A sad summer

In the last few months there has been so much sadness. I suppose, living in a retirement complex, just one step removed from an old age home I should expect it.  After all it is the period of our last years that we spend here, but it does seem that a particular angel has been unusually busy. Since September at least five inmates, (actually I should call them residents) have died. I was able to avoid some of the memorials,( I find what are called "celebrations of the life of..." particularly harrowing) but felt obliged to attend Beryl's "celebration."  Then my dear friend, Helen, died suddenly. It was hard for me to get over her loss. Just the week before she died I had been to see her. She seemed in good health only a bit frail. We had laughed and joked just as we always did, so it was a great shock to me. The very next month, I had to attend two memorials on the same day. Annette's in the afternoon and Livinia's that evening. I was very fond of Annette, but it is Livinia that I miss more. I would see her every Sunday, at Capricorn Pick n Pay, picking up Malawian congregants for church. Then battling her way from her car, up the road to the church door, a short journey which took her several minutes, the stroke she had suffered had disabled her so much. After the service, she would always had out the sandwiches that she had made to the homeless people who would be sitting by the side of the road, waiting..

In December the whole country mourned Madiba's death.  I had hoped that 2014 would be a happier year, but it is only the second week and there has been dreadful news of floods and other disasters. Yesterday, saddest of all, my dear friend, Joanne's husband died unexpectedly. All the other deaths have been of old people(in their eighties or nineties), one mourns, but quickly comes to terms with the loss. It is something one is somewhat prepared for,  but he was only fifty two. My heart goes out to her and her children. Her son is quite a young boy, the daughters still at home. I wish I could do or say something to make their burden a little lighter. I can only pray for them. My faith and my relationship with the Lord has helped me though the bad times, like Mike's illness and death and the crises with Dorothy. It must be so hard for those without faith. People always tell you that time heals, but I know from experience, that there are some losses that one never gets over. After time the pain dulls, but it never goes away.

Something Geoff and Ann told me has upset me too. Their granddaughter, Francesca, developed anorexia. Apparently her condition was so bad that she had to be hospitalised. Ann said they were afraid that her life was in danger. What a dreadful disease it is. Like being addicted to a lethal drug, or possessed by an evil spirit. It is so hard for parents, who often blame themselves and are also often blamed by others too.
Well, I think I have gloomed and doomed enough. It is time I went to bed.

READING POETRY

I am a poet myself, at least I call myself a poet, so why do I find so much poetry difficult to read. I have just down-loaded "Ariel" by Sylvia Plath onto my kindle(Kobo actually, I must be accurate about such things) and have been battling through it for the last hour or so. I don't deny that some of the lines speak to me. Some are upsetting; cause shock or even pain. Some are quite beautiful in their lyrical quality, but, on the whole, the meaning behind them eludes me. Surely this ought not be so. You would think that knowledge of the process of producing a poem would make it easier to tease out the meaning of a piece of verse. Of course it is true that I have never actually learnt to study poetry, or if I have, it was at school and so long ago that I have forgotten all about it. To the truly literary, no doubt, the meaning of Plath's lines is perfectly clear. It is rather bruising to my ego to find that to me many of her poems are quite obscure and that I have no idea what they are about at all.

A friend once told me that she likes to find something mysterious in a poem, that she enjoys puzzling out hidden meanings. I understand what she means, but I am afraid that what I write is somewhat shallow. There are no interesting hidden depths.When I write, what you see is what you get. That is why I was surprised to hear that my publisher has been asked for permission to include one of my poems in a school textbook. Of course I was pleased and flattered, but rather puzzled. What could they possibly want to do with it? -- analyse it? You might as well analyse a recipe for spaghetti.

Anti-bacterial soaps

I have just read in a post on Facebook, that antibacterial soaps have been temporarily banned in the USA. This is great news. I wish they could be banned all over the world - permanently. Bacteria, like all living creatures should be treated with kindness and respect. They may have a bad name, but actually very few of them cause us any harm.  (Probably less than 0.001%).  The rest are totally innocuous and some are even beneficial.  Of course you do often need to remove an excess of these little bugs from certain places, like the palms of your hands or the surface of your chopping board or  dinner plate. In that case, just sponge them away gently with mild soap and water, don't poison them with harsh, harmful chemicals (which do no good to your skin or to the environment,)  and then rinse them down the nearest drain so they may end their days usefully, helping to clean up effluent and make it safe enough to be discharged into streams and rivers.( Sewage works depend on bacteria to do this job.) It has been scientifically proved that plain soap and water is just as effective as most antibacterial agents and there is very little benefit in using expensive chemicals. In fact it may actually be harmful. 

