QUOTATION MARKS No 10

No man ever understands quite

his own artful dodges

to escape from the grim shadow

of self knowledge

JOSEPH CONRAD

FILM REVIEW - Babel

Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Inarritu’s International breakthrough movie Amores Perres, was a startling and often uncomfortable look into the lives of modern day Mexicans. Broad in scope and daring in its themes, its multi-layered storyline came together near the end of the movie in a simple tragic accident. In it he clearly illustrated how interrelated our lives are beneath our individualistic focus of self-determination, relative wealth and cultural status. His next film, 21 Grams, successfully transferred this structure and themes to the USA. The poor and rich Mexicans being replaced with poor Latino’s and rich white Americans.

With Babel, Inarritu moves these same structures and themes to an even larger canvas, the community of the world. It has storylines set in the USA, Mexico, Morroco and bizarrely Japan. It has not travelled well. The grand perspective of international misunderstanding, and cultural miscommunication, paradoxically, make the interconnected aspects considerably weaker, to the point of being feeble. The visual flare is still present in the portrayal of all the stories, this film is very beautiful, and is at times astoundingly conceived. However, the extremely tenuous links between the stories, and the fact that the tragic event that links them, happens in the first half hour of the movie, makes it difficult to know exactly what is his point here. There is profound subject matter in abundance, but none of it hangs together much. The film roles on inexorable, creating a tense expectation that there will be some explanation or resolution to its glittering incoherence. This doesn’t happen.

Perhaps I have missed the point, maybe this is some Post Modern dissection of film narrative, or an ironic demonstration of the babbling of world cinema. I think not. Having done two movies with more or less the same film and narrative structure, doing a third version might indeed be stretching the point. Innarritu lessens the violence, diminishes the links between stories, and whips up a big canvas to paint on, in the hope you don’t notice he’s run out of things to say. If he dares to do this again, there will be an almighty critical backlash. You can only take your viewers for a ride once.

I can see why this movie is up for Oscars. It places Inarritu, and Mexican film generally, onto the International stage, big time. After last year’s success with the film Crash, films with worthy themes are in. The fact that blockbuster stars of the calibre of Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett want a piece of the Inarritu action, shows the kudos involved. The movie is, however, like a large white elephant desperately flapping its pink fairy wings in the hope that it might fly. It sits undecided about whether to be an elegiac reflection on human nature, a stunning mood piece, or to take you on a roller coaster ride of great daring and bravado, its indecision unfortunately takes forever. This film was self indulgent with time if nothing else. It left me feeling sad and disheartened, but for all the wrong reasons.

DIARY 22 - WHEN THINGS GO PEAR SHAPED

It is funny how the mood of a week can change in a day. The start of this week was all right, but after last weeks stress the horizon was a bit uneventful and subdued. Then on Wednesday afternoon we had a Team Meeting of all Crematorium staff. Now, this is only the second such meeting I’ve attended. My impressions are that they really aren’t that useful. People seem to use them to make helpful suggestions that are quickly dispensed with, by the management, as unworkable. They air grievances or make barely polite requests for others to stop doing things they find annoying or frustrating, or berate them for taking diabolical liberties. One of my fellow Chapel Attendants decided to make an number of statements about folk ‘getting off their arses and doing the work their supposed to do, rather than reading newspapers’ I was gob smacked by his audacity and sheer hypocrisy, as this perfectly describes of his own work style. Annoyed? I was livid.

On top of this, I am tired with the Crematoriums management style. It is so heavy handed, and forgive this please - ‘tight arsed’. If it moves, there must be a procedure written out which everyone must adhere to, to the letter. If funeral directors don’t do as they’re supposed to, which they inevitable won’t do at least some of the time, a letter will be dispatched with a new dictatorial instruction. A sign will be printed, aggressive in tone, telling everyone what they are ‘not to do’ It is accompanied by a strong tendency to come down heavily on simple errors people make in the course of doing there work. Rather than focusing on the efforts people are making, and encouraging people to take responsibility, they get blamed instead. As a consequence some staff spend half their time finding someone else to take the can, as a means of deflecting blame from them selves. The Team Meeting was full of this sort of tone. I left feeling pissed off and irritated.

