Worker bees

Sandra’s favourite movie was a Robin Williams film, entitled “What Dreams may Come”.  It had been badly received by the critics at the time of its release and despite its sombre beauty never achieved acclaim.  Its subject matter was death and focussed on the suicide in particular.  Sandra’s husband, John, refused to watch the film with her.  He loved ‘the funnies’ as he called them.

“Movies should make you laugh, not cry!” He'd claimed. 

Sandra remembered the scene in the movie where her husband had dismissed the film and refused to watch any more.  Robin Williams and his wife had two children and in one tragic car accident both children were killed.  It was after that memorable scene John announced his preference for comedy and had retired to his workshop, beside the garage, to continue working on his beehives boxes.  Sandra sat alone, tissues at hand, sobbing while the film ran on.  Robin Williams dealt with the bereavement by mentally sealing the whole business up in a box and putting it away.  His wife could not bear the loss and had a complete mental breakdown ended only by her taking her own life.  Her husband John had stuck his head through the living room door and asked if she wanted a cup of tea.  Seeing her tear stained face he asked,

“Who else has died?”

When Sandra tried to explain, he interrupted her with,

“On second thoughts don't tell me, life is grim enough without fictional tragedies messing with my head.” He left to make the tea.

Sandra sat glued to the unfolding tale of sorrow alone.  When tea and biscuits arrived from the kitchen she'd thanked her husband and told him,

“Now Robin Williams has been killed while trying to help an injured person.”

John muttered,

“Let me get this straight.  Their only children are killed, and then his wife commits suicide.  Now, you tell me he’s dead!  Sandra why would anyone watch such a depressing film.  I'll tell you now; there'll be no happy ending to this one.  You’ll spend the whole evening crying into those tissues.”

With this ominous pronouncement John had retreated to his almost finished bee box.  Glowing in soft freshly sawn, sweet smelling wood he sanded the last remaining rough edges contentedly.

Sandra continued to watch the film caught up in its imagery and haunting beauty.  It touched her in ways she couldn't put into words.  In the film, Robin travels to hell to try and rescue his wife.  In this version of the afterlife, those who commit suicide go to a terrible part of hell.  In this place they forget all they love and even who they are.  He manages through his deep love to rescue her and the film ends with the whole family reunited in the next life.  After the traumatic film she joined John in the workshop needing a debriefing from the film.  John looked at her distraught face and asked,

“Why do you do it to yourself?”

Sandra tried to explain,

“It somehow touches my heart and makes me realise that life is much more than just this.”  She held her arms out to everything around them.

John continued to sand the edges of his box evenly and queried,

“Don’t you think suicide is an awfully depressing business to dwell on, never mind losing one’s kids?  I’d like to think life is much more than all that”,

Sandra nodded, “I know what you mean. It’s too close to home after Henry isn't it?”

She broke off, unsure where to go with the mention of John’s cousin.  John sighed,

“I'll never understand why he jumped, a lovely man, what a waste!”

Sandra stood closer and rubbed his shoulder.  John continued,

“If only he’d spoken to me about what was going on.  I never knew about the debt.  Losing his job must have been the last straw.  But why didn't he ask for help.  We all thought the world of him.  I’d have lent him some, we could have done something.”

Sandra pointed out,

“Most people hide the pain they carry, it’s the way they cope.  Do you know in our knitting circle last week every single person admitted they'd thought, at some stage in their life, of ending it!”

John was shocked, “Bloody hell!”

Sandra continued,

“Many said the reason they didn't was because there was someone or something that made the difference.  One lady said she felt like she was hanging off the edge of a waterfall and it seemed easier to just let go.  But her mother had got her through and that love had been her lifeline.  John coughed,

“Perhaps, I wasn't there enough for Henry.  We laughed a lot together and joked around.  But was there even an opportunity for him to tell me….” 

John shook his head and wiped his hand across his face, wiping the thoughts away.

“Henry loved your company, John.  He looked up to you, it wasn’t that.  His life was unravelling.”

John answered,

“You know Henry told me that around 8000,000 people commit suicide every year.  It was the time of the articles about the French Telecom building in Paris having had their 24th suicide in 18 months, do you remember?  There was a discussion in the pub and Henry had read a lot of stuff about it.  How could I have been so stupid not to see where he was going in his head?”  

