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It is cold and wet outside, and this is not strictly a blog; and by this endeavor, I am not trying to lure you to my website under false pretenses. It's simply that I want to right a wrong, so to speak, although that is almost certainly a far too dramatic way of putting it.
When I first published my book of poems under the title, "Who Would be a Girl When You Can be a Boy?" in 2011, I was surprised to find that it was offered for sale on Amazon.co.uk; surprised, because besides being the author, I was also the publisher and distributor, and I hadn't asked Amazon to sell it. On making inquiries, I was told by Nielsen, (who provide the ISBN numbers in the UK, and with whom the book is registered), that it is standard practice for all retailers to be notified of a books existence. So I sat back and waited, and sure enough, it wasn't long before Amazon wrote and told me that they were interested and would soon be placing an order. And I, trembling at the though of celebrity, sat back and waited. Well, when the great day dawned, Amazon wanted 1, (one) copy, which I was to send to their warehouse; and here's the bit that made me cry. They wanted to keep, for themselves, 60 per cent of the cover price. Well it didn't take me long to work out, that in adding in the cost of posting and packaging, I would have to provide the book to Amazon at a loss. So I wrote and explained my predicament, and they wrote back and told me that that was how they do business. And I wrote back (with some difficulty on account of their over automated processes), and asked them to remove the book from their website, which they did.
Well, some time later, I wrote again to Amazon.co.uk, pointing out that despite the fact that I had asked them to remove the book from their website, it was still showing on Amazon.com with a misleading statement to the effect that the book was out of print. Not unreasonably, Amazon wrote back, pointing out that they had no control over Amazon.com, and that if I wanted the book removed from their website, I would have to write directly to them; and very kindly they provided the relevant address. So I wrote to Amazon.com and the letter went like this:
Dear Sir. I have just received an email from Amazon.co.uk, who have told me to write to you, etc. etc:
And Amazon.com wrote back:
Dear Mr McCloskey As you have just received an email from Amazon.co.uk you need to write to Amazon.co.uk
at which point, and deciding that I had better things to do with my time, I gave up.
Well this morning, and perhaps because it is cold and wet, and I am getting off to a slower start than usual, I have discovered that my book is advertised on Amazon in Canada, with the same misleading information. And likewise on Google books. And you can even find it here, at books.com, and at deastore.com, who are asking £1.48 more than the cover price.
So here's the deal.
Though the book has gone global, and I have sold quite a few, I still have copies left; and as they would be much happier out in the fresh air rather than sitting on a shelf here in the study, there is still time, if you are thinking of your Christmas shopping. Or better still. If you are seeking to raise money for a charitable cause, and would like a few to raffle, let me know at cormace.mccloskey@yahoo.com, and provided you don't live on Mars I will send them postage free. And don't forget to tell me something about the charity that you have in mind.
And here's something to cheer you up; click on the link
In the Roman Catholic liturgy, the feast of The Annunciation is usually celebrated on 25th March, but as this year it fell during the season of Lent, it was transferred to today. The reading below is taken from that portion of The Liturgy of the Hours, (The Divine Office), known as the Office of Readings. It is from the writings of Saint Leo the Great, pope, (440-461), and I have decided to share it with you as it is the most lucid exposition that I have come across of the mystery of the Incarnation. _______________
Lowliness is assured by majesty, weakness by power, mortality by eternity. To pay the debt of our sinful state, a nature that is incapable of suffering was joined to one that could suffer. Thus, in keeping with the healing that we needed, one and the same mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, was able to die in one nature, and unable to die in the other.
He who is true God was therefore born in the complete and perfect nature of a true man, whole in his own nature, whole in ours. By our nature we mean what the Creator had fashioned in us from the beginning, and took to himself in order to restore it.
For in the Saviour there was no trace of what the deceiver introduced and man, being misled, allowed to enter. It does not follow that because he submitted to sharing in our human weakness he therefore shared in our sins.
He took the nature of a servant without stain of sin, enlarging our humanity without diminishing his divinity. He emptied himself; though invisible he made himself visible, though Creator and Lord of all things he choose to be one of us mortal men. Yet this was the condescension of compassion, not the loss of omnipotence. So he who in the nature of God had created man, became in the nature of a servant, man himself.
Thus the Son of God enters this lowly world. He comes down from the throne of heaven, yet does not separate himself from the Father's glory. He is here in a new condition, by a new birth.
He was born in a new condition, for, invisible in his own nature, he became visible in ours. Beyond our grasp, he choose to come within our grasp. Existing before time began, he began to exist at a moment in time. Lord of the universe, he hid his infinite glory and took the nature of a servant. Incapable of suffering as God, he did not refuse to be a man, capable of suffering. Immortal, he choose to be subject to the laws of death.
He who is true God is also true man. There is no falsehood in this unity as long as the lowliness of man and the preeminence of God coexist in mutual relationship.
As God does not change by his condescension, so man is not swallowed up by being exalted. Each nature exercises its own activity, in communion with the other. The Word does what is proper to the Word, the flesh fulfills what is proper to the flesh.
Our nature is resplendent with miracles, the other falls victim to injuries. As the Word does not lose equality with the Father's glory, so the flesh does not leave behind the nature of our race.