Writing in the New Year

I started to write something about writing projects for next year. I hadn't been inspired to do much. I hadn't heard of any exciting incidents that I wanted to record. I only thought of writing a nativity play for next year which would be more suited to All Saints sunday School. One in which this year's animal masks could be used, but which would have a simpler message, more action and minimal dialogue. It should also have more scope for the introduction of carols, particularly the carols everybody knows.  I think I should consult with Eleanor Ely, and the other teachers. I am used to writing plays to fit the cast available. This is the nature of Church plays. The playwright needs to be willing to change the dialogue, the number and gender of actors and even the direction of the action at any time up until the dress rehearsal.( an possibly even after)

One interesting incident, however, has presented possibilities for at least the beginning of a short story. That is the extraordinary event on Christmas Eve in Kidd's Beach.  On the afternoon of the 24th we had gone down to the village to find out about Christmas Services at the little Angican Church. Shirley was willing to lend me her car to get me there. There was nothing on the notice board by the church door, and nothing about services, that I could see from peering though the front windows, that was pinned to any board in the entrance. We phoned a friend who told us that she thought that there was Midnight Mass at eleven thirty and a morning service at half-past eight. I plumped for the morning one, because I didn't fancy driving down the pot-holed farm road at night. In the event Shirley relented and kindly offered to drive me to church on Christmas mornin anyway.

The afternoon was hot and humid. Rain seemed to be in the offing and indeed, we were woken by a violent thunderstorm in the night. When I got to church, it was to see the whole large front window falling to pieces, glass all over the porch and a part of a windowframe protruding throuch the church ceiling. Everyone was ushered in through the vestry and we all huddled in the front pews,out of the way of shards of window pane and wooden splinters that were continuing to drop down into the western part of the Nave.

In the middle of Midnight Mass, just before the lighting of the Christmas Candle, the church had been struck by lightning. It must have been a bit like Pentecost with the fire and the rushing wind, but possibly noisier, because there would have been thunder as well.I wasn't able to find out whether there was any attempt to go on with the service, but think it probable that at that point eveyone rushed out by the side door and went home.
How glad I was that I had decided to go to the morning service!

Carols at the Marina

I have just enjoyed a wonderful evening of carols at Marina da Gama with my friends from the writing group, Geri and Esme.  I believe this is an annual event. Families from all over the Marina came by car, on foot, or by boat to the venue, a grassy bank by a footbridge that joins two sections of the Marina.

We were welcomed by a piper in full regalia plying his bagpipes on the bridge. The skirling echoing off the water. Everyone set up chairs, laid out rugs and unpacked their picnic suppers. Then the band
under the bridge started playing and we all joined in the singing of the old favourites. Our party had only one song sheet between the five of us. It didn't matter because I knew all the tunes and most of the words.  Ironically, I was put to shame by my Jewish companions, who knew the carols better than I did!
The moon looked down on us through a halo of cloud as we ended the evening with the lovely "Silent Night" and as we walked back to our cars over the bridge we saw a small fleet of paddle boats, their light reflected in the still surface of the lake as they made their way home, breathtakingly lovely, a magic moment.

Social Pain

I have just been reading an article from Brain-pickings (posted on Facebook) about the essential connectedness of humans. One point it makes is that what it calls "social pain" (i.e. the loss of a loved one or the failure of an endeavour) is felt in essentially the same way as physical pain, but we look upon it very differently. As they point out if we have a broken leg or something similar we are not told "to just get over it" . This is something that I must have understood intuitively, because I am disturbed by the present day attitude to grief.  Sorrow has become socially unacceptable. We are not allowed to mourn. We may mention our physical pains, but not our emotional ones. So many people I come across are taking anti-depressants. Surely it is natural to be unhappy sometimes. Life is not a perpetual bed of roses. Shouldn't we accept this fact instead of trying to run away from it.

A RED BALLOON

Yesterday I was at the Blue Route Mall, driving slowly along the road behind the building which leads to the undercover parking. All at once, in front of me, was a big red balloon bowling along the road in the most extraordinary way. It was as if it had a life of its own. It would bounce a few times, roll a little and then leap up into the air (waist high or more). Coming back to earth, it would continue on its way: bounce, bounce, bounce, roll, leap, roll, bounce, bounce.  I have never seen anything like it. As it came to a corner, I saw there was a lorry blocking the way. The lorry was trying to back into a driveway and was half way across the road. I had to stop and I expected the balloon to be brought to a standstill too. But no. As though on purpose, it veered to the right and passing the lorry, carried on along the road out of sight. A few seconds later, the road was clear and I was able to continue. I looked for the balloon, but there was no round, red object to be seen, only a starling, flying up in front of my car, flashed its scarlet wings at me. It was as though the balloon had changed into a bird? Did this really happen or was it a hallucination?