Hell is Other People

“’Hell is other people’ (J-P Satre). But so is heaven”

             Johnathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis.  Read it!

 

I remember doing a training exercise years ago, in which we had to cut out magazine pictures of things that were important to us and make a poster of them. Many people did pictures of family, forests, sea, fashion, pets, books, etc. What would be on yours? I covered mine with pictures of people. (I remember being frustrated when someone called it ‘conservative’ but it showed me photos in magazines really are of a narrow sector of society!) Yes, I love nature and books and movies and all those other things, but at the end of the day, what really matters is other people in my life. Although I do agree with Satre – people can also drive me nuts!

 

Yesterday a friend posted this on facebook;

 

(from The Idealist’s Photo website)

which reminded me of an old poem I wrote years ago & recently dug out of one of the screeds of journals which litter my bedside table, to type up. I can still adore people for something as simple as the way they smile, laugh, look after another person, move, tell a story, or speak.

 Just as long as I don’t have to live with them all….

 

I fall in love all the time

Just at a glance

I can fall

head over heels

for no reason at all

 

I fell in love

with my daughter’s doctor

his gentle accent

his delicate words

talking about her

asking about her

the way he carried his tall torso

as he leaned over her

checking her little body

the tubes and wires

her heartbeat

as she lay

healing on the bed

 

I fell in love

with a friend of a friend

her laughter

her sorrow

as she told of the fire

that destroyed her house

Her hair bounced, shook,

as she swished it out of the way

The distress of the recollection

shattering the smile on her lips

 

I fell in love with an aunt-to-be

(they never quite made the wedding

before the uncle died of cancer)

At the funeral

her tear-stained eyes

her bittersweet smile

her kind words for everyone else

her honesty, directness, openness

admitting her vulnerability

She warmed herself to me

 

I fall in love all the time

Just at a glance

I can fall

head over heels

for no reason at all

 

Supermoons, Supermums

This week we have been treated to a supermoon.

 

Supermoon  photo from Waikato Times

I read that the moon looks 14% bigger and 30% brighter than when it is furtherest away from us.  I am amazed that scientists can be so accurate - sounds like a TV ad to me - ‘Now with 14% more moon than before! 30% extra brightness, free! Don’t delay! See your supermoon today! Offer expires Wednesday!’

And between the clouds, it was stunning. Europeans talk of a ‘man in the moon’, but the Japanese say there is an ‘usagi’ – a rabbit, and now I can never see anything other than a long-eared, hopping rabbit.  

I am intrigued at how brightly the moon shines, yet I know it is not actually the moon itself – so deceptive, and further proof for me that things are not always as they seem. We can be convinced of one truth, while actually another is more accurate.  Yes the moon shines, but it is actually just a lump of rock. Both perspectives are true, so who is to judge which is more valid? I am no longer sure what is true in this world!

As an aside, I got talking this week with a foster mother who has taken on the challenge of taking on a child from a very rough background. My admiration for her is immense. It is no exaggeration to say that she is saving this kid’s life, and no doubt the lives of who he would have damaged on his inevitable route to prison.  Once again it affirmed for me that the job we do as parents, bringing up mostly normal, mostly civilised human beings, with just the standard amount of baggage, is no short order. Having your kids survive to be robust, contributing adults is indeed a huge feat. We are all supermums and superdads, whether your kids are baby Einsteins, Beethovens or normal garden-variety slightly-interesting, mostly-benevolent human beings. Well done you! Supermoons, supermums and dads- shine on!

 

I am the moon

I am the moon

Waxing and waning

In monthly cycles

Today, shining full, and round, and bright

Yet I shine not my own light

Merely reflecting you

The sun

So strong and bright,

That even in the dark

You light up the sky

Through me.

But who would say

‘Moon!

You are not enough of a moon!

You should shine yourself!

You should be like the sun!

You should be more than just a Moon!’?
 

I am the moon.

Today I am a thin sliver

a fingernail in the sky

Until I disappear, unseen.

Silently there

Until you shine your light on me again
 

 

Tuesday Morning Grumps

 Okay, I promised something a bit more light-hearted, this time. So try this on for size – a poemy-story thing I wrote for children, called ‘Tuesday Morning Grumps’.

Contrary to popular opinion, writing for children is the HARDEST writing to do- every word has to count, language has to be ‘fresh’, can’t be preachy, has appeal to kids, empower them and ideally be fun and/or funny, and if you make it rhyming it’s DOUBLY HARD – rhythm and cadence have to be perfect, rhymes have to be original, the story still has to ‘move along’ and it has to fit in a 32 page children’s book layout. All in all, a TALL order.