He sadly shook his head from side to side.

Sandra responded,

“Perhaps life is more tenuous than we all like to think.  But you weren't to know.  I like to think most of us have lifelines that prevent us getting on those ledges.”

John asked, “Like what?”

Sandra sat beside him on the work stool and held his hand examining the calluses on his palms. 

“Lifelines like people we love, or have loved.  Moments of sweetness that make everything bearable.  Even the memory of your aunt Emma feels like a lifeline to me!”

John nodded,

“You're right she was special.  She used to have these huge family gatherings with roast lamb dinners around her big table.  I loved being with someone whose heart was that big.  Always a real privilege to be with her and learn to be a better person.  It was her kindness and gentleness that shaped the home.  It always felt a place of sanctuary, full of love.  She never forgot my birthday.  She really listened, I mean really listened, not just waited for a chance to speak about herself. ”

Sandra smiled and added,

“I can still smell her soda farls on the hob and taste her pancakes with honey!”

John squeezed her hand and said,

“You know worker bees do a lot more than just make honey. They keep the hive at exactly the right temperature. If it is too hot, they collect water and deposit it around the hive, then fan air through with their wings cooling it by evaporation. If it is too cold, they cluster together to generate body heat. They are the ones who gather the pollen, which feeds everyone else in the hive.  Without them there would be no crop pollination and almost all our own food supply is dependent on them. They keep us all alive in so many ways.  They clean, defend, and repair the hive. They feed the queen, and the drones.  When responsible for the larva they will check a single larva 1,300 times a day.  You know there are people who are like the worker bees and I reckon Aunt Emma was one of those. All of us are poorer and more vulnerable without them.” 

“Do you think I got washed in on the tide?”

Sam was amused his watch had stopped.  It had become a running joke in the family because his father Ted had ruined watches consistently for decades.  Now that his father was gone Sam found his shared ability to either stop watches or make them run slow forged a vital link with his dad.

It wasn't because they manhandled them or smashed them against corners of tables by accident.  This unusual talent to mess with watches was weirder than simple carelessness.  

His father had been a young man on holiday in a small coastal village when his ability to interfere with such devices first occurred.  He'd treated himself to a cheap watch.  It had cost less than a fiver so he had not expected it to last forever.  It had stopped by the time he wore it back to his basic bed and breakfast that evening.  Taking it back to the shop, the reluctant shopkeeper replaced it.  Two days later that watch also stopped and Sam was back in the small shop.  This time the shopkeeper was belligerent.

“What are you doing to my watches?” He asked Ted.

Ted responded,

“If you had enough turnover your watches wouldn't be such old stock that they've stopped working.”

The shopkeeper, a high pitched red haired Scotchman was livid and pulling a battery tester from under his counter took the watch battery out and tested it.  The battery had lost a lot of its charge and Ted had gloated in being proved right.  He proceeded to lecture the shopkeeper on the lifespan of all batteries.

“You do realise, even on the shelves, in packets, batteries run down?”

The shopkeeper’s face was as red as his hair and he muttered,

“Do you think I don’t know my own business?”

As he blustered, he took a fresh battery tested it and then inserted it into the watch.  Feeling righteous and successfully assertive about the whole business Ted left with a working watch once more.

It lasted three days before stopping again.  Ted was back in the shop aware that there would be unpleasantness ahead but determined nonetheless.  However, this time the Scotchman would not countenance any exchange or another battery.  Despite all Ted’s arguments he would respond with the same line, red eyebrows high in outrage

“Do you think I got washed in on the tide?”

Ted walked home defeated with this effective one liner.  He told himself such isolated tiny shops were probably filled with obsolete batteries/watches.   What on earth had he expected from such a rural location, so little frequented. 

Later that year he’d bought a fancy watch.  The type young men go for when they want to impress!  Ted had just met Sam’s mother and in his excitement to create a favourable image had lashed out on a hundred pound watch.  It looked good and on their first date Ted had admired the young girl opposite almost as much as his swanky new expensive timepiece.  With such a girl on one arm and another beauty on his left ticking away Ted had experienced one of those rare moments of sweet triumph that come too rarely in life.  As it turned out he won the girl’s heart but the watch died almost as quickly as its cheap predecessor.

