The Monograph That Never Was.

The Lady B passed me in her car again this morning and waved to me as usual. It led me to thinking about the hand wave as a universal human gesture, and I decided I should write a monograph on the subject since it’s a matter of slightly uncommon interest to me. I think it even speaks volumes about the nature of the individual performing the wave. (Well, not quite volumes as such, but a little bit at least.)

So where should I start on this scholarly exercise? Why, with the Lady B’s wave of course. Where else?

Said lady invariably uses what I will term the ‘Metronome Wave’. (One has to coin terms if one wishes to be accepted as the scholarly type, you understand.) This sort of wave is used almost exclusively by women and consists of raising the hand to shoulder level and moving it right and left with reasonable rapidity (in the case of the Lady B I would estimate its rate to be approximately 200bps, just so you know this really is a scholarly exercise and I’m not just being silly.) It’s used by women of all ages from 1-101, although the rate does tend to diminish with advancing age because arthritis has that effect. As for what it says about the waver, that’s simple. Introverts are usually inclined to keep the angle formed at the elbow rather economical, use slightly slower movements, and restrict those movements to two or three per exercise. Extroverts, on the other hand, will continue to perform the operation until they’re out of sight and even beyond, and will do so with such extravagance that they will sometimes knock things over and even hit themselves repeatedly on the chin.

So that’s one type of wave taken care of. Where should I go from here to establish my credentials as an author of scholarly works?

Well, nowhere actually. I considered the matter at some length and could only think of two other types, at least one of which is notably unremarkable so I don’t think I’ll bother. I’ll read some more of my Japanese novel instead.

I’m coming to the suspicion that Oshima, the male librarian, is going to turn out to be a bit of a bad egg, and that Kafka is going to have his first sexual experience at the hands of either Cherry Blossom (aka Sakura, or the young woman receptionist at the hotel who wears a green blazer. Not a bad read so far.

Nondescript With a Hint of Japanese Bias.

All things considered, today has been a good day. Such days are rare in this fatigued old life of mine so I thought I’d mention it.

It started with a real humdinger of a Morning Depression, but then I went out for a walk and a little coincidence lightened the sky slightly. I was walking up my lane having a conversation with the Lady B in my head (as I frequently do) when who do you think came driving down the road? It was the first time I’d seen her since the local school broke up for the summer hols. I got a wave, after which the day continued to improve in other ways. They do say, do they not, that there’s no such thing as a coincidence, and maybe they’re right.

So do I have anything else to ramble about tonight? No. I’m off to have a mug of Japanese coffee and a piece of buttered toast and marmalade now, and then I’m going to have a session with my Japanese novel Kafka on the Shore. Young Kafka is revelling in his first day of freedom since leaving home and everything is normal in his orbit. There are, however, strange things going on in the close vicinity.

A group of students collapsed into unconsciousness, for example, during a field trip to the woods, and remembered nothing of the occurrence when they came round. There’s no apparent explanation for this strange state of affairs and the local doctor is baffled. And then there’s the old man called Nakata who is somewhat mentally challenged as a result of an unspecified illness as a child. He’s just spent his morning chatting to a laid back feral tomcat from whom he received good advice on what he should be looking for. I think it’s the sort of novel which might reward my perseverance.

(And young Kafka reminds me of me in some ways, such as the fact that he loves to spend time browsing the shelves in libraries. I was the same at his age. On the other hand, he hasn’t a clue how to relate to girls who try to befriend him. I never had that problem, but I doubt he has the advantage of my Irish heritage on the male side. There’s been no mention of cherry blossom yet, which I find surprising given the time of year, apart from the fact that the name of a girl who is trying to befriend him is Sakura. Maybe that’s significant. Reading on.)

Seems I rambled after all. There's just no stopping me sometimes.

Unintentional Clickbait and the Swallow Mystery.

Last night I published a post entitled ‘The Moon and the Matter of Resurrection’ and today it’s received at least ten times more page views than my posts usually get. That’s a lot and I’m tempted to ask myself why.