By the time I’d got home I was despondent and angry. By the next day I was grumpy and depressed. Why am I doing this job? How can I get out of it as quick as possible, please? The job, simple as it is, is stressful. I’m dealing with recently bereaved families and burning their deceased bodies daily. This is not a neutral working environment. By Thursday night I was pretty low and deeply unhappy, with work, with me, and seemingly almost everything else. David and I were cleaning the flat in preparation for friends visiting us at the weekend. In the middle of all this I begin to feel tearful and upset. The emotion was a bit dark and melodramatic. It is best summed up as feeling as if I’ve wasted my life. Now, I think it could be said I’ve not always made the most of my talents, and often career strategies haven’t gone according to plan, but wasted? - Not really. Though it might not be true historically, it does hold truth emotionally. I’ve had a persistent feeling for most of my adult life that there was something I should be doing with my life that I wasn’t currently doing. Combined with this ‘wasted life’ response, I’m beginning to see that these have been the dominant emotional impulses behind my recent ‘mid life’ review.

The ramifications of this are not fully formed yet, but I can see they might be far reaching. After settling for a period of peace and quiet whilst my finances recover, up comes this. My first response is - I don’t think it’s advisable to make a long-term commitment to the Crematorium. This is followed by – what else could I do? To which I feel – Oh not that old chestnut again. Questions are arising, as are conflicting impulses, the re-treading of old rationales, going back over how things have reached this impasse and hitting my head against emotional dead ends. So generally I guess its best not to further commit things to blog just yet. Though I will keep you posted.

DIARY 21 - ALL IN A DAYS WORK

I’m not normally one for getting heavily stressed out at work. This week, however, I reached the limit of what I can currently cope with. January is my second month working full time at the Crematorium. Getting accustomed to that is enough for now. At the beginning of January, rather hurriedly and ill prepared, we Chapel Attendants have begun operating the music during services. On the surface this doesn’t sound a big deal, but it has been a steep learning curve for us all. At the same time I’m also learning the ropes of being a Cremator Technician. So the curve for me has been doubly steep.

In only my second full week in the Cremation Room I’m thrust into running it single- handed, without supervision. It turned out to be our heaviest week of cremations, post Christmas, with up to sixteen services a day. After the first day I was so strung out, I got no sleep that evening. This was pretty much how the week progressed, large amounts of stress, followed by small amounts of sleep. Cremating sixteen folk in a day, in eight hours, is not easy at the best of times.

On Thursday I had fifteen cremations, a third of which were obese. Fat bodies take two to two and a half hours to burn, a normal body takes an hour and a quarter. Cremating a body is dependant on body fat to get it going. Bodies that have no body fat, such as those wasted away from old age, or cancer sufferers, use more energy to get the body burning effectively. The situation with an obese body is the opposite, there is too much fat. The cremation oven easily becomes overwhelmed by the amount of heat and noxious gases being given off. Controlling this is my job. The first three bodies on Thursday morning were of this type. The first looked slightly large, judging by the coffin size. Once the coffin burned off, the body inside appeared to swell in size, soon resembling a huge Christmas pudding with limbs and a head poking out from beneath it. Dramatic rolls of smoke and flame enveloped it, for the first hour, this was all I could see. Two and a half hours later nothing was left but a few calcified bones.

So the day went on, services finished, coffins waited on racks until cremators were free. My shift was due to finish at six pm, the last coffin went in at ten past six, so I put the cremator on automatic and left it to complete its cycle. I drove back to Cambridge, met David at Tesco to do the weekly shop and came home feeling stiff, tense and emotionally strained. My sleep that night was erratic and shallow, so I awoke still bodily tense and apprehensive about the forthcoming day at work. I arrived at work not feeling too good. When my line manager politely asked me how I was, I told her. I knew I wasn’t quite my usual self. So before I knew it, the Crematorium Manager comes to see me and organises someone to help me out for the rest of the day. Inwardly I felt my tension ease and begin to relax.

I think the stress was cumulative, with quite a few weeks previous getting to grips with new working practices. The work itself, cremating bodies, is not exactly light. I think there is still some unconscious horror with what I do for a living, going on beneath my seemingly calm exterior. There is also the issue of leaving a trainee in sole charge in a busy period. There is supposed be one person every week who is the ‘floater’ who fills in and helps where needed. Recently with the new music system, he or she, has had their hands full helping Chapel Attendants gain confidence in the system. Hence why I was left holding the fort.

On a brighter note, this week was the second anniversary of David and I starting our relationship. We went out Wednesday night to Pizza Express and had a delicious pizza together. Popped into Tesco, bought a Tarte au Lemon and some double cream, and came home and indulged. Happy times before and after.