Ted was relieved that the five year guarantee on his new watch meant he was able to get it fixed for free in the sleek fancy city shop he’d bought it in.  However, after returning to the shop twice with the stopped watch he noted that the suave young salesman was becoming as suspicious as the red-haired Scotchman.  He commented to Ted,

“You do realise, sire, that the watch is not waterproof.  If you get it wet that will effect the mechanism.”

Ted pointed out that he didn't get it wet unless perhaps a drop of rain on the way to work.  The salesman seized on this and pointed out that if Ted had wanted to wear the watch in downpours he should have opted for the waterproof model in the first place.  There followed an insidiously pointless and fruitless argument about the type of rain Ted walked in.  Had it been the soft Irish rain as Ted claimed, or the tropical downpour the young salesman favoured.  The upshot was Ted left with a broken expensive watch.

Disgruntled by the whole affair Ted threw the wretched watch in a small dish and forgot about it.  By now his new wife was pregnant, with Sam, and Ted had discovered a new world beyond material possessions.  This tiny life growing inside his wife was a part of him and a part of her.  At times Ted thought his heart would explode with happiness.  Who knew the world could be filled with all this richness.  

It was years before Ted’s ability to stop/ruin timepieces became clear.  Only those he wore were affected.  If he carried the watch in his pocket, something he proceeded to do until well into his eighties, they worked fine.

Now, Sam had discovered he had inherited his father’s strange knack.  Instead of just accepting his lot Sam had gone online to do some amateur research.  Where there others like him and his late father?  What caused this unusual effect?  Was there a scientific explanation?  He discovered PEARS Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research which involved a scientific study of consciousness-related physical phenomena.  There was an interesting video of how the research began.

http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/implications.html

However, the following information on the project seemed to concentrate on selling dvds, lamps that changed colour with human consciousness, or devices that sent you random text messages based on your mood.  These were marketed at ridiculous prices to the gullible and desperate. Sam, gave up and accepted his lot.  He remembered his father’s last words in the hospice.

“Do you think I'll get washed out on the tide?”

  

His mother and he had loved that with his last breath he had used the red-haired Scotchman’s line and managed to touch them with his gentle humour.

Mobile pacers and ass scratchers

What different creatures we are on the phone.  My nephew Richard paces frantically while on his mobile.  If in a house he enters and exits every room as he talks.  In our two bedroom flat he marched up and down the living room restricted only by the walls at each end.  I am reminded of Richard because below me on the rocks here in Malta I see another pacer on his phone.  He is also on his mobile but is bare footed.  Despite the pain of the hot sharp rocks, I recognise his tip toeing awkward stance as he attempts to cover distance with his phone to his ear.

Has there been a study I wonder of phone habits?  One girl on the bus, headset in place, held her phone like a soup plate under her lower lip.  It was an odd position but it was hers.  On my flight to Northern Ireland this summer a young Goth girl used her mobile as a mirror for almost the entire journey.  Picking up tiny strands of her fringe, straightening it and then placing it in microscopically different positions.  Each adjustment was examined in her iPhone to check for effect.  It was a nervous condition; I’m sure, as she did it for almost three hours.  I was more concerned that all her nail beds were infected with huge weeping blisters.  At such times I feel Easy jet is taking real chances with our health by insisting on cramming us in like greasy sardines.

I have one son who has to scratch his ass while talking on the phone.  He hardly notices but it is a compulsion.  We all have our own, I fear.  I saw a young lady hugging her phone like a baby to her ear, using both hands.  She caresses the receiver as if the caller will feel the extra attention bestowed.  In case you feel this is unusual a recent study found that

“The users who we observed touching their phone’s screens or buttons held their phones in three basic ways:”

·       one handed—49%

·       cradled—36%

·       two handed—15%

So her cradled approach is the second favourite method of holding the mobile. 

In London, I noticed a young business finance type, headset in place, strutting along the street with a definite swagger.  Pausing at times to raise one finger to an earpiece and bellow his recent triumphs to all and sundry. 

Tourists no longer lie on sun loungers listening to music, instead they paw their screen with two fingers, texting, reading, responding.  In amazing places but connected umbilically to this lifeline.  

