My mother, my navel, Joyce, the Sea Life Roadshow and, er, bacteria

So. Lately two odd things have been happening. Firstly I have been dreaming about my mother. A lot. Every night nearly. And she is so cross with me. So irritated.  And secondly I have, of all things, a problem with my navel. An irritation, to put it mildly.  And, if one thinks symbolically, as I am wont to do, they are quite obviously connected.

Cos the navel, the umbilicus, the belly button – is our birth scar.  A reminder of our attachment…and our separation.  And so I wondered…what does it mean if one’s navel becomes sore?  If it goes beyond sore to become raw and infected?  If one’s very centre (remember Leonardo puts the navel at the very centre of his Vitruvian Man) is hot and burning and weeping?  Is it one’s motherhood that is called into question? Or one’s connection to the world?  Cos, remember, the navel is also the omphalos – the supposed centre of the world, the axis mundi.

The most famous one was at the temple at Delphi – where the stone was said to allow direct communication with the gods via fumes coming up from the underworld.  There’s one in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem too.  In fact, they’re all over the place, depending on religion. 

So I started thinking about oracles. And gods. About talking to gods. 

Which reminded me that Joyce liked the word.  He uses it a fair old bit in Ulysses, but this I like the best.

“One of her sisterhood lugged me squealing into life. Creation from nothing. What has she in the bag? A misbirth with a trailing navelcord, hushed in ruddy wool. The cords of all link back, strandentwining cable of all flesh. That is why mystic monks. Will you be as gods? Gaze in your omphalos. Hello. Kinch here. Put me on to Edenville. Aleph, alpha: nought, nought, one.
Spouse and helpmate of Adam Kadmon: Heva, naked Eve. She had no navel. Gaze. Belly without blemish, bulging big, a buckler of taut vellum, no, whiteheaped corn, orient and immortal, standing from everlasting to everlasting. Womb of sin.”

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Ach, we could be here hours with that one passage alone.  Some say the navel is an erogenous zone, because the navel and the genitals have a common tissue origin. But Osho reckons that it only becomes erogenous if one’s sexuality is repressed, in which case the navel becomes hyper-sensitive as repressed sexuality starts building up behind it.  Hmm.

It's certainly got a lot going on. Ayurveda teaches that there are nearly 72,000 nadis (the Indian equivalent of acupuncture points) around the navel area and in the ancient Indian myths, Vishnu’s navel was considered the omphalos – from his navel a new world emerges. 

Does the body speak in metaphors? I feel so.  Thomas Aquinas reckoned the navel was the ‘bodily metaphor for spiritual things’.  Nice bit of vagueness there, Tom. But, like I say, isn't it to do with finding one’s centre, one’s axis mundi…to do with nurturing everything – body, soul and spirit (cos, let’s not forget where my mother is right now, huh?).

Of course, you could argue that I am just a dirty little baggage who didn’t clean or dry her belly button properly.  Did you know that scientists have discovered 1,400 strains of bacteria in human umbilici?  At the North Carolina State University they actually conducted a Belly Button Biodiversity study and found 662 unrecognised strains that could be unique new species.  How cool is that?  Maybe someone should study my belly button – I could be harvesting the cure for EVERYTHING!  In my world navel. 

But seriously, people, watch out.  Keep your omphalos clean, for pity’s sake.  Or else… 

(warning: do not watch if about to eat or if squeamish).

PS. As I was writing this an email popped into my inbox and I nearly fell off my chair.

Children’s navel inspired artwork to be celebrated at the Sea Life Roadshow!

What? WHAT??? Ah, but the eye sees what it wants to see – or rather, in this case, sea.  Sadly it was naval, not navel.  But hey… I read on.

 “On display at the event will be a naval inspired artwork - When I Dream, I Dream of Home…”

And there we are, back again. Sailors lost on stormy seas. Writing home.  Dreaming.

The serpent eats its tail/tale. 

Horse meat? It's yummy...in comparison...

