New Beginning

Poetry seems much more private than short stories.  Not sure why.  Hard to put it out there because of that.  But here goes.

New Beginning

To take that first step on any path

Requires something

It requires more than a movement of the foot

It needs more than seeing a way ahead

It demands more than being afraid of where you are now

It needs the rich soil of possibilities

Fed by the sweet water of sweat and tears

Refreshed by the breezes of hope

and nurtured by the realization that where you are now is not enough

An intuition that just beyond your sight

Lies a different landscape

One you sense but cannot see

So have Faith step out

Straighten your back

Walk tall, believe

Clear your vision from

The clouds of your past

See the person you were born to be

Striding into a future you don’t have yet

But one you are prepared to find

To take that first step requires something

It needs you to begin to be what you are not yet

But that first step, that is everything.

It is the beginning of who you are.

Mountains, Christians and Sheep

All about growing up in Dungiven in Northern Ireland. Six years old  and prepared to take on anyone - where did she go to, that kid?  I have grown more cautious over the years and have begun to realise how little I know.  That is surely progress?

Mountains, Christians and Sheep

When my family came back to N. Ireland from Australia, I was only six, but had already acquired a strong Australian accent. My parents claim that I went off to play in our village, Dungiven and came back the same day with a Derry accent. It wasn’t the only thing I did on that first day in N.I. I also fought every girl on the street. Okay, I lost a few fights but overall I had felt good about the whole day. One had to settle in and it was best to test out one’s environment, early on. After all the pushing and sizing up had ended, one girl asked me, ‘Are you a Catholic or a Protestant?’ Hedging carefully so as not to appear stupid, I said, ‘which are you?’ She said she was Catholic and then persisted ‘What are you?’ Genuinely confused, I asked what a Catholic was. It was a religion, I was told. This I understood, and answered the original question, relieved at last to know the answer, ‘I’m a Christian’. This was met with much mirth. The girls who gathered around said that they were Christians too. I pointed out that they had said they were Catholic not Christian. It was then carefully explained that Catholics and Protestants were both Christian. This was news indeed, to me. I’d never heard of Catholics and Protestants and yet gathered that this matter was of considerable importance here, for some reason.

Later I asked my Father about it and he seemed very weary as he explained it all. From that day I understood about Catholics and Protestants. I lost my accent and discovered I was a Protestant. At that age you wanted to know such things; not knowing seemed much too vulnerable. As I grew up in Dungiven, I never felt a real Protestant. We never joined the young farmers club or the parades on the twelfth of July. Daddy seemed to have left all that stuff behind him when he emigrated, and didn’t really want to pick it up when he came home. He certainly didn’t seem to want to hand it all on to us kids and although we always felt outsiders to both sides of the community, it also gave us a funny sense of freedom as well. Religion isn’t about prejudices, or practices even, it’s about finding God. I remember every Sunday we would discuss religion at home. My eldest brother refused to go to church. He said God was a bit like climbing a mountain. There were loads of ways up, but the less things you tried to take with you, the quicker you got there. In his view joining a bunch of fellow climbers, i.e., a church, was fatal as instead of keeping your eye on the peak you kept noticing if you were higher or lower than those with you. Even worse, he said, was the way in which you could actually be lost, but follow sheep-like the flock for security. I liked the way he looked at things, thought things out, and the fact that he disagreed with everyone else on principle! When you are an outsider you can afford to be different and disagree; it’s one of the pluses. In a culture where everyone has a tendency to worry about what everyone else thinks of them, being out of it gives you an immense feeling of lightness. It’s as if everyone is carrying a load and each is checking everyone else’s load to see which side they are on. When you decide to chuck your load away, it’s such a relief. You see, thirty years on, I think when I was six I gave the right answer to that original question, but its taken a long time for me to realise it.

And What is Your Cage?