Couples sit across romantic tables mobiles on the table, checking their screen.  Conversations, when they happen at all, are interjected with vibrations, pings, music and each one causes a response.  Different in each but always accompanied by that contented look, someone wants me.  I am needed, linked, not forgotten.  

The mobile phone has become an addiction we cannot live without.  A recent study found that

84% worldwide say they couldn’t go a single day without their mobile device in their hand.

What does all this mean?  We are beginning to understand how addiction influences other aspects of our lives.  Academic studies http://file.scirp.org/Html/36417.html (Open Journal of Preventive  Medicine) suggest that Internet addiction is associated with loneliness and mobile phone dependence in students.  Other found that sleep quality worsens with increasing addiction level.  

The more one reads the more disturbing it is to see how technology has so quickly influenced cultural norms/relationships and even family dynamics.  It would appear mobile pacers, ass scratchers are just symptoms of a much deeper malaise.

What do you intend doing with it?

Death comes to all of us.  We like to deny that.  We think that someone’s careless diet, inappropriate drug use, excess of alcohol consumption, unfortunate genetic inheritance was at fault.  Sloppy life choices are blamed as if avoiding death was as simple as choosing not to engage in dangerous sports.  Why do we love to point the finger?  “Well he was a worrier, that lowers your immune system.” Or “The stress levels he had to deal with this past year, must have weakened him.”  It is natural, I suspect, to want to blame something/someone for the indigestible truth that death happens.

Suicide is referred to, at times, as if the victim has committed a frontal attack on society.    Deserving thus of stigma, shame, castigation.  I prefer the recent definition of suicide “it is when living is not longer a viable option.”  If the victims felt they had any other choice it’s probable they would have taken it. Robin Williams will be missed, a great talent, deserving of respect and much loved by so many.

Why does it suits us to point the finger at those who die.

1.      By blaming the person death becomes no longer relevant to us

2.      We can distance our own death by allocating a reason/fault we do not intend making

3.      Our own perceived immortality is back in our own hands

4.      Such attitudes allow us to proclaim, it had nothing to do with me, it is their fault

5.      The meaningless practices of our own lives seem suddenly life sustaining

6.      Our own death becomes not the full stop at the end of every life sentence but more like a comma one can insert or leave out at will

In the context of physical life being all there is, dying is the cruel end game we choose not to contemplate.  Those who die around us remind us, all too clearly, death is the ultimate destination.  If we are prepared to consider death at all, how should we think of this dying business?

 We should look forward to it, as one looks forward to reaching the final destination of a long journey.  While on earth we are like a bird in a cage.  Restricted, caged, imprisoned in a physical space.  Death breaks that cage and frees the soul

I like to think that every good deed, spiritual quality of kindness, charity, love creates a spiritual seedling in the next life.  Just as the baby in the womb has legs, arms, eyes which it develops in preparation for world outside.  So to we must progress so that the spiritual attributes required are in place.  We cannot see our seedling but we can, here on earth, prepare the soil, tend the fragile seed and water it with prayers and supplications while on this earthly plain.

Our destiny is to create noble fruits.  Our endeavours in this mortal life will either nurture that tree of our real existence or become a veil between us and our own heart.  Selfishness, meanness of spirit, jealously, hurtfulness, spitefulness, materialism, disunity, cruelty etc – all these deform our development and stunt our growth.

If we deny the purpose of our lives we lose the light.  In the dark every path looks the same.  Each one as pointless as all the others.  Choosing to turn to God, is as nurturing as the sun is to the flower.  In choosing the light, we are replenished daily.

The mistakes we all make become tests that we learn from.  Rather than focus on the faults of others we address instead the meaty issue of our own defects.  Removing the beam from our own eye has always been the priority.

Our approaching death, that full stop at the end of this life, our physical disintegration should bred an urgency, not an indifference or apathy.  If, we admit it is there, then we can focus on the really important issue remaining.  What do you intend doing with the hours, days, weeks, years that that lie ahead?

Those who have the strength and the love to sit with a dying patient in the silence that goes beyond words will know that this moment is neither frightening nor painful, but a peaceful cessation of the functioning of the body.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Remembering one we lost this week - missing your smiling face and laughter

87 year old - fish fantasy

Joyce reciting her fish poem, such a treat meeting up with my writing buddies, from years ago, in Northern Ireland this summer.  What a lovely bunch to be creative and have fun with.