One and the same person-this must be said over and over again-is truly the Son of God and truly the son of man. He is God in virtue of the fact that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He is man in virtue of the fact that the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. _______________ Cormac
It is dull and grey outside, for it is that time of year, and the news, whether is is to do with politics, economics, or religious faith, seems to be just as bleak. But there is good news also, in that those of us who don't have the responsibility of looking after more weighty things, have been getting on with life: sitting around in suburbia discussing poetry; and this time, the theme was, "Fame".
Well, having missed the last meeting, and hearing just a few days ago that the theme was Fame, my first thoughts were philosophical: to do with the nature and origin of things: what is fame? where does it come from? and more importantly, is it a necessary condition of what it is to be human? So if you like, I was looking for a poet-philosopher. But short on time and fearing that I might be on a hiding-to-nothing, my brain took a more practical turn. Queen Victoria (in all her blackness), came instantly to mind, as did poetry from the First and Second World Wars, as did Beowulf and Pan Tadeusz (both epic or long narrative poems), after which, I had the best of all ideas. In an attempt to do justice to my colleagues, and myself, I would focus on two books of poetry, on Scanning The Century (the 20th century that is), edited by Peter Forbes, and on Czeslaw Milosez, whose tomb I stumbled across in Poland. Well knowing where Czeslaw lives, I went there, and came back to my desk with two of his neighbours, Paul Eluard, and Charles Baudelaire. Paul Eluhard was a Christmas present from Leo in 2006, and I could see at a glance that I hadn't read him, for there were no telltale signs: no ticks in the Contents pages, and no signature, dated, at the end And what is interesting about Flowers of The Forest, is, that when it first appeared, in 1857, it was prosecuted for outrage to public decency, with Baudelaire, ordered by the court to suppress a half dozen of the poems. Well, here's a poem by Baudelaire that in this quick scan of his work, (for I had read all of his poetry in the past), I liked, but didn't bring to the meeting:
Remorse After Death
When, sullen beauty, you will sleep and have
As resting place, a fine black marble tomb,
When for a boudoir in your manor-home
You have a hollow pit, a sodden cave,
When stone, now heavy on your fearful breast
And loins once supple in their tempered fire,
Will stop your heart from beating, and desire,
And keep your straying feet from wantonness,
The Tomb, who knows what yearning is about
(The Tomb grasps what the poet has to say)
Will question you these nights you cannot rest,
"Vain courtesan, how could you live that way
And not have known what all the dead cry out?"
-And like remorse, the worm will gnaw your flesh.
__________
Now it must be said that when we decide on a theme; (next month it is "heavenly bodies"), the task is not prescriptive, something that is reflected in today's choice of poems. But let us begin at the beginning, with this: The Glories of our Blood and State, by the sixteenth century poet, James Shirley. He was a contemporary of another of this mornings poets, John Milton, and there is a sense in which they travelled in opposite directions. Shirley was a Church of England clergyman, who became a Roman Catholic, a schoolteacher, and a prolific writer of plays, while Milton, whose father, John, came from a devout Catholic family, became a protestant, as a consequence of which, his son, the poet John, in turn became a clergyman in the Church of England; and a civil servant in the Commonwealth of England, under Oliver Cromwell. And he is of course famed for his epic poem, Paradise Lost.
Shirley's poem is powerful, for it is direct, and to the point, and leaves no room for manoeuvre. And though it was written at a turbulent time: when the concept of "the Divine Right of Kings" was called spectacularly into question, in bloody civil wars, and the execution, by beheading, of King Charles 1, it is worth mentioning that unlike the Republican Milton, Shirley was a Monarchist. But in saying this I must also acknowledge, that the sentiments expressed in this poem, are universal:
The glories of our blood and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against fate;
Death lays his icy hand on kings.
Sceptre and crown
Must tumble down,
And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crooked scythe and spade.
Some men with swords may reap the field,
And plant fresh laurels where they kill;
But their strong nerves at last must yield,
They tame but one another still.
Early or late,
They stoop to fate,
And must give up their murmuring breath,
When they, pale captives, creep to death.
The garlands wither on your brow,
Then boast no more your mighty deeds;
Upon death's purple altar now,
See where the victim-victor bleeds.
Your heads must come
To the cold tomb;
Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in their dust.
__________
Now for whatever reason, and accepting that Milton is a "major" as distinct from a "minor" poet, his poetry has never had much appeal for me, so I am going to pass over Lycidas, or rather, that portion of it, 15 out of 200 lines, that someone brought along today, and move on instead to one of my fellow countrymen,Oliver Goldsmith; and his well known poem, The Deserted Village. An idealized view of village life, this poem ii not without humour, and its rhyming couplets so skillfully constructed, that they could almost pass unnoticed. And its ending, crisp and coming as it does a century after John Shirley, conveys the same idea: the transient nature of Fame.
Beside yon struggling fence
With blossomed furze unprofitably gay,
There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule,
The village master taught his little school;
A man severe he was, and stern to view;
I knew him well, and every truant knew;
Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace
The day's disasters in his morning face;
Full well they laugh'd with counterfeited glee,
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;
Full well the busy whisper, circling round,
Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned;
Yet he was kind, or if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault;
The village all declar'd how much he knew;
'Twas certain he could write and cypher too;
Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage,
And even the story ran that he could gauge.
