Chronicle of a death foretold
In early December, Alex is going to become a father.
This news is wonderful in its own right, and it also gifted us the chance to talk about the future of Yellow. I imagined Alex might want to take paternity leave immediately, but he is thinking further ahead. It is in a year’s time, in 2024 (when his partner’s maternity leave ends) that he is contemplating taking a complete break.
Which I think is fabulous. Not just for their family, but for Yellow too. Since Yellow is a co-creation between Alex and I, there is no question of my doing it alone. Instead, we will be obliged to take a long pause, which will give us the space to see what wants to happen next. As I have written about elsewhere, things happen in a pause, so whilst we may come back and pick up where we left off, we may not. Perhaps we will transform Yellow into some new, yet to be imagined form, or stop entirely?
I have no idea which it might be, but I love the fact that it is coming. By then we will have been doing Yellow for three and a half years and such a disruption seems timely.
One of the questions that Yellow seems to revolve around is ‘what brings you alive?’ Having a complete sabbatical will allow Alex and I to consider what it means to keep Yellow itself lively – for us and for participants – or whether it might be the time to let go, gracefully. One way or another, whatever we do, it won’t be the result of inertia.
This also means I appreciate the coming year of Yellow in a different way, as if it were the last (which it might be). Contemplating death is one way to appreciate life itself, albeit one that modern society shuns or ignores.
But now, as I think about the year to come, I know that we have only five more Yellow groups, that there are only 27 places open, that we will do only one event. Which makes everything feel just a little bit more precious.
The idea of an ending also encourages me to reflect on what we have learned. Instead of simply being in the thick of it, I find myself reflecting on the experience from within. I ask myself what it is that is actually happening to create this rich web of conversation and relationship? What are the strands that weave it together? How do different people contribute? What is it that Alex and I have to do, or not do? What do we all get from it?
I have been joking for a long time that (from a systems perspective at least) death is under-rated. And now I am experiencing that directly, as a direct result of an impending birth. Birth and death. The one leads to the other. How could it be any other way?