You know how Tuesday mornings are? – Too long since the weekend to remember how that felt, DAYS before the next one so it’s too soon to even start looking forward to. It seem like Tuesday mornings  are when your socks get gets lost, the  washing won’t get dry, you run out of milk, the cat spews up….    I even put something special like a fruit string (“It’s fruit, not lollies J”) in the kids’ lunch boxes for ‘Cheer-up Tuesday’ so they actually have something to look forward to on a Tuesday.  

Kids’ books aren’t meant to be preachy, but I still wanted to get a message across, - that we all have days like ‘em and the ‘Tuesdays’ in our lives come & go any day of the week. By making the 'Grumps' a kind of a imaginary monster, I hoped kids would get the idea that they can control how they react to them.  
Just gotta go with it, and turn the page of the calendar….!

 

                    Read the poem to your kids & tell me how they react :)

 

Beware the Tuesday Morning Grumps!

You wake up one morning, a Tuesday, let’s say.

It seems like a perfectly promising day,

but the moment your toes touch the cold wooden floor

All your warm cosy dreams seem to fly out the door.

Everything, anything, starts to go wrong.

The day looms ahead looking dreary and long.

Beware- it’s the Tuesday Morning Grumps!

 They get in your hair and they fluff it about-

Impossible knots that you’ll never get out.

They hide your left sock somewhere under the bed.

You crawl down to get it and bump goes your head!

They mess with your mind ‘til you can’t even choose

which clothes to wear with your favourite shoes.

Beware- it’s the Tuesday Morning Grumps!

 They make porridge go cold and burn all your toast

and use up the strawberry jam you love most.

Then they spill orange juice all over your books

so your Mum gives you one of those ‘not again’ looks.

You go to the bathroom, the toothpaste’s all squeezed up.

The basin’s disgusting, like someone has sneezed up.

Beware- it’s the Tuesday Morning Grumps!

 

 

They mess up your homework, like the dog has chewed it.

Your library book looks as if someone has glued it.

They make your bag heavy, though your lunch isn’t in it.

You’re rushing and racing ‘till the very last minute.

You stub your big toe but there’s no time to fuss,

if you don’t hurry up, you’ll be late for the bus.

Beware- it’s the Tuesday Morning Grumps!
 

 But as Tuesday wears on, they get tired and lazy

Of thinking up tricks to make you go crazy!

Things start to go better, they slink sadly away

It turns out, after all, to be quite a good day.

By bedtime that night, you’ve rid the Grumps from your head.

Thinking ‘what a great day’, you snuggle down into bed.

But…..

Beware the Wednesday morning grumps!

A moment of remembrance

This month marks 5 years since my Dad and brother died, both of cancer, within 10 days of each other. Now there’s a story – truth is stranger than fiction after all! The poem is pretty much Johnny, straight up, and attempts to note that story.  

 

Remembering John

John,    who shares my father’s name and for many years, the same address

John,    who never spoke, withdrawn, surly, silent, rude, to the fury of my father

John,    who called me a “bloody little nuisance” and had no regards for the picture of a tractor I had drawn him for Christmas

John,     who went to Holland, his first big OE, and came back talking so much we couldn’t shut him up

John,     who married and had 4 children, now all grown up and having children of their own

John,     who loved his farm and his cows, his tractors and his motorbikes

John,     who once said he’d “sell the bloody lot and move to town” except that he wouldn’t know what to do with himself

John,     who once told me he didn’t know if land would keep increasing in value, but he did know they weren’t making any more of it

John,     who sat and told me stories at a party, after a beer or 2, and laughed and talked for hours

John,     who was told shortly after his 50^th birthday (what a party!) that he had a brain tumour

John,     who quietly resigned himself to his fate, saying ‘what else can I do?’

John,     who, when my mother asked what he would like for his 51^st birthday, quietly asked for 20 more years please

John,     who I sat with in hospitals and homes, at bedsides, holding his hand, talking, taking him out from those four walls when he could manage it

John,     the stoic farmer, who called a spade a bloody spade

John,     who quietly died on his own one night

John,     who, 10 days later, called our father, with whom he shares a name, and once again, the same address

 

 

As I’ve said before, death & tragedy bring forth poems and stories, as my way of learning to deal with it. ‘Spring heart’ is just a simple story about an old man experiencing his last moments, as I wondered what that must really feel like. I guess I’ll never be able to really find out how close I come.

 

Now, don't stress about the state of my mental health. But we all go through tough stuff, and I am thinking of friends as they 'take their turn'. Hopefully these pieces will connect to them and help them accept what is happening as a normal part of life.