What’s most noticeable is that they nearly all come from Italy, and I think I’m probably right in believing that the Christian religion is still close to the heart of Italian culture. That’s what’s giving me cause for concern. It occurs to me, you see, that the word ‘resurrection’ might be responsible for the high incidence of visits. To a committed Christian, the word Resurrection – especially when spelt with a capital R – is indelibly associated with the rise of Jesus from the dead after the crucifixion, and so maybe the use of the word in the post title triggered pings (or whatever the term might be) or a response to searches. And so, since the post itself neither contained nor implied any reference to the Passion of Christ, the title might have inadvertently acted as clickbait.

I can assure you that such was not my intention. I despise clickbait as much as anybody, and I do feel truly sorry if people have been directed to my blog through misapprehension and found something different from what they were expecting.

*  *  *

So what about the mystery of the swallows?

For several years now I’ve been bemoaning the near-disappearance of swallows from the Shire skies. This year I’ve seen a very small number of them on only three or four occasions throughout the whole summer, mostly at the top of my lane about half a mile away.

I was, therefore, more than a little surprised when I went into my garden yesterday afternoon to find myself caught up in a swallow feeding frenzy. They were impossible to count due to the speed of their flight and aerobatics, but I’d say there were 10-20 of them racing madly around in and above my garden. Some of them were flying within a foot or two of my head. And this is what’s odd:

This summer was the nineteenth I’ve spent in this house, and never before have swallows hunted in and above my garden. I used to get House Martins up to a few years ago, but never swallows. So why, when they seem to be on the verge of extinction in this part of the world, did they suddenly turn up in substantial numbers yesterday? (And again today, incidentally.)

And that takes me to what I’ve often said here – that I can’t help entertaining the suspicion that birds behaving out of character or counter to normal habits are harbingers of something deeply meaningful. The problem comes with never knowing what it is. And more to the point, does this something apply to all of us or only me?

Maybe I should stop watching videos from that young Welsh woman shaman on YouTube. She’s highly compelling, but maybe it’s better not to know.

The Moon and the Matter of Resurrection.

Each month when the moon moves into its third quarter and then becomes a waning crescent, it’s always in the eastern sky when I go to bed. We had a run of clear skies during the final phase of last month’s moon, and so every night I saw it from my bathroom window moving ever further to the north, sinking in the sky, and looking weaker and sicklier as each night passed. Eventually there was no moon.

Over the past few nights the sky has been unremittingly beset by a heavy cloud cover, and so the new moon hasn’t been visible. Until this evening. At twilight I saw the moon again, already grown to a first quarter and looking fresh, bright, and full of vigour through a clear patch in the southern sky. And here’s what’s odd: for the first time in my life I was quite forcibly struck by the fact that it was the same moon I had watched dying just a week or so ago.

Why should I be suddenly so struck? I know, as we all do, that there is only one moon (at least only one that is routinely visible.) And yet there I stood, gazing in near-awe at a body that had been dead but had now been resurrected into a new life.

My thoughts naturally turned to the process to which all living beings are subjected: we’re born, we grow, we become strong and functional, we perform our various and random acts, we experience the many vicissitudes of good and bad fortune, and then we succumb to weakness and sickness and eventually die. And so the moon is simply a metaphor for life.

Except it isn’t, not quite. Unlike the moon, we’re not resurrected in the same body; and there are those who believe that we’re not resurrected at all. I choose to suspect with some degree of confidence that they’re probably wrong – we are resurrected, but in a different body. It’s a common enough belief in many cultures and spiritual traditions, and it raises a simple question:

Are we really the body in which we function for whatever time we have in this version of reality – the one we see in the mirror every day, the one to which we give a name, the one that feels pain when it’s damaged, the one that struts and frets its hour upon the stage, the one to which people say ‘do this, don’t do that; do as you’re told and you won’t be punished’? Or are we something else entirely - a non-physical entity which might be more truly represented by what we call consciousness? I’m reminded of the forensic pathologist who said to her students: ‘The first thing to remember is that what you see on the slab is not a person. The person’s gone.’ Quite, but gone where?

We don’t know, of course. Nobody does; it’s life’s ultimate mystery.

But let’s for a moment accept that reincarnation (or the wheel of life, death, and rebirth as the Buddhists prefer) is a fact as simply understood. You cast off one body and then take up occupation in another (possibly in the future or possibly in the past because time has no meaning in worlds beyond this one – or so it is said.)

