Acceptance

... a long and winding road.

In November 2023 I visited Liverpool for the first time. I embraced all the tourist attractions: the ferry across the Mersey, the Liver Building, the Albert Dock, the Fab Four statue and the Beatles’ Tour – including Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields, Paul McCartney’s house, John Lennon’s Aunt Mimi’s house, and the porch at the front of that house where John and Paul first began their journey as Lennon and McCartney.

I loved everything about Liverpool … the politics, the accent, the history, the architecture, and it was pure luck that our rainy day Beatles’ tour ended right outside the Cavern where we ran in very quickly to avoid the relentless rain - just as the Beatles’ final recording (using old recordings of John’s voice) was about to be released and played for the first time ever to a packed Cavern cellar. It was a very poignant moment.

The whole experience was great. But one thing that bothered me slightly on the tour was when our guide mentioned how the number 9 was so important in John’s life. He was born on the 9^th October. His first home was number 9. Brian Epstein first saw the band on the 9^th November and they signed a contract with him on the 9^th May, beginning a 9 year relationship. And finally, while John was killed on the 8^th December, 1980 … it was actually the 9^th December in the UK time zone.

This discomfort was aggravated when it began to dawn on me that at that point in time I was hurtling towards my next birthday in the spring of 2024 when I would be 62 years old. I was also born in 1962 and I lived at number 62 for the first twelve years of my life. I hadn’t signed a contract to conquer the music world and I don’t remember any momentous occasions involving the number 62 – although my dad did win a Shrove Tuesday pancake race in our local Tesco car park when he was 62, winning a Le Creuset frying pan and a Jif Lemon apron as his reward … but my cogs began to turn and I started to link the number 62 in my life to the untimely demise of John Lennon on 9^th December.

In anticipation of hitting that 62^nd milestone, my superstitions around that number were beginning to strengthen their grip – all because of the simple alignment of my age, my year of birth and my house number - and the tour guide’s information about John Lennon and the number 9 … to the point where I was wishing I could leap over my 62^nd year in order to get myself ‘in the clear’ so as not to meet my own sticky end.

I don’t mean this in any frivolous way whatsoever. I feel incredibly lucky to still be healthy, active and alive when so many friends and family don’t have that privilege. But I couldn’t help thinking that superstition was waking me up like a dawn raid bang on the door from the drugs squad. I felt an unease that something big – and most likely, bad - was about to happen.

But in a more rational moment, I asked myself, was I really that superstitious? Am I superstitious now? What even is superstition? I have a habit of throwing spilled salt over my left shoulder, I ‘touch wood’ and I absolutely never put new shoes on a table, so I suppose you could say I’m on the periphery. I feel like I’m in good company though. I’d once heard that even Christopher Dean of Torvill and Dean fame apparently always lined up his skate guards next to Jayne Torvill’s – always with hers on the left, and his own on the right – replicating their preparations before their now infamous success with Ravel’s Bolero at the Sarajevo Olympic games

But any superstitious nature I have is tempered slightly by Friday the 13^th - the day I was born, so I tend to convince myself that it’s the luckiest of all days for me rather than a day where anything and everything can go wrong. The mind can do great things!

But my superstitions around the number 62 were soon to be confirmed. As soon as I arrived at that 62^nd birthday milestone, so did a highly irritating, relentless cough which ended up in two GP visits, blood tests and a chest x ray. I’m pleased to say that all was well and the cough eventually subsided.

This was soon followed by very, very painful toothache resulting in some minor treatment and a visit to the dental hospital to have a tooth extracted: a tooth which was rooted in my sinus. Okay, the dental hospital saved me a lot of money so that was a plus, but I couldn’t help thinking it was going to be a lot worse than it actually was.

Then came some surprise minor but unpleasant and necessary surgery. Not what I wanted but again, it could’ve been worse.

This was quickly followed by a steroid injection for my very painful plantar fasciitis and in between all of this were two ear infections, two bouts of norovirus (horrific), a flare up of acne rosacea and, there’s no show without punch as they say, Covid!

None of these niggles carried the doom that I thought was in store, but they were little calls to action, to address those niggles … a kind of activism – an activism which isn’t all about big gestures - just small steps to making a difference, to changing the story.

Superstitions, manifesting as specific patterns of behaviour – are also a reminder of the mysteries in life: very real experiences which we don’t understand and over which we often have no control but are called to accept.