About the horse thing.  I’ve resisted commenting cos I run the risk of sounding like a smug vegetarian (and, let's be honest, there is little more irritating than a smug vegetarian) but, the more it goes on, the more I puzzle. 

First up. People are upset because they’ve been eating horse.  Well, honestly, meat is meat, isn’t it? I’ve said it before but really, I don’t get why one kind of flesh is acceptable while another isn’t.  When I ate meat, I ate anything – pretty much. I ate bambi and badger and zebra and snake and eel and whatever.  I kinda don’t get why – if we’re really logical, rather than sentimental – there is any difference.  What am I missing? Okay, some animals wouldn’t be so good to eat – because of their own dining habits – but generally speaking flesh is flesh. And yet some is taboo. Interesting, huh?

Second up.  I do get the drug thing. I get that people don’t want to eat horse because horsemeat could have drugs in it. But – and here’s my puzzlement – pretty much all meat has drugs in it.  Animals bred to be eaten tend to have antibiotics and hormones and so on. Some of them have a heck of a lot of it. Organic meat not so much…   But really, if you’re eating non-organic meat, you’re eating drugs.  End of.

Third up.  I get the whole ‘But we should know what’s in our food’ thing.  I really do.  But, riddle me this, how come we’re suddenly all ‘OMG!’ about what goes in our food?  There has been all kind of crap in processed food for decades.  I first went vegetarian after doing a story for iD magazine looking at the food industry. I haven’t touched processed food since. 

See that pic?  Ice cream? Marshmallow? Nope.  That's MSM - mechanically separated meat. MEAT! It's what they use to make things like chicken nuggets, hot dogs, salami, pepperoni and other processed meats.  Basically they take everything, and I mean everything (bones and eyeballs and all) and mince it up. Then, because it’s crawling with bacteria, they wash it with ammonia. And then, because it tastes disgusting, they stuff it with artificial flavouring. And then, because it’s alarmingly pink (let’s not think about why) they dye it with artificial colour.  And then they cook it and people eat it. Children eat it.  Nice huh? 

I could go on and on but I don't want to put you off your tea.  

And now there’s a flap about a bit of horse in beef burgers.  Honestly, it’s the tip of the iceberg.  Let's not even start on GMO.  

But if it makes you think about what you’re eating, about what you’re giving your children to eat, then I reckon it’s a good thing.  We should care about what we eat.  For our own health and for the wellbeing of the animals we eat we should ensure they’ve had a decent life and a humane death.  So, yeah, like the news reports are saying – use your local butcher; support local accountable farmers with good wellbeing records.   

But then people say they can’t afford good quality meat.  Well, eat less of it. It's not essential to a healthy diet.  Go partly or fully vegetarian. I can't and won't tell you what to do but, truly, I spend a pittance on food for myself.  Nuts are pricey and I do have a tofu addiction – but those are my luxury items. Vegetables, pulses, seeds, fruit…cheap as chips really.  Ah, but you don’t have time, I hear you say?  Do I spend hours cooking?  You gotta be kidding.  I either eat it raw (ie no preparation at all) or I stir-fry (minutes) or I bung everything in a slow cooker and let it cook itself.

http://weeklyveganmenu.blogspot.co.uk

Right.  I’ll shut up now.  

Except that - I made damn sure there were no horse puns in this post – but I bet you won't spare me ‘em in the comments.  *smile* 

The universe giggled back...

Are we hardwired for God?  Is a belief in a greater power or something larger than ourselves slotted into our programming? I found out the other day that apparently there's now a name for the study of religious experience – neurotheology.  There’s a name for everything nowadays. 

When we’re young we easily believe in the mystical.  I knew there were fairies that lived in the wall; I equally knew there was something Very Bad at the very end of the garden.  Bad things stalked me in my sleep – and nothing much stopped them.  Bad things lurked under my bed but these I kept at bay by pulling the sheet tight over my head, leaving only the tiniest of airways.  Funny, isn’t it, how such vicious monsters are so easily deterred by a thin piece of fabric? 

