To be Welsh in Swansea is to know each stop on the Mumbles Railway: the Slip, Singleton, Blackpill, the Mayals, West Cross, Oystermouth, the Mumbles Pier. It’s to remember that the single lines turn double by Green’s ice-cream stall, down by the Recreation Ground, where the trams fall silent, like dinosaurs, and wait, without grunting, for one to pass the other. It’s to read the family names on the War Memorial on the Prom. It’s to visit Frank Brangwyn in the Patti Pavilion and the Brangwyn Hall. It’s to talk to the old men playing bowls in Victoria Park. It’s to know that starfish stretch like a mysterious constellation, at low tide, when the fishnets glow with gold and silver, and the banana boats bob in the bay, waiting to enter harbour, and the young boys dive from the concrete pipes without worrying about pollution. But when the tide turns, the Mumbles Railway has been sold to a Texan, the brown and yellow busses no longer run to Pyle Corner, Bishopston, Pennard, Rhossili, sweet names of sand and tide, where my father’s ghost still fishes for salmon bass, casting its lines at the waves as they walk wet footprints up the beach to break down the sand-castle walls I built to last forever at Brandy Cove and by the Slip on Swansea sands.
What is the biggest challenge you will face in the next six months?
The months change but the challenge never does. How does one stay alive? How does one survive? How does one pass the time from one minute to the next, one hour to the next, one day to the next, one week to the the next, and one month to the next?
I faced a challenge this morning. I got to the shop and could not climb over the piled up ice to reach the slippery step that led to the salted sidewalk that led to the shop’s entrance. Fortunately a kind young man took my arm, and helped me upwards, onto the sidewalk. He waited while I shopped and brought me back down to the car, arm in arm, and carrying my shopping. I gave him a poetry book, Septets for the End of Time, as a reward.
What will be the next big challenge? I honestly don’t know. Starting the snow blower at -20C, perhaps? Blowing the snow and avoiding a slip, a fall, a sit down on a snow bank from which I cannot get up? Who knows? I don’t. I need more medicine – will my biggest challenge be finding that the pharmacy has again run low on my medication and I have to wait for my renewals? I have just had a blood test – three months late – and I don’t know what the results will be? Will that be my biggest challenge – coming face to face with a negative result that demands more action? I just don’t know. Driving out the other day, I met a speeding car on my side of the road, in my lane, coming straight towards me. The driver was staring at his cell phone, one hand on the wheel, eyes down, concentrating on something that certainly wasn’t the road. I swerved aside, towards the snow bank, honked the horn, and he looked up, eyes wide with shock, and swerved away. Brown trouser time, I guess, for that unfortunate individual.
It would be so nice to have a smart answer. My biggest challenge will be to find a solution to the chess problem that has puzzled me for years – how to defend Queen side openings when Black. My biggest challenge will be to draw the cards for a perfect hand of cribbage. My biggest challenge will be to pay the grocery bills as the prices rise. My biggest challenge will be to pay the dentist’s bills when I have no dental coverage and the savings dwindle every month. My biggest challenge will be how to avoid the pain in my teeth now that I can no longer afford the dentist. My biggest challenge will be to crawl to the telephone and get help if I manage to fall in the kitchen and cannot get up.
So, what is my greatest challenge over the next six months? Living from day to day, without falling downstairs and killing myself – how about that for an answer?
It is never easy to say Goodbye. Some goodbyes are easier than others. Some are indeed difficult. “In my end is my beginning and my beginning is in my end.” Conscious goodbyes are one thing. We say farewell knowing we will never be back that we will never see each other again. These are the hard ones.
I stood in the bar of El Rincon, in Avila, at 6:00 am, waiting for the taxi that would take me to Madrid and away for the last time. I was planning to return the following year and then it hit me – this was indeed my last goodbye and I would never return to that place. A tidal wave of emotion swept over me and I felt a deep, earthy sorrow – the sorrow of permanent loss.
It was matched on two other occasions. The first occurred when I drove to the sea shore of my childhood in Wales, with my mother’s ashes in the back seat and strict instructions on how and where to scatter them. Walking away was one of the most difficult things I ever did. Even more difficult was leaving my father, a widower now, in his bed, and saying that goodbye. It was not the final goodbye, but I knew I would never see him again, in that house, under those circumstances.
I cried in the taxi, all the way to the railway station. Great, heart-rending sobs that tore me apart, body and soul. The spill over from my nostrils reached the floor of the cab, a long, thick spider-thread of deep-seated despair, because I knew my life had changed forever, and the support on which I had always counted would no longer be there.
