Toothless in the United States

This summer, the day before I was due to fly to Boston from the UK, my front tooth came out! We’d been cleaning out kitchen cupboards of foodstuffs and a packet of dried mango needed to go. Unable to dump it, but unwilling to carry it all the way to The US, I turned to the only other viable alternative. I sat watching TV late that evening and downed the entire packet. It was only when I was at the last handful that I felt that there was a piece of stone or glass in my mouth. Spitting out the foreign object onto my palm I was perplexed about the shape and colour. This was neither a stone nor a piece of glass. In fact, it looked more like a part of me. More like a front tooth. Rising with a sense of dread from the sofa I approached the mirror above the fireplace and smiled. The reflection felt like a smack in the face.

There is something about losing one’s front teeth that feels grief-like. They say that dreams about teeth falling out are usually about grief or loss. Well, I can say it may be a metaphor for grief but losing one’s teeth also actually causes a bit of grief.

I spent a useless few hours phoning dentists to get an emergency appointment. You then discover the reality that what constitutes an emergency for you just does not hack it for the NHS dentist! My main problem it seemed was that I was not in excruciating pain. The tooth I had lost was a root filling and as such devoid of sensitivity. Had I been writhing in agony I’m sure an appointment would’ve opened. So, there was nothing for it but to fly to the US toothless. It would mean weeks of looking frightening. I tried to smile with my mouth closed and usually managed. However, in an IKEA store in Boston, while holding my four-week-old grandson an American lady approached me and cooed and exclaimed of the tiny baby in my arms, “how beautiful a baby, how tiny his feet and hands”. I agreed and in my total pride as a new grandmother beamed my appreciation of her kind words. She recoiled from me in horror and over her shoulder in a huge mirrored cupboard I understood why.

There is something demeaning about being toothless. The character in the Victor Hugo's 1862 novel Les Misérables, Fantine, has her two front teeth pulled to sell them for money. In the movie of the novel, the heroine, played by Anne Hathaway, has her back teeth removed instead. The moviemakers knew instinctively that their audience would have lost a degree of sympathy and empathy with the heroine had she been so maimed.

The proof of this is the more recent serial version of the same novel which decided to be brutally honest about the scene and show the heroine having her two front teeth pulled out. The horror of this episode so shocked fans that there was outrage online with devotees furious and angry beyond belief that their heroine was now no longer what she once was.  It had obviously ruined the whole series for them.

Being toothless is not all negative. It taught me a degree of detachment. My son had to have a tooth filled in Boston, while I was there, and the $500 bill made me determined to avoid any dentist help in the US. Toothless I came and toothless I would go.

It was a remarkably useful prop when getting my two older grandsons to brush their teeth each night. I would watch them brush their teeth until they finished and then open my mouth wide and ask “do you want this to happen to you?”. At which point they quickly re-applied their toothbrushes with gusto. Strangely, none of my three grandchildren flinched at my toothless state. They hugged me as much as ever and it was salutary to see that disfigurement is not such a big deal for the young. As long as you play, read to them, take them to the parks and chat and laugh with them they overlook all sorts of oddities.

I enjoyed time with loved ones in Boston.   I also had the fortune to meet up with an old friend of mine who lives two hours north of Boston. She came down by train to see me for a few hours and warned me that she felt she had aged greatly in the 10 years since we’ve seen each other and might be hard to recognise at the train station. I sent her an email and told her not to worry as she could easily spot me as I was missing a front tooth!  It did give me a hillbilly appearance which by the second week began to even make me laugh. Especially when brushing my hair and putting on make-up in the morning. It felt like barring the barn door long after the horse has bolted.

When I returned home I managed to find a dentist to construct a replacement on a post drilled into the root of my old tooth. Thankfully cheaper than an implant! As the dentist held up a card to work out the colour of the replacement tooth she said: “yes, I think it needs to be slightly blue like the other teeth” to her young assistant. Depressing news indeed! Whatever, the gap has gone and I can now smile without frightening nearby strangers.  

I’ve learned a lot from the whole experience. When you pass 60 parts of you have a tendency to fall off or alternatively, weird things decide to grow on you. Physically that can be shocking but there are also mental cracks that appear. Names escape one, reasons for entering a room evaporate. Simple words that are not at all complicated evaporate from the mind. But love remains and it eases all ills, physical and mental. Loved ones work their magic, massaging healthy hope back into old bones and making new wholesome memories to hold onto. There are worse things than being toothless and my replacement may be a shade of blue but I am not feeling blue just very grateful for everything.

