The scholar does not consider gold and jade to be precious treasures, but loyalty and good faith - Confucius

Once on a trip to Canada some years ago, my mum and were exploring the beautiful city of Vancouver. We watched fascinated as the little water taxi planes came down to land on the seafront. But after several hours of the city landscape, we grew weary of the shops, the noise, and materialism. We spotted a tiny sign, it said ‘the Chinese scholar’s home and garden’. We decided to enter. 

What a delight! It was a replica of a Chinese scholar’s home from the past and had wooden sliding doors, ornate desks with huge sheets of paper, endless paintbrushes for calligraphy, and the most exquisite gardens. It was built in 1986 by fifty-three master craftsmen from China using 950 crates of traditional material and constructed using 14th-century methods so no glue, screws or power tools.  Everything was made with so much care. Every tree, plant, rock, table, bowl or pond seemed to have been positioned with meticulous intent. 

Just as accurately as the traditional Chinese scholar would have placed his brush on the crisp rice paper to make his figures. The clean lines of the building and the beauty of the gardens nursed our weary spirits.  

Suddenly the noise of the busy city disappeared. Instead, the trickle of water or the noise of a leaf as you brushed past filled the quietness. Each view had been landscaped both externally and internally. A circular wooden opening captured a part of a tree, a corner of a pond or a storm perfectly. We sensed an eye with better taste had carefully honed all this beauty.  Its simplicity spoke to the senses and made you want to absorb it all in respectful silence. Our time there passed peacefully and it was only when the tour ended and we found ourselves on a busy Vancouver street once more, did we suddenly feel the loss of all its calmness and serenity.  

This week a dear friend was leaving the country. Returning to family members in the UK after many years abroad. The cost of posting her belongings, post-Brexit, was not only complicated by endless form filling but also plagued by horrendous shipping costs. It felt as if every item she owned had to be catalogued, described, and recorded by both Foreign Offices and UK official bodies before transportation could begin. Horrified by the high prices my friend carefully culled her precious belongings and then in panic as departure day loomed discarded even more.  She decided the only way to cope was to give her belongings to those she cared for. I received her treasured writing desk and chair, from her father. Soon all of her friends were blessed with her thoughtful bequests. The last few boxes were part of her father’s library and over the last few days, I have been sorting through his books in my flat.

What a delight. Here has evidently been another scholar, not of Chinese calligraphy or gardens but of that mindset. Books on history, religion, philosophy, and biographies abounded. Not one book on serial killers, paedophiles, or romantic fiction and it felt such a privilege handling the scholar’s library. Here, in a huge book on 'Excellence', he had placed a handwritten card with page numbers and recorded insightful quotes on this topic.

One sensed the careful mind behind all these books. The delight in spiritual questions with many books on prayer, Saint Thomas Aquinas, meditation, the life of Christ, and from other different religions. Many were books on education and public speaking or the art of conversation. Then, there were the detailed history books on ancient Greece to medieval Europe and even modern political studies.  Classical literature was there from works by Shakespeare to Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s novels. There was an unexpected little map that folded out to show all the great monasteries and religious centres that had ever existed in the UK.  So many are no longer in existence. There were endless dictionaries in English, Italian and French. I felt like an apprentice who keeps finding his teacher’s tastes are so far beyond him. A book of idioms in both English and Italian, detailed descriptions of societies, intricate philosophy treatises all hurt my mind.  I began to feel like a huge carthorse following a thoroughbred and avoiding the tricky fences while they soared over all before them.  

I was delighted to discover that a scholar’s library is like peering into another’s interests and enthusiasms. It felt like being awakened by their dedication to learn, examine and search for truth wherever it can be found. Wide-ranging and omnivorous in appetite. It seems so refreshing in the world that seems focused on perversity, character assassination or killer’s confessions.  I finished going through the library inspecting the books and discovered I felt the same gratitude I felt outside that scholar’s home in Vancouver. Grateful that such people exist in this world and heartened to think that there are probably other scholars still out there now gleaning things of beauty from this confusing and distracting world.

“Every good habit, every noble quality belongs to man’s spiritual nature, whereas all his imperfections and sinful actions are born of his material nature.”

Bahá’í writings

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

Making Failure An Art Form - or falling with style

I have come to momentous moment in my life. At this stage, when there are no longer children around to focus on it is time to examine oneself with clarity.  To see where I have come from, where exactly I am now and hopefully to look forward to the path ahead. It is a eureka moment indeed to reflect on life. What one has achieved, or hasn’t.  What choices lead to which results. It looks a bit like an underground tube station map. There are main lines along which one has spent a disproportionate amount of energy and time. Then, there are the numerous dead ends. Lines that seem to beckon appealingly but end nowhere. Here are a few.

