water boarding

Was teaching chemistry a year or so ago.  It felt like a nightmare zone.  In a lab shoulder to shoulder with adolescents who are more interested in the opposite sex than science and feel safety issues are a complete waste of time.  One tall chap decided to push his safety glasses to the top of his head during experiments, it must have looked cooler, I expect.  Difficult to look good with thick goggle like protrusions on your face.  A splash of acid and he got it on his face close to the eye.  I was mad and concerned.  It was my responsibility to keep them safe after all.  So I told him that acid continued to burn, lower skin layers, for some time after the initial splash and that he had to put his head under the tap at the sink.  Drenched with water pouring over his head and face he spluttered the question how long he needed to stay there.  Fifteen minutes, I told him with cruel intent.  A long time to be water boarded but I could see the rest of the class was learning a valuable lesson and so did he.  Hard to link such blatant torture to kindness but here’s a piece about kindness anyway!

Kindness melts

Kindness melts the hardest heart, it soothes it listens
It allows the sores of festering pain to leak away
It gradually eases the raw edges of life
So that the salve of recovery can be applied
Don’t look for wounds to dress in others
Just know with certainty they are there deep and pus filled
But hidden out of sight
To prevent painful exposure
Therefore, apply kindness daily as required

Let Live Your Courage

This is a piece I wrote for the Stop the Violence Campaign run by UN  Women.  The three women I used span thousands of years.  Rabia Balkhi was a poet from Afganastan (in first millennium) who fell in love with a slave of the household and was pushed into the bathroom after having her artery severed by her own brother.  She proceeded to write her poems on the tiles with her own blood until she died. 

Tahirih, also a poet, was from Iran and spoke of equality and freedom for women in the mid nineteen century.  She was strangled and thrown down a well. 

The last women mentioned was a victim of the Rwanda massacre and had her body mutilated beyond comprehension.  You can read an account of her suffering in the acceptance speech by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) who were awarded the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize for its work with populations in danger.  (http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/publications/article.cfm?id=708&cat=speech) 
I choose these women because their lives span over a thousand years and they represent the violence that women experience within the family, in society and in conflict zones.  When I have used the poet’s words these are shown in quotes.

Let Live Your Courage

Yielding her life to the sharp brutal blade
Thrust through pulsating artery
Rabia paints her poems of love
With blood red fingertips
On tiles cracked with age old patterns of control
She writes, “A true lover should be faithful to the end”
Another millennium passes and Tahirah pens her poems of love
That cry out her heart’s desire
Down centuries of time,
“This afflicted heart of mine has woven your love to the stuff of life. 
Strand by strand, thread to thread”
Eloquent of mind and body
She spoke of freedom
but roughly tightened silk choked the words
And throttled the tender throat
All that remains is the beauty of her memory
And her words of truth echoing yet.

And here and now a lacerated woman hacked beyond humanity
Lies on a blood reddened soil
Treated by a doctor who has only sutures to tie up what remains
His futile efforts to redeem what has already been lost
spills him into helpless despair and sobs.
So many more waiting for more
Than he can give, he is frozen
Helpless by the horror.
Then from the violated pieces that remain,
barely human, comes the woman’s voice
“Let live your courage!”
And her words of encouragement
In the midst of excruciating pain
Lifted him to action, echoed around the world.

May the words of those that suffer
Reach past your ears to heart and soul
Over centuries and millennium they cry out their loving call to action
“Let live your Courage!”

Cherry Blossom

A chill in the air
And cherry blossom petals fall, shaken by the breeze
Falling where the currents take them
We too, from the moment of our conception, are falling
Our time in this physical world
Limited to this tiny distance
Between our beginning and end
At times, it seems there is no choice involved
We are born, we live and we die
Blown by the fates to destinies
We do not choose
Landing in places we did not intend
But looking close, each petal is unique
Beautiful in its own way
Even its gentle fluttering movement
Governed by the tenacity of its structure
Its hold on the branch
Its pigment different, even its shape is unique
So too our passage however inevitable between cradle and grave
Has the possibility of variation
We can drop unconscious into the void
Or make a tumbling halting descent
An epic and courageous dive
That speaks of choice, will and a desire to make a difference