In arguing too, the person owned his skill,
For e'en though vanquished, he could argue still;
While words of learned length and thundering sound
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around,
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew.
But past is all his fame. The very spot
Where many a time he triumphed, is forgot.
__________
Now of necessity I have to be selective, so, as mentioned previously, I am passing over the poetry of Milton, of Sir Walter Scott, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, Emily Dickinson, Ted Hughes, and Ruyn E Rice, and concentrating instead on two poems, Napoleon, by Elizabeth Jennings, and, St. Peter's Denial, by Charles Baudelaire. But as I knew nothing of Elizabeth Jennings before today, I have been doing a little research: extracting bits and pieces from, Lives of the Poets, by Michael Schmidt; So here is something of what I found, in as coherent a fashion as brevity will allow:
"She was born in Boston, Lincolnshire, in 1926. She had a troubled childhood and attempted suicide more than once. Unlike Plath, [Sylvia Plath] Jennings does not allegorize the causes for her mental disturbance Poetry is not exorcism but sacrament, a sharing. However extreme her illness, poetry is a way back from the edge, not over it; at her most disturbed she witnesses other people. Without recourse to stylistic ironies, she gains a perspective on herself. The seasons, landscapes, artifacts and people surrounded her....
"She attended st Anne's College, Oxford, and became a librarian in the city. Her early distinction made her a focal figure for younger poets. They gathered about her and called themselves Elizabethans.....
"By 1961, after she had written her first celebrated collections of poems - A Way of Looking, A sense of the World and Song for a Birth or Death - she published her most substantial critical work. Of Every Changing Shape, a series of related essays, she writes: "I am concerned of three things - the making of poems, the nature of mystical experience, and the relationship between them." She was thirty-five, working as an editor at a publishing house in London, on the threshold of a religious and psychological crisis which was to last her for twenty years. She wrote this book "at the pitch of poetry", with entire concentration."
And lastly:
"She compares making poems to the practice of prayer: it reconciles the individual with what is outside it, self is lost in a larger stability. "Each brings an island in his heart to square/With what he finds, and all is something strange//And most expected." Prayer and poetry also risk the terrifying world of shadows. In her poem on Rembrandt's late self-portraits, in which she implicates herself, she declares, "To paint's to breathe/And all the darknesses are dated.""
Now accepting that this is a highly selective set of quotes from a much longer appraisal of her and her work, the important thing to remember is, that not only had I not come across this poem before, but I hadn't heard of Elizabeth Jennings either. She died in 2001:
Napoleon
Many who spoke with him a little found
Him most indulgent to the common voice
And sensitive to quirks of character.
I wonder, then, was this sent underground,
This gift for understanding, when he choose
All the impersonal power of emperor?
So much the legend haunts us. His last days
Slide easily into the sentiment
We like to hide our great men in. But was
The truth elsewhere, his talk with valet and
Children a screen while his real thinking went
Still to the thought of Europe in his hand?
There is no answer. Emperors elude
Our logic and survive within the small
Moment when they seemed ordinary. All
Our thoughts of greatness disappear when we
Can catch the emperor quite off his guard
And think he lived such hours continually.
__________
Now as this poem was read out, the image of Hitler leapt out at me, and making this known in the discussion that followed, we found ourselves sharing our thoughts about Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. For some, the response to the poem was, well we know that people can function on more than one level at the same time, that is, get on with the immediate task in hand, while working towards an unstated longer term objective. And another response, drawing on the human qualities that were attributed to Napoleon, was, that we remember these, because they are the things in Famous people that we can relate to. But for me, the implications of Jennings observation about concealment, was sinister, which was what prompted the memory of Hitler. Hitler could be charming, and he knew how to delegate; giving considerable freedom to his underlings; but he also knew how to manipulate public opinion, and the law toward a long term goal that he never lost sight of, and that never became apparent to the mass of German public opinion, until it was too late. His goal of absolute power, in which would be crushed, all the positive elements in society that he had used and manipulated (including the law),to get there. And when I mentioned that I could find no redeeming features in Stalin, it was suggested that many people in Russia loved Stalin and believed that if he had known what was going on in the countryside he would have stopped it. This point of view was offered with sincerity, to which I replied that this was part of the lie; (that, in some respects Stalin was just like us), and reinforced the point by explaining how shocked I was, (thinking that I knew something about China), to discover the extent of his involvement in the affairs of China. Without pity, and aided by Mao (who understood that he needed the backing of Stalin, if he himself was to come to power), he pursued his objective, using the Chinese as pawns, and with Mao as his agent, subjected the rural Chinese especially, to appalling suffering, as a means of establishing himself, and a newly industrialized Russia, as an unassailable force in a Marxist dominated world. And in respect of Stalin, I must mention also, that it was said, in this discussion, that when his daughter, Svetlana, came to the West, she described him as a loving father; at which, I kept silent about her troubled life, and the suicide of her mother, Stalin's second wife.