In literature, similar realities are given the label of Magic Realism. No fantasy involved. Just very real-life, but plausible mysteries, often delivered in a story in an unusual, but not too fantastical, way – just enough, like superstition, to challenge us and get us to suspend disbelief.

Isabel Allende, who’s writing is often described as magic realism, was speaking recently on a radio programme about her own superstition around starting to write each new book on the same date each year – January 8^th - as that was when she began writing her first very successful book, ‘The House of the Spirits’. She was attempting to keep the feeling of doing things in exactly the same way in order to not to ‘jinx’ her success, but it also adds structure to her life, she said. Just like Christopher Dean’s ‘lucky’ pants or his skate guards fastidiously placed neatly to the right of his partner’s.

The mystery of magic realism in life, and our inability to control these mysterious happenings was something that was reflected in Allende’s own life when her daughter tragically died not long after her marriage.

I listened to Allende describe this period of time in, 'This Cultural Life' on Radio 4. Allende describes that when her daughter, Paula, was on her honeymoon in Scotland she wrote a letter … the words she wrote, she had received in a dream. She sealed it and addressed it to no one in particular but wrote on the front of the envelope, ‘To be opened when I die,’ as if she’d had some premonition of her imminent death. No one would know that only two years later in 1992 she would unexpectedly pass away aged 29.

Obviously, Allende was distraught with sorrow after her death, but when the letter was opened by Paula’s husband, in Allende’s presence, she said that her daughter talked of herself as if she was a spirit. She’d written, ‘We, the spirits will accompany you, if you are content and happy.’

Allende commented that the tone was so calm and wise – as if there was complete acceptance.

While this letter might have been based on a superstitious premonition, superstition doesn’t always elicit this feeling of calm and acceptance.

When asked how the letter had affected her, Allende said that she’s now in touch with the essential and she does not allow the non-essential into her brain or her life.

Dwelling on the mystery, the lack of control, the agitation around superstition or worry is all non-essential stuff that is ‘clutter’ as Allende calls it.

She now tries to focus on what matters - as some things are just out of our control. Keep things simple. Get rid of anything that is not essential in life was her advice.

Superstition, I think, serves no more of a purpose, in western culture, than to hand us some structure or focus and perhaps allows us to take small steps towards a change. But like magic realism, it is difficult not to feel the trepidation around the mystery surrounding motifs and symbols that are repeated in life - because they are real. They are there. They are not fantasy - just like Lennon’s number 9 or my number 62 … but acceptance is the key to beginning to remove any superstitious fear and to accepting them as part of the magic realism of the real world … something beyond our understanding but which can result in – as a way to make sense of these mysteries - small steps towards change: to pay attention and to take the type of action that makes turns us all into activists. The small actions which have their own ripple effect.

Life is full of patterns. Life itself is a pattern … a kaleidoscope of shapes and colours blending and contrasting. Sometimes it looks good. Other times it looks like the worst mess ever. But the mystery is real, and something to be embraced and owned rather than feared. That’s not easy, but it’s the only way. Because it doesn’t disappear.

As I travel towards number 63, there is still a lingering sense of relief that 62 wasn’t the year of my demise (there’s still two months to go so fingers crossed … oops there goes another superstitious action!). I have a better understanding of knowing that there is always action to take. And this gives me more empathy with, and hope for, others who have far bigger fears, traumas and grief in their lives. But however long it takes and the older I get, I know that not acting is not an option. And superstition can be a tool to begin exploring this action – whatever the circumstance. While acceptance is important, accepting that in itself can be hard. Any acceptance can be hard. But action is the first step towards this.

Small changes … keeping things simple and, like Allende, getting rid of the clutter in our heads and in our lives – things we don’t need to live with, alongside embracing the mystery of life, just might be the way forward … our escape route from being locked into any unsubstantiated superstition surrounding these mysteries, while using them to empower a positive stepping stone to something else, no matter how scared, lonely or bereft we might feel. There’s always a way.

So here's to a clutter free life … a life lived with simplicity and clarity – ready to face the good and the bad, the sadness and the joy, with the grace of acceptance of the process of whatever the circumstance brings, and the tenacity and strength for change without fear or prejudice.

Here’s to 63!

A Blessing from John O’Donohue