Death Duties

At times you get to meet amazing people and I am so grateful for all the lovely ones that have come my way.  This one lives in Ballymena on the Broughshane Rd and this story is about her and what she taught me.
She was nine months pregnant  with eight  children, in her early forties and her own mother was dying, quietly but remorselessly in her front room.  It was difficult to grasp the size of her burdens.  I remember feeling genuinely appalled.  We’d known Paul and Pat for years. Had even been on holiday with them and their kids.  Their huge home always rang with laughter, babies, toddlers and smiling older children peeked out from wherever you looked.  As new parents ourselves we loved their easy acceptance of family.  Their home was so full there was always room for more and perhaps the fact that you too squeezed in made no difference at all.  How many homes feel like that nowadays? 

When I complained about the tribulations of three children Pat comforted me with, “Yes, three is by far the worst. After three then the older ones can really help and there’s much less work.”   I could sense she meant it and her eight-year-old daughter was more competent with a baby than I.  Years of practice meant she knew when milk/ nappy change/ sleep was required and did it all quickly and quietly while singing a tune popular at the time.  I was amazed at  this home of abundance and would come to marvel and to learn.  So many people are willing to give you loads of advice about bringing up children, but invariably the trained professional who gives it is on her second marriage, and despite knowing all the theory, has the most appalling and obnoxious children imaginable.  To me, Pat managed. She did it and deeds mean much more than words.  Paul, her husband, was a quiet spoken intellectual with a ready smile and impenetrable calm.  How he pursued his studies in that house of children was a mystery he kept to himself. 

On one such visit to their house Pat broke the news that her mother was dying and had moved into their home to spend her last few months.  Pat was hugely pregnant and as she told us of hospitals and doctors and treatments that did no good, the tears fell.  Her mother had been a special women with infinite supplies of love and, although in her eighties, was going to be terribly missed.  We commiserated, distressed that on top of her newly expected baby this burden had been added.  I was telling her how sorry I was, how difficult it must be for her, how I wished I could help in some way.  She answered very clearly and I will never forget what she said, “All my life my mother has given me everything she possibly could and I can’t tell you the honour of having her here in our home now”.  Apparently all her brothers and sisters had fought to be the one chosen as the home she decided to end her days in but she had chosen Pat’s.   People moan and complain over the smallest things. I know I do, but looking at Pat I realized that whatever the circumstances a wonderful metamorphosis can make even pain and loss a sweet lesson of love and gratitude.  Those with grace and heart do it so easily it makes the rest of us look afresh at this world and ourselves.  What we should be could be and what effort we choose to make that transformation. 

When I observed Pat cope, there was no instant miracle, no sudden sainthood granted.  She wiped up shit, fed, laughed, cried and shouted at the moon but she persevered.  She held hands, wiped brows and constantly turned the pillows so that a cool freshness touched the cheek.  She joked and laughed and turned her mother so that bedsores would not form nor bitterness of mind be allowed to linger and fester.  She made it all look so easy and effortless - as if it were all nothing.  Her mother would wait until only Pat was available before asking to be toileted.  Only Pat did it without showing a trace of disgust, a twinge of resentment or a sad sag of the shoulders.  Her mother’s favourite visitor was a sour old gardener whose ritual greeting to the patient was, “God, are ye still here? Someone should do you a favour and shoot you!”  Pat cringed at his bluntness but saw the honesty was a salve for her mother.  Other visitors drained her, like the relatives who came and had long conversations across the bed that somehow did not include the patient, as if talking around or about the patient sufficed.  When her mother could no longer talk, Pat reminded visitors that the sense of hearing is usually the last sense to be lost.  Imagine the horror of lying listening and being unable to communicate, alone in a vulnerable world of gossips and backbiters.  Pat always kept a one-sided conversation going, telling her the good and bad things happening to everyone. 

Touch became their secret signal long after her mother could no longer talk.  One squeeze for no, two for yes, and three for laughter.  The gardener got most of the laughs.  Then the squeezes stopped.  Still she held her mother’s hand for ages and was silent as if trying to hold on to something too precious to lose.   Dying took time and it drove Pat beyond her limits, into territory no one willingly chooses to go.  Emotionally drained, physically exhausted, she fought tenaciously, coming bounding back determined to stay the course.  She described going up to the roof of a hospital during one set of painful treatments for her mother and screaming and crying and shouting at God at the top of her voice.  Then, emptied, she went down to her mother refreshed and ready once more.  As the end came it seemed impossible that a human being could hold on to life with hardly any flesh on her frame.  There were no more periods of lucidity and it seemed to Pat that her mother had already gone and that this silent shrunken shape was a parody, a husk that had been left behind. 

