The Wisdom of Pink Fluffy

some reflections in the days leading up to our trip to Dnipro

​I realise I am avoiding talking to my parents about the trip. I know there is nothing I can say that will stop them from worrying.

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Hearts & Minds are doing a new project in high schools, in the additional support for learning units. In our first session we went into an English class and when faced with questions about why we are Clowndoctors, we assumed it must be an exam. I got stressed, snapped my pencil, ate my exam paper in a panic and fell off my chair. We didn’t manage to answer even one question, but they gave us A+++++++++++ so it worked out okay in the end.

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I noticed myself tidying today. I remembered my granny telling me how important it is to wear clean knickers in case you die suddenly, how she cleaned her house so carefully before she went into hospital for the last time. It was comforting to imagine that she knew she might die, that she was ready. This is not on a suicide mission, I am not expecting to die. I fully intend to come home healthy and wholehearted. But to be sure, when I die, it will be with a heart full of love and gratitude and joy. Or that’s the intention anyway.

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On the beach, I’m enjoying the feeling of knowing that there is a stone waiting for me. I take a breath and look down and there it is - a flat, tear shaped pebble. Love at first sight.

Kate shared an exercise - to use our stone to ground ourselves in our bodily experience and then experiment with sending ourselves out into the environment - into the movement of a tree, a bird soaring overhead. To allow our cells to feel the sensation of flight.

It reminded of me our work in hospitals - how if we have make a meaningful connection with a child lying in a hospital bed, and they see us dancing or stretching, their mirror neurones mean that they can experience those bodily sensations as if they were their own. I’ve explained this badly, but it’s a thing.

Later, I was rolling around on a beach (highly recommend Kate’s work if you like the sound of that!), and came to a stop - I looked down and saw the tear shaped stone - it must have fallen out of my pocket. I put it back, feelings of loss and relief crashing into one another. Later, I opened my other pocket and found the first tear shaped stone. I’m stunned and not at all surprised.

I put them side by side, and felt me and Igor, each other’s anchor, fully grounded and simultaneously soaring in the sky, stretching our wings as wide and far as we possibly can, hearts open and….let’s be honest…probably in a fit of giggles.

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We have a call with Jan. He describes Dnipro as ‘normal’. The part of a horror movie before the monster arrives. He describes drones passing over head in the evenings low enough that you feel they will brush the top of your head. He describes our journey to the surrounding villages, and the check points and tanks and mine fields that we will pass. Jan’s normal is not our normal. Soaring in the sky? It is a reality check.

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Another visit to the high school. The last two visits, one boy has hidden in a den in the corner of the class for the whole session. The teacher says he really struggles with connection. This week, he found a tiny pink fluffy ball and poked it through the gap in the chair. I went over, ‘Wow! A pink Fluffy!’ I tried to meet it - gesturing with my hand, gently. It was hard to tell what he was responding to. I moved my hand closer, palm up. Pink fluffy moved towards it and then suddenly a tiny green crocodile enters, Stage Right. My hand retreats. The crocodile exits. I move closer again, pink fluffy lets me stroke his soft little head and then suddenly the crocodile arrives, my hand leaps back. The boy has managed to create a non-verbal ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ - we are building a language.

I bring out my harmonica and play a note - Pink Fluffy responds immediately, and Crocodile skids back onto the scene. I play a little tune and they dance, in perfect harmony. I speed up, slow down, checking that we are all together. I reach a crescendo, they are dancing in a frenzy and then we stop, in sync. They take a solemn bow and there is applause coming from behind me - a sceptical classroom assistant has been watching the whole thing.

I am delighted and call over a classmate.

Andrew! Hey! Have you ever seen a Pink Fluffy dancing with a Crocodile before?!!
Err, no
Want to?
I guess so?

He sits and the show strikes up again. Again they dance and take a bow and we applause. I invite over another student, and then another until we are ten people watching the tiny show, shouting ‘Bravo!! Encore!!’

At the end of the class, the teacher passes me a note. There is a stick drawing of a person, next to it an outline of Pink Fluffy and under it, ‘Is you friend?’

My heart just about burst.

How profound it is to recognise a need for connection, ask for it to be met, have it be met, and be able to receive the offering fully. And how complicated that is for so many of us. 

So I’m thinking about the moment we hugged Jan goodbye during our last visit and he said ‘next time come to Dnipro’ and how that need landed like a pilot light in our hearts and stayed there, gently flickering, waiting patiently, until we were ready give it the fuel of our attention and commitment.

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Our last call before we fly, this time with Jan and the film crew who will accompany us (Madara, Valdes and Ivanna as well as Kristele who will support us from Latvia). We discuss logistics - where to pick up helmets and bullet proof vests - and I am having an out of body experience wondering how my life has delivered me to this moment, sitting in a cafe in Glasgow, talking seriously about wearing a bullet proof vest, driving through check points. And then Jan starts speaking quietly - about the villages we will visit, how isolated they are, how the war effects them. He talks about the need for human connection, and how much of a huge difference it makes, 'bringing humanity to these places'. How he has been answering this need from the very beginning of the war without doubt or hesitation, driving 100kms a week to deliver humanitarian aid and clowning missions.

And I recognise in Jan my conversations with Igor about why we are making this trip, and see in my minds eye these concentric circles of love, this ripple effect of human connection expanding out, all the way from those villages, through Jan, through us, the film crew, through our friends offering us supervision and support, our parents and families, through Pink Fluffy & crocodile and through everyone in between and beyond.

I feel we are ready to meet the world as it is - Pink Fluffy & Crocodile, the Yes and the No, the beauty and the horror, hearts wide open.