Re Issue - Peter Pan Loses his Ability to Fly

Peter Pan Loses his Ability to Fly

My parents left me to defend myself with only sticks

and a few bad words. I open my milk-tooth mouth,

I've not even the jaw to bite. The inside of me is dust.

I want good fortune to stroke me

with a mother's bed-time touch.

I keep waiting.

My dreams are full of ghouls, angry fang-tooth dogs,

and dark corridors lit by just one flame.

If only I knew good things then my cottoned feet would lift

from the rubble of the earth, the split and splintered timber.

If I was happy, and not scared

I would rise like a bird

the island below my kingdom

and me, king for a day.

Re Issue - Rothko's Silence

Rothko's Silence

We flinch from it, want more images

to flick across the surface. Instead

a blur of slate grey diluted

to a white penumbra with a shot

of turps, or how the oranges

in my fruit bowl sing at their skin

mentioned on a canvas. A hive

of assistants worked with him,

hands moving at a conjurer's speed.

Each painted layer a shared meditation.

One restaurant bought his painterly

autograph, so that diners, lips full

of conversation could sit at ear height,

chewing on carpaccio, sharing the maroon.

Rothko gave the money back, his paintings

later earning millions. A sum he'd never know.

He died at his own hand, his blood

a signature in a 8 x 8 room, deadened

and dense with pills, deep cuts

across his wrists, left his children

fatherless, led us where wordless colours

rule the accuracy of silence

he talked about.

Re Issue - an introduction.

It's been a while since I've written any poetry but I thought I would go through two of my old projects Poetry Mosaic and Moments of Chaos and Nostalgia (a poetry/photography project with photographer Dan Wesker) and in addition to this some of my unpublished work and share the poems here in an online collection called Re Issue. I'm still very proud of Poetry Mosaic. This is how I described it on the blog initially.

Poetry Mosaic is the online poetry invention of London based poet, Naomi Woddis. I find that my writing process is changing rapidly and I am using found text in my work. Sometimes I will do an extended interview and this will form the basis or springboard for a poem. I mix some extracts of the conversation with my own writing. 

Poetry Mosaic goes a step further. The responses to specific questions will be the starting point for the poetry on this site. Short phrases from these replies will be cut and pasted with longer pieces of my own work and the finished poems will be posted on the Poetry Mosaic blog. Each respondent will be fully acknowledged at the end of each poem on the Poetry Mosaic blog. I will retain sole copyright for the poem that I create out of the responses.

Sometimes I created the poem using only the replies and at other times I would include my own contributions to the final piece.

---

On Time

The oldest knew the mountain. As children they had all the time in the world,

watched the hourglass empty, caught in the glint of the rising sun’s eye.

*

My greying hair, the shrinking human brain, skin products gathering on the bathroom shelf.

An antelope runs across a lonely desert, its shadow speeding.

*

Tornado time whirls. Monks meditate on stillness at the fulcrum.

Everything that has happened will happen. It is always Now.

© Copyright Naomi Woddis 2008

Inspired and taken from answers to the the following questions:

What image illustrates the true nature of time ? Describe the first time you saw another person’s blood ? What does the word home mean to you ?

Chrystine Bennett A tornado, a hurricane. no not the winds whirling round and round picking up cars and cows and houses, the strange stillness in the middle. Time is not forward or back, it is never past, it is always now.

Dorianne Laux  Trees are time. Leaves fall like minutes. Eons of rings hidden at the core. They tick like clocks in the breeze and the birds who live inside them are small beating hearts. They watch the grass grow over their feet. Their limbs ache when it rains. The oldest knew the mountains when they were young, when they had all the time in the world.

Niall O’Sullivan The human brain.

Sally Evans A sand-glass. Or the sun rising in the north east at the solstice. The neolithic tomb where the sun strikes in through an aperture only once a year, at its highest point. A reversible sand-glass.

Catherine Brennan The increasing accumulation of skin products in the bathroom cabinet!

Lucy Lepchani Most cultures have a linear model of time: past, present, future. Tantric traditions are founded on the concept of time as non-linear: everything that has ever happened or will happen, is taking place simultaneously, constantly. Tantric practices, which range from meditation to feasting, sexual rites or intoxication or working with death, and many other taboos, shift consciousness to dispel the illusion of linear time (known as ‘The Monster of Time’). Tantrics hold that to experience Time as it truly is, as it reflects the nature of the universe, is to experience divine ecstasy.

Andy Thibault Simultaneously, I see the curve of the earth from space and antelope running in the desert from a cliff in the southwest U.S. Stella Duffy The greying of hair.