"If we are not happy and joyous at this season, for what other season shall we wait and for what other time shall we look?" 

Bahá’í Writings

Gems of inestimable value

Teachers do their best, they really do!  It’s also true sometimes that best shot is far off the mark.  Parents also are far from perfect.  So the whole business of education, from conception to grave, is not an industrial production line and indeed never should be.

Teaching occasionally allows you to see the real gems that have been produced.  You marvel at the beauty of the stone, the cut faces positioned to catch and reflect the light.  Each one gloriously unique.  Then despite efforts, or due to lack of attention there are the flawed stones.  They can have defects deep within, an odd crack destroys the pristine surface.  You sense all is not well in how they relate to others.  Even their ability to reflect virtues has been reduced.  Whoever cut these stones was not adept but careless.  Huge sections have been hacked out by random blows.  A part of you longs to see this gem unspoiled before the cuts of life have seared them.  But this is an idle wish and the focus must be on the task in hand.  Hidden away within this flawed stone there is strength, a tone of colour rarely seen.  Finding these “gems of inestimable value” in ourselves and others is all that matters.  Often, they are found in dark places and for good practical reasons. 

After all, diamonds are formed 2000 miles below the earth’s surface at that boundary between the core and the earth’s mantle.  Plumes of heat from this part, at 4000 degrees Celsius, rise upwards towards heating the stones above.  Certain types of rock (called kimberlites) are volatile when heated and explode violently spewing diamonds up towards the surface with their eruptions.

Finding gems in the darkness below the earth, where light cannot reach requires effort.  You need to identify among all the dead stone the priceless and in its natural state the uncut diamond does not hint at its glory within.  You need to become experienced at identifying the potential, its capacity.  This is the first task.  Note, how uncut natural diamonds look.  Disappointing, isn't it?

Then the gemstone must be taken to the light.  Only when exposed to the edification of learning, growing, discovering and being tested can it begin to shape itself.  The next stages are fourfold and it is good to understand them all.  Finding the gemstone is only the beginning of a delicate and precise art.

Planning

The size, clarity and crystal direction is examined when deciding where to mark the diamond.  Here, the eye has to see the end in the beginning.  Perhaps, there are three parts each of which will produce lovely gems.  Despite the loss in size, the expert can see the end result will be more perfect stones.  This part involves marking where the slices will be made.  Decisions are taken as to where you will cleave, at what angle and on what plane.  Without awareness it is possible to shatter the stone and end up with something worthless.  We need to plan

Cleaving or sawing

To cut the hardest stone you need to use diamonds.  Only they are hard and pure enough to make the cleave correctly.  With cleaving, the new pristine surfaces are revealed.  These surfaces have never been exposed to air or light and their purity is startling.  This is not a small challenge.  Every stone is unique, its planes at different angles with unexpected shades of colour millimetres beneath.  With good planning your cleave begins to release the beauty within.  But incredible force is necessary and pain is a necessary part of this process.  

Bruting

This is where the diamond is literally grated against another diamond to create a basic shape.  During bruting you try and not lose unnecessary stone but you have to prepare the stone so that facets can be created. This is also known as girdling or rounding. The girdle is the band which is formed around the thickest part of the stone.  The stone is rounded off by such close contact.  The process requires others we cannot do this alone.  It is in service to our community with others we find our basic shape. – Brutal shaping from others!

Polishing

Polishing is the final stage of the cutting process, giving the diamond its finished proportions.  Often 17 or 18 facets are made creating a single cut.  It is this final stage that will determine how much brilliance and fire a diamond can display. Minor inconsistencies in symmetry and proportions can make the difference between a luminous diamond and a dull, lifeless stone.  You must work on what you find within not some blueprint you might have in your head.  The stone must come alive to its potential and you must let go of your expectations.  Fundamentally, it is the gem’s ability to reflect the light at angles and colours of their own creation that you long for.  If a production like mentality is adopted you damage the priceless for the mundane. 

Letting go!

As an educator or as one who has been educated, or ideally both the final stage is letting go.  You must throw away these priceless gems.  No keeping them in crowns or cabinets to gloat over.  It is in scattering far and wide these glistening reflectors of light this world is made a brighter place.  You need to be detached because you have no ownership here.  The product is sometimes better and brighter than anything you have ever experienced and it tempting to hang on to such jewels, even for a while.  But don’t, let go and be grateful you did not spoil these treasures.  Our fear should not be of loss but of never finding within ourselves or others the treasures that certainly lie within all of us.

“lay bare those gems that lie hidden within the mine of their true and inmost selves”

            (Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 287)