Sometimes in life we are where we don't want to be.  A place we didn't choose with people that bring pain not gain.  Gradually, we can become a person we never meant to be.   At such times we feel such a longing to be who we were meant to be.  Breaking free of that cage is a hard process but we all have just one life, no rehearsals allowed. 

And What is Your Cage?

Jane was a slight woman with a nervous twitching face. Her emotions seemed out of control and her facial features changed like the flickering of a bulb that is about to go out. Kindness then suspicion then a wary unguarded look followed by a look of triumphant glee and then a completely miserable expression would take its place. Each fleeting look would only be there for an instant, just long enough for you to register the expression, begin to react to it, and then it would be gone. If this were not enough her body was equally tense and ill at ease. She would be sitting on the sofa then she would stalk around to make a dramatic point, her arms gesturing wildly. Her feet dancing like a thoroughbred horse on the carpet as if anxious to be somewhere else. The whole impression was of a person who had lost track of their real self and like a projector gone wild, simply vibrated with random motion.

Jane is a friend of my friend Karen. My contact with her had been spasmodic. Karen had mentioned her a few times and I’d gathered Jane had marital problems. Then one day things had reached a climax and Karen had turned up on my doorstep with Jane beside her. Jane’s husband had thrown her and the two children out of the house. She had been taken in by a neighbour but was in a terrible state. Shaking with emotion she recounted what had happened. Her husband was having an affair, not unusual here in Greece, but he also wanted his freedom and had for some time.

So for the past five years his strategy had been to make Jane leave him. He had gradually become more and more cruel as his intention was continually foiled by Jane’s long-suffering devotion. Even now when she described his latest attack, between her tears she admitted that she still, even now, loved him. He had damaged her arm and she’d had to go to hospital. He’d offered her half of their shop, in the town, if she gave him their daughter. He didn’t want the boy, as he looked like his mother! Only the daughter! When that didn’t work he attempted to have her certified incompetent by some doctor friends of his.

Karen had taken Jane to a solicitor for advice, as things had become so traumatic. Unfortunately this had been reported to Jane’s husband and he had phoned Karen and threatened her. After he had finished Karen phoned me in tears dreadfully upset. He’d even threatened to come to her children’s school and create a scene, telling everyone that Karen was crazy. It seemed the appropriate explanation for him that anyone who did anything he disproved of must be crazy. Karen had brought Jane to us and as she paced and fidgeted and quivered with emotion I felt a deep sadness. Karen whispered to me, “she never used to be like this. Living with him has changed her, she used to be so calm”. There was a sweetness about Jane even now. She was Swiss and at first her Greek husband had been everything she sought. They lived here in Greece but had spoken German in their home for the first five years of their marriage. Gradually he had instigated changes. Only Greek could be spoken now. Criticisms grew over the way she looked, the cleanliness of the house, the food she prepared. Nothing was good enough. It all sounded frighteningly familiar to me. Another friend of mine had been married to a similar case. He had been so loving, so kind, but after the wedding his behaviour had gradually changed. It began with words. How fat she looked. How could she say such stupid things in front of others? Why was the house such a mess etc. etc. At the end of eight years when he actually started hitting her, she felt she really deserved it! The depletion of her own self-worth had been gradual but with daily drip feeds of acidic comments she too became convinced of her low station. However, Jane’s parents were coming from Switzerland in a matter of days for two weeks holiday. It seemed good news in the midst of a life torn with arguments, bitterness and awful moods.

Unfortunately her husband, true to form, threw her parents out of the house and cursed them dreadfully. They fled back to Switzerland where I reckon Jane’s husband thought they would take her as well. Jane didn’t go she stayed. Karen doesn’t talk to her anymore. She’s angry that Jane is back playing happy families. Jane’s husband bought her a beautiful vase as an apology for his behaviour. Jane accepted his apology and his vase. Karen says she can’t stand it any more. Three years of being the shoulder to cry on has been enough. So Jane is more alone than ever with one friend less and her family in Switzerland totally bemused.