Now you might wonder how we could have had a discussion at this level in response to a poem; but it wasn't difficult. For a start, it has taken me longer to write the above paragraph as an accurate reflection of what was said, than for the discussion itself to take place; and also, all of us appreciated that we were not meeting as a group of social or political historians, that the focus was on poetry, and so, as to accommodate everyone, we had to move on
As for Jennings poem, it is interesting in that it poses questions, without providing answers, but there are some key pointers along the way, that suggest deep meaning: in respect of Napoleon's human qualities, the word "underground", and the word "choose" in respect of the "impersonal power of emperor." The suggestion is, that his quest for absolute power was deliberate, and at the expense of his humanity, rather than that he had fame thrust upon him. And what about the inference in the second stanza, that it is easier to believe the myth, than to confront the lie, an idea that is carried into the final stanza.
This last poem St. Peter's Denial,was my contribution to the meeting. In effect, it is in three parts. While the first two stanzas rage against God, to the point of blasphemy, accusing him of having an insatiable appetite for suffering; the next five stanzas are a sympathetic treatment of the person of Christ, (though it would seem not of God the Father), (stanza 3). And what is especially interesting in these stanzas, is the contrast in the language that is used when describing Christ's executioners, and Christ himself. "Scum" is not the language of faith, but it is key in this clash of sentiments, as is "Chagrin" A word that might have been prompted in the mind of the poet, by Christ's words from the cross: "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me". From the point of view of the voice in the poem, these are the only credible sentiments, a view seemingly carried over to the third sections, or final stanza. Here the voice picks up the powerful Gospel image of the sword, (Which Peter actually used in defence of Christ at the time of his arrest), and paraphrasing Christ's words, he wields it defiantly in the face of the Godhead; for it seems that he is neither capable of a Christlike response, nor convinced by Christianity. As he puts it, "the dream and the deed do not accord". But, as I suggested to the group, in the context of the rest of the poem, the final line seems weak: it lacks conviction. Is that, I asked, because it represents less than the truth, as the voice in the poem knows that after the threefold denial of Christ, Peter, full of remorse, "went out and wept bitterly". In effect, he had come to terms with his conflict of emotion, an attitude or disposition that is at variance with the premise of the poem.
And as I acknowledged, I had spent some time arguing with myself about the ending, which prompted a scholar among us, (who seemed uncertain about it also), to say that he would need to see what word was used in the original French, that in my Oxford World's Classics edition, has been translated as "justified."
Now believing that everyone, with or without faith, would accept that Christ was, and is, famous, I explained that my reason for bringing the poem, was, that it makes the point, that while the idea of "Fame" in any given situation, might require a response, Fame, of itself, is not enough, that for it to mean something, you have to be able to identify with the substance of what it is, that makes for Fame.
St. Peter's Denial
What, then, had God to say of cursing heresies,
Which rise up like a flood at precious angel's feet?
A self-indulgent tyrant, stuffed with wine and meat,
He sleeps to soothing sounds of monstrous blasphemies.
The sobs of martyred saints and groans of tortured men
No doubt provide the Lord with rapturous symphonies.
And yet the heavenly hosts are scarcely even pleased
In spite of all the blood men dedicate to them.
- Jesus, do you recall the grove of olive trees
Where on your knees, in your simplicity, you prayed
To him who sat and heard the noise the nailing made
In your live flesh, as villains did their awful deed,
When you saw, spitting on your pure divinity,
Scum from the kitchens, outcasts, guardsmen in disgrace,
And felt the crown of thorns around your gentle face
Piercing your temples, home of our Humanity,
When like a target, you were raised above the crowd,
When the appalling wrench of broken body's weight
Stretched out your spreading arms, and as your blood and sweat
Streamed down your body, and across your pallid brow,
Did you remember all the days of brilliant calm
You went forth to fulfill the promise made by God,
And on a gentle ass triumphantly you trod
The streets all strewn with blooms and branches of the palms,
When with your heart so full of hope and far from fear,
You lashed with all your might that money-changing lot,
And were at last the master? O, and then did not
Chagrin strike through your side more keenly than the spear?
-Believe it, as for me, I'll go out satisfied
From this world where the dream and deed do not accord;
Would I might wield the sword, and perish by the sword!
Peter rejected Jesus . . . he was justified!
Sadly the item referred to below is no longer available. What was especially shocking about Banaz's death, apart from the fact that she went to the police some years before to tell them what was happening to her, was that as part of the planned process of killing her, (after her parents left the house, supposedly to go shopping), she was subjected to depraved sexual abuse by relatives. Later, and caught on a police bugging device, one of the killers was heard to boast, that in degrading her sexually, his objective was, to destroy her soul, so that (according to his mindset), she would die worthless. Cormac March 3rd 2013 __________ Last night quite by chance, I came across the story of Banaz Mahamod. It was broadcast on ITV 1. It is still available on their I Player, so if you can spare 50 minutes, please watch it; but I must warn you, that the description of how Banaz died is detailed and especially disturbing, so have regard to that in making your decision http://www.itv.com/itvplayer/video/?Filter=327184
Growing up as we did in uncertain circumstances, my mother had a few sayings that made light of the situation. When as a small boy I asked, "What's for dinner?" the answer always was, "roast duck and green peas." Now as roast duck had never ever appeared on my plate, I had nothing to go on; but as for the peas being "green," that really flummoxed me. "Aren't peas always green?" that voice in my head kept asking, but I never confided in my mother over this conundrum, because my inclination, from a very early age, when confronted with something that I didn't understand, was to try to find the answer myself.