Living Differently - Nothing is Beautiful

A week ago my solid, kind and adored therapist finally retired. I'm still numb from the ending of what has become one of my most important relationships to date. Every therapeutic relationship is different and ours evolved in to something far away from text books and theories and in to something imaginative, philosophical, supportive and ultimately saved my life more than once.  A few weeks before our final session we were talking about photography. I mentioned the work of Khalik Allah, whom I had only just discovered. I broke down in tears recalling the images of these New Yorkers - tough, broken and on the edge of survival. What struck me most is their vibrance. Yes, there's suffering here, addiction and poverty but there's also tenacity. That the photographs are in colour, deep saturated flourishing colour, spoke to me about the vitality of the human spirit. And that's why I wept. 'All photography captures life' I said 'Even if it's no longer there, it's the evidence that it has been. From the sky at night to a lamp on a table, to the people in the photographs, it's all about life. And because it's all about life it means that it's about beauty.' I thought about the photographic projects I've assigned myself since becoming ill - from taking pictures of the small and mundane, snapping the shutter at the same subject matter over days or weeks to my most recent project 'The View From Here'  (taken entirely from my bed during this recent crash). 'Even nothing is beautiful' I said.

My therapist smiled and repeated 'Nothing is beautiful' and in that moment we acknowledged both meanings inherent in this statement. The way I had originally meant it - even nothing is beautiful - and also remembering the despair I had taken to many session where I would arrive joyless and sad believing that there was no beauty in myself, or the world that I had access to. Nothing is beautiful, not this moment or any moment to come. But now my wish is that by stumbling on these words I can find moments, however short, where both the hope and hopelessness can live side by side. And that there will always be colour even in the most brutal of times.

Living Differently - Who Cares ? by Will Hames

I invited my friend Will Hames to write about his experience as a full-time carer for his wife who has M.E.  Here's what he wrote :

You start looking after somebody because you care. It’s a feeling, an emotion, and in the beginning all the work you do is driven by love. For me, several years down the line, the word “caring” has taken on a different complexion all together. It’s not something I feel any more, rather it’s something I force myself to do because ceasing to do it is unthinkable.

There are still many moments of tenderness, but they are heavily outnumbered by flashes of irritation from both of us and long periods of mind-numbing tedium. Minor inconveniences which I would formerly have taken in my stride and rated unworthy of even a mention assume ridiculous proportions now.

She used to be an actress, full of bounce and bright ideas, before M.E. started to creep up on her. I used to have a well-paid job that involved frequent foreign travel and a lot of intellectual challenge. We both worked hard, expecting to keep our careers on a steady upward path, not knowing that we had already peaked and the only way was down. When I started to fall asleep at my desk, my mind blank with fatigue from nights spent helping her keep afloat physically and emotionally, the end was inevitable.

As my wife’s world has shrunk to the space within four walls, so has mine, and but for the fact that I have the very occasional opportunity to go out for a few hours as a comedy poet, my entire contact with the outside world (apart from a little banter with local shop staff) would be via Facebook and our doctor’s surgery.

There is a haphazard, arbitrary quality to our existence these days, with the need for regular medication as the only really consistent element in any of it. Outsiders see the state of our lives and wonder why I, as the stronger partner, don’t insist on imposing some proper structure on our days. It sounds weak and flabby to say that my patient calls all the shots according to how she is feeling from moment to moment, but that’s the fact. Sleep patterns? What are they?

As carer, it is down to me to make all the concessions and compromises: to fight with an invalid would make me a tyrant and a bully, so I allow myself to be tyrannised and bullied because I am - supposedly - big enough to take it.

But that’s just my own situation. Talking to other carers has shown me that there is a whole spectrum of power/dependency balances out there. Some people whom I might be tempted to envy because their patients are docile and biddable, envy me for having a patient who knows her own mind and can articulate her needs.

All the same, there are some common elements. For a start, neither invalid nor carer will have volunteered or had training for their respective positions. Both parties would rather be doing something else.

And neither one can look hopefully towards the future, particularly in respect of the question, “Which one of us will go first?” A carer without anybody to care for is in a better position than a suddenly-lone invalid, but at least the invalid has some claim to consideration from the rest of the world. The ex-carer has no status at all, and if he has spent decades going quietly stir-crazy in a role that is no longer relevant, his chances of fitting back into the world productively are pretty slim. Nevertheless, I hope I’ll be the one who survives, for her sake and for the sake of our children.