I used to say a series of prayers every night, fervent prayers.  It was a ritual.  I believed that if I missed anyone out of my ‘God bless’ prayer, they would die.  Now I come to think of it, that was pretty megalomaniac.  Did I really think God would punish the poor sap for my lapse in concentration?  Or maybe I quietly believed in myself as God? 

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When I was seventeen or eighteen, I took acid by mistake.  A spiked drink at a bad party.  I walked home alone, upset, my mind moiling.  And then my vision warped. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t judge distance. I needed to cross a road and yet, when I looked down, it felt like I was on the top of a cliff and the road was several miles below me.  When I got home my grandmother greeted me and her face kept changing – but was mainly pretty lizard-like.  I think I’ve told you this before but never mind. You've probably forgotten.  Our minds can create anything.  It was a shame it happened that way – other people report feelings of oneness, of togetherness, of love – of experiencing the unity of the entire planet, universe, all that is. 

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But then I’ve had those experiences too – without drugs.  Through combinations of fasting, meditation, sensory deprivation and sometimes just pure serendipity.  It’s nothing new – people have been crawling into caves or hanging out in deserts for millennia in attempts to see ‘for real’. 

And the neurotheologists think there’s a reason for that.  They think that we need God.  Or rather, we need some kind of spiritual belief – to keep us balanced.  To stop us falling into total despond.  To stop us giving up out of sheer bloody pointlessness. We like to think there is meaning.  It comforts us.  And you have to wonder.  Without the God urge, do we become biological beings only?  Our purpose purely to grow to maturity, mate and hang around long enough to set our offspring on their feet?  And, if so, well... so what?

meh.ro

I guess you might argue though that atheists could be an aberration. They could have a vital bit missing. Or, here’s a thought, maybe they’re the evolution. But then you have to wonder why? What use does lack of belief have for the species as a whole?  Maybe it’s because religion is divisive, so corrosive?  The psychologist Susan Blackmore said, ‘I am not just an atheist; I believe that belief in God is both wrong and directly harmful.’ And yet…she goes on to say this. ‘On the other hand, I am convinced that experience with the mystical can be positive, valuable, and provide insight.  There are mystical states in which you see the world as a whole and experience yourself as a fully integrated part of everything that is. It can be a very positive experience that leads to less selfish behaviour and greater personal satisfaction. I wish more people were capable of experiencing that sort of experience without thereby encouraging traditional religion.’

But then isn’t she just redefining the meaning of God? 

Anyhow. Where was I? Where am I going? Not a clue. There'a whole load more but I'll spare you.  It's just that  lately, more than usual, I’ve been wondering about all this meaning I put on things. All the synchronicity, the magic, the serendipity, the out of the blueness…isn’t it all just…wishful thinking?  Isn’t it really all just random…meaningless…just my mind putting some kind of gloss on it to make living less painful? 

So the SP and I went for a walk…up the hill, into the woods and then down by the river.  And the birds were singing and the wild garlic was starting to push up through the dark brown earth.  And I thought, hell, what does it really matter?  Nobody can know. Not really.  All we can do, really, is just be, here and now, in each moment as it unfolds into the next.  So what if there’s no meaning.  And I put my headphones on and clicked ‘Shuffle’ and my iPod giggled and played…

 

And the universe giggled back.  J 

The Lost Art of Listening

You don’t often meet someone who really listens.  You don’t often meet people who ask the right questions.  It just doesn’t happen.  Unless you happen across one of life’s natural psychotherapists (generally not the kind who’s trained or the kind you pay) - or a real journalist. 

Back in the old days, journalism was not just the science of reporting facts – clear and clean –  but also the art of listening. 

It was something I was lucky enough to be taught early on in my career, when I started interviewing what would now be called ‘celebrities’ but back then were just musicians or artists or fashion designers or actors.  Or, later on, the ‘ordinary’ people to whom odd or extraordinary things had happened.  