My unproductive knitting hobby. I never managed to finish single item. I even had a knitting machine with which I wrestled but produced nothing of value.  Looking back at primary school we had to knit a cushion cover. It took an entire year. Those were the days when the whole class would sit obediently knitting in complete silence for an hour a day. Educationalists would hold their heads in outrage at the waste of time it entailed.  The lack of academic content. Question the learning objectives and value of skills acquired. Point out the demanded silence was a form of abuse against talkative young eager minds. But if I'm honest I enjoyed knitting more than almost all my other classes.  There was a meditative silent stillness in the room. Just a click click of needles. You knew the task. The method was straightforward and when you returned to your work you could see visible progress each day. It achieved something. Your brain could find a stillness in the moment.  In the year, I almost finished my cushion cover. My tendency to knit tighter and tighter until the needles could barely get through the stitches meant I had a lot of ripping out and re-doing to do. My cushion cover which started almost a foot wide gradually narrowed down to 2/3 of its original width. This was disappointing but accepted as part of the journey. The knitting class became a metaphor for the rest of life. Sometimes you make a pigs ear out of things and have to go back to fix it. It's okay you get better each time you repeat something. Spotting a slip earlier rather than later helps. Missing a single stitch is not an option. You have to keep each and every one to have success. Don't waste time comparing your cushion cover with others. You'll be devastated by how far ahead they’ve got and what nicer colours they’ve chosen.  

My failed martial arts ability. Fuelled by movies I was convinced that I could get my black belt and go through life confident in every situation. It did make me fitter but I got no further than the yellow belt. That is not something one can boast or swagger about.  The kata were wonderful. I would go to an empty gym near my home and put on a cassette player (yes, that far back) and do the karate moves hypnotically until it felt as meditative as the knitting. I did not like spar fighting. It involves being punched and kicked and I was fearful of both. For some reason I was usually paired with a curly haired tough looking girl who would fight arms flailing like a paddle steamer round and round. It was impossible to block those blows as we been taught in karate and so I'd spend an inordinate amount of the fight running backwards around the mat. Fortunately, she wasn’t fit and usually ran out of steam before she could do me much harm. I learnt a lot. I do not like to be hurt and did not enjoy hurting others. So it was worth all the years of classes and is a somewhat valuable dead-end.

My inability to lose weight. I have kept diaries almost all my life and at the top from the very earliest I have recorded my weight in stones and pounds with despair. I look back at those weights with longing and wonder why on earth I obsessed about it.  If I knew then what I know now, I would have chilled out about being 10 stone. Now I dream of being under 11 stone. Elderly aunts used to say I had big bones, it drove me mad as an adolescent. I reckoned there were big dinosaur girls like me and other tiny fragile girls. I with my big bones obviously belong to the former group. These tiny birdlike aunts belonged to the latter category. I often broke things, handles off doors, cups, even windows and was terrified I might injure these elderly visitors with their matchstick arms, legs and necks. But they were tougher then they seemed and made me feel guilty and awkward. When today, I look at magazine covers of slim women staring out with razor cheekbones at slender bodies, I realise that such shapes are more appreciated than my broader lines. As a tall,sturdy, Yorkshire police woman friend of mine once moaned “if I'm reincarnated, I'm coming back as one of those butterfly women whose cases others have to carry!”  While there is genuine despair at the yearly expansion of quantity, regarding fat, perversely I'm infinitely grateful for being able to haul heavy gas cylinders up flights of stairs. After all quality (strength) trumps quantity (of fat content) every time.

My last dead end is an inner critical voice.   This strident voice has been heard echoing  through the decades. “You'll never pass, achieve or amount to anything!” How many initiatives died a death under the whithering machine gun of its cutting comments. Instead of pressing on to finish that knitting, get that black-belt or lose that weight I succumbed to that sneering tone of derision from within and gave up. If someone else voiced such hurtful jibes I'd respond with righteous contempt. But when that voice comes from deep inside your own brain your heart goes out of any enterprise. So having reflected on the past with clarity, my eureka moment was finding out that every path and turn has been plagued by an unnecessarily negative companion. As a dear friend Eleni announced when she returned from a weeks holiday in Paris with her husband. “He spent the whole time complaining about the price of coffee, bread, train tickets, taxis and the hotel room. As we walked down the Champs-Elysees, he whined about missing his own bed!”  She decided that this was the last holiday she would ever go with him. When I tried to remonstrate with her she became more emphatic.  “I mean it, if he's going to heaven I'm choosing hell. If he is going to Hell then I better be in heaven. In fact, heaven is going anywhere where he is not.” Her exasperation was excessive but she made a point that resonates.  So on careful reflection I’ve decided to be equally callous with my inner critic.  It is not a voice of humility nor does it provide an analytical perspective. It has to go! How to shut it up, is the tricky thing? At least, the direction ahead is clear. I'm excited about the future that could be mine, if like a stubborn nose polyp, this useless vocal appendage can be excised at last.