Life

We can rail at life

And bemoan our fate

Or we can watch the sun rise

And be happy that it did.

Be Seen

Good morning blogging world! I have a question for you – have you ever come across something that touches you or resonates with you at exactly the moment that you need it? Something happens and you feel as though the Universe itself is speaking to you? I had exactly that experience yesterday and I’d like to share what it was I came across with you.

Ever since I lost my husband, 5 years ago now, I have almost been hiding from the World. I don’t mean that I’ve been living like a hermit in a cave but I have stopped myself from making meaningful connections with the world at large. I have my friends but, beyond that, I find it extremely difficult to engage with strangers, I don’t like meeting new people and I don’t like going to places, especially new places, on my own. I always put it down to being shy or unsociable but, last night, I realised it’s because I haven’t wanted to be seen. I haven’t wanted to open myself up to people, be vulnerable in front of them, so I put on a mask and hide behind it. That way I don’t have to engage with other people and, although my mask is only in my mind, it’s also meant that other people haven’t engaged with me and that’s meant that I’ve felt lonely for a very long time. Obviously there was something in me that wanted to try because I have opened up with you guys on occasion but, then again,  I can’t see you and, more importantly, you can’t see me.

I have also, since I was a child, struggled with the idea of not being ‘good enough’. I’ve always tried my best and by no means have I failed at the things I’ve attempted in life but I’ve always felt second rate. I have often put on a veneer of confidence but one word of criticism, one negative judgement and the whole thing would fall apart leaving me feeling ashamed and inadequate. What that does for the psyche is to give me another brick to put in the wall that I’ve surrounded myself with, another excuse not to engage with people and ‘proof’ that I am right not to do so.

This isn’t an idea that I’ve come up with; it was explained to me by a woman called Brene Brown in a YouTube video that I came across last night and it had a profound effect on me. More accurately, there were two things she said that tore away the blinkers from my eyes and made me view my world entirely differently:

Have the courage to be imperfect

Have the courage to be seen

Over 10 million people have watched this 20 minute video – now I understand why. If you haven’t seen it already, I really hope that you enjoy it as much as I did and, if you have a spare minute, I’d love it if you’d share something that’s had this kind of profound effect on you.

The last thing I want to say is: I am not perfect and I do, finally, want to be seen.

Lisa

x

FOWC: Victim

Life transpires with hidden challenges

Unforeseen, frequently unwelcome

They test our fortitude, our courage

Our desire to take another step

Forward into  the predestined mire

We stumble and tumble, shattered glass

We take the knocks and devious blights

Oft blinded to, maybe, redemption

Woes hanging heavy in our psyche

And yet, always, there’s another road

Paved with fear and lined by doubt, no doubt

That leads to quietude, mind and soul

That road is for you, my worthy friend

Leave your troublesome burden behind

Divest yourself of that grim label

VICTIM.

This poem was written in response to the Famous Fandango’s one word prompt.

Have a great weekend everyone

Lisa x

 

 

It’s Not Like in the Movies…

Have you ever thought about why we get so much pleasure from watching movies? Or reading books come to that? It’s a question that comes up so often at the start of relationships isn’t it? What’s your favourite movie or your favourite book? Why do they hold such significance for us?

Is it purely escapism? In movies or books we can lose ourselves in another life, one that we’d prefer or one we’re glad we don’t have. Maybe it’s a way to better define our own realities? We see characters develop and watch the paths that they follow; does that give us a way to better forge our own paths – learning from their successes or mistakes?

Do we learn more about life from reality or from films and literature and are we ruined by what we see or read? Great love stories can leave us feeling inadequate because our own relationships don’t live up to the passionate maelstroms depicted but can also uplift and inspire us to seek out such a love. Do we feel defeated because we are not the handsome hero or the beautiful heroine or are we encouraged to improve ourselves physically? War films are rarely made without depicting heroism on one side and depravity on the other; does this give us a distorted view of a terrible tragedy or does it promote patriotism?

Do we like movies and books that make us laugh, that take us back to our childhoods in some way? To a time when we believed in magic and other worlds hidden behind a wardrobe door? Does a glimpse into the World of fantasy take us away from the mundane in our own lives? Are we looking for confirmation that good will always really triumph over evil? Do we look to our super-heroes to carry us away to a place where there will always be someone standing by to give us protection when we need it most?

I had all these questions running though my mind this morning so I decided to look up which books and films we love the most according to sales; the list might surprise you:

1. Avatar (Fantasy)
2. Titanic (Love Story)
3. Starwars: The Force Awakens (Fantasy)
4. Avengers: Infinity War (Fantasy/Super Heroes)
5. Jurassic Park (Fantasy)
6. Furious 7 (Action/Adventure)
7. The Avengers (Fantasy/Super heroes)
8. Avengers Age of Ultron (Fantasy/Super Heroes)
9. Black Panther (Fantasy/Super Heroes)
10. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II (Fantasy)

8 of the top 10 grossing films of all time are stories that take us completely away from reality and into another world. Is that what we are looking for?