Yesterday when I was standing in the school Assembly someone came up and put their hands over my eyes from behind. I turned and it was Jane. Bouncing from one foot to the other, expressions fleeing across her face in succession. What has happened to the real Jane, what will she become, what does the future hold? I see a desperation, a loneliness behind all the movement and I pray that sweet Jane finds an easier path.

Here in Rhodes people keep birds in cages. They like the beautiful sound they make, singing to the sky beyond the bars. It seems strange that their owners don’t realise most of a bird’s beauty is in its ability to fly. Not surprising then that people too, having captured the thing they love, bind it, cage it, make it into something else, then cease to love it at all.

Breasts, silicon and Stuff!

Okay this one will not go down well with most people but I remember it all well and can't help smiling when I think back to it all.

The Steed of This Valley is Pain

My friend Anna was exhausted and drained when she stepped into my car carefully, protecting her sore side, and finding it difficult to manage her handbag and the door handle at the same time.  She had had her breast removed along with her glands under her arm the weekend before and, although healing well, was still coping with the shock and pain of it all.  It had only been two weeks previously that she had been blissfully unaware of any health problems.  Everything had happened so terrifyingly quickly and coping was the order of the day.  She had decided to only tell close friends and had been hurt by some of the reactions.  One friend had phoned a day later in tears saying she couldn’t afford to lose Anna as she was one of her few friends on the island.  The selfishness of that thought hurt.  As did the endless tales of others who had also had cancer.  One middle-aged lady had told her that they had buried a thirteen-year-old neighbour the week previously who had died of cancer and the family had buried her hair with her.  Confused Anna had asked, "Sorry, her hair?" And the response came, "Yes, you know she lost it all during the chemotherapy and they had kept the hair as it fell out, so they buried it with her, so sad”.  What bewildered Anna was the reason this lady had felt compelled to share this anecdote with someone who had herself been just diagnosed with cancer.  Was it hurtfulness or insensitivity? 

But people respond to situations differently and often they say or do the wrong thing but mean no harm.  Illness and death are somehow taboo and not many of us are trained in how to handle either with grace or wisdom.  One elderly Greek neighbour had fallen from the balcony of their second floor flat onto the cement below and was lying bleeding on the ground while relatives ran screaming around the road and waving their arms in the air.  While the ambulance was on its way one relative got into his car and frantically tried to do a U-turn and instead crashed into a nearby tree leaving a huge dent in his car.  Meanwhile the elderly husband howled in clear Greek something to the effect that his wife was dead and who would look after him now.  At the time I had wanted to hit him on the head with a shovel for his tactlessness but in hindsight the reason the grandson crashed the car was the great desire to do something to help.  The husband only said what he said probably because his wife was the most important thing in his life and the thought of losing her terrifying. 

But it is no conciliation to the poor sufferer who not only has to cope with the pain and loss but also the seeming stupidity of everyone around them.  As Anna leaned back in the car seat she sighed with exhaustion and I asked, ‘where do you want to go?’  ‘Home’, she murmured and we headed off to her house a few miles along the coast. She’d come to town by bus to see her doctor, had become too tired, and so had phoned me to pick her up from the town.  As we travelled she told me about her day.  Her doctor had told her of a chemist in Rhodes which sold false breasts and had phoned them before Anna’s visit to explain what she needed.  When she’d reached the chemist it had been full of people and, in front of everyone, the owner had, in a loud voice, started explaining that Anna was too small.  Her breast size was size one and they only stocked from size four and up.  In tones implying below that size there wasn’t much point.  If she wanted to order a silicon one however it would cost 45,000 drahmas( approx eighty pounds).  All of this was done at the top of his voice. Foreigners are often thought to only understand Greek if you shout, and to her horror Anna burst into tears.  In a chemist full of strangers, she cried and cried, partly from frustration, partly from embarrassment, but mostly from grief and loss.  A part of her had been taken away and only she was really aware of how much that hurt.  I was furious and upset at the insensitivity of the chemist.  What a berk.  Just imagine him being so thoughtless. 