Every once in a while, somebody will remind me that I’m doing a valuable job, on duty 24/7 and saving the welfare system oodles of money (at least, while we still have a welfare system to speak of), but these reminders do not come nearly as often as the slurs and persecutions aimed at the disabled and people like me, who make a “life choice” to stay at home, ostensibly unemployed.

My wife draws benefits because she is unable to work for a living. I also survive on those benefits because, although I am perfectly capable of holding down a job, I can’t go looking for one. If a Daily Mail reader came to our house, he would probably label us both as benefit scroungers the moment he walked through the door.

We have a big, flat-screen TV. That says it all.

Will Hames has been a carer for more than twenty years. He keeps his spirits up by writing silly poetry. Every once in a while, he says something wise, but he insists on being careful not to make a habit of it.

Living Differently - Heartpoint (for Catherine)

I'm still getting over my most recent energy crash. It takes a lot of self-discipline to care for myself this much. And I don't mean the physical side of taking enough rest or eating properly but the emotional component. That one I find pretty tough. For every step I take towards self-compassion a voice rears up in my head reminding me, with great authority, how indulgent I'm being to take it this easy and that I should be doing more.  It's an hourly battle not to be crushed by this inner dictatorial voice and I find myself losing the ability to see what I need with any clarity at all. To feel so in the wilderness with nothing but my own punishing thoughts for company can be a pretty lonely place and I begin to wonder if I'll ever find my way back home. Now I've written this down I can see it does sound rather melodramatic. It's also the truth.

Chronic illnesses have wavering symptoms, ranging from just about nearly OK to absolutely bloody awful and if the ghastly period is unrelenting the fear can hold you pretty tightly in its grip. The whole process of going through a crash, relapse, or flare is extremely traumatising. After the metaphorical storm has passed I find myself wincing at even the tiniest drop of rain. I know I'm not alone in this and that the unpredictable nature of long term sickness can be very anxiety producing. This is perhaps why so many of us turn to meditation, buddhism, a spiritual practice or a creative outlet to aid our navigation through these rough seas.

So, it will be no surprise to hear that recently I had given up on magic altogether, even in its most human form. That was until my friend Dina invited me over to her studio for a prolonged session of recuperative yoga. It's not the first time she's done this and I'm always grateful. The session lasted over two hours and Dina put me in a series of prolonged resting postures on mountains of bolsters and blocks, covering me with cosy blankets until I drifted in to that safe and hypnotic space between waking and sleeping. She is an expert at arranging the equipment and I often felt like I was floating in space, momentarily free of the burden of gravity.

One thing that struck me was Dina's attention to detail. Even my skinny wrists were supported by rolled up blankets. We often think of holding on as something we do with our hands but our wrists can also carry a great deal of tension, the support I had enabled me to let go at last, to take flight. I decided to find out what mysteries our often neglected wrists held and discovered the location of Heart Point 7  described as an acupressure point to quell anxiety. It also served as a reminder to me that when we are feeling our most fragile the seemingly smallest things make the greatest difference and hold the key to our emotional sanctuary. I've called this heartpoint to highlight that even in our most difficult times there are clues everywhere, tiny doorways to love and tenderness and it's in the silence and stillness that they are revealed to us.

NB: This post is dedicated to my friend Catherine who is in the middle of a storm right now.

Living Differently- Making A Mess For No Reason

I was all ready to write about transformation or some other lofty approach to the fact that I've been pretty much, but not exclusively, housebound for weeks and am entirely pissed off about it.  It won't last for ever, it can't. I'm getting so frustrated that I want to punch holes in the sky, uproot trees, fight all of nature, my hair a mess and me all snarly and unforgivable. All this time and so much living still to be done. I'm sick and tired of lessons, of patience, self-compassion and being kind and tender with myself. I'm bored of the hundred tiny gratitudes that I 'm called upon to feel every day. I want to get my teeth in to something, and hard. This cloying exhaustion and obedience to the needs of my body has me broken and vexed in equal measure. Well - that was until I started writing about it. I know I won't shoo the feelings away just by penning a couple of paragraphs but it's good to know that I still have some fight in me, even now. And it was a simple phrase that set me off in the right direction. Making a mess for no reason is what yoga teacher Frances Lewes advocates for those of us going through the perimenopause. She suggests that we create a personal sanctuary where you can put up a do not disturb sign. Not shared and not entered by anyone unless invited. Space to moan and groan and rest and maybe when the energy comes, to be creative and make a mess for no reason. 

