Unfolding beauty

Through the week DC and I went to see an amateur production of The Steemie. It was great; well acted, and staged. We both very much enjoyed it. I later commented to DC that we were probably getting to be the last generation who had experienced women such as those in the play. One of the women reminded me so much of my mother's mother. As well as humour there is a lot of the struggle and hardship of 1950's working class life portrayed in this play, together with warmth and friendship.

I was talking this evening about the play with my parents. They started to tell of their experience as children round about that time. My great grand mother on my mother's side came to England from Ireland and it seems soon had my grand mother. My grand mother had a hard life and a kind heart. Her husband was amongst other things a miner. Talking with my parents a number of stories came out. My grand mother used to take in washing to earn money. She would wash it at home by hand in a laborious process then iron it using a flat iron heated on a coal range. One day my mother still a child ran by and knocked over some of the ironing. Her mother picked the whole lot up and threw it over to the floor saying 'I'm sick!' I could feel the exhausted almost desperate state of my grand mother and the shock and realisation of my mother. 'That was when I realised' said my mother. I knew what she was going to say next - 'and I started to help her' I could see the pivotal experience. There is the Buddha nature.

My father told tales from his childhood and I recalled his parents. His mother died when I was eighteen, I used to enjoy her company and occasionally I find I miss her almost thirty years on. My brother and I have our roots are in working class Tyneside and have made the shift to middle class. But times and class structure change and in truth the working class of my grand parents is no more. My life has encompassed the tail end of a way and time now gone together with a way and time of which my grand parents could not have dreamed. I find it had to imagine what my nephews lives will encompass.

The Buddha nature, unborn, unchanging yet reflecting and reflected in this unfolding moment.

In memory of my grand parents.