I was mentioning this event to another friend of mine, an English girl, called Lisa.  Lisa is from the north, a real Yorkshire lass, with an accent that feels like a bread and butter marmite sandwich.  Sometimes when I get homesick here in Greece, just listening to her accent can bring a comfort.  She’s also fearless and can curse most wonderfully in fluent Greek.  Once when we were in the supermarket we returned to her car to find some thoughtless driver had blocked it in.  So there we stood with groceries and small children, stuck because some idiot had double-parked.  When the driver eventually returned he spotted two foreign women and gave us a dismissive wave before jumping in his car.  My Greek is non- existent in such circumstances.  But fortunately Lisa’s is not and she let rip.  The poor guy was pole axed.  He actually went pale and I began to feel quite sorry for him.  He learned a valuable lesson that day as he apologised most profusely and grovelled most satisfyingly.  It helps that Lisa is tall and a former policewoman who you feel sure could put an arm lock on you and frog march you across the channel tunnel if she felt inclined.  I made the mistake of mentioning the chemist incident to her and she was outraged.  She was also proactive.  She started a campaign against the chemist. 

She got her many Greek relatives involved and even more foreign women married to Greeks on the island.  She went in and asked to see the largest silicon penis he had.  Not only that but all her accomplices did the same.  Even some relatives who live in a village 8 km from Rhodes got involved.  People that I thought far too respectable to dream of saying penis in public went to the poor chemist and did the deed.  By the time I had worked up courage to do it, he had been polite and yet insistent, ’No we don’t stock penis’s, who told you we did?’  Next week the tourist season began and tourists will do anything for a laugh.  A bunch of Dutch ladies staying at a friend’s hotel thought it a terrific gag and told some others.  A Finnish lady on a week’s holiday waited until her last day before requesting a penis in heavily accented English.  Somehow the thing just snowballed from there. 

Greek friends in Archangelos, a village on Rhodes, heard of the challenge and went to request in their distinctive Greek accents ‘the largest silicon penis you stock’.  It became a symbol of revolution among the youth, who I have to say, were the only group who managed to rope in both boys and girls.  Until they took over it had been a purely female resistance movement.  It was several months later when an unusual sign appeared on the chemist’s counter.  A discrete typewritten sign sellotaped to the till read ‘We do not stock silicon penis’s’.  Anna had just received the all clear from her tests and news of this and the note spread like wildfire.  Lisa was triumphant and the rest of us crowed in contentment.  Such a silly thing.  We who all know the story have a peculiar fondness for that sign and take obscure pleasure from its presence.  A symbol of resistance in difficult days and a moment of shared fun during a tough period.

Turning on a more vulnerable target.

A very local piece about Northern Ireland and observations.  I sent it to the local free newspaper (The Leader) and they actually put it on their front page as their head article.  Was so touched, later, when a Chinese father in Coleraine approached me and said how much he appreciated the article.  Sometimes, when writing you really feel alone.  Sending stuff out there but not knowing if it actually does anything at all, except satisfy your own urge to be creative.  It is nice when it makes even a small affect.

Rural Revolution

This week I watched as a train from Coleraine university, filled with students, stopped at DuhVarren, Portrush.  A carriage containing a mixture of nationalities was subjected to taunting from a group of teenagers on the platform outside.  They banged windows and screamed insults in at the foreign students.  The rest of us squirmed in silence and hopefully felt as ashamed as I did that this is increasingly the face of NI.

When did this aggressive minority in our community suddenly get the green light to target ethnic minority groups?  Was there a critical number of foreigners that triggered their prejudice, or have we all been so relieved that the bombing and shooting has stopped that we acquiesced while they turned their attention to drug dealing, vandalising and intimidation?  Has the violent minority become an out of control vicious beast that now has its sights set on a target more easily identifiable, more defenceless and more accessible?  It’s as if we have carefully flagged a bull into an enclosure and ignored the fact that it has turned its attention on a new more vulnerable target.

