleskin, and start a new one. There are always things undone from the abandoned mess on the previous page. I carefully carry them over to the optimistic, and very orderly, new list.

I have been musing on my listing.
I reckon my life is an embodied list, and that only just landed in my ears as audible and it makes me want to cry.

I do and I don’t know why.

I don’t strive to know. I just feel the parts that get it, that it engenders tears, and include the more mentalising me that is awfully tired. She is also grateful I don’t work her so hard these days. She gets to put her head down. Sometimes that part becomes a big old horse. A work horse. When she’s a horse she is he, which doesn’t present any problem for any part of me. I just notice that when I am a horse, I am male.

Anyway, when horse is in ascendancy, I see myself walking alongside that big and very tired old horse, and in a way that is always simple because that horse is the part that worked so hard in the relentless and brutal fields of complicated. It is another part that walks in the shoes of gratitude, beside my tired old horse. I take him to the most beautiful meadow that has ever existed. I open the gate and invite him in. It is so soft and lush, and so many hues of green. At the opposite end from the gate is an open barn, and beside the barn is an old-school water trough. Fresh water comes in from some natural source, it makes the sound that water does when it flows from nature’s infrastructure.

We amble across this field of welcome, the pair or us – the same one – and also not.

As we walk - the me, the I, the narrator; I actually don’t know who this ‘I’ is. No matter. This I part. The part that writes this unplanned, unthought story, she speaks some stuff. It is very simple stuff. It brings back the tears.

The simple stuff is: thank you. Thank you for working so, so hard, to keep me together, to help me stay alive, to give me a lifeline to hang onto. Thank you for staying with me for so many miles and years when I had no idea such a beautiful horse was walking with me, carrying the load of my homeless despair, my defeat, my destruction and my shame. You are one fine horse, I whisper. This meadow, all this green and lush, the water from God, the barn to shelter in, full of deep straw to rest in, the sweetest hay to eat – dear, dear horse, you can let it all fall away now. You can rest, put your head down, you can retire from this exceptionally hard labour – you can trust me. I’ve got you now. And, you know what, that little house just beside your meadow, that’s my homestead, and you brought me home.

We are neighbours, and always will be.

My beloved horse, because you brought me home, I can give you this field. And because I am the freeholder of your field and my adjacent home address, if you look up and can’t quite locate me, don’t fret. Don’t come and find me. Don’t panic. Do a deep old horse breath and remember I haven’t gone far. I haven’t gone anywhere in truth. I am your stable (hey, look, another bit of word-play) and you are safe. No distance, separation, whatever’s going down in any given moment, everything being simple remains.

There is so much talking about letting go. It’s a thing to be achieved. It can be like a gold, silver or bronze medal in the ‘human healing’ Olympic games. It’s another trap, and another lesson (thank you, Kae Tempest). We are already here, and only have to remember and forget, safe in entrustment that forgetting is just an upsurge of noise, and that we can always turn the volume down, when it is possible, and lean into the waters and ground of tenderness that never went anywhere at all.

When that final out breath comes, when there just isn’t anymore air to breathe in, we will all be together, no matter how that rolls.

I don’t think it’s going to be today though, so I’m signing off a postcard I didn’t even know was coming in through the weight of my musing on lists. Now I have to go out and come back in again. A small chore before I open my door to welcome one of the very precious human beings that entrust me to walk alongside them, as they look for pieces of themselves that are waiting, and hoping.

I am a good walker.
I am an ally, I am humbled by the privilege of being invited and allowed to be a part of many a pilgrimage. I am not any other human-being’s map, but I can point at what I notice from the alongside position. I can stay, and I do. Staying and being stayed with matters.

(with thanks to Daisy Gower, who was kind enough to model my metaphor, notwithstanding being neither male, nor tired and old)

AI Overview

In the context of ships, "listing" refers to the leaning or tilting of a vessel to one side (port or starboard) due to uneven weight distribution or taking on water. It's a state of imbalance where the ship's center of gravity is not directly aligned with its center of buoyancy.

Here's a more detailed explanation:

• Causes of Listing:

  Listing can be caused by a variety of factors, including:

  • Uneven cargo loading: If cargo is loaded unevenly, one side of the ship will be heavier, causing it to list.

  • Shifting cargo: Cargo that shifts during a voyage, especially in rough seas, can create an imbalance and lead to listing.

  • Flooding or water ingress: If water enters one side of the ship, it will weigh down that side, causing the ship to list.

  • Damage to the hull: Damage to the hull can allow water to enter and cause a list.

• Listing vs. Heeling:

  While both involve tilting, "heeling" is often used to describe the dynamic movement of a ship caused by external forces like wind or waves, while "listing" usually refers to a more static leaning caused by internal factors like weight distribution.

• Consequences of Listing:

  A significant list can reduce a ship's stability and could even lead to capsizing or sinking if not corrected.

• Correcting a List:

  To correct a list, sailors might redistribute cargo, adjust ballast water, or pump out any excess water that has entered the ship.