QUOTATION MARKS No 9

The growing good of the world is partly dependant on unhistoric acts;

and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been,

is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life,

and rest in unvisited tombs

GEORGE ELLIOT

DIARY No 20 - ON BEING EVER SO HUMBLE

This week, at work, we have been using for the first time a new music system in the chapels. The Council having decided, in their wisdom, to no longer employ folk on a casual basis, we’ve thus lost one organist and gained a Music Director. So on top of doing my usual things as a Chapel Attendant, I’ve now added Music Operative. Apart from one deeply humiliating incident on my very first service, it has gone OK. I’ve become gradually less anxious and apprehensive as the week has progressed. There are downsides to the system, mainly caused by ministers or funeral director’s turning up at the last minute with CD’s and service details. Whilst the new system is flexible and fast, there are often a hundred and one things that need doing in the short space of time between services, organising the music just pushes the pressure too far towards the unacceptable end of the scale. I guess I will become more fluent and speedy with the new computer based system eventually. I will not, however, have any expectations that some Funeral Directors will suddenly become better organised, or more considerate.

I now sit in on most services, when I’m on ‘music duty’. This means I hear the eulogies and brief life stories. I’m finding these touching and thought provoking. Sometimes, it’s simply the tragic nature of a death, such as a young girl of eight, who died from cancer. Seeing the Mother’s grief was quite gut wrenching. Other times, it was the simple level at which the deceased was appreciated, by which I guess I mean unaffected. It is rarely a catalogue of great world shattering deeds. It’s more about how they were as people, than what they did. One chap, who died of a brain tumour at 57 years old, was a fireman most of his working life. His qualities and strengths of solid dependability, thoroughness, care and concern for others, were highlighted repeatedly. His workmates admired, respected him, and came out in full to pay their respect. Another woman had been a bright and appreciative presence, paying a lot of attention to people’s needs, when she worked as a warden in a sheltered housing scheme. Even though she’d retired from that job fifteen years ago, residents turned out in full for her funeral.

I think I’ve found these examples quite humbling. Sometimes I get over preoccupied emotionally with needing to make my mark in some extraordinary way, and underestimate what I do instinctively, because of its seeming ordinariness. Yet these qualities are what other people most likely will remember me by. I’ve been reflecting that my own restlessness and anxiety arise out of a discontent and inability to sit with my present life. I cannot be content with things as they are, some idea, prospect or potential pulls my attention out into the future where happiness lies. Out there in the future is happiness and deeper fulfilment, whilst now, is just not there yet.

Over Christmas I watched an excellent movie called ‘Happiness’ by the Director. Todd Solendze. It is a black comedy, that is really about what makes us unhappy. All the characters are in pursuit of an ideal; that if they have this, then they will be happy. Unfortunately what they want - usually a perfect sexual partner - is unobtainable, unrealistic, or in one case completely forbidden and abhorrent. The desperate and tragic circumstances they create as a result, often destroys their lives and potential to be happy. Their dreams turn into hellish nightmares. Ironically it’s the pursuit of happiness that is making them unhappy.

Yes, yes, yes, I know, I know…but I’m addicted to anxiety aren’t I. Can’t kick the habit, into rehab with me.

DIARY No 19 - LOST IN TRANSITION

Periods of transition are frequently difficult to manage. One thing is in the process of passing, whilst another begins to emerge. Letting go, when it’s not yet clear what form the future will take, is not easy. 2006 appears to have been a year of transition. Stepping out from the supportive conditions of a Buddhist Right Livelihood Business and finding work in the harsher, less forgiving light of the secular world. Regular readers of this blog, and most of all my friends in the Dharma, have heard, read or seen what this process has been like for me. Often I experienced an inner conflict, as aspiration and desire for creative freedom, vied with financial anxiety and a need for security. I think, in the end, the latter has won the day, for now at least. My writing and painting have become concentrated evening and weekend activities.

So, as we are on the cusp of 2007, I am tentatively looking forward to whatever may be in store. I’ve been working Full Time at the Crematorium a little over a month. The increased money is very welcome. My work is taking on a consistency and engagement not present when I worked Part Time. I’m learning new things, like how to master the new computer based music system in the Chapels, and how to burn dead bodies effectively. It seems odd when I return home and David asks me what I did today. If I replied literally,’ I burned six pensioners in their sixties, seventies and eighties, two middle aged people, one male, one female, plus a non viable foetus, and cleaned and hovered the chapels, I think that might be unwelcome. Yet, this is what I do most days. If you had asked me this time last year what I’d be doing by 2007, this is not what I would have envisaged at all.