These elements have to be fought on all fronts.  We must be vigilant and realise that this is a war with many battlefields.  If it is to be won we must plan our strategies in the schools, in the media, in the workplace and in our homes.  This same group is to be found bullying our children, intimidating the elderly, abusing their neighbours, attacking our hospital/ambulance/emergency personnel.  They thrive on violence and the fear they engender.  They feed on hatred and disunity.  Our apathy and indifference is the green light to their endeavours.  N. Ireland has come through so much pain.  Families have picked up the pieces of shattered lives and so many want to look to the future with hope.  Diversity should be celebrated, the differences to be appreciated much as we relish the different flowers that add to the beauty of a garden, not detract from it.  This aggressive group has another agenda.  They have become ravaging wolves and whether they are the bully in the playground, the abuser at home, the vandal who violates your property or person, the neighbour who intimidates, or the politician who stokes the fires of hatred, they must be stopped.  The fruits of their actions are the bane of the world we live in and they can and must be stopped.  But how?

Not by argument or rational debate, nor by political movements or leaders, not by religious dictates or even national community will.  No, it is the degree to which noble individuals step forward and, with deeds, not words, proclaim their humanity.  By doing so they light the way for others to follow, leading a path out of the despair, disunity, distrust and disintegration of society.  So where do we look for such examples.  Not in the cities, I sense, but in our rural hinterland.  For example, during World War II it is a little known fact that many major democracies/leaders demonstrated a degree of anti-Semite sentiment that sustained and fuelled the genocide of so many Jews.  If you want to know who rescued most Jews look no further than the countryside.  In small farming communities many were hidden from the Germans, and in tight knit villages where everyone knew everyone else these foreigners where welcomed and protected.  In their solidarity and courage in closing ranks to the hatred and fear sweeping Europe, they stand as a reminder of what humanity should be about.  Not a rabid nationalism, but a realisation, in dangerous days, of their overriding loyalty to the human race.

So where shall we look to see the first stirrings of N. Ireland’s reaction to the growing racism of these days.  It is to our countryside - to the rural communities we must look - not blinded by materialism, but in tune with their inner moral landscape as much as they are with their rural surroundings.  May they begin the groundswell of revulsion and rejection of this cancer.  May they step forward and demonstrate their true qualities.  Racism is not deeply rooted yet in NI. It is a fresh crop blown in, and we must address it now, before it can become ingrained and then inherited as our own religious prejudices have been.  We have enough problems without this being allowed to colour our future.

So many look to the peace processes happening in NI with hope, but we who are here and see the frailties and hypocrisies on the ground, cannot sense the degree to which the world conflict zones are turning their focus on us.  Perhaps we have more to show the world than we know.  No colour, racial, religious bar can stop the friendship of souls.  We will not turn on those from outside who come here, but will think of values that bind - hands and hearts outstretched, open minded, open hearted, ready for hope and ready to welcome. 

Morality and Morons

Here's one about working and dealing with colleagues.  A thing I tend to mess up.  As my brother has told me recently, "Look you've tried being yourself in interviews, it doesn't work!  Try being someone else!"  Well, from this story and perhaps from others it has become clear I never really learned the art of acquiring a social veneer.  In order to get along with colleagues at work you have to learn that knack.

Morality and Morons

My father used to claim that there wasn’t anything more amoral than a saved Christian. I often wondered what he meant by it. Recently I’ve begun to understand. There is something totally assured about most saved Christians that precludes any mortal error. Hence when they announce that you are bound for hell and that their seat is ready for them in heaven, they are certain of their facts. That kind of certainty is I’ve begun to believe, the source of their lack of morality. If you are certain someone is hell bound and that you have been chosen by God, it stands to reason, what you do, in a sense is beyond reproach. Ultimately you want to save their soul and if that involves creating fear, so be it. The end is seen as justifying the means.