And I was just the same at school. When the teacher first told us that a noun was: "the name of a person place or a thing," I fell behind in class, when it was pointed out that some things that I thought were nouns, were not. What bothered me, was the concerting of nouns with "things." Now whether or not I was especially bright, and the rest of my classmates were bluffing, or I was in some sense deficient, I will leave you to decide; but, from where I sat at my desk, any idea that came into my head was, "a thing," which made it well-nigh impossible to conceive of anything that wasn't a noun. And I was just as bad, when my ear was glued to the wireless, listening to serious voices telling me that strike breakers had been, "sent to Coventry." At moments like these I would come away perplexed, wondering what it was about Coventry that caused people to be sent there; and I never thought to ask for an explanation, for to wonder was more important than to know.
All of that said, and in the context of my nose, when we come to look back, Saturday the 19th of May will mean different thing to different people, and especially if their forte was sport. A day if you like of extremes of emotion. Happily, for those who are running in the relay that will carry the Olympic flame from Lands End in Cornwall to the Olympic Stadium in East London, there will be no losers. But spare a thought for the players and fans of Ulster, (Rugby) who were thumped 42-14 by Leinster, in what was an all Irish, Heineken, European Cup Final; and for Hibernian, (football) beaten 6-1 by their Edinburgh city rivals Hearts, in the Scottish FA Cup Final. And Blackpool, who failed to secure promotion back to the Premier League. I have nothing whatever against the people of West Ham, but I have a soft spot for "the seasiders", whose manager Ian Holloway was a refreshing voice when they were last in the Premier League. And what of Bayem Munich and their fans, who could, and should have won the prise that went instead to Chelsea: the European Champions League Final; and all the more hurtful, as they lost at their own stadium in Munich. As a spectacle the match offered little until the 84th minute, when Buyem scored, only for Didier Drogba in the dying seconds to make it 1-1. And the thirty minutes of extra time was just as forgettable. But again Buyem who appeared to be winning the penalty shoot-out, lost, to that talisman, Drogba.
Now sincere apologies if you are not interested in football, but as I am, and I missed all but the last of these showcase events, it fits the bill, for I will remember the 19th May as the date in which the second, and hopefully final stage of reconstructive surgery on my nose, took place. I say "hopefully final," because when Dr Moncrieff spoke to me before the operation, he held out the prospect of further surgery: when the bulge in the graft would have to be paired down. But afterwards, he seemed well pleased with his work, and inclined to the view that further surgery wouldn't be necessary. So my hope is, that when we meet again, that will still be the case.
In my previous blog I wrote, I hope, with precision and skill, as well as a degree of humour, about my pre and post operative experiences: of the general anaesthetic and the subtle way in which the anaesthetist went about knocking me out. And I told of the unexpected pleasure when I found myself wrapped in a thermal blanket. Well this time it was different. As I lay on the operating table, with a wry smile, and an apology, I confirmed to the nurse, (seemingly for the umpteenth time,) that I was who I was supposed to be. At that moment my sense of the ironic, came from the fact that I was wearing two name tags, one on my left wrist and the other on my right ankle; and my apology was in recognition of the seriousness of the processes that were underway, as will be apparent from this, a story that I know to be true, because it happened to me
In 2001. after an appendectomy, I had a longish stay in hospital, and when I had got to the point where I was no longer in need of careful attentions, but was not quite ready to go home, they moved me into a private room. I had not been lying there long and marvelling at my good fortune, when a geeky nurse (professorial looking and bespectacled,) appeared at the side of my bed. In her hand she had a large syringe and asked rhetorically: "You are Mr Hall?" Well I never found out what was in the syringe, nor did I complain. Without doubt I had at least one name tag, almost certainly on my wrist, but as this strange creature had wanted to hear directly from the horses mouth, I was thankful that I knew who I was, and could tell her so.
Well returning to the operating theatre, they were busy fixing me up to the heart and blood pressure monitors, the oxygen supply, and other things, when one of the nurses turned and asked if I was alright. In the circumstances it was an entirely reasonable question to ask, but as I was not sure that her asking it, was a coincidence, in reassuring her, I felt the need to explain that I had just been engaged in what was - a very private moment.
As for the post operative experience in the recovery room, I wasn't at all happy with myself: my mouth was dry, my throat uncomfortable, and I was struggling to cough and felt agitated; and there was no thermal blanket to keep me company, just ice cubes, for which I was mighty grateful. Now I don't want to speculate as to why I felt so different this time around, or to imply that in an age of cost-cutting, there was something less that the best in the treatment I received. To begin with, I have no professional knowledge to go on; and that apart, this operation was quite different from the original more extensive surgery. So the processes surrounding it may justifiably have been different; and help to explain why I felt so rough, and was missing that thermal blanket.