 

Promise -  after this some more light–hearted pieces!

 

 

Spring Heart

He had been waiting for this moment all his life.

And now that it was here, it caught him by surprise, really.

He had been expecting it for years. Well, for always. Who could ever presume they had a tomorrow?

But he hadn’t expected it today. There was nothing to mark this day as momentous.

 

As the pains came and went in waves, bands of tightness across his chest, he gasped for air, knowing that this was, indeed, the day.

He reached for his chest, as if holding his heart would encourage it to go on just a little longer.

 

He had just sat down at the kitchen table with his morning coffee, feeling slightly dizzy and nauseous after his usual short walk to collect the post from the mail box. Daphne was in town, she would be away for hours. So it was just him, his coffee, the morning paper, his blossoming spring garden through the plated glass, and the coronary.

 

Spring. How ironic. Spring was meant to be a time of growth, of renewal. But not for him.

 

It was true. Your life did flash past your eyes. But his was more like a slow 8mm movie, with flickers and scratches, grey and disjointed, just like those old movies he took in the 70s when the kids were little and home movie cameras were new. He saw the boys, in their little checked rompers, splashing in the paddling pool. He saw Valerie, coy and pretty, like first loves should be. How she had stolen his heart! They had married way too young, people said it wouldn’t last, but the cancer took her long before complacency and divorce could.

 

He looked around. Perhaps if he could just reach his coffee. He would have preferred water, but the kitchen sink was a marathon away. His shaking hand knocked the cup, the coffee spilt to make a footbath in the saucer. He had always hated that, growled at Daphne whenever she delivered his coffee already slopping around the ankles of the cup. How petty those irritants seemed now.

 

Perhaps she would get sick of shopping and come home early? Perhaps he could reach the phone on the sideboard? He chuckled inwardly. She would never have remembered her mobile, much less have it fully charged and switched on.

 

Daphne. Sweet, obliging, grey-haired, Daphne. They had been good for each other in these later years. Company. Caring. She had that wicked sense of humour which kept him on his toes. Pushed him out to join the bridge club, take up bowls, attend the rose competitions - do things no self-respecting farmer would have done without a woman to cajole him into it. She would be devastated to find him here, slouched in his chair, at the kitchen table.

 

His breath came short and sharp now, matching the pains which spread from his heart, throughout his body. The heart- that symbol of love. Ironic, again, that it should be the thing to kill him. He’d spent all his life working for love. The years on the farm, the miles of fences he had built; the hours he had spent walking up and down the pit in the milking shed,  putting on and taking cups off cows; the hay he had cut, raked, baled, stacked in the barn and fed out to the stock; the ragwort he had pulled; the drenching... It was all for the people he had loved. The portraits drifted through his memory as his consciousness faded in and out. His boys, his wives, his family, his mates- yes, even his mates. That had been love, although no kiwi bloke would ever use that word out loud.

 

He felt poised on a precipice. The pain kept him still very much in this life, but he teetered on the brink of whatever came next. Is this how a caterpillar felt as it wove its cocoon? Did it have any consciousness of the process, if not the destination?

 

Thoughts of his sons flashed through his consciousness. They had both done well, but neither of them had followed him onto the farm. Perhaps he had been too hard on them, expected too much, wanted them to be who they were not? How would they take the news? Gary, in Sydney, a partner in some fancy accountant’s firm. Having to take a few days off for Dad’s funeral. Bit of a nuisance. Slight regret he hadn’t stayed a few days longer last Christmas. Phil, in Auckland, living the vibrant gay lifestyle. How had that happened to a good kiwi farm boy? It didn’t matter now, anyway, he thought. They were good kids. Men. They were men now. Good men. He’d done a good job on them really. They were kind, hard working, good blokes. Valerie would be proud.

 

A new wave of pain shot through his chest, extending from his breastbone, up to his throat, a strangulating, suffocating pain. It pushed up through his neck, his jaw, his shoulder, crippling, shooting pain, nothing like the angina he had ignored for years.

 

Years. Seventy seven, he had had, nearly seventy eight. A fair old innings, although you always hope for at least 5 more.  But it had to end sometime, somehow.

 

His moment had come.

 

And now that it was here, he wished he could go back and do each moment again, laugh more, worry less; play more, work less; love more, argue less. But it was too late for regrets.

 

In the end, it all came down to him. Just him, on his own.

 

He had lived.

 

He had had the gift of life.

 

He had done what he had done; he had not done, what he had not done.

 

With a final closing of his eyes, he let it be.