Undone, Unspoken and often Untrue

What is it about short-term highs that make us forget longer-term goals? Exactly the same principle applies to short-term lows. How many a young man has chosen death because the love of his life dumped him? With the benefit of hindsight, he might have been able to see that this wonderful love-filled intoxicating relationship could with time gradually morph into a loveless tryst.  That everything that once drew him to her could become, with decades, the most annoying habits in the universe. With the benefit of that hindsight, he would choose life, not death.

There is a line in the book ‘The Heart is a Lonely Hunter’ where one married character comes home to bed while his spouse heads out to work. By this stage he hates her so much he carefully reverses the sheets on their shared bed so that his skin does not touch fabric hers might have besmirched. There is something about that gesture that denotes hatred much deeper than even a verbal or physical attack. In the midst of fresh love, it is impossible for that suicidal young man to contemplate this other reality or even its very possibility.

But can I say to all the young, bereft and heartbroken at lost love that the heart is by nature a muscle. It, like all muscles, requires exercising to strengthen. Perhaps your first love was a family pet. Your heart learned to attach itself to another entity and your ability to love grew. Your friends during childhood provided bonds that illustrated what could be gained in all relationships within the family and without. And so the habits of love were nurtured and friends perhaps helped to reinforce the joy of closeness and companionship with all its ups and downs.  Losses were encountered, pets died, friends left, even family loyalties during the tempestuous adolescent years can be strained. Love and pain can ever seem to be opposite sides of the same coin!

Your ability to feel pain is almost proportional to how deeply you loved.  All of this is a journey of learning. Along the way, however, fiction has fabricated a great lie. That there is only one soulmate for you in this world. You have got but one chance and if you lose that precious one, life has lost any purpose it might have had.  This is just not so. There are definitely more fish in the sea. Some depressingly worse than the one you have just lost but many are infinitely better than you can possibly imagine right now.

There is an expression in Ireland that comes from the old hiring fairs where in those days the unemployed turned up with their tools of trade in hand waiting to be picked by an employer. As the day wore on many an eager worker’s head would sink in despair as those around him were chosen but not he.  He would often hear, from a friend, the encouraging cry of,

“Look up, look up, there is money paid for you yet!”

Meaning someone would yet make an offer and save the day. How does one find the words to convey how precious life is? To those who have decided to throw it away. How full of possibilities life is, even when flooded by pain. The young especially feel the immediacy of their own despair. They have not the same ability to think long term. Their own emotional misery blocks the sight of any positive outcome in the future. Too often are young men left with no one to excise this pain. They cannot like many girls run crying to good friends and share their loss. Discuss the hurtful details and achieve a kind of catharsis with time.  Instead, distress can slide into despair. From there it is a small slippery slope to total defeat and failure. Life becomes a game totally lost. Pointless and dreary, a mockery not worth pursuing.

Well, it isn't and you are worth so much more than this minute. Whatever has happened, whatever you have done, whatever has been done to you, you are much more than that. The pain is real, the loss is immense but you are more than even this. Don't pretend you are not unhappy but recognise you are much more than your state of mind at this moment, good or bad. It hurts to love but it's still important to love despite the pain. And if no one loves you this moment and I mean no one, then test the power of love and love anyway.

This great fiction of love and death, like Romeo and Juliet or Anthony and Cleopatra, all urge young despairing lovers to throw away the most precious gift of all - their lives. Life and love is worth a great deal. It shapes our lives for good or bad but like despair, the long dark night will yield to the dawn. Never let these lies about love untie your reason from you.

There are many journeys ahead. Rough storms will come and you may well in the future feel even greater fear, loneliness and despair than you can possibly imagine right now. But you will find days kissed by sunshine and quiet moments of love that will make all of what has been done to you and taken from you seem just a difficult path that helped you find this pristine joy. 

“Look up look up there is money bid for you yet!”