At this point my mind wanders off to consider another possibility. Suppose there really are an infinite number of alternate dimensions, a proposition which has now gained some respectability in mainstream science. Might it not be that after death in one dimension we take up another life as the same person in another? In other words, we carry on being the same physical entity over and over again but in different parallel universes? It would certainly explain the phenomenon of déjà vu, which I used to experience a lot as a child and a teenager. Or maybe we have a choice in the matter. Who knows?

And I know I’m not the first to propose this theory. Other minds got there before mine (including JB Priestly, for example, whose ‘time play’ An Inspector Calls is probably the second best known, non-classical play after The Mouse Trap, and who also wrote the series of short pieces called Outcries and Asides.) But I do so love to muse on such unknowables. It’s probably why I never had any money.

Reviving the Habit.

I rarely talk to anybody these days because so very few people enter my world at such a level as to make conversation a necessary or desirable outcome. I consequence, I’m a little out of practice with regard to the norms of polite or practical communion.

And so I walked into the funeral parlour in Uttoxeter to make enquiries about the funeral plan, and found myself regarded inquisitively by two middle aged women sitting behind desks. They said nothing; the onus was apparently on me to explain the reason for my presence.

‘Sorry,’ I began, ‘I’m not actually dead yet, but I have some questions for you.’

Their expressionless demeanour indicated that the joke, if such it may be described, had fallen to the floor, flat as a Staffordshire oatcake, and was fit only to be kicked unceremoniously under the desk. In other words, they probably hear that line every day of the week. I felt mildly embarrassed before continuing with the questions.

Next stop was the pet shop on the retail park, there to buy a large bag of bird seed for the bird tables in the garden. It comes in 28lb packs, which at one time I would have thrown around casually with one hand all day. But that was a long time ago. Now it takes both arms to lift it onto the counter for scanning.

Having taken my payment, the young woman on the till (actually there were two of them, but mine was the prettier – which probably didn’t help) asked ‘Will you be all right carrying that to the car?’ The ready and utterly facile wit insisted on coming to the fore again. ‘Do I look that old?’ I said, somewhat askance. ‘I mean, I know I am, but I rather hoped I didn’t actually look it yet.’ Same response – flat. I searched for a way to redeem myself because today was not going well.

‘It must be very pleasant working in a place like this where you get to have dog fixes every day,’ I offered. It must have worked because they readily agreed (even the prettier one, which pleasing), and so I felt sufficiently emboldened to continue: ‘It’s far better than being a brain surgeon or a rocket scientist, isn’t it? Being one of those only feeds the ego and the bank balance, whereas making friends with dogs every day is pure succour to the inner being.’

They said nothing. I expect they thought me very odd, and were both planning to draw lots for the benefit of avoiding me the next time I go in there. But I felt proud at last to have muttered something of minor consequence and made my way manfully back to the car, consciously avoiding any obvious signs of struggling with the weight.

*  *  *

Off to read the next instalment of Kafka on the Shore now. The protagonist – a 15-year-old boy called Kafka – has just met a slightly older girl called Sakura (which, as far as I recall, means ‘cherry blossom’ in Japanese) on the bus. He says she’s not particularly attractive facially, but it’s obvious that he’s being captivated by her vibrant personality. That’s my boy.

On Ear Licks and a Bit of Good News.

A horse nuzzled my face and then licked my ear today. I don’t think I’ve ever had my ear licked by a horse before. (I seem to recall an attractive young human female once licked my ear, but I don’t rightly remember which one. That’s the problem with those of us descended from Irish roots through the male line. We love the colleens and are very attentive to them, but we sometimes have difficulty identifying individuals. There is one colleen who stood out from the crowd though, and I would most certainly remember the date, the prevailing weather conditions, and exactly what I had for dinner that night if she’d ever stooped to licking my ear. But she didn’t. She bent it occasionally and assaulted it a couple of times, but never licked it.)

*  *  *

I had my letter today regarding the results of my recent CT scans. It said ‘No evidence of disease recurrence.’ I’ve always been very pleased to get that message, but today I wasn’t quite so sure. Given the state of the world, the human condition, my ailing body, and my general mental state, it didn’t seem quite as straightforward as it usually does.