It wasn't by design or choice but that's what I've been given here. A small space all my own to create a riot in. As a close friend suggested the other day when I told her how overcome I was with tiredness and the feelings that came with it, 'let it rage' she said. And although I'd rather be working up a dirty sweat, getting muddy whatever way I can, I'm here in my cave making bite marks in everything. Just know that when you come to find me I may not be smiling and pretty but the remaining debris will be something even Kali would envy.

Living Differently - The Nothing

I don't know how many blogs and YouTube clips I've seen now of people, like me, living with chronic illness and telling the world (or the part of the world that will listen) Just How It Is from their bed. I'm about to join the ranks. Today has been pretty awful and for the first time I'm blogging from my phone lying in the dark with the light from this palmed sized screen lighting up my words. I feel far too sick to lift my head from the pillow and even if I could summon the energy to take a walk around the local neighbourhood I'd only scare my fellow residents looking very much like a wan Halloween ghost with a time-keeping problem.

I don't know if I believe in anything beyond the comfort of these four walls right now. Although I do know I've felt steam-rollered by sickness before and regained enough energy to take tentative steps out in to the world again. I'm hoping for a gentle ascent back in to a less than frantic activity soon.

Before I began writing this I had a vision of a cartoon that I don't think actually exists anywhere outside of my fatigue fuddled head. There's a plane and God is there (the wonders of imagination mean that you can insert any version of God you wish to here) ushering a line of parachutists out in to the gaping sky. One is wearing a parachute with the word 'Life' emblazoned upon it in tall confident letters. Just before the jump God pats the parachutist on the back saying "Watch out, it's quick !". And that's pretty much how I feel, Woody Allen sums it up much more succinctly here.

So here I am in the dark almost bent double by the feather filled tower of pillows I am lying on and, if it weren't for my writing this, I'd be doing nothing. But would I really, my thoughts running like a high speed train, my tireless preoccupation with myself even when I barely have the energy to roll from one side of the bed to the other.

And then -

I breathe and in that tiny pause between in-breath and out-breath I glimpse the light from the hall shining through the transom above the door, hear the slow march of my alarm clock ticking and this thought occurs to me - what if I can just let the nothing be as it is, what if I can see these moments when I am too ill to participate in what life offers as quiet moments of clarity, and the nothing that I flee from as an illuminated bridge between life and death. If I can stop fighting (even for a micro moment) won't I be better prepared for when the infinite finally comes to take me away ?

Living Differently - My life, as it is

In my last post I wrote about what it's like to live with terror. By either some cruel coincidence or an uncanny sixth sense that fear has now been made manifest. After some disquieting and unexplained symptoms I have been fast tracked to see a specialist to ascertain whether I have bladder and/or kidney cancer. I had my first appointment this week and am awaiting more tests. I do not know how my body, already pretty torn apart from Lyme Disease, could survive cancer let alone surgery and chemotherapy. I am, as you can imagine pretty blown apart by the news. A friend, who was also diagnosed with cancer whilst pregnant summed it up perfectly. She said that I was like Schrödinger's cat in that I both have cancer and don't have cancer simultaneously, a perfect analogy. So here I am waiting for the medics to open the box to tell me what the next step is. I wonder if there is a peace to be found in this space of both living and dying at the same time. Although my current experience is particularly acute, this is true for all of us mortal beings - from budgerigars to ancient turtles, from the tick that bit me, sequoia trees and even the disco ball stars shimmering overhead - our time here is limited but we are still alive to it all even though we won't be here for eternity.

That's not all. I have been gripped by such overwhelming panic I can hardly speak, which is pretty unusual for a devoted chatterbox like myself. It feels like that the words themselves will betray me, the box will be opened too soon and confirm that I will die the ugly agonising death that I have always feared. And it certainly could be that way. It could also be that I find that there is another cause entirely and I will retreat back in to my Lyme Life momentarily relieved. One thing has struck me in all of this is that if isn't this current challenge that brings me to the cliff edge of myself something else will. I am a fearful person and until I can soothe that fear in myself there will always be something to drive me here,  clinging by my fingertips in an unforgiving storm.

A lot of people have been loving and supportive. Some of it has been eager but misplaced, encouraging me to be positive about this ordeal. Sincere and well meant as it is, it doesn't help. Any chance of stoicism has fled like a cat from fireworks and I am left feeling like I have let the side down for not being more measured and optimistic in my response. However my usual default of examining all my feelings and giving them expression until they disperse has not worked either.