Now in telling my story there is a sense in which I feel that I am cheating, with the dramatic headline, "CANCER", for however concerning mine was, it was never life threatening. And even if I accept, that when one thing goes badly wrong, it might be the catalyst for worse to come, I still feel uneasy, because I know that for many, cancer is a deeply distressing, and all too frequently, fatal condition.
On Thursday last, at the local Parish Church, we attended the funeral of Charlotte, a loved family friend, who died after a six year battle with the disease; and adding to the sadness, was the fact that her death came just a few days after her sixtieth birthday. Through most of her illness she shared her experiences with her many friends, only in the latter stages did she leave us to come to our own conclusions, as she opted out of her regular engagements, and left the door open as to whether or not she would or would not turn up on a particular day. All of us understood that she would not recover, but what took us aback, was the speed of her decline at the end. And something of her courage and commitment to her friends, is reflected in her coming here to dinner with her husband Richard, just a month before she died. She ate little and stayed for a long time, and rightly or wrongly, as we thought about how long they had stayed, we interpreted it as Charlotte's way of thanking us for our friendship and of saying goodbye.
Until she discovered her own cancer, Charlotte had lived a full and healthy life, during which, and though she had lived in different places, she had made and kept many friendships, a truth affectionately confirmed, when Jenny, after the funeral, asked of someone whom she knew to be a friend, where she met Charlotte. Just one word said it all, "Everywhere!" She had a passion for the outdoors; for walking, not just here at home, but in far away exotic locations, and this aspect of her life was reflected in the funeral service that was a celebration of her life. The small church was packed, and though the vicar reminded us that it was a place in which prayers had been said for a thousand years, my experience of life, told me, that at this poignant moment, believers, non believers and skeptics, were well represented.
Well as a believer with his own share of uncertainty, allow me to tell you of something unexpected that came from Charlotte's funeral. Among her chosen hymns was Lord of the Dance. I was familiar with it, but, believing it to belong to what is sometimes called the "happy-clappy" movement, I never thought to take it seriously. But now I was experiencing it differently, as a hymn deeply rooted in the Gospels, and one that confronts the world as it appears to us, in particular the dichotomy between the presence and absence of God in the world; an absence, that for many, quite literally, "beggars belief". And in terms of these seeming contradictions there was something majestic, powerful, and challenging, in the Dance, that I hadn't noticed before.
Though the hymn is well known, it is still under copyright, so I quote it only in part, but in a way that I hope will help to reinforce the point.
For me, there was a particular ring of truth in those opening lines that remind us: that it was fishermen, and not the acclaimed religious leaders, "the scribe and the pharisee" (who were expecting the Messiah,) who responded to Christ. And there was a deeper truth in those lines that address the vexed question of suffering:
"I danced on the Sabbath and I cured the lame.
The holy people said it was a shame.
They whipped and they stripped and they hung me on high;
They left me there on the cross to die."
Here, I was being reminded of the truth, that God incarnate subjected himself to the worst excesses in the human condition: to a barbaric form of execution, in which, (even by our standards,) there was no justice; whatever, and that, to that extent at least, we can know the mind of God.
Nor had I spotted until now, in the hymn's happy refrain, that there is an invitation and subtly expressed message of hope:
"Dance, then, wherever you may be;
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he,
And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be,
And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said he."
The point being, "wherever" [in your life] "you may be."
Now in wanting to make the point that however inconvenient or taxing, my cancer was as nothing compared to what it might have been; I want to tell you also, that when I first went in to hospital, I brought with me, the "Wishing you well again soon" message, that Charlotte posted through the letterbox less than three weeks before she died.
And now that I can once again wear my reading glasses, for me, the dance does go on. So, it is back to the poetry of Yeats, to Dante's Divine Comedy, and the late historian Alan Bullock's vast study of the "Parallel Lives" of Hitler and Stalin, and to books of poetry that I have yet to read, and in the hope that all this endeavour, will, at some point in the future, feed in to another book of poems. And on the subject of published poems, I must tell you that mine had nothing to do with UNESCO recently declaring Norwich to be a city of literature. As I understand it, the award is given in perpetuity, and it is the first city in England to receive it. And right now we are in the midst of the Norfolk & Norwich Festival, that some are claiming will soon be on a par with that of Edinburgh. So myself and Jenny will be cultured out when it is over. Recently it was the Berlin Symphony Orchestra and Julian Lloyd Webber accompanying them on his 17c Cello. And last night at the Theatre Royal, we were warmly applauding an Afro Cubism eleven piece band; that as you would expect, was musicianship of the highest order, with dancing in the isles.
Wednesday 14th June 2012
So far so good & the sheen comes from Bio Oil which I will be using for the next couple of months
If you have read my previous blog "CANCER" you will understand when I say that this morning I was feeling down on account of my nose, though things are going well and according to plan; in fact, it was bandaged in such a way today as to suggest that they are starting to expose the graft to the elements. But what has had me feeling low and frustrated, is, not being able to read. Well, mid-day a large envelope arrived addressed to me, which was a surprise, as a good deal more wood pulp is used in communicating with Jenny. But, what had arrived for me, was the Self Publishing Magazine for Spring 2012, which I leafed through, and there on p. 46 was a review of my poems, some 7 months after I had sent them to the magazine. In total 30 books were reviewed under the headings: Biography, Writing, Academic, History, Fiction, Children's Fiction and Poetry, (with just two books reviewed in this last category). The reviewers are independent of the magazine, and are named on the Reviews Editor Page, but I have no idea who, among them wrote the review in my case. So allow me to share with you, something that made a difficult day, a whole lot better.