*  *  *

A little post script on the matter of having my ear licked by a horse: I happen to know that he, too, has Irish antecedents. I wonder whether he’d heard the old Irish song with a verse which runs

The young colleen said

Come you here

You treat me right

And I’ll lick your ear

I’m translating from the original Gaelic, of course. No I’m not. I made it up.

Big Tech and Gobbledegook.

I get frequent messages appearing at the bottom of my computer monitor telling me that the latest Adobe Acrobat Reader update has failed. It goes on to explain that this failure is possibly caused by the inability of a patch to install, probably because it has been in some way pre-empted by another bit of technical jiggery-pokery. If I require further information, it helpfully explains, I should contact my patch vendor.

Whenever I read that, I feel instantly inclined to ask the question: ‘What the hell is a patch vendor and do they taste good sautéed in garlic butter?’

Giving Names to the Twilights.

Since I’m keenly aware of, and unusually responsive to, the ambient conditions at twilight, it occurred to me that perhaps I should start categorising them.

Tonight’s twilight was a dull one carrying a vague hint of potential menace. The sky was low and laden with blocks of dark cloud driving swiftly from the north-east and seemingly possessed of intent. They could have been an army charging into the fray, or a shoal of sharks hurrying to engage with a feeding frenzy.

The wind at ground level carried a different mood. It was a restless wind, rising to a howl or roar one minute, and then falling to the stillness of a predator watching its prey the next. It all felt uncomfortably ominous. Something bad has happened, it seemed to be saying, or is about to happen before very long.

I’ve decided to call this one the Pre-Apocalyptic Twilight Grade 1. If the wind were to turn colder, it would then be a Grade 2.

So will I continue to build the list of categories for as long as my short life shall last? Possibly, but I doubt it. I get bored easily. And I’m frequently inclined to question where the line should be drawn between a vivid imagination and a hopelessly fanciful nature.

A Note About a Good Christian.

While I was out shopping today I bumped into a man who’d been a neighbour in the village where I lived before moving here. Among the general mass of humanity he was a fairly rare individual, being the sort of person who considered it a privilege to help those who needed it. I always had a lot of respect for him.

He started a charity which bought a truck and took vital supplies to Chernobyl in Ukraine after the terrible nuclear accident there. The supplies were necessary, especially in the winter, because Ukraine was part of the USSR at the time and state aid was at best minimal. He always went with it, taking turns to drive the vehicle. He also spent his Saturday nights in the winter setting up a soup kitchen for the homeless in Derby. Mel – with whom I lived at the time – and I were so impressed that we stopped buying one another gifts at Christmas and gave the money to his charities instead.

(And I well remember one small incident when I somehow found myself in Uttoxeter one evening without my car and with no taxis available. He was the only person I could think of to call and ask for a lift. And so I did, and of course he would. When I offered payment for the petrol he declined it. And when I offered profuse thanks for his assistance, he simply thanked me back for giving him the opportunity.)

He was a committed Christian, you see – the right sort. He was a regular churchgoer and played the organ in the village church for many years, but had to give it up when he received a bad hand injury trying to save his dog from another dog which was attacking it.

But he was very different from some of the bigoted, hard-hearted individuals I’ve known who claimed to be ‘committed Christians.’ They’re the sort who talk endlessly about the need to punish those who go astray; the sort who love to preach at you, and revel in the concept of hell fire and damnation. Believe me: I have known such people.

Paul never preached, nor even recommended Christian dogma. He simply lived a life based on compassion, kindness, and service to others because that was what Jesus supposedly taught. He’s that kind of Christian.

But here’s what seems unfair. Over the past fifteen years or so he’s had a run of serious health issues which would knock my little cocktail of such issues into a cocked hat. And yet he never looks despondent. When we briefly mentioned the way the world is going, he said – quite cheerfully – ‘It doesn’t matter much to me now. There isn’t much left of me in here.’ Being a lot older than me, I’m sure he must occasionally muse on the fact that he doesn’t have much longer to go, and if I were the sort to say ‘you’ll get your reward in heaven’, I would. Not that it would matter much to him because I doubt he ever wants or expects reward.