We had a saved Christian in our Research team in the Microelectronics lab. He was tall and thin with nervous gestures, which involved wrinkling his nose tightly and then rolling his upper lip down over the front of his teeth. Anyway he was fairly typical of the breed and my father’s words echoed in my mind when I met him. It wasn’t just the smug air that he assumed during coffee breaks, but the moral high ground he felt he occupied on most issues. His religious fervour did not translate down to how he treated the rest of us. No, he was not concerned with politeness or courtesy. These were mundane affairs. His eyes were on higher planes - our souls. That illusive prey was his main concern and worry. In the face of eternal damnation the fact of whether he was polite to anyone seemed to him irrelevant. Having come across this breed before, I waited for my moment. They usually have a weak flank; all that spiritual pride takes a lot of energy to maintain. This energy has to come from somewhere and that source lets you know what really motivates that particular person. In Roger’s case it was repressed sexuality. That became clear inside a week. Not that he said or did anything vaguely sexual, no not at all. That you see was the point. This was where he was getting his energy and motivation. Not some higher source but by re channelling rather lower driving forces. Once you’ve worked out where the chink in the armour is, it is important to test one’s theory. I was discussing stainless steel gas line fittings with Roger in his office, in the course of our work. As we studied the catalogue deciding which parts to order I pointed out to him the sexual connotations of many of the actual device’s names. E.g. male couplings, female couplings etc. There was a long shocked pause and I took careful note. A deep painful crimson blush was extending tide like up his neck and ended in two bright red ears. The intensity of the colour and the regions gave the game away entirely. Once the test had proved the accuracy of my initial theory, the way forward was clear. Now when his behaviour reached ‘chalk on blackboard screeching’ dimensions, I knew what buttons to push. 

My colleague, a young Chinese researcher called Li Coon, was plagued by his demands for equipment to be handed out of the fabrication laboratory. I should explain, that in order to work in the clean environment of the Fabrication laboratory, you have to enter an interlock area, where you dress in nylon overalls, plastic booties, gloves and a shower cap. Since this took quite a degree of time, if you had inadvertently left a piece of equipment behind you on leaving the lab, rather than dress entirely and re-enter, you would open the interlock door and shout to someone in the lab to bring what you needed to the interlock. This saved time-consuming dressing and undressing. Usually the person in the lab, hearing the request, would accede. After all, sometime they too would need a similar favour. The problem with Roger, was that (a) his requests were always demands, (b) he almost never responded to such requests from others when he was in the lab, and (c) he directed all his demands at the youngest female researcher, Li Coon. She was much too nice to ever hint it was troubling her, to be at his beck and call. His behaviour annoyed me. It was inconsiderate and unfair, in that it was directed at the point of least resistance. Li Coon and I were working at an evaporator together when the familiar call came from the interlock. ‘Li Coon, bring me the big adjustable spanner’. No ‘please’, no ‘could you’, no, ‘if you are not too busy’, just ‘bring me the thing’. It was Roger, and Li Coon’s face fell. I had remonstrated with her many times, but however much she resented him, she found that cultural restraints and her respect for a senior researcher prevented her from objecting. This time, I murmured to her that I would get the spanner for him. She was so grateful and I immediately rose and retrieved the heavy spanner from the tool drawer. Walking over to the interlock, I opened the inner door, and saw Roger hanging half-in the outer door, waiting. He held out his hand for the spanner and I drew it back behind me. Seeing his quizzical expression, I murmured, ‘give me a kiss and I’ll give you the spanner’. He fled, but not before his face crimsoned painfully. That was all it took. Roger never again yelled in his commands; he couldn’t be sure that one of those white suited figures wasn’t me. Li Coon could not understand the dramatic change in him. I was not surprised. Once you’ve established the weak point, it’s like a button response. Press and wait for the predictable response. Being amoral has its definite disadvantages.