Book Review
"Who Would be a Girl when
You Can be a Boy?"
"This little volume of poetry is an absolute joy. The poems are simply constructed, take you through all that life throws up and are presented in the order in which they were written, although I much preferred to dip in, marking out my favourites as I went along. There are six pages of notes at the end of this book, which put a little extra colour to the main work, and I found this a very nice and thoughtful touch.
Small collections of personal poetry are notoriously difficult to market and sell, so I don't think that Mr McCloskey will make a fortune. He will however, have something very special to pass on to his family, friends and complete strangers like me. The title is wonderfully un-PC and I hope that it does not put the ladies off. "Who Would be a Girl..." is the fourth poem in this book and I found that transposing "Boy" and Girl" all the way through did not make any difference as even my future wife wanted to join the Navy!
Most books I get for review are given away, go to the car boot sale or are recycled. This little book sits on my bedside table. I think it may be there for a long time.
Cormac E McCloskey Publications
780956845504 £ 8.00"
Now here is an interesting thing, an indication of how stupid I can be at times.
Recently while at the Norwich & Norfolk University Hospital for a pre operation assessment, I got myself in a tangle over the request that, when admitted for surgery, I bring my medications with me, and in their original containers. Perhaps because my medications are few, and I don't think hospital, that helps to explains how I came to be confused, and certainly the nurse on duty must have thought me profoundly stupid when I queried this request. As I told her, "everyone knows what an Aspirin looks like, and most people know what a Statin looks like." But she agreed that there was no point in my bringing them, if, as I told her was the case, that I don't keep them in their original packaging, but instead, in a especially designed wallet. Well back home and in more reflective mood, and knowing that I was to be admitted on the following day, (for two lots of surgery on the same day), I decided that regardless of my point of view, I would bring them with me, only to forget when the time came..
Well, what was profoundly stupid, on my part, was my failure to see the obvious: the situation from the hospital's point of view, as the reason why they were asking for my medications in their original containers, wasn't so that they could see what they looked like, but rather, so as to be able to dispense them to me from the securely locked medicines cabinet.. Silly! silly! me!
Now another experience that I must share with you, about this pre operative assessment, is, that while there, I had thoughts about death row. As the nurse went carefully through the list of questions so as to determine my general state of health, I couldn't help thinking that if I was on death row and they were looking for an excuse not to give me a lethal injection, they wouldn't find it; because in relation to the questions being asked, (and allowing for the fact that I had a stent fitted into an artery in my heart in 2006), I was simply far too healthy. And after I had been subjected to the handiwork of two surgeons, and was lying in my hospital bed, I had a more profound thought. Looking at the curtain in front of me, that had been drawn around my bed, (leaf patterned and in pastel shades of green and yellow), I found myself reflecting on the fact that I would not want this to be my last view of the world. And I was reminded of something that I had heard in a radio broadcast many years ago. It was of a young man who, at the point of death, asked the hospice staff to carry him out into the garden, where he died, close to nature, and in the warmth of the sun.
And now I am sitting here feeling sorry for myself, with my computer set to large print, as I cannot wear my reading glasses, and unable for the time being at least, to go for my long walk each day. So by my standards, I am having to learn to be idle, and to be satisfied with things as they are.. You see, I have lost an eyebrow, have a large patch and stitches on my forehead, and a very ugly and askew bandage on my nose; and I have stitches through and behind my ear, from where cartilage has been transplanted to my nose. In time the stitches will dissolve, and my nose regain its shape, and by some miracle of modern surgical technique, my eyebrow will be restored, which is a roundabout way of saying that it is only a matter of time! until I am restored to my handsome self.
Now continuing on this hospital theme; there was a time when I thought that I had a high pain threshold, an illusion shattered, when, some years ago, I went for a bladder examination. Thankfully, (and as I suggested to the doctor at the time), there were no issues: but the tears were rolling down my cheeks while the probe was in use. And this time, when the needle carrying the local anesthetic was injected deep into my nose by the surgeon, the pain far outweighed any desire on my part, to be heroic. And if you think that a burka is a restricted form of dress, let me tell you that it has nothing on the garb in which I was clad during the Mohs surgery. Fully conscious, and with people rattling cutlery around my head, the only part of my anatomy exposed to view, was my nose. And apart from the cutlery, there was a sound-effect that perplexed me until I worked out what it was. It was the type of sound that you get when liquid is flowing from a pan on to a hot stove. It was of course a gentle suction pump that was following the course of the surgeons knife.
So why was I there? And what is Mohs surgery.?.And what of the plastic surgery, under general anesthetic that I had later that day?