And so I ask myself whether the need to suffer goes with the territory for people like him. Some would say it does. I wouldn’t care to comment.

A Dead Cheap Despatch Post.

Guess what my reading matter was for part of this evening. Tennyson’s Idylls of the King? ‘No.’ Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment? ‘No.’ A few Shakespeare sonnets, perhaps? ‘No.’

I read the whole of the Central Co-Op’s ‘Funeral Plans’ information pack.

And very illuminating it was. It appears that if I pay them £1,750 up front now, they will undertake to collect my remains, shove them into a cheap wood-effect coffin (with chrome handles), convey them to a proper people incinerator at the nearest crematorium, and then hold onto the ashes for collection. And there’s still nothing extra to pay even if my life continues to walk its monotonous and wholly unremarkable path for another ten years yet while funeral costs treble. That sounds like a good deal to me.

Bear in mind that the cost of a short, standard, no-frills funeral is around £4,000 (and rising) these days. And further bear in mind that I don’t have very much money, and the two people who would be faced with the burden of paying for a funeral have no money at all. And then consider that I regard the whole business of having a funeral to be for the benefit of the bereaved, not the deceased, and it makes good sense to lay out the money now – as long as the potentially bereaved have no objection. Doesn’t it? I think so.

But I still have questions. I intend to go and ask them soon before the price goes up.

(Having written this, I was suddenly amused by a little thought. Wouldn’t it be fun to go into the swanky-but-subdued office at the funeral parlour – where they must have a ‘chapel of rest’ around the back somewhere for those awaiting despatch because I’m sure they all do – and ask: ‘I’ve never seen a dead body. Could I have a look at one of yours please?’ I wonder what the response would be.)

The Japanese Connection.

I’ve mentioned before on this blog that the Japanese have a word for suicide triggered by the stress of overwork. They call it karojisatsu. They also have an umbrella term for all premature deaths triggered by work stresses. They call that one karoshi. Today I read that the most popular day of the year for teenage suicides in Japan is 1^st September. It’s said to be due to its being the start of the academic year. So now I’m asking myself whether this is some vindication for my opinion that Big Capitalism is the major pestilence of the 21^st century, and that we in the ‘developed’ world place too much emphasis on education. The question is currently stewing in the pressure cooker that is my mind.

*  *  *

Several times in my life I’ve drawn the metaphorical sword and taken arms against those I considered to be guilty of iniquities. I lost some, but probably won slightly more. By and large, the wins came in skirmishes against relatively independent bodies such as local authorities and housing associations. But I learned that there’s little point in entering the fray against the corporate world because it has an army of politicians and bureaucrats at its back and is too big an enemy for one lone combatant to defeat, however much he holds the moral, ethical, or rational high ground. It’s all to do with power feeding power. Today one denizen of the corporate world openly lied to me in furtherance of its attempt to bend me to its will, but what can I do except decline to be bent for as long as the concomitant stress remains manageable? It's all becoming too tedious, and INFJs are said to be particularly averse to conflict.

*  *  *

To return to the Japanese connection, a few notes off the top of my head:

Of all the major countries in the world, Japan is probably the one that has visited this blog the least.

Half of one of my top three favourite films (Hanami: Kirchbluten) – and the half which most captured my heart – is set in modern day Japan.

I discovered the most delightful YouTube channel recently in which a young Japanese woman currently living in London relates her experiences and the matter of life in general with quiet and commendable wisdom.

My current reading is a Japanese novel called Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami. It’s high on keen observation.

My current coffee is Japanese. I’ve never had Japanese coffee before. (I didn’t even know there was any such thing as Japanese coffee.) It’s from the Ueshima Coffee Company and the blend I have is called Fuji Mountain – Strength 5. It’s expensive (and from Sainsbury’s, believe it or not), but excellent.

*  *  *

And that will do for tonight. My depressions are particularly deep and enervating these days, and the aches in my back and legs consequent upon last Sunday’s ladder incident are getting worse. Still awaiting the results of my last CT scans. Fifteen days and counting. Will post here when known, just in case anybody other than me is interested.