When aspirations hit the fan of reality, one has to be prepared to revise expectations and learn to live each day as it comes. Obviously, there is a personal practice in what I now do for a living. Largely it is in the realm of doing what seems appropriate, sometimes guarding the gates of the senses, at other times making sure I stay in touch with my feelings. My body, as always, remains the best indicator. Back pain and sleep patterns become unpredictable, when I’m not conscious enough of my responses. Occasionally, I do detect horrified anxiety, in amongst my usual day-to-day worry and flurry. This is particularly so if I’ve had a few days working in the Cremation Room. Observing the state of a burning cadaver moving from decaying flesh and bone towards ash, raking out what’s left and placing in a plastic urn or wooden casket, is not an insignificant event and does have an effect. It can alienate you from your feelings, or when you find your forehead frowned in deep furrows, the nature of your responses is all too apparent, it’s in your face. Levels of black, or mordant humour have to be monitored, they’re good indicators of suppressed feelings. Most of the time my feelings appear just neutral, or at least a trifled numbed. Anyway, I digress.

Next year I have a few things to consider. How quickly it will be possible to sort out my bank loan etc. Watch what effect having a decent income has, and not raising my expenditure to match it. Focus on writing and painting as much as I can. David and I need to seriously think about getting a bit bigger flat, if not now, when? Though I meditate now, it’s still erratic, and far from frequent. I need to be more aware, the nature of my resistances, what are they about? I find myself writing quite passionately about practice when I explore a Dogen discourse, but the bum still doesn’t hit the meditation stool with confident assertion. Whilst physical circumstances have had an effect, I know they are just the excuse, not the reason. What I really need is a meditation retreat for burned out meditators, where you try to identify what exactly is up. I’m still experiencing my recurrent back, hip and ankle pain on the left side of my body. I haven’t been able to afford to go see an osteopath this year, but I sense I do need to take a different approach, not just alleviating but resolving, but how? I know these are primarily emotionally based symptoms, but I am no nearer finding what needs to change or be transformed. It appears to be less to do with changing circumstances, (I’ve tried that) and more to do with changing how my body responds to stress. What is that stress anxious about in the first place? Perhaps I should try meditating! That’s enough! enough for one year at least.

FILM REVIEW - Lost Highway

Life in a David Lynch movie is one strange occurrence after another. Lost Highway is no exception. There is the Jazz musician who seems to be having a little problem with his jealousy. His wife, has a very complex time concealing her extra curricular activities from the aforesaid muso. On top of this, there’s the young man ,who wakes up one morning in a prison cell previously occupied by the muso for murdering the wife. Was that a dream or an identity crisis? He ends up falling for a blond version of the muso’s wife, and then killing her old lover by colliding his cranium with the edge of a plate glass table. There is also a psychopathic gangster, and a ghost faced man, who seems to know what is going on but never tells anyone. In the end the young man turns back into the muso after being rejected by the blonde. The last we see of him, he’s revisiting his own house and being chased down a darkening highway, his head screaming like a Pope in a Francis Bacon painting. Crazy, or what?

Did I like it? I sure as hell did. It appears to be David Lynch's take on the whole noir genre. Part a homage, and part a surreal and imaginative extension of its dominant moods and characters. It has tension and atmosphere by the bucket load. A peculiar narrative thrust that keeps you engaged even when the story starts to defy logic. Its images are potent and disturbing, without being gratuitous. Lynch produces films with great flair and in the most distinctive style imaginable. He also has the gall ( and the money ! ) to realise these perverse little tales in tinsel town America.

The DVD extras were of neither use nor ornament. Not one, but two interviews with Lynch, which tell you zilch and are mostly just obtuse deflections. Plus, the usual actors fawning and licking the cream off Lynch’s genius, and a ‘Making of’ that looks like its composed of random out takes filmed by a gnome. Just watch the movie OK, leave it at that.

QUOTATION MARKS No 8

To think that you will be happy by becoming something else is delusion.

Becoming something else just exchanges one form of suffering for another form of suffering.

