Achilles & Aristotle

Tree Hugging

Not exactly wilderness (within comfortable earshot of the roar of the A303) but wet and muddy enough – we holidayed this half term in a forest with the inlaws.

Not under canvas, thank God, given a major gale/minor hurricane (depending on your appetite for exaggeration) blew down trees all around – but in a sturdy log cabin, courtesy of the Forestry Commission.

And very good it was too. Walking, biking, den building, hot chocolate drinking, pumpkin lantern making, trick or treating and best of all climbing up a very tall tree…

Now at 9am sharp on a damp Wednesday, the sight of eight dangling ropes confirmed my view that younger and bolder members, of the extended family, were the right guinea pigs.

However hoisting yourself with a ‘foot loop’ and ‘hand knot’ proved a little too much for my father in law’s replacement hip. He wisely withdrew. And in went ‘Dad’ as an unfancied, but unusually eager outsider.

And how glad am I that I did. Hoisting myself up a long rope, to the top of a tree, turned out to be the buzz of the week. And an whoosh down the zip cord with a reasonably elegant landing, had me crowned ‘King John’ for treesmanship – with a local beer to crown it.

What a great feeling – hanging in the still-leafy canopy with the autumn sunlight streaming through the branches. Step in, clip on, hoist yourself up and whizz back down – tree hugging has never been more fun.

The New Forest confirmed, sometimes it is good to try something completely new.

Life, Poetry, Work

Say it with pictures

Is there anything more naff than emojis? I’d always thought they were about the lowest form of communication known to man. But…

I was wrong. Perhaps it’s my recent trip to Japan – but saying it in pictures sometimes says it better than words.

This was my week:

📥📝📯📨📤🚜💩🐓💣👴👵💤👃🏃⌚️🏠🌵🌛🔙🔜⁉️

Probably only one other person in the world truly knows what this means. But the laughter we shared on opposite ends of mobile phones puts emojis on a par with poetry.

As Aristotle almost said, perhaps sometimes the job of the poet is to say something transcendent and universal about the human condition – in no more or less emojis than are needed…

🔚

Life, Psychology, Work

Root Canal Work

Lots to reflect on after some time in China and Japan – not least how much I enjoyed it. Normally, in my past, being jetlagged and on display from morning till night would have seemed as much fun as the proverbial ‘root canal work’.

Facing myriad ‘state visits’, handshakes, speeches, staff talks and formal lunches and dinners, the curious discovery was – with few deep breaths and some positive thinking – it all went fine. And in fact, I really enjoyed it.

Talking to an interesting chap this week, he pointed out that, physiologically, the sensations of anxiety are pretty much indistinguishable from those of excitement. All that’s different is the mental picture.

Bungee jump = Excitement

Standing too close to a cliff edge = Anxiety.

I was back in the dentist’s chair for my actual root canal work yesterday. Injections, a clamp, a rubber sheet over my mouth, drills, cement, industrial disinfectant dribbling down my throat, UV, x-rays, smoke, fumes, thumbs, pins and screws.

The fear of pain put this in the ‘anxiety’ not the ‘excitement’ category. But every time I remembered to adjust my mental state, to breathe and to separate the physiological from the mental, it wasn’t half as bad.

Nobody wants a dull life. So realising anxiety and excitement are just two sides of the same physical coin is a good discovery – once again, the picture in the mind makes a very big difference to how it all feels.

Death, Life, Psychology

Good Honest Pain

Funny, I do find there’s a big big difference between ‘good honest pain’ and the dolorous pain of disease or decay.

A nice deep cut, bruise or surgical scar is a healthily smarting demonstration of the body’s marvellous healing powers. Tooth decay, anything fungal or worst of all tumours, are sickening symbols of decline and fall.

The knife and needle used to scare me, but not these days. Having had various bits lanced, excised and chopped out, you can kept your creams and ointments – nothing beats the clean cut of surgical steel.

Life, Poetry

Pulling Teeth

Needle jabs
And again
And again
A chill spreads
Then
Pins and needles
Before wheeeeee
And
Grrrrrzzzz
And pop
And CRACK
And heave
And ho!
And stitch
And pull
And tie
And knot
And swill
And cottonwool
And pills
And bill
Then tingle
And dribble
And blood
In a trickle
Then chemist
Then bus
Then home
To a nice fuss

It is done. After 25 years of dodging the dentist – and with a mighty and reverberating crack – my wisdom tooth is no more.

A cropped top and two roots lay on the slab in a forlorn trio. Pain is due in less than an hour, but I’m nearly home for tea – and hopefully some sympathy.