Libraries - the oldest and the most beautiful

I have always loved libraries.  There is something wonderful about them.  Our house was always filled with books and I can remember picking up books and pretending to read them from a young age.  So today I explored the National Library of Malta in Valletta.  It was built to house the books and valuables of the Order of St John including items belonging to  knights who had died in 1766.  A decree in 1555 had decreed that the property of the knights should be preserved.  You can visit this by handing in a passport or ID at the desk, in exchange you will be given a visitors badge.  It is worth doing as the library has an atmosphere like a scene out of Indiana Jones.  This is an old image of the library.

Here is how it looks more recently.  Unfortunately, since this recent photo was taken they have removed the lovely trees which used to be in front of the building and which were filled with hundreds of birds.

Inside the building used to look like this.

Here is how it looks today.

It does have a lovely atmosphere and is well worth a visit.  I have several libraries that I love and have included them below.  Starting one of the oldest, the National Library of Czech Republic, built in 1366.

The National Library of Austria comes a close second dating from 1368.

Another favourite is the Marciana National Library of Italy which was built in 1468.

The National Library of France is exceptional, built in 1480.

Another library I personally love, though not so old as those above, is Trinity Library in Dublin.

Mind you, if we really wanted to look at the oldest existing library we'd probably have to put St Catherine's Monastery in Egypt up there ahead of all of them.  Built in 565 AD this has been a running library since its establishment.  Only open to monks and invited scholars this gem of a library was constructed, it is claimed, on the site where Moses saw the burning bush.  The monastery library preserves the second largest collection of early codices and manuscripts in the world, outnumbered only by the Vatican Library. It contains Greek, Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, Hebrew, Georgian, and Aramaic texts.  It also contains the oldest icons in the world.  Much of its treasures avoided destruction due to the monastery’s remote position in the Sinai desert.  However, it was also protected throughout the centuries by popes, sultans, queens and kings. Napoleon and even Muhammad provided documents of protection for St Catherine's which are themselves still in existence in this unique library.  Which only goes to show, that while it can take only one fool to burn down a priceless library, it takes over a millennium of careful, constant, protection to preserve such a gem.

Lost in the Trees but grateful

I went to a talk on trees here in Malta this week.  It was interesting to hear and learn about what is happening here and to listen to people from Malta passionate about protecting their environment.  Inspiring to be surrounded by those who really care in a world where it seems so many don’t have time to.  Not, that the rest don’t care, it is just that everyone seems to have more than enough on their own plate as it is.  So I was delighted,  that the room was packed with over a hundred, all there to make their feelings for their environment clear. It was with reluctance I left, slightly early, to make my way home by bus.  Proceeded in the dark, to catch the wrong bus heading not to Sliema and home, but in exactly the opposite direction.    So after a 45-minute bus journey (it always amazes me that on a small island,  picture a square with a side of 12 km, journeys can last so long) the bus came to a halt in the darkness of an isolated village.  The bus driver turned the engine off and then turned to me in the empty bus and said in an exasperated tone,

“Where exactly do you want to go?”

I told him where I wanted to go and he told me that I was an hour from where I should be.  Despair must have filled my face because he was suddenly anxious to help.  I asked if there were taxis anywhere around and was even more disturbed to find that there were none at all.  This was a pickle, indeed. 

He started the engine of the empty bus and told me that he would take me to Rabat and there might be taxis available there.  I was shocked that he would go out of his way, bus and all to take me closer to home.  He dropped me off and I was able to catch another bus homewards.  By this stage, it was dark and the only other person on the bus was a Canadian woman.  We started talking and she turned out to be a financial advisor and photographer from Canada who works from her computer here in Malta for a firm abroad.  A lovely person and we exchanged mobile numbers before we parted.  As I waited for the final bus home another young Maltese teenager told me she was studying for her final exams, she wanted to be a chef.  It was sweet hearing her discuss her plans to have her own restaurant one day.  It is impressive how hopeful young people are and how passionate about their futures.  When you reach my age, finding the right bus home is enough of a major challenge for the day! 

But as I staggered up to my flat exhausted and falling asleep from the long day at work, I was suddenly grateful for it all.  Grateful for the many who came to the Tree meeting, thankful to the benevolent bus driver, happy to meet such warm and likable travellers on a cold lost night and aware that every moment of life is special.  Even the absolutely exhausting ones.