Still she went on, no longer expecting a response, just talking, stroking and wetting the dry silent lips.  When the end finally came, Pat remembered begging for its deliverance.  It no longer seemed cruel but an act of merciful release.  During the funeral there was laughter once more and it seemed that her mother’s spirit was back in the house again.  Stories were told and memories shared and brought back again and again, as if needed to rub out the sorrow of this past period.  As I looked around the room I saw so many faces that had watched a death coming -  That had learned what love means, what pain, what depths of pain, loving can bring.  A mighty lesson of living and dying had been learned.  I discovered that you couldn’t intellectualize it, pay someone to do it for you, avoid it or deny it.  Death comes for us all.  But when you face that final parting, who will be there for you?  Who will wet your lips?  This is a mighty skill and art, and unfortunately for all of us, there are less and less masters out there and hardly any students prepared to learn.

The Devil with Blond Greasy Hair

Apologies if I have already posted this story.   I was back in Ballee, Ballymena recently where our estate was and they have totally flattened our little clump of houses.  Quite sad to find one's old place demolished.  It was home after all.  But Mary phoned last year and it was great to hear her wonderful accent again!


Mary spoke English. She really did.  It was, however, spoken with the strongest Broughshane accent you can imagine.  My English friends didn’t understand a word she said but nodded knowingly in a bewildered fashion that polite foreigners adopt.  She was my neighbour and I realised very quickly that Mary was one of the few of us designed to live on this estate.  She had that streetwise cunning that is a thousand times more effective than intelligence.  It took me ages to appreciate this intuitive knowledge of hers that I’d always associated with that of a fox or wild animal.

She was my neighbour and the first time we joined forces was to tackle a mutual problem.  On our estate youngsters would drive their Ford Escorts at high speed and do hand brake turns in the parking area opposite our houses.  Mary was at number one and I was at number fifteen so we lived on opposite sides of a small clump of wretched houses, which was only a part of a huge depressing prison-like estate on the edge of civilisation.  We were both fearful of these drivers, especially as we had young children who played in the area where these yobos had their racing turns.  Mary had the idea first.  She explained that they did it to show off, to look cool in their shiny cars.  So the plan was to try to humiliate them and stop the practice.  She lived on one side and would cover that end while I was responsible for the other.  The plan required speed, preparation and rehearsal.  When the squeal of wheels on the gravel was heard coming up the road we had to drop everything we were doing and race outside.  Shouting obscenities (Mary was a natural swearer) at the drivers we would run alongside their cars like creatures demented. 

There were times I would feel a tinge uncomfortable about letting rip, but we found the minute both of us got going there was a kind of maniacal joint frenzy we got caught up in.  Instead of feeling embarrassed there was a strange satisfying performance quality to the whole event.  Our anger became artistic in its intensity.  A kind of mutual egging on.  If I thought Mary had managed a more vicious verbal attack I practised at the kitchen sink.  Of course some of the young men were equally aggressive in response.  One got out of his car seething with rage.  As I screamed at him for putting my children at risk, cursing and shaking my fist, he pushed me backwards and cursed even more effectively.  At that moment Mary arrived on the scene and got him in the face with her rage.  The presence of my acting partner triggered a renewed burst of confidence.  How dare this amateur try and outdo our rage.  We were livid, genuinely livid, and the estate reverberated with our shouting.  Other neighbours began to appear and of course were instantly on our side because they knew us.  Dear help the unfortunate few who stuck to their guns and wouldn’t back down suitably chastised.  The growing crowd of our enthusiastic supporters would intimidate anyone.  Then it would be all the more embarrassing for the victim, as usually the police would be called.  How innocent Mary and I would look, our children at our side, aprons still on, compared to the spotty delinquents and their vile cars.  We hardly had to speak; once the police arrived we were certain of victory.  Our joint maniacal rage would transform into distraught tears and righteous despair at the callousness of youth. 