An editor I knew said:  ‘Have a list of questions, by all means. But put it to one side when you meet the person. Half the time you won’t need it.’ 

She insisted that, once the conversation had started, one should let it flow, let it go where it wanted to.  ‘And listen, listen, listen,’ she said. ‘Let your intuition be on full alert. Hear what is unsaid, what wants to be said, and then gently facilitate that.’  She said there was always a moment – in any real interaction, not just interviews of course – where the truth, the bottom line, the kernel, the confession, the whatever you will, would rise up and ask to be heard.  And, as the Listener, you could grasp that and, with the most delicate of touch, you could tease it and pull it out.  Or, on the other hand, you could miss it, you could let it pass.  And then, when you came to play back your interview, you would hear it – that missed moment, that lost lacuna. And you would kick yourself.

Very few people – whether journalists or not – truly Listen. The Listener is a rare soul.  People generally are too eager to talk, to get across their own point of view, their agenda, to hear their own voice.  Someone else’s words are nothing more than a nudge, a jumping off point. 

-       Ooh yes, that happened to me…

-       Ooh, that reminds me of when I…

-       Ah, but I always think…

Andrew distance listening. :)

My friends Fi and Andrew, however, are old-school journalists, schooled in the art of teasing out the truth.  They slide through defences, they find the gaps.  And they listen, they really Listen.  It’s beguiling.  It’s dangerous.  There is something very tempting about being given true attention. Beware when you find a Listener - if you're not wary, they'll steal your very soul.  :-)

The years slither away when I see them; they always do.  Sometimes I’m shocked to see the grey in Fi’s hair, the lines on Andrew’s brow and I do a double-take when their younger son walks in from his shift at the local radio station and gives me a hug.  I can still see him so clearly, passed round the table, a baby parcel, when he was born.  Time is nothing here – we have sat at their kitchen table countless times – once it was small and cramped and now it sits in a smart extension but the laughter is exactly the same.

They’re generous hosts, the best type – food cooked with love and thought; wine free-flowing, conversation bright and smart and thoughtful and funny; moods and topics shifting almost by the second. It never goes stale.  I could stay there for hours, lost in their warmth.  And their Listening.

The Mid Staffs Public Inquiry and my mother

I watched the BBC news this morning with a heavy heart.  Hearing the news that five other hospital trusts are to be investigated in the wake of the inquiry into the abysmal failings at Stafford Hospital.  For those of my readers who are not in the UK, the inquiry highlighted far-reaching neglect and abuse at the hospital, leading to a large number of unnecessary deaths between 2005 and 2008. 

It struck a personal chord.  I don’t know about Stafford Hospital but I do know about how my own mother died in Somerset’s Musgrove Park Hospital.  The lack of care she received was quite terrifying. 

I received a call from her nursing home to say she had become ill and had been sent to hospital. I went straight over.  It was late afternoon and nobody could find her.  Yes, the ambulance had dropped her off; yes, she was logged into the system but nobody knew where precisely she was. After an hour of desperately hunting, a doctor 

finally pulled me into her room and there was my mother, sunk in a wheelchair, barely conscious. 

‘I honestly thought she was going to die out in the corridor,’ said the doctor. ‘I couldn’t get a ward to take her so I brought her in here so at least I could keep an eye on her.’ 

The doctor said that, out of desperation, she had (knowingly) wrongly diagnosed my mother so that at least she could get onto the one ward which had vacancies.  ‘Please complain about this,’ she said, holding my arm as the orderlies came to take her away.  ‘Elderly people, in particular, are treated appallingly here.  It needs to come out.’ 