But when you are content with who you are now....

then you are free from suffering"

AJHAN BRAHM

DIARY No 18 - A VISIT FROM INSOMNIA

I’ve just completed my second week of Full Time work at the Crematorium. The first week was pretty much as I expected it to be, mostly working as a Chapel Attendant. I've been tired by the end of each day, though I have felt more consistently engaged. There was something about working Part Time, which left my energy broken off just when it reached a purposeful flow. This week I began my training as a Cremator Technician. This means I have to do one hundred cremations, pass an examination, and have one complete cremation closely monitored.

The days went OK, but I found my sleep quickly became almost non-existent. Over three nights I only had six hours sleep. With each new morning, I awoke more bleary eyed and mentally zonked. David was, unfortunately, also having a period of restlessness and fidgety sleep. So we weren’t a great deal of help to each other, compounding rather than easing each others problem. Each night I awoke after a few hours sleep, heart pounding away as if I’m in a panic, unable to relax or slow it’s pummelling action. Obviously, I could say this was all due to the change in my work. Watching the cremation process in much closer detail, days, rather than hours, of raking out the remaining crumble of bones, must leave a mark on ones psyche. I can’t see how it would not. I am, however, reluctant to just park it there and let it solidify into fact. It doesn’t feel quite that simple.

To start with there is the whole practical circumstances under which I’m sleeping to consider. If both of you, sharing a bed, turn over frequently and heavily, that’s not going to help either of you settle. Sometimes, being over stimulated just before bedtime doesn’t help. Both Monday and Tuesday nights I was engaged in deep and engaging conversation prior to going to bed. I reduced my coffee consumption, plus, looked at any thing which might disturb my sleep; like needing to pee in the middle of the night; or eating too much dinner. For many years, since living in a flat above extremely noisy and unpredictable Scottish Shift Working Lorry Drivers, I’ve slept using earplugs. Our bedroom window is blacked out, because we live opposite Cambridge United's Football Ground, which has floodlights, and two well lit advertising hoardings. Such strong artificial light tends to wake me up believing its morning. Having reviewed these, then I can consider how other circumstances might come into play.

Starting work Full Time at a Crematorium is, after all, quite a big step. Especially after all the soul searching, which concluded that I wanted to work Part Time to provide space to write and paint in. Once more, my desires appear to have been subsumed by practical necessity. There is a cloak of sadness wrapped around this, one that I haven’t wanted to look under too carefully. By Wednesday afternoon, I was beginning to sense an emotional upset and tearful feeling in the pit of my stomach. Not only am I working around death all the time, I’m also experiencing the death, for now at least, of a deeply held desire.

Listening to The Archers on Thursday night brought some of the emotion more cogently to the fore. Two of the Gay characters, Ian and Adam, were having a Civil Partnership Ceremony. It’s all been handled in a typically Radio 4 way, well meaning, slightly clichéd and above all lavished with liberal worthiness. At the end of the episode, the Mother of one of the characters said how proud she felt. I felt those tears welling up as she spoke. The day before, I got a Christmas card from my parents, and a separate card for David. I was a little put out that there wasn’t a card addressed to both of us. When David opened his, it was signed quite formally as’ from Mr & Mrs Lumb’. David, quite understandable, felt not fully welcomed into the bosom of my family. David’s Mum has been very open and generous. She has bought presents for my birthday and at Christmas, in every way she has behaved as if I’m part of her family. So the contrast is quite marked. My parents are really quite conservative, and from an entirely different generation. That they sent a card, was their way of acknowledging our relationship. I also recollect that my Brother in Law was still calling my parents Mr & Mrs Lumb years after he married my Sister. So, its not about discrimination or rejection, its more related to a level of formality they think is appropriate to someone they’ve only met once. That David is my partner would not change that. They may also be uncomfortable, not quite knowing how to couch or refer to something, which in their generation would never have been talked about publicly anyway. Social formalities have relaxed generally, but not for my parents. Though having said that, it doesn’t stop me feeling what I am is not fully accepted by them. This is what was touched on, and made me tearful. I was upset about things not being how I would like in terms of my work, my desires and how my parents relate to my partner, and myself, as gay men. Simple unsatisfactoriness, delicately interwoven like a thread of pain through the rough and ready cloth of everyday life. Owch !!

QUOTATION MARKS No 7

I know of no more encouraging fact

than the unquestionable ability of man

to elevate his life by a conscious endeavour

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

BOOK REVIEW

Walden, or life in the woods – Henry David Thoreau
Published unabridged by Dover Thrift Editions 1995.

