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To Robin.
A quote often quoted, by Robin, and others, and perhaps a fitting reminder on this day of tribute and remembrance. My plans to note the day today were meant to be grand, and yet I sit at home in reflection rather than traipsing across the Khumbu Valley paying homage in the Climbers’ Memorial. At this point I want to give a huge shout out to Jemma and Rich, great friends of Robin and I, who have made an epic tribute to Robin this past weekend. Both have "Everest-ed" in their households by climbing the height of Everest on the stairs. They have also been raising funds for charity during their feat. The links to their donation pages are below. Check them out! I'm super proud of both of them for creating and completing this challenge.
Instead I’ve chosen to share my reflections with you in this published way.
The quote “the best laid plans” are in reference to the poem “To a Mouse” from the poet, Robert Burns. Here is the quote in English translation from the original Scottish version.
“The best-laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!”
Robert Burns, 1785
How fitting in tribute by adding the next two lines for consideration. With all the best intentions set out, many of us have been left with grief and pain, continuously flowing and ebbing, and eventually fading over the months. For some, it is likely that this grief and pain will never fully dissolve. For others, our lives rebuild, old relationships are strengthened and new and fulfilling relationships are formed. Relationships with memories. Relationships with others. All built on our experience of loss. All built on our experience with you, Robin.
Robin, rest well. You are remembered; and not only on this anniversary.
As what often happens with a poignant piece of prose I encounter, it takes me much later to understand the full and deeper significance of the piece of work.
“The best-laid schemes…” quote, often mis-quoted, and likely misinterpreted through nonchalance or whim.. Such as: “… best laid plans, and all that 🤷…” echoing a “meh” for recognizing that a change has had to occur due to some unforeseen circumstance. I am certainly guilty of this downplay; however, perhaps the sentiment remains the same from the deeper to the surface meaning of the quote.
To understand the deeper meaning, the next block of the poem is essential.
“Still you are blessed, and compared with me!
The present only touches you:
But oh! I backward cast my eye,
On prospects dreary!
And forward, though I cannot see,
I guess and fear!”
With the local event of the loss of Robin one year ago, and the global, ever evolving event of this epidemic we are all facing at the moment, I find this next block of the poem a fitting reminder to live in the present, rather than to re-live the past and fear the future. One is blessed when they can stop looking drearily on past events, as well as choosing to not be fearful of the future.
EVERYONE has experienced “the best-laid schemes” over the past year.
How we are choosing to face into these plans, ripped up and tossed in the wind, PLUS whichever shitty life events are also happening (cancer, job loss, isolation, separation, etc), I find this block of prose to be a reminder about grounding and taking control of what you can control- You. In this exact moment. That is it. That is all. You cannot even control the moment as a whole, rather only your reaction to the present in which you sit.
Be equipped with the tool of grace to notice what you are experiencing and which door you choose to open next. Be flexible and challenge your natural modus operandi if progress is what you yearn for.
Those of you who wish to plan, will naturally continue to do so. Plan and plan and plan and you will be prepared to seize the moment with the ever-sharpened tools within your tool box.
Those of you who wish to accept the moment as it comes, are well grounded and skilled in adaptation to allow yourselves to cope with the downward strikes that you encounter.
In whichever camp you identify, you are united. Others are feeling the same way. Others have dealt with the same emotions… from times far before Burns’ creation of To a Mouse.
Unite in your grief and share what you are experiencing.
As an individual, find solidarity. I continuously find life lessons to teach me that individualism is not as strong as the summation of support from willing others.
Change is inevitable. Acceptance is your unlocking key.
Okay, I’ve entirely oversimplified this last point, but maybe in another year I will be able to verbosely elaborate.
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