So what has ? My neighbour gave me a Reiki and crystal healing treatment the other day and it helped enormously. I don't know why but some of the strangulation of impending doom lifted. And, it may be a shock for those who know me well to hear this, I began to to ask for help from a non earthly source. It was my neighbour who said she summoned angels to watch over me and I immediately thought of the film 'Wings of Desire' where angels, unnoticed, watch over everyone especially the hopeless and despairing.  I don't ask specifically to be made well all the time, although of course sometimes I do, instead I mostly ask for peace for myself and those close to me during my current trials. I don't know if it's just by putting my faith in something that I cannot see is what helps, or that there really are angels who are there to love and protect us all. I don't know if it matters really - the thought that my welfare may be of concern to the cosmos is enough to quell those terrible tides of pain and worry.

That this is a life, my life, as it is.

And that I am loved.

Living Differently - The Nowhere

It's six in the morning and I have had one of those broken nights where only the promise that nothing lasts forever keeps me going, not even this sleepless night. Upstairs the neighbours are partying, their laughter coming in waves. Then silence. And then the music, dancing and more laughter. It seems fitting that I am beneath all the celebration and joy overhead. Much like watching a loud plane break a clear sky with its flight and wondering where the passengers are going. A means of escape feels very distant to me right now. Being sick for a long time can feel like living underground, a life in the shadows where one is painfully aware of what is happening on the surface in the world above. Two weeks ago a miracle happened - I felt well enough to go out in the evening for two nights in a row. I met friends, some of whom I had not seen since before getting ill, and I looked and felt like a healthy person. It was the taste of freedom and the echo from my previous life that I crave constantly. However I was not out of the woods yet. A week ago I developed more new painful symptoms and a mysterious infection which medication just won't budge and have been bedbound ever since. I have been chomping painkillers like chocolates but they don't touch the sides. I am very afraid.

The constant trauma of being ill long-term means that each new symptom, each new facet of illness brings with it terrifying waves of anxiety. The questions swirl around my head will I get worse ? why is it happening ? when will this pain leave me ? what can I do to make it end ? As the panic escalates the answers are torturous - It will get worse, you will die a painful and lengthy death and there is nothing you can do.

The truth is I do not know what will happen. But even not knowing the outcome of my current state and that anything could happen, good as well as bad, gives me no comfort. I want to know. I want to know now that it will all be OK. Being present to feeling in the wilderness just heightens my fear.

Fear is a gateway to truth, if only we can listen to it. I am indebted to one writer who has helped me on my journey - this blog post by the esteemed Tara Brach sheds light on what we can do in such trying times. We can soften, we can let the grief and the terror have its place and we can feel the love and tenderness that is available to us. We can love ourselves.

It would be an exaggeration to say that I am experiencing the peace Tara talks about. However I do have a map and at least I know I am not alone. How many people at this hour feel the pain of not knowing the outcome or live with the prospect of a cruel future ? Millions to be sure. How many of us, when faced with the truth of our own mortality buckle ? To collapse when confronted with the harsh reality of our short time here, the fragility of flesh and bone, is an understandable response.

There's more. Now I know my feeling scared is human I can look further. One thing that illness has not taken from me is my inquisitive nature. I always want to know what the next question is, what else there is to learn. If I allow my starting point to be my legitimised fear and if I can be tender to myself in these moments I can then look behind the fear and see what it's preventing me from seeing.

At first it's grief. Oceans of tears for so much loss - beginning with all that I have lost since my illness began and then bleeding out like an inkblot to all losses, past, present and future. That hurts so much I can hardly continue my exploration. The fear rises again but something tells me to continue on my path.

Fear has stripped away every line of defence I thought I had. I am exhausted, sad and defeated. But wait - even as I write this, sick and tired as I am - I see myself as totally lost , stranded in a vast nowhere and very alone. This is it. The party people are listening to Stevie Wonder, how could I resent them their good taste ? I am alone in the wilderness listening to "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life" through the floorboards and a slight smile crosses my face. Another thought - what happens if, just for a moment, I loosen my grip and stand back and just observe.

Locating that I do and have always felt lost, estranged even in my own body, gives me some calm at last. I can say with certainty that I have never felt at home in the world. This truth brings tears of relief and quietens the fearsome chatter in my head.

This is where I am. I am nowhere. I do not know why this shocking revelation gives me comfort but it does. For a brief moment I touch my own nothingness. And I feel almost OK. If I keep touching the truth of the nowhere and the nothingness then the fear eases.

I can hear more talking upstairs. Someone has a lot to say, and loudly. And me ? I am in the cradle of this vast unknown space. I am held by the stars.