The same can be said of books. There is not much from real life in the top selling books of all time (in the western world); Don Quixote tops the list, followed by a Tale of Two Cities but then we have Lord of the Rings. The Little Prince, Harry Potter , the Hobbit and the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The fantasy stories somehow cross the line between adulthood and childhood, meaning that they can be read and appreciated by both so what’s they key? Why are they so popular to so many people?

I honestly don’t know the answer, what do you think? Why do you read what you read and watch what you watch? Let me know, I’d love to hear from you.

Lisa x

 

FOWC: Hindsight

A cruel jest

Or a path to precious learning

A spiteful taunt

Or a route to ultimate peace

A mocking jibe

Or a comprehension of self

A cosmic joke

Or a recognition of error

A greener field

Or mastery of a pasture new

A life regret

Or subtly crafted momentum

This is hindsight

A curse or a gift? Up to you.

Written in response to another artful prompt from the fantastic Fandango.

Lisa x

 

Fandango’s Provocative Question

There are some questions that are rarely asked because the emotions that they stir up can be almost unbearable and because they cannot help but completely divide opinion. That said, these are often the questions that should be asked because they provoke discussion and, however unpalatable these discussions may be they are necessary if the human race is to continue to move forward. For that reason, I’ve decided to try and answer the incredibly provocative question posed by the fearless Fandango.

Do you believe that terminally ill people should be allowed or encouraged to end their lives via physician-assisted suicide? If so, under any circumstances or should there be restrictions? If not, why not?

My first response to this is to ask another question: If your family pet was dying, visibly suffering and the vet had told you there was nothing they could do what would your reaction be? You knew that, if you did not take action, your beloved cat or dog would face the rest of its life in pain and anguish…what would you do? For most of us, although it may break our hearts we would ask the vet to put the animal to sleep, to end its suffering. How is it then that we do not afford the same kindness to our fellow humans?

Almost 5 years ago, I watched my husband die from esophageal cancer which was complicated by secondary cancer in his liver. I watched him suffer when the doctors put cameras down his throat, he was sedated but told me that the process was agony. I was with him on the day that they decided to operate on his esophagus, a major and frightening procedure. They opened him up and then found the secondary cancer so they woke him up from the anesthetic and, while he was still groggy, told him that the operation would not go ahead and that there was nothing more they could do for him. That was his death sentence, it was delivered with little compassion and it broke my husband’s heart because he knew that he would be leaving this World and everyone in it that he loved. Worse than this, he knew that he would die in considerable pain.

I fought to find him a place in a hospice because I couldn’t bear the treatment that he received in hospital. I don’t want to go into detail because I don’t want to relive the memories but no-one deserves the mental and emotional cruelty that he suffered in the name of ‘treatment’.

Cancer is the most awful disease. It is cruel. It robs people of their dignity, it strips the flesh from their bones and leaves them as shadows of their former selves, in pain, connected to machines, drips, tubes all designed to keep them in their suffering for as long as possible. For what? For who?

A few months before his death I was asked to sign a ‘do not resuscitate order’ and, although I couldn’t bear the thought of saying goodbye to the only man I’d ever loved, I didn’t hesitate because watching someone you love slowly taken apart by this terrible disease is far worse than letting them go. What is it they say about if you really love someone you’ll let them go….?

One of the things that I will always feel guilty about is not spending 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with my love before he died. In films or on the TV it’s always like that isn’t it? The relative sleeping in a chair beside their loved one’s bed, holding their hand, not leaving, eating or even changing their clothes but real life isn’t like that or at least it wasn’t for me. I couldn’t or wouldn’t accept that my husband was going to die. Of course, I knew on an intellectual level but I wouldn’t believe it because the thought was too awful to bear. So I visited every single day, for hours at a time, but I also carried on with my life because, in my head, that which I knew to be inevitable could never happen.

This went on for several months, my husband suffered, I suffered, his family and mine suffered, it was prolonged, torturous and unnecessary. If my love had been given the option to end his life with a morphine overdose I believe he would have taken it just to put an end to, what had become, a miserable existence; it could really be called a life any longer. If he had made that choice I like to think that I would have supported him in his decision because it was his to make.

When I spoke to one of the hospice nurses after my love had left this World she said that his death had been ‘difficult’, basically, he had suffered. The really awful part of this was that I was not there with him, he was alone with a nurse, a very caring woman but not someone who loved him; don’t we all deserve to be with someone we love when we die?