It was over twenty years ago, on good old BBC Radio 4, that I first came across Thoreau. ‘Walden’, was their Book of the Week. It was a lively, clear and succinct reading of his ideas and experience, whilst he lived his back to earth lifestyle. He may not have been the first urban dweller to do so, but he was certainly the first to effectively write about the changes then overcoming civilised humanity. These days ‘dropping out of society’ is a common place occurrence. However, it often is only a partial one. Some semblance of support by the host society remains, if only in the form of ‘the dole’. Thoreau was unique, in that he was looking to be independent and self-supporting, in a way we would struggle to achieve these days. The talons of civilisation dig deep into self-determination, to hold us within its bounds.

Anyway, when I first heard it being read, I was captivated. I went out immediately and bought a small pocket sized edition produced by Shambhala Publications. In that period, I was fond of underlining in blue pen any apposite statement I found in books. Looking back through these blue lined sections, tells me something about my concerns at that time. Extensive sections of ‘Walden’ are selected, such as :~

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived”

Concerns about what it was like to live an essential life, were then dominant in my psyche. How to live simply and contentedly was paramount. Thoreau, though quite a pragmatic man in how he approached his solitary life, was motivated essentially by a romantic impulse; to return to a state of grace that had been lost. This underlying romanticism was what struck me most at that time. These days, I handle this sort of ideal with a more sceptical touch. Even Thoreau saw his ‘simple life’ as an experiment only, living like this for only a couple of years, before then returning to his former lifestyle. Without the donation of Emerson’s land at Walden Pond, the whole experiment would have been impossible anyway. Besides, the town of Concord and civilisation was never too far away if it all went ‘pear shaped’.

This Dover Edition is unabridged, my original pocket edition was heavily cut, as ,no doubt, were those radio readings. Not without good reason I am currently discovering. I’m finding the unabridged edition quite heavy going. Pages and pages of ponderous, pontificating prose to wade through. Some of his observations on the nature of a civilising society are spot on, whilst others appear cranky, quaint or just over simplistic. I suppose this is why, these days, he is routinely severely edited. His writing style is very Victorian. Overloaded, for modern readers, with small asides and references, tucked within unfeasible long sentence structures. To make him palatable for contemporary audiences, his verbose writing style needs to be curtailed by the hand of a skilled surgeon. Then his undoubted ability to express the universal zetgeist of this, and any other industrialised era, emerges, strong and potent.

I do wonder whether we do Thoreau a disservice by treating him in this way. We make him a mythic figure, an archetype of the outsider, living beyond civilised norms, not a man of his time. Thoreau was certainly not some proto-hippy, new age Victorian, getting off his head on opium. He was just one of many 19^th Century social analysts, who looked at the emerging industrialised nations and started to question, with an air of looking backwards like Rousseau, asking quite where we were going with this headlong rush for progress. As the first to really articulate this, Thoreau is justifiable revered. For in it he expressed the basic form for an Ideal of an Alternative Society, this found its audience in the disillusioned drop outs of the late sixties. The rendering into our complex civilisation, of this beautiful dream of the simple life, of a form of society not hell bent on creating a living nightmare, is why this book is still significant. When you actually read it unabridged, you realise it's style is what has not worn well. The myth that Thoreau represents for us now, has overtaken the reality of his experience then, and its mode of expression. He is being revised and remodelled to fit our contemporary dreams of escape.

DIARY 17 - IT COMES BUT ONCE A YEAR

As I’ve said before I’m in the middle of writing this piece on a Dogen discourse called ‘The difficulty of such a thing’ It is certainly occupying inordinate amounts of time and effort, though it is an enjoyable process. So my attention to this blog has been a bit neglectful, sorry.

Good news has come forth, in the form of a date to start full time work at the Crematorium. So this coming Monday 4^th December is the day. When my manager told me, I said I’d been about to give up hope. She replied, that three months was actually quick to get a result. Well, save me from encountering the prolonged version, I don’t think I could handle the waiting. As it happens I am as mightily pleased as my modest sized form can contain. I’ve been given a new job designation as Chapel Attendant / Cremator Technician,( I’m going to be trained up to do the latter )and my pay grade has been raised too. So I’ll be on a full time salary and be paid more on top of that. Eight months down the line the end of my financial constraints seems finally to be in sight. Once I get the measure of my new salary, I’ll take a hard look at my finances and see what adjustments need to be made. How I get on with full time work at the Crematorium will be revealed only by the taste of it.