People and pets – both are difficult. Holding the paw of a beloved cat, while the vet slips the needle in, and the companion of ten, fifteen years, drifts quietly to sleep. Or watching a faithful dog, slipping slowly downhill, and knowing that someday, soon, the decision must be made, the dark deed done. The knowledge that one relieves suffering and brings an easy release does not decrease the heartfelt pain of that last goodbye.
I used to visit the Sappers Club in Toronto. In the basement of that establishment I discovered a wealth of photographs from WWI. The old men would lead me downstairs and, through thick salt tears, explain what each photo meant to them. Round about midnight, a group of them would stand before a photo called Goodbye Old Friend. It depicted a shell-shocked, broken horse, with a pistol held to its head. The men, they explained, had volunteered for war, and knew all about its suffering. The animals were innocent, and knew not the reason why. Ah, ending the sufferings of the innocent, human or beast, that is, perhaps, the saddest farewell, for some, but not for others.
We each will hold a private moment within our own hands and minds. To share or not to share – that is the question, for each of us – poor creatures, as Dylan Thomas says, born to die.
Rugby Football is a wonderful game. It has laws, not rules, and yes, like almost every rugby player I have known, I have broken the laws, and got away with it. How? Stepping off-side, handling the ball in the ruck (old laws), blocking and obstructing ‘accidentally on purpose’. I asked one of my instructors on a national coaching coach whether we should be coaching school age players to play outside the laws. His reply was most instructive. “The laws – there’s what the law book says, what the referee is calling on the day, and what you can get away with. You get away with what you can.” He was a national level coach – so much for the laws of rugby.
There is a difference between the rule of law, specific laws, and rules. Life in various boarding schools, twelve years, from age six to eighteen, taught me that rules were made to be broken. No talking after lights out. Whisper away – just don’t let yourself be heard by the prefects or monitors listening outside the dormitory door. No hands in trouser pockets. So – stick them in your coat pockets. No smoking – well I didn’t smoke, never have. But I know many who did but very few who got caught. No talking in prep – so I taught myself and a couple of friends basic sign language – the alphabet mainly. You may not place butter on your bread – so put the butter on the bread and turn it upside down when you eat. And no, that wasn’t me. No reading in the dormitory after lights out – so, go to the toilet, with a book in your pajamas and sit there and read Lady Chatterley’s Lover for as long as you want. You may only wear ties of a quiet color. So, wear a V-neck sweater and make sure the nude lady on your quietly colored tie cannot be seen by the masters. It is forbidden to enter a public house. So, sit outside in the garden. It is forbidden to drink beer. So, order some cider – it was the West Country, after all. And remember that rules, especially school rules, are often asinine, ie -stupid, like an ass – and made to be broken.
“The law is an ass is a derisive expression said when the the rigid application of the letter of the law is seen to be contrary to common sense.” Well, that is quite explicit, as is this – “This proverbial expression is of English origin and the ass being referred to here is the English colloquial name for a donkey, not the American ‘ass’, which we will leave behind us at this point. Donkeys have a somewhat unjustified reputation for obstinance and stupidity that has given us the adjective ‘asinine’. It is the stupidly rigid application of the law that this phrase calls into question.” Both quotes come from the following site – and I am indebted to the writers thereof – https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/the-law-is-an-ass.html
It is well worthwhile to remember, not just the law, but the spirit of the law. I can honestly say that I have never broken a law or a rule in such a way as to cause someone else to get hurt, physically or emotionally. Play up, play up, and play life’s game – ludum ludite – I have always done so – and always have I stayed within the spirit of rule or law.
Old Roman Road Puerto de Pico Ruta de la Plata Avila
Shoes and Sox
So, I am in anti-prompt mode this morning. Why should I tell you about my shoes when I want to talk about my socks? They are so closely associated anyway and you can’t have one without the other – well, you most certainly can, but it’s never quite the same thing.
So, I was walking the Camino de Santiago / the Road to St. James, back in the day, just being a Pilgrim and making a quick Pilgrim’s Progress, while on the bus, but a much slower one when I decided to get off the bus, put on my shoes, and walk. No, I didn’t have hiking or walking boots, just a very comfortable pair of sneakers and a very thick pair of socks.
I left the hotel early and set out, on foot, from Leon to Astorga. The sun shone. The heat rose up from the tarmac. I sought the shade from the poplar trees that lined the road and rapidly realized how popular they are for the long-distance walker. And I sweated. I carried my pilgrim possessions in an Army and Navy Stores backpack. It didn’t weight much, but it grew heavier as the day went on. I had expected to meet people along the way, but I didn’t. No other pilgrims. A farmer – I asked him if this was the road – and he said yes. A ragged looking priest from a small roadside chapel who invited me to spend the night. Two dogs that ran down the hill and barked at me and then ran back up again.