If medically assisted suicide was allowed I could have been there, he could have been surrounded by the people that he loved at a time and place of his choosing and not at 2am, in a hospice with a kind nurse the only person there to hold his hand. I know that people will say that the processed could be abused, the lawmakers fear that assisted suicide could become murder or that people who would otherwise go on to recover, especially from mental illness, will take their own life but it is their own life isn’t it? The human race is happy enough to kill, many places still have the death penalty, we start wars over territory or religion, we maim and murder for pleasure or profit and yet we balk at the idea of allowing someone to take their own life. Why?

The grief that I have suffered and still suffer following the death of my beloved husband would be no different had he died as he did or through medically assisted suicide. The pain would not be lessened but the guilt would have been because I could have been there with him.

We put animals to sleep, when they are suffering, in the name of kindness and compassion, it’s through noble intent. We condemn those who hurt animals or treat them badly because animals like cats and dogs can’t really fight back against the mighty human AND YET we allow our fellow humans to go through far worse in the name of ethics. Why?

To finally answer Fandango’s question: I absolutely believe that people should have the right to end their suffering through assisted suicide if they are terminally ill.

Lisa

x

 

The Blame Game

How can I, one soul, bear the responsibility of a million failed lives?

How can I, one soul, shoulder the burden of a crumbling World?

How can I, one soul, define or defend the innocent, lost innocence?

How can I, one soul, replete the ravaged lands, plasticised waters?

How can I, one soul, stand between the willingly divided, disconnected?

How can I, one soul, rail against fear fueled hatred that buckles will?

How can I, one soul, relieve the poverty that cripples minds and limbs?

How can I, one soul, vanquish the faceless, ego masturbator, corrupter?

How can I, one soul, stave off starvation, gluttony, excessive insufficiency?

How can I, one soul, save the dreams of children disabused of childhood?

How can I, one soul, prevent the willful, blind destruction of sentient life?

How can I, one soul, bemoan life’s evils without first asking Why can’t I?

Lisa x

 

 

The Meaning of Life (Part 6)

“What in the name of Zeus and all his minions are you eating now?”

“Eanun utta uffn” The unintelligible sounds were the product of a tongue temporarily jammed to the roof of a mouth. A few seconds later there was a noise like a large plunger being forcibly pulled from a drain and some concentrated chewing.

“A peanut butter muffin, I’ve been experimenting” The face contorted with the effort of a tongue not quite long or fine enough trying to remove the last vestiges of muffin from between the teeth.

“Diet going well then!?” Although stated clearly, the speaker tried to cover his words with the shuffling of paper; this was a touchy subject.

“I am glorious in my perfection” He rose to his full height and gathered his flowing robes around his ample frame.

“Only since I let the robes out…….mutter…….podgy…..mutter”

“Hmmph, you’re one to talk, I notice we’re short on chocolate hobnobs again and I haven’t been eating them..hang on a minute have you seen this audit report?”

“I am not giving up my morning hobnob just because you’ve decided to take up baking! Anyway, have you seen the creatures in the factory these days? Half of them have their bellies hanging somewhere around their knees and your Roman Empire dessert is a least partway responsible you know…….what audit report?”

“Ahhh those were the days” said with fond reminiscence “All those sins at one time; I love it when we’re busy don’t you?”

“Talk about rose coloured glasses! What bloody audit report?” There were definite notes of impatience in his tone

“This one. The latest furry creatures audit” Unfortunately waving a piece of paper within 2 centimetres of someone’s nose does little to aid their ability to actually read it.

“Give that here”

“Don’t snatch!”

This could have degenerated into a hair pulling, air slapping kind of argument had the numbers on the offending piece of paper come into clear focus.

“What the f….?”

“Yes, precisely. What has been going on down there? Who’s in charge of the furry ones because whoever it is they’ve got some explaining to do!” There was no doubt that there would be little time for explaining in between all the noisy berating.

“It’s old Bob but you pulled him off the furry ones so he could help out with the fishy ones after the creatures decided that the water we provided was no good unless it was encased in plastic, remember?”

“Bugger! Yes, I remember now. Get him up here and tell him it’s an emergency, there’s hardly any of the stripey ones left and they’re my favourites, I loved that design”

“I still prefer the tartan but you never like any of my ideas” He received the kind of glare that could melt tarmac and started backing out of the room in a hurry but then something caught his eye

“Boss, what are you doing exactly, that’s my new bum design, I’m calling it the Brazen Buttock” He’d been keeping up with fashion, unlike his boss, and knew that, when it came to bums, bigger was definitely better.

“I’m painting a few” He did indeed have a paintbrush in hand and was drawing an outline, the tip of his tongue poking between his teeth as he concentrated on keeping his hand steady.

“Why and why only a few? I thought we could put that design into full production next week” This said with the kind of disgruntled irritation of an employee who feels that his talents are rarely fully recognised.