Christmas looms like an over jovial relative you don’t really like. David and I went up to Nottingham on Wednesday, for a days Christmas shopping, in what, so far as I can see, is the best shopping centre in the UK. I’ve got most of it sorted now. In comparison, Cambridge city centre on Saturday was horrendous, I can honestly say I will not be venturing there for long in the next few weekends. Whoever said shopping was the new religion might be onto something, it tests the patience of a saint, you never feel satisfied, as if you’ve been duped, and your encouraged to believe in the power of money to raise the dead and cure the sick.

We now have a small Christmas tree, pert and decorated like a flapper, fairy lights, the lot. This year the festive season seems to have crept slowly upon us. I guess the prolonged Indian Summer caught us all off guard. So, suddenly the countdown has started, and the heads down rush to the shopping finishing post has begun its mad frenetic whirl. Here’s hoping I can keep my head.

DIARY 16 - EXTRACTING THE PAIN

Last weekend was a weekend of agony. I went to bed Friday night with a slight ache in my bottom right back tooth. Saturday morning it was a throbbing pain which subsided when I took painkillers. By the afternoon it was not so easily pacified. I rang the emergency dental number where they asked a few questions about the toothache.'On a scale of 1 to 5 where would you place your pain' etc. In the end .even if I'd wanted to the only available dentists were in Wisbech or Huntingdon. By this time the combination of toothache and painkillers were making me feel decidedly heady and nauseous. So driving anywhere was out of the question. They did suggest a particular regime of painkillers that might ease the pain,but they added, ' what you really need is a course of anti-biotics'. So I struggled on until Monday morning when I walked down first thing to my own Dentist. He took an X Ray of the area and gave me a prescription for anti- biotics. 'I will call you once the X Rays are done, I may want to put you on a double dose of the anti-biotics' By the time I had slowly ambled home and sat down the phone rang 'could you come in at ten to three this afternoon, the tooth has an abscess and needs to be removed'

Back into town, this time hoping for the blessed release from pain. I wasn't waiting long before I was called through. He started injecting local anesthetic into the gum all around the tooth. It was only a slim needle, but it felt like he was putting a six inch nail in there. For the first time in my life at a Dentist I let out an agonised cry. You know the cries in movies where a hero is being slowly strangled by 'the mummy' or some such other fiend, well it was those sort I let out. As he pulled the tooth with his silver pliers it was relatively painless. Afterwards I felt in shock, I hardly dared stand up. 'If you feel you're going to faint sit down, don't do anything too active as that will only increase the blood flow, take it steady and slow' With those few words I left the Dentist and went to pay at reception. You really should have seen the looks on the patients faces waiting in reception. A mixture of horror, compassion and anxiety flashed across their faces. If I hadn't been struggling to keep upright at the time I would have laughed out loud.

I took the walk home at an even slower pace. I'd thought about getting some Pro-Biotic Yogurt to help my stomach cope with the effects of the anti-biotic but actually just getting home was all I could manage. Most of that Monday I spent asleep, I went to bed at 8.30pm and didn't awake until 5.30 Tuesday morning. Once the anti-biotics kicked in I was fine. I had to watch not to rushing around too much or else I got dizzy. At the end of a day at work I was pretty pooped. Today nearly a week later the swelling has gone down and I can feel the cavity quite clearly. The gum is still a bit sore when I eat, but essentially its back to business as usual.

Even though I was in such pain I still managed to meet up with my friend Eugen for breakfast on Sunday morning and went out for a meal with David Welsh in the evening. I apologise to both of them if I wasn't quite my usual self or attentive. In a way it was a miracle I could still do any of what I'd planned. Though my David said I'd looked distinctly grey and unwell all weekend.

Physical pain is something we rarely feel these days outside of toothaches or breakages of limbs. Painkillers are so readily available. How they coped barely a century ago I dread to think. An abscess under a tooth might have been a life threatening if it poisoned the blood system before the tooth was removed. Such extreme pain was I suppose a more every day occurrence. Whilst I'm not some New Age nut who thinks our sense of alienation would be overcome by experiencing more pain. I do think it has weakened our robustness in coping with life's travails when pain is so readily masked or got rid of. What we complain about, what we litigate over, would ,in previous generations have been brushed off as how life was. Well, it's still how life is, but it's hidden behind a chemical screen, occassionally it steps out and shows us its hideous potential to wreck our hopes and dreams.