By the time I got to Hospital de Orbigo, just down the road from Puente de Orbigo, I was tired. I went into the first hotel I found, asked for a room, and got one. The owner gave me a funny look and let me find my own way to a room, very isolated, at the end of a long corridor. When I got there, I decided to have a shower, and took my clothes off, starting with my shoes. As I took my shoes off, it hit me – and it was a combination of week old kippers, soaked in the Bishop’s Gaiters, and anointed with long-past-it raw milk / lait cru Camembert. My sox had the pox.
I stripped off, left my socks on, and paddled in the shower. It did no good at all. I put shampoo in the toilet bowl, stood in the bowl, stamped up and down as if I were trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath were indeed stored – it did no good at all. I flushed the toilet multiple times and still those poxy sox refused to release their ripeness. I took them off, laid them out to dry, to see if that would help, and went down to the bar for supper and a brandy (or two).
When I came back to my room, inspiration struck. I whistled- as if calling my dog. The sox got up of their own accord and – I kid you not – walked towards me. I opened the garbage bag and pointed to it, and the sox walked right in. I tied the bag up with a plastic tie, added two more plastic bags outside the first one, went happily to sleep, got up next morning, and walked to the bus stop, abandoning my socks in their safety blanket for the hotel owner to find.
Moral of the story – if you want to get to your destination, don’t get off the bus until your journey ends.
“What do you do with a dirty car, dear Liza?” “You wash it, dear Henry.” “Where do I wash it, Dear Liza?” “In a car wash, dear Henry.”
So, off I went to the car wash. I chose a warm day, the sun was shining, and the car wash was packed. The line-up went twice around the yard and I could see other cars circling, their drivers looking anxious. I came home – the car unwashed. The next day it was the same. The day after, a working day, I got up early, had a cup of coffee and was at the car wash before 9:00 am, only to find a large sign announcing Sorry – Car Wash Closed. I came home again.
This morning, I again got up early, drove into town, went to the gas station, and stopped at a pump. I didn’t want to get gas if I couldn’t get a car wash – reciprocal points and all that – so I went into the office and asked if the car wash was working. It was. I filled up with gas, went in to pay, and ordered a car wash. A triumph – or was it?
I drove round to the car wash entrance and typed in my code. The light turned green, the door lifted up, and I drove slowly in. No undercoat wash to greet me. No lights came on. The door didn’t close behind me. The mechanical octopus didn’t wave its arms in the direction of my car. I drove out, backwards, the way I had come in, and tried again. Nothing.
I typed in the code once more only to get the Illegal Code sign. I pressed the button on the Intercom, A young lady answered and said she’d be right out and out she came. She looked at the machine, the open door, the lack of lights and told me she’d find somebody to fix it. And she did.
A minute or two later, the man who had first served me, re-appeared. He asked me a quick couple of questions, then walked bravely into the car wash. He tapped the door. Inspected the octopus, double checked the screen, then went to a large switch board at the back of the car wash. He fiddled around, pressed some buttons, the light came on – and so did the water – soaking him from top to bottom. He flicked another switch and the water stopped.
He told me to wait while he got me a new code. Then he punched it in for me. The lights came on, I drove in, everything happened the way it was meant to, and I drove out through the hot air blower with a nice clean car. As I came out, a rather soggy car wash attendant waved at me. I smiled and waved back. then I drove home – my car as good as new and me safe and warm inside.
I have had a snow blower for some time now. It means that I don’t have to dig the snow. I just get the machine to blow it. But what if the blower doesn’t work?
This winter the local radio station has been filled with stories about snow blowers breaking down, snow blowers catching on fire, snow blowers not starting, snow blowers breaking their shearing pins. All of this has been caused by the weight of the snow, its depth, the compilation of snow on snow, ice pellets on snow, icy rain on snow.
The other day, I went out to blow the snow. It was so heavy that I likened it to wet quick sands on the beach. I could hardly get the blower out of the garage. When I did, I couldn’t move it, forwards or backwards, without enormous effort. I sat on the back of my car and cried. Here is the related post https://rogermoorepoet.com/2023/01/18/luminescence/
For many people of my age, and younger, this is heart attack time. Blowing snow, digging snow, clearing snow, shoveling snow. I know the song – “let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.” But who clears it? Who digs it? Do you dig that snow? Hey, man, dig that snow. Cool, eh? Chill, man, chill.
So where did the snowman go? To the hospital with a heart attack? Who knows? But one thing I do know: digging snow has become one of the things that I fear. And why shouldn’t I? I am at that age when things happen. And here’s what I mean – https://rogermoorepoet.com/2023/02/10/and-if-we-fall/
No. I don’t want to become a fatality on the statistics page. I don’t want to ‘fall to rise no more, as many others have done before’ – a tribute to Over the hills and far away, that one. So, let it snow, yes. But not too much and let us avoid that bleak mid-winter when ‘snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow on snow’. Christmas Card whiteness I can take – but not the chest wracking heave of heavy snow, weighing my shovel down, puling me down, burying me.