“I’m sending a message; I don’t think we’ll need more than 10,000 or so”

“10,000? That’s nothing! I might as well not have bothered!” He could barely stop a tear from falling

“Oh don’t sulk, these buttocks will be very, very special but just not for everyone that’s all” He was not actually an unkind boss and this was said with an encouraging smile. “I’m only going to use them for the creatures that think killing the furry ones is some sort of entertainment or a way to make that honey they all seem so keen on”

“Honey??…Do you mean money?”

“Yep that’s the kiddie. There I’ve finished, what do you think?” He held the buttocks before him proudly. Painted on them were 3 red rings with a red circle in the middle.

Ok, I get it, it’s a target but won’t they just be able to put trousers on or something?” To him it seemed like a pretty large flaw in an otherwise crazy plan.

“Not with the paint I’ve used.” Said with a sly grin “Do you remember when we decided we needed something to jazz up the firmament?”

“Sure, we bought in all that glow in the dark stuff……oh I get it now….ooohhh sneaky, I like it” He grinned broadly and remembered why this was the bloke in charge.

“Excellent! Now run down and find Old Bob and I’ll start fixing on some of these buttocks. I’ll teach those creatures to stop knocking off the furry ones if it’s the last thing I do” With grim determination he fixed his stare on a group of poachers; they didn’t know it but their lives (and their buttocks) were about to change forever.

This was written in response to an announcement from the charity Born Free that the tiger is at risk of extinction, thanks to mankind. The poachers who hunt them and the developers who destroy their habitat are on the road to ensuring that our grandchildren or great grandchildren may talk about tigers in the same way we talk about dodo’s. Therefore, I am using this post to try and do what little I can to help spread the word before these beautiful animals are lost to us forever….

Lisa x

 

 

FOWC: Metamorphosis

“Can she hear us do you think?” The voice was strained and anxious

‘Yes, I can hear you but I can’t see you; where are you? Where am I?’

“Doctor, it’s been 3 months, do you think that there’s any chance at all now that she’ll recover? Please be honest” The plea was desperate, there was naked longing in the voice which cried out for an answer, any answer.

‘Who are they talking about?’ There was no fear, there was nothing to fear in this place but she was curious

‘You’ The word was a gentle sigh that softly touched her cheek

Standing before her, bringing a subtle illumination to the darkness was the shape of a man; she couldn’t quite call him a man as he had a fluidity that does not exist within the human realm but he had a male presence. She was reminded of her Father. There were no clear features that would bring her to this conclusion but she felt a sense of belonging that enveloped her.

‘Why? There’s nothing wrong with me’ She was indignant, she felt healthier than she ever had in her life; her body had a lightness to it that she’d never experienced before. She was sure that she could run all day without tiring in the slightest. She smiled; it was a wonderful thought. As it entered her mind a field unraveled before her eyes; bright golden corn raised up before her, she could smell the damp earth as if it were soaked with summer rain. In the distance there was a glade of trees and the light from the sun played between the branches, illuminating, in turn, bright green leaves and the mossy floor beneath.

“I’m sorry but there really is nothing more that we can do, I’ll leave you to say your goodbyes and then we’ll shut down the machines…….” The words were delivered with a gentle compassion but with an unequivocal finality.

‘It’s time’ The soft tones of her Father’s voice reached her ear. Was it her Father? How could it be? She’d lost him so many years ago…….but…….

She turned her face away from the swaying corn and the seductive play of light in the glade and turned to face the being that bathed her in such subtle surety.

‘Time for what?’ She turned her head back to the trees that seemed to be calling her; the lightness that she’d felt before was almost overwhelming her and a place between her shoulder blades was tingling.

“Goodbye my love” The voice broke, the words, unwilling to be formed, stuck in the man’s throat.

She turned towards the voice but could see nothing; there was a deep desire within her to run towards it but the glade called to her, pulling her, the very earth was seducing her with its soft warm smell..

‘Please don’t be sad, not for me. Goodbye’

As the word hung in the air for a brief moment she had a strange sensation; something was erupting from within her and it brought with it power, a freedom that was entirely new to her. From the corner of her eye she could see brightness unfold as gossamer fine wings appeared and gently bore her away from the ground and towards the sunlit glade.

‘What’s happening?’ Did she care? Really? Such peace!

‘This, my daughter, is your final metamorphosis. Come’ He held out his hand and guided her towards the light….

Thanks once again to Fandango for providing the inspiration for this story with his daily one word prompt.

Lisa x

 

Life

I know you’re there, I can feel you nudging at me

Like a playful puppy or a rabid wolf, in turns

Roller coaster ride, infinite slowness

Sharp, breathless descent into

Dark tunnels, rapid turns

Onto? What next?

The unanswerable query

Not knowing the unknowable

Bungee jump adrenaline spiked fall

Or drifting on the current of a gentle stream

Fighting, searching for the ultimate question to ask.

Lisa

x