For quite some time I had been aware of a small nodule on the tip of my nose, between the nostrils, that was new, and its shape struck me as odd; but as someone who has been known to fight his way into trees with one hand while dragging a saw in the other, it seemed not unreasonable to conclude, that somewhere along the way I had acquired a wound that had healed untidily. Not only was there no pain, but a stranger would have been hard pressed to notice that anything was wrong. But what finally persuaded me to visit my GP, (doctor), was the very occasional speck of blood that appeared when I blew my nose;. And when biopsies were taken, it was confirmed that I had what is known as a Basal Cell Carcinoma. A (BCC) is a slow growing, and non life threatening cancer, that if left untreated, results in the breakdown of tissue, and in my own case, if neglected, would have resulted in significant damage, if not to the actual loss of my nose.
Now we have a saying, "needs must," and this was the point at which I was made aware of Mohs surgery: an intricate and painstaking process designed to keep the disfigurement from surgery to a minimum. Having determined the likely boundary of the cancerous cells, and going slightly beyond them, the surgeon removes the tissue, and by a process of mapping, dying, and freezing, prepares it for the laboratory. The idea in going beyond the boundary of the cancerous cells, is, of course, to ensure that all the cancer, (including the caner roots), have been removed. But in truth, it is not an exact science, which is why, after waiting two hours for the laboratory results to come through, the patient might require a second, third, or even fourth incision to be made, before the all clear is given. And this is the point at which the mapping is important, for it guides the surgeon to where these remaining cancer cells are located, and keeps the areas of additional incisions to a minimum.
Well l was the first of three on that morning's list, and as we sat waiting for the lab to come back with their findings, we kept each other company. We exchanged notes on the instructions that we were given in respect of fasting before the operations, with myself explaining how, before midnight, I had managed to have today's breakfast, yesterday. We talked about our respective pasts, about children, and dare I say it, politics, and about whatever else readily came to mind. But with the two hour deadline past, and my dreading the prospect of another incision, and yet another two hour wait for the results, you can imagine my relief when the nurse appearing at the door told me that Dr Garioch had been advised that all the cancer cells had been removed. "Good", that imaginary voice in my head said, "they have got it early, and you will be home in time for tea." But, when she next appeared and invited me out into the corridor, I had a feeling of foreboding, and rightly so, for she had come to tell me that Dr Moncrieff, wanted a word.
Now as someone who is frequently looking beyond the immediate, and though I know him to be personable, on this occasion I had a sense of Dr Moncrieff as a man in a hurry: someone who was wholly mentally engaged on the tasks in hand. So with my back to the wall, (or so it seemed), I knew that it fell to me, at this decisive moment, to remember everything that I was now being told: that as Dr Garioch had had to cut in to the cartilage on my nose, reconstruction surgery would be necessary, and with cartilage transferred from from my ear. And that I would remain in hospital for several days, until the persistent bleeding associated with this type of surgery had stopped. And no less important was his closing remark, that if in the future I was in any way unhappy about the outcome, that was something that we could discuss.
Well I was lying there gazing at the ceiling and waiting to feel relaxed, as the anesthetist said I would, when I woke up in the recovery room, with a nurse asking how I was, while she pulled a warm thermal blanket around my shoulders. As out of nowhere I was wide awake, and thinking, every house should have one - a thermal blanket.
As for hospitals more generally, I have long had the view that no one should want to go there, and that if they must, it should be for as short a time as possible. And I am just as disregarding of the media, who, when the political climate is right, refer to nurses as "Angels". As I lay there, I was reminded of how they are just like us, women, and in many instances men, who are making their way against the ups and downs of life. Some, without doubt, are passionate lovers, while others despise their spouse or their partner, or break into a cold sweat when they realize how little money is in the bank, or are too afraid to think too much about their children; as to whether or not they might be going off the rails. But there was a sense in which I admired them greatly, and considered them special, for their life's work requires them to care for people when they are at their most vulnerable. And I wrestled with the dichotomy: the personal care and attention to detail, as applied to the patients around me, as compared to the absolute disregard of human worth, and need, in so many parts of the world. And while there, I did something that I would never do at home.
On my second day and when I was almost, but not quite restored to health, and the trolley shop was passing, I asked Jenny to get me three bars of chocolate, the sort of stuff that I would never eat at home. But as I explained to her, and later to Leo and Lynsey, I wanted them, "because the nurse's didn't love me any more;" a mischievous way of saying that I was so improved that I felt like a fly on the wall, while the nurses, understandably, were giving their time and attention to people whose needs were real. And that's a thing about hospitals; just as things can go quickly from bad to worse, or dare I say it, alarming, the converse is also true, as I observed in a patient more advanced in years than myself. On my first night there, and permanently on oxygen, he kept all of us awake as he endured extreme pain when needing to urinate. On the second night and in "the wee small hours," I was lying there and marveling at the transformation: with all five wards seemingly sleeping like babies, when the buzzer in my own ward sounded. It was my friend from across the way, and in the distance I could hear the light steps of the nurse as she came towards him. Notwithstanding his torments from the night before, and having wakened from a restful sleep, what he wanted was not oxygen, painkillers, or even to use the toilet, but rather, (and without anxiety,) to know where he was. - And I was smiling.