Stalked to death by LinkedIn - apologies everyone

I am on holiday in Northern Ireland visiting family/friends here.  It has been a lovely 6 weeks and I am about to fly back to Malta.  However, I must apologise for the harassment I inflicted on all my contacts via LinkedIn.  It was totally not what I wanted and I am so sorry for those annoying invites that regularly fly into your inbox. Let me give my side of the sad tale.

I am presently employed on a writing assignment which is for a course and part of it involves using LinkedIn professionally.  As a result I had to sign up and create an account to see how the whole thing worked and try it out for potential students on the course.  

I made my profile and quickly got some rubbish in to get started. Never expecting that LinkedIn would contact every single person in my contact list informing them of my 'new Job', silly titles etc.  But it did and has continued to do so with relentless efficiency almost every day.  I have been on a Google trawl to try and stop it, but it is as if the dam has been broken and no matter how many notifications I turn off, withdraw the darn thing has a mind of its own.  The only comforting thing is that the internet is filled with equally frustrated voices. Such as these

1. I have tried to help this issue by deleting my imported contacts and linked in is still inviting people to become my connection. 

This issue is a terrible way to get people in touch, as it turns out I am just annoying all of my professional contacts without my knowledge. 

and 

2. Same problem and I WISH I had an answer on how to stop this. It is SPAMMING. Here they penalize someone from trying to link to a stranger, but yet it's ok for LinkedIn to send out an invite to someone w/o your permission?

and yet another cry 

3. this is also happening to me. I have contacted LinkedIn three times and, although they have "acknowledged" receiving my e-mail and assured me they would contact me, they have not. I am now getting at least three people a day who have accepted my nonexistent invitation. I am EXTREMELY frustrated. I thought I would be choosing only those people I wanted a connection to!

I joined this as it was a "professional" networking opportunity that I thought could connect me with my peers and would be vastly different than Facebook. Yet here I am with similar issues in terms of privacy and control.

and even more intense

4. This is outrageous and I'm withdrawing my account. As the owner of a very large web site, I will recommend my members do the same.
This is shameful and desperate spamming.

Oh dear, never mind I hope you will all forgive this unwanted intrusion from me.  I would not have done it by choice.  At least I will be sure to include health warnings for students using this resource on the course!  While here I have met so many victims of LinkedIn and all are so annoyed.  Surely such practices eventually backfire on the perpetrators?  Perhaps it is a language thing?  For example Americans need to understand how the British use language is very different and this is a typical guidance.

What the Brits say: Quite good
What the British mean: A bit disappointing
What others understand: Quite good

What the Brits say: Very interesting
What the British mean: That's clearly nonsense
What others understand: They are impressed

What the Brits say: I only have a few minor comments
What the British mean: Please re-write completely
What others understand: He's found a few typos

I’ve added my own

When the Brits say: LinkedIn is prolific

What the British mean: LinkedIn is a bloody nuisance 

What LinkedIn understands: We really network well

I would love to hear from you on your thoughts!

PS I have no new job, no new title and have achieved next to nothing - rest assured you are now updated on my status

Angel in the shuck

She had nothing to speak of
no money, no profession, no property
She kept chickens and always wore wellingtons
Her hair an untamed bush under a crocheted hat
Her skin creased like the folds of an accordion
sun blasted into brown granite
her language a quaint country lilt
Her wrinkles form permanent smile
lines around eyes and mouth
beaming her well meaning at the world
while shooing the chickens from
under her feet in shit splashed boots
You'd mention some old rogue
from the council, corrupt and foul
and her response was ever
"What a lovely man!"
She had no badness to say about anyone
Only good things to appreciate and praise
I once fell in the deep ditch beside her road
She ran throwing her bucket aside
chickens running in all directions
screeching their distress
with her spade hands and peat tipped nails
she hauled me out
smiling at me, the world and her chickens
As a child, I remember thinking
I'd found an angel in the shuck

Note the meaning of shuck - Northern Ireland slang, meaning 

1: a ditch at the side of the road that contains a small stream normally laced with cow shit