But, to be honest, I had other things on my mind. Like trying to keep my mother alive right there and then, and on through the night.  I figured getting onto a ward would make things better but it turned into the most surreal hell.  The ward was a Bedlam, people screaming and yelling. At one point the police came in, as one man started slashing a knife around.  My mother was petrified and she could barely breathe.  I could tell her condition was deteriorating swiftly.  Eventually, after several hours, I managed to persuade a junior doctor to come and examine her.  He said fluid had built up on her lungs and needed to be drained as a matter of urgency.  There was nobody to help so I stood handing him instruments and holding Mum while he performed the procedure right there, on the ward, in her bed. I don’t even think the screens went up.  I had to remind him to use antiseptic wash on his hands before he started.

I don’t know how we made it through that night, she and I.  I didn’t dare leave her bedside.  She was thirsty all the time; she was coughing up thick globbets of muck.  If I hadn’t been there I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have made it to morning.  The next day she was moved to another ward and I breathed a sigh of relief.  Surely it would be better here?  But no.  People weren’t screaming here but they were groaning and they were pushing bells which weren’t answered.  On this ward, the nurses’ station was separate, outside the main ward.  And it was very much a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’.  On the news today, it was suggested that hospitals are understaffed and that nurses simply can’t give their patients the level of care they need.  Well, sorry, but it didn’t look that way from where I was sitting.  I stayed with Mum for three days and nights solidly because I couldn’t trust the nurses to keep her hydrated and to prevent her from choking on the muck from her lungs.  Eventually my sister was able to come down from London with some of her family and we were able to take turns in watching her, in trying to get her to eat, in giving her sips of water, freshening her up, keeping her breathing apparatus over her face.

It wasn’t me being paranoid.  In the bed next to Mum another family kept vigil over their mother – just like us, they didn’t dare leave her alone.  They watered and fed and watched her.  Between us we tried to help other people on the ward too – when bells repeatedly went unanswered.  Some of the patients clearly had dementia – they rang the bell a lot because they became confused and frightened.  And that, in turn, confused and frightened the other patients.    

Getting information out of staff was nigh-on impossible.  Everyone was perfectly pleasant, just not remotely involved somehow.  Eventually Mum died, on that ward. 

Why didn’t I complain?  I suppose because my mother had just died, and I was contending with guilt as well as grief.  I couldn’t quite let my mind dwell on what had happened. I couldn't quite believe what had happened.  I knew, logically, that there hadn’t been anything else I could have done but even so, I felt lacking.  Doubtless she would have died anyhow – her lungs had developed a thick carapace around them – but I hated that she had suffered more than necessary because of lack of good nursing care.

Also, I guess, we don't like to complain about the NHS.  It's free, we think: we should be grateful for what we've got.  And, yes, the NHS does do wonderful things and there are wonderful people in it, including amazing and dedicated nurses.  And not all departments and wards are equal.  My family has had good treatment at Musgrove.  But, on this occasion, the hospital, the NHS, and the nurses in particular, let us - and Mum - down.  And there was no way of putting it right.  

I should have complained.  I should have made a fuss.  

Stalking the streets of London

‘I’m early,’ I said.

‘You’re cold,’ he said.

‘I am?’ I said.

‘Your cheeks are frozen,’ he said, concern scratched on his face.

 ‘I suppose it’s a cold night.  I only walked from Hackney Central. It took no time at all. Far less than I thought.’

I love walking in London at night. The darkness of a city has a totally different feel to that of the countryside.  Black on black against a backdrop (blackdrop) of tobacco yellow. The occasional scream of neon, of electric blue sirens, of staggering headlights. 

Passing strangers and the surprise as I meet their eyes. Unexpected. Unguarded. Unprepared. And in that second, in that moment before they shut down and flick their eyes away, the glimpse of a life, a soul.  A sliding connection.  I imagine and I wonder. 

My friend finds it horrifying, I think (I know), the way I wander. The careless disregard, as she sees it, for safety.

‘Get a cab,’ she says.  I smile and shake my head. 

‘Don’t get your phone out!’ she hisses.  

'Don't get the night bus,' she says.  'Call me.'  But I like night buses.  