No one stood a chance. We were professional performers.  Of course the fact that we’d done it so many times helped.  There is a kind of magic that happens when you perform with the same person.  I began to sense Mary’s intuition, her feeling for a situation, and learnt to follow her lead.  It was uncanny that we could ad-lib almost in concert.  At times it appeared telepathic as I threw in a line that Mary knew how to finish and vice versa.  Once - just once - did even our skills get pushed to the limit.

It was late, much too late for the normal skidders, but I heard the squeal of brakes and ran.  In the dark I saw Mary was already beside the car shouting.  The door opened and a figure I knew appeared.  It was Psycho Pete, one of our neighbours.  A huge mountain of a man with a terrible rage who periodically beat and kicked his wife senseless.  When his rage was aroused, usually after he’d been drinking, he was an animal, a dangerous animal.  He’d even have these long tirades with the devil, with whom he argued and threatened, long after his wife was taken away by ambulance.  His wife never called the police and his mad bouts became something of a repeated ritual.  I skidded to a halt on the other side of the car and my heart sank when I realised Pete was well into his Psycho phase.  This was dangerous.  Mary was retreating and looked scared.  “You fucking bitch, you fucking bitch…”  He lumbered after her and I knew I had to do something.  He wanted, needed, to hit and hurt someone; you could see it in his eyes.  I shouted, “Who’s the bugger in the front seat of your car Pete?”  Pete turned and came in my direction like a confused bull, cursing all the while.  Mary, inspired, screamed “Yeah, the guy with the greasy blond hair”. 


You could see Pete’s reptilian brain working, remembering.  His devil of over six months ago had matched that description.  He peered over his shoulder at the car and I knew from that quick glance we could win.  By now our old magic was beginning to work and, completely ignoring Pete, I walked up to the car and shouted through the window of the empty car “Come out, you devil, come out and we’ll beat the crap out of you”.  Mary as quick as lightening took my lead, “Pete, you watch the other door in case he tries to get out that way, we’ve got the bugger surrounded.”  Mesmerised he ran to the other side of the car and his rage fuelled by ours grew.  Mary took her hand and hit the window screen a blow - a loud smack that reverberated in the car park.  I pushed the car and it rocked from side to side.  By now Pete was on our side and his anger was white hot.  “Never mind that,” he said and grabbing a huge stick be began beating the side of the car.  The second blow broke the window and all the time he shouted, “can you still see him, the bugger, what’s he doing”? 


See him! Mary and I could still describe him in minute detail, down to the fancy ring he wore on his little finger, a month later.  After all the drama of that night he’s lodged in our brains that devil.  Pete’s fury exploded alongside ours that night and then just as quickly as it had come it went and Pete began to cry.  Like the seasoned actors we were, we took this in our stride.  Mary spoke soothingly, “It’s all right Pete, he’s gone”.  Pete sat on the pavement and wailed “but he’ll come back, he always does”.  “Not this time”, I said.  “Not after we beat the crap out of him like we did tonight. He was scared!”  Mary’s laughter was nervous but her tone was sure, “yeah, scared the shit out of me too, but we taught that bastard a lesson, didn’t we Pete?”  My laughter joined hers and we roared with relief that the violence was over.  Pete stood up and in a choked voice said “Thanks, no one ever helped before. I’ve always been alone, just him and me”.  When Mary and I hugged him he cried and cried.  Not like a man but like a small boy.  When he eventually stopped he shook our hands and thanked us from the bottom of his heart.  We were all exhausted but united in a weird magical way.   

Sun’s Magic

The sunshine warms my soul
Bringing inside out
Surfacing the good
Like freckles on a glowing skin
Memories ease cold joints into liquid gold
And heat sinks deep working out the cramps
Of frosted emotions
Stuck in the past
Leaning back to soak it up
The rays of heavenly love
Work their magic

No Sleep

Despite my tiredness, I could not sleep
but turned and turned
wandered from room to room
drained of all energy
longing for sleep.
But ceaseless pacing
of the rooms of my mind
provided no rest.
At last in the early hours
I gave up and made toast
with a huge pot of tea.
Sat in the living room
soaking up its nourishment
and then full as a tick
I slept!