There I was – with my trusty snow-blower blowing the snow – and I shifted gear to go backwards – and my glove caught – and the snow-blower kept on coming – straight at me – and there wasn’t room to manoeuvre -manoeuver – maneuver – aka I couldn’t get out of the way – and the snow bank behind me caught me just at the back of the knees – and I sat down in the snow – oh dear – luckily I let go of the gear lever and the throttle lever – but the machine was almost on top of me – and I couldn’t get up – so I called for help – but no help came – and I tried to pull on the machine with one hand – and I put the other on an ice patch in the snow and that hand went through – so I am sitting there – can’t stop laughing – and then my beloved appears – and she brings me my walking stick – and she moves the snow blower forward – and then she gives me the stick – in my left hand – lifts me and pushes – while I lift with the left and pull with the right – and I have pulled a cork from a champagne bottle more easily than I pulled myself out of that snow – but together we did it – and oh was I wet – I had to finish the blowing – go inside – and change my jeans – and I am still laughing at the thought of myself – sitting there in that snow – and I needed to pee so badly – as the cold and damp crept in and – what if there had been nobody there to help – or what if it had been windy and my cries had not been heard – and what if we fall – as so many others have done before – fall to rise no more – and what if – “if – if – if – if – onions climbed a cliff – potatoes would rise – with watery eyes – if it wasn’t for if -” and that’s what my grandfather always sang to me when I asked him “what if…?” – so- what if … but don’t answer – because we’ll never know –
I once asked my grandfather, a decorated soldier from WWI, if he was worried about dying. “No,” he replied. “Why not?” “Well, Roger, we’re all going to die. We just don’t know when. So, if I worry, I will die. If I don’t worry, I will die. So, why worry about it?” I was about five years old at the time and we were standing outside the Swansea Hospital, as was, by the seat where the old men used to sit and gossip. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was my first lesson in Stoicism.
“The day I was born, I took my first step on the path to death.” Francisco de Quevedo (1580-1645), Spanish Neo-Stoic, among so many other things. Thinking like that tends to put things into perspective, for death walks with us every day. Death is our twin sibling, brother or sister. We face his shadow every time we look in the mirror and that shadow follows us around all day. “Death is a law, not a punishment, so why worry about it?” Also Quevedo. Dying is a different matter and yes, there are so many ways to go, some of them, especially nowadays, with the advent of life-preserving medicines, slow and unpleasant. Yet, mors omnia solvit – death solves everything. And it brings a release from all pain and suffering.
The lead photo shows a plaque in Avila (Spain). La Calle de la Cruz (1660) -The Street of the Cross. It is also known locally as La Calle de la Vida y de la Muerte – The Street of Life and Death. Why? It is rumored that here, turning left outside the main cathedral, duels were fought. Two men entered, but only one emerged alive. It is interesting to meditate on the close proximity of life and death, always there, side by side.
So, for the fun of it, let’s change the question: what is life? “What is life? A frenzy. What is life? An illusion, a shadow, a fiction. And the greatest good is small, for the whole of life is a dream, and dreams are nothing but dreams, after all.” Life is a Dream, Calderon (1600-1681). Looked at from this point of view, what is death? Is it the shutting down and the turning off of the cerebral computer or is it the great awakening from the sleep of life? You can think of it either way but, either way, it’s pointless worrying about it. As my grandfather also told me: “If there’s nothing afterwards, I’ll just fall asleep and that will be the end of it. But if death is the great awakening, then I will be very happy to wake up in a new reality.”
Robert Bly, in The Sibling Society, writes of the lateral movement that now embraces society with its grip of instant pleasure, instant gratification, instant happiness. As a result, we have strayed far from the vertical knowledge that sustained us for centuries. We have abandoned the wise words of our ancestors. Now the old are no longer the keepers of wisdom and the guardians of culture, the institutional memories of the race, if you like. Now they are foolish, clumsy, out of date with the world’s most rapid advances. Only the young, and their siblings, can keep up with the ever changing instants of life as presented to us.
But all is not lost. “What a peaceful life, that of the wise man who withdraws from this noisy world and follows the hidden path along which the world’s wisest people have always walked.” Fray Luis de Leon (1527-1591). We can move far from the madding crowd. We can construct our own realities. We can base them on the words of wisdom handed down to us over the generations. Switch off the TV. Watch the sun as it moves across the cathedral face (Monet) or the walls of your house (Moo). Live each moment of each day. Do not fall into despair. Above, don’t worry – it does no good at all.
rogermoorepoet 