Come Wind Come Weather

Once in a while you discover a treasure.  Such was my seemingly insignificant but oddly inspiring  find in one of my mothers’  bookshelves.  Daphne Du Mauriers’ 82 paged, 1940 Indian edition collection of short stories seemed to be waiting for me.

There’s always something irresistible about old and brittle yellow pages. I picked it up and I am ashamed to say that it was almost a year before I decided to read it.  One evening I embarked.  I have no regrets except that I wish I had begun earlier!

She compares the sixteenth century to her twentieth century and exposes the gulf between the modern ‘Safety First’ motto and the older ‘true valor’  constancy ‘ come wind come weather’ that Bunyan extolled. 

In her preface she says:

“In the following stories I have tried to show how ordinary men and women, like you and me, have faced up to the challenge of war and change, and how they overcome their troubles.  There is nothing heroic about them, they are in no wise different from or better than ourselves.  But each one has experienced the “inner battle” and look to the future now with faith and courage and conviction.”

It was Linda Fay in her blog who pushed me to start reading again.  I love reading but life gets so rushed and then I get to read only when I am on vacation.  She said she developed the discipline of reading a little everyday a book other than what homeschool required – reading for pleasure.  A little every day.  I decided to do this at night.  Sometimes, so bleary eyed that I could hardly focus and those nights I would read only what I intelligently could.  A paragraph, a page, a chapter.  I was amazed at what happened to me.  My world grew.  Not massively huge but wider – wider than my little sphere of the immediate.   Domestic frustrations, tensions, irritations, apprehensions became a little more bearable.  Life in general took on a more objective perspective.

Daphne Du Maurier helped me throw caution to the wind. In today’s’ world of strife and war, not much has changed since 1940.  Let nations war, why should people?  MORAL, not military,  armament.  A militant approach to morality; self-responsibility, kindness, goodness, peace and generosity of thought.  Simple. Profound.  “It seems at times easier to face a hundred bombers than one irritable relative!  Such is our poor human cowardice.”

This book helped me so much.  To not needlessly nit pick with my kids, not be as irritable with my spouse, think kinder of others than I was wont  and think less of myself and my pettiness.  It is such a pathetic place to be – to  wallow in self-pity and bitterness rather than up and arm to the greater!

This book is available on Amazon. Unfortunately it costs a lot more than six pence now!  But if you wish to transcend then it will be worth it!  I have found a new set of wings in a resolve to ascend.  This has also helped my children.  Learning to deal with each other in kindness, to not jump to the worst conclusion about the other, to give each other the benefit of the doubt. In stead of placing huge expectations they are finding that it is far better to ENJOY each other.   For the most part they get along well and really cannot do without each other but occasionally they bicker.  Instead of ‘resolving’ issues for them.  I asked them to think  a loud the scenario and ask what each could have done differently to turn the tide.  Then I asked them to write each other a letter.  They were so sweetly penned out and the love expressed seemed to wipe out whatever grievance they previously held!

Winston Churchill promised victory along with blood, sweat and tears.  This victory was sweeter!