Do this. Don’t do that. Do this. Don’t do that.  It’s said with concern, with love, I know but still…

I can’t live like that.  I can’t live in fear. I can’t always think the worst of people.  I never have.  I hope I never will.  Is it foolish?  Should one always look over one’s shoulder?  I don’t know.  I have prowled so many cities; marched carelessly through  supposedly no-go areas.  I have never felt unsafe.  Maybe that’s the clue. I have always suspected that fear gives off a scent.  If you feel (and so look) like a victim you become attractive to predators.  Something in your body language, something in the way you move is alluring, like the bound of the gazelle, the zigzag of the zebra.  It shouts of the hunt. 

But I stalk. When I was young I taught myself to throw a ring of protection around me, a personal moving sanctuary of safety.  It always served me well.  Now I no longer go through the ritual in my mind’s eye; it’s become a part of me, an automatic cape that swirls around me when I step out into the wider world.  

I'm not entirely stupid.  If I do feel unsafe, if the skin on the back of  my neck, my vestigial hackles, prickle and rise, I pay attention.  There have been some places in the world in which I have let caution guide me.  I have taken the cab. I have slid the bolt. I have touched my cape and noticed the small tears, the threadbare patches - and not pushed my luck.  

But not often.  

The Circle of Stuff

So I went to London, to help my friend move house.  It seemed like such a good idea – I would help her but also lose myself in cleaning and packing, in lugging stuff around and then reversing the process at the other end. Pass the parcel. Pack, unpack. A circle of stuff.

I even took my running kit, thinking I’d jog round the streets and parks of North London. But instead I sort of came undone. I unravelled.  I became more and more unreal.  And, as if to compensate, in a vain desperate attempt to pull me back to the here and now, my body started to hurt…badly. 

I hadn’t quite realized where she was moving to, hadn’t clocked it was nearly back where I used to live, twenty years ago or more. And past and present collided and left me winded. Neither here nor there.  A nobody person lost in nowhen nowhere.

And I was reading this amazing book, by Sandie Dent (don’t bother Googling it – the few agents she tried couldn’t see the gemstone glittering in their darkness), and that just compounded the schism somehow. A woman, around middle-age, goes back to her teenage home and clashes into old friendships, past loves and remembers/dismembers the past.  Dis – the Roman god of the underworld, of course, fell Hades.  And I, such a wan Persephone, always in love with darkness.

‘Do you like pomegranates?’ said my friend as she flung stuff into a trolley at Waitrose.

‘Not any more,’ I replied. Maybe I never did. 

Nothing makes any sense.  Maybe it never did.  Ain't life funny?  

I thought I’d go out, once the boxes were unpacked, once things were transferred to corners, in piles, trying to adjust to their new spaces.  I thought I’d wander down Church Street, maybe have a drink in a café, bob in and out of a few shops, trace my fingers over the gravestones in the cemetery.  But I felt too alien. It would all have felt fake. I walked past my old house, past the places where I lived and loved and laughed and cried.  And none of it felt like it belonged to me.  Now even my memories have turned tail and run run away. You gotta laugh, right?  

So I walked back, to the place that wasn't the place I loved, across the wide space of the park and came across an enclosure of deer.  My memory has no deer.  Were they always there and I didn’t know?  Or maybe I didn’t notice. Maybe their entrapment didn’t bother me then, when I had no fences around me.  Back then, when I thought I wanted to be encircled.

And there was a goat too.  It looked at me incuriously. ‘Wouldn’t you rather have a cliff or a mountain or even a tree on a beach to climb?’ I said.  It turned away.  Either it didn’t care or it knew that it didn't make any difference. Wherever you go, there you are.   

I limped back to the new place.  Worked on through the pain.  Because every muscle and joint in my body was/is hurting.  It feels like I’m being pulled apart at the seams, bone by bone, cell by cell.  I think I would like to crawl away now, into that hole in the forest where hurt animals go to lick their wounds.  It would be…peaceful. Piece fall?