Beware Tiredness Lives Here

Over the last 5 years, I have lived with an almost constant perfidious, strength-sapping, motivation-stealing tiredness. I have been involved in a voluntary capacity with a number of community groups however along with my seemingly unending tiredness, intolerance like a cancer has grown. My capacity to engage with people, especially idiots in a respectful and meaningful way has crumbled to a point where even my give a flying fornication jar has become empty.

My appetite for meeting and getting to know new people is still strong unless of course they are conspiracists, racists, sexists or any other lists. Until covid hit I was unaware of how many blathering idiots surrounded me. As we have navigated the post covid environment it hasn’t got better, it has become worse. In one of the facebook groups I follow, a poster believed that there was a conspiracy at work because in two towns a water main had burst in consecutive weeks. They then went on about all the deliberate poisoning that councils were engaged in by adding real and imagined chemicals here is a sample “(I am always) on guard when it comes to gov entities and what they are doing to us as a collective whole. Our water is contaminated with heaps of poisons and nobody is questioning it. Fluoride is one, arsenic is another, chlorine is another. Just like using 1080. I’ll keep my eyes and ears for the next near town to have this exact same so called issue. I’m uncomfortable watching multiple towns have water main issues within a close proximity of time.” Now I know I shouldn’t judge others but sadly this is a not uncommon thing.

Fortunately I didn’t have to engage with this person face to face (I could have also chosen not to engage with them on facebook). It is the face to face idiots I cannot cope with, the rude abusive people, those who abuse volunteers and others. People who think that it is great to try and disrupt a wedding with their protests that are pure madness. Yes I respect their right to engage in free speech however their freedom should not impact on others rights to go about their business. In short my jar of tolerance is very, very, very empty.

Paul

What’s Brown and Sticky?

Of course, a stick, pretty easy really, I have a picture of a brown and sticky thing.  I took it with me for the workshop I took at the Wallace Gallery 8th Annul Arts Festival.

Opinions Can Be Like Farts

I don’t mean this to be offensive, but. Words that often accompany a probe, no not an alien impregnating you or stealing your information,

Ghosts of the past

The past is the past.

One of the challenges many people have to face in their lives is to move on past negative experiences they have had in their life.  I will use me now instead of they, I hope that in this post people may recognise or identify with the things I put onto this page.

I have had some negative experiences in the past some really distant and some not so distant, these have left various impacts on me. Some have seared their way into my mind and have showed this by invoking a set pattern of response when I encounter these things. Some words can do it for me, whatever is one of them I could explain to you how I feel or what I think when the word is said, but why, enough to say that it does, so how does one get past the word whatever? Backtracking a little I think a small explanation of whatever is necessary to illustrate the reaction. The urban dictionary defines whatever as being used in an argument to admit that you are wrong without admitting it so the argument is over. Merriam Webster says anything or everything, no matter what, or can be used to express surprise or disbelief, it can also mean no matter what.  This is not an exhaustive definition of the word, it does go to show that there are a variety of meanings and some of those have positive connotations, some didactic and some decidedly negative in tone.

Whatever for me is associated with a throwaway remark that denotes either a derisive attitude or a dismissive go away, why you may ask? Well the past, in the past that is my experience and it brings an almost conditioned classical Pavlovian response, that of defence, not hackles raised and growling but a shrinking of my soul and a fight or flight response, rapidly followed by a, what did I do, internal referencing, soul-searching, navel gazing, waste of time. Why a waste of time? Well simple really, because most of the time I actually don’t have a reference to put the word into, no locus.  So the reaction that I have is just the ghosts of the past beating their drums inside my head.  Well it’s not like that for me I hear. Well that’s good for you but here it is for me.

This reaction produces nothing worth having the question is how to get past that response so here are a few ideas,

1. When you say whatever, can you be a bit more precise, I need some clarification.
2. Did I say something wrong?
3. Is something the matter?
4. I need a bit more direction.

You get the general picture, it can be a loaded word but my response is already loaded, I am packing buck shot, finger on the trigger ready to shoot, (ok hyperbole but I am a poet).  The thing is the word most likely comes up in a conversation with someone significant in your life, it certainly does for me.  I could ask the person not to use the word but it is me who has the issue.  There are words that are more than words, derisive, nasty put-downs.  Whatever is unlikely to be one of those and my partner certainly does not use those words towards me, so why am I charged.   As I said it is past ghosts.

Some ghosts have to be exorcised from our lives, the memory is too painful, embarrassing, traumatic even.  I have a good memory, far to good in fact and I have carried a lot of hurts with me over many years.  I am aware of these and reflective enough to know when I am being triggered albeit sometimes not in time to prevent an instant response but enough to know when I need to reflect and move some things along.

My mother’s advice about saying nothing if you have nothing good to say is sage and has been given universally, some people mistake that as a weakness, ah there I have you now, nothing to say I must be right, the temptation is to rise to that but it is again not worth the effort, people like that are generally insecure and have a deep need to be right, I know, I used to be one.  I will leave this here for now bar the disclaimer that I am not perfect and still get caught in this behaviour, but less and less these days, try to think before you engage in a disagreement, try to decide is this worth having conflict over, I learnt as a child that I couldn’t be beaten into submission physically, and any verbal beatings to induce agreement are shallow, hollow victories that are just pale and worthless.

Love well and laugh loud, if you can’t sit on your tongue to stop yourself from talking then just breather through your nose

Paul

Stop,check your feet, make an appointment (signboards part 1)

So said the sign at the front door of the chemist we passed in Mount Maunganui today http://tinyurl.com/atthemount it was of course referring to a chiropody service they were offering.  I was in a playful mood and stopped my fiance and instructed her to check her feet, I di as well and

I used to believe in forever…

but forever was too good to be true (AA Milne), I was reflecting on this quote as I read 16 Thoughts On Life from Winnie The Pooh  http://www.morefm.co.nz/16-Thoughts-on-Life-From-Winnie-The-Pooh/tabid/520/articleID/11484/Default.aspx .

So What Is Love?

Well consistently this self same question is at the top or very near to the top of all Google searches.

Not broken, just finished

I opened the letter read the contents and trembled with rage as I read the words, here printed on paper was a denial, not an I didn’t do it, but  a denouncement,

Reflections, (Internalising a complicated situation)!

This week has been one of challenge, in your face screaming at you kind of challenge and subtle internal challenge.  Sometimes I think the in your face is easy to deal with as you can just make a plan and walk away, however internalising or reflecting is a little more complicated.

Pulling the plug

I almost had a poem as I drove home today, it was pretty dark really, fields of broken dreams, dredging up the past, kind of stuff.  I thought I would start by throwing a few words on a line and then I realised I didn’t have the energy.  Just too tired, physically, and emotionally for poetry right now. Don’t feel sorry for me please, I do that well enough for myself at times.

The phrase” pulling the plug” has been on my mind lately.  pulling the plug means different things to people.  I have been present when the plug has been pulled on life support machines.  it is not as dramatic as that really, no-one pulls the plug, just a simple turning off off a machine, the the mechanical noises stop, no more beeping, release sometimes happens quickly for some it takes time it is different for every one I have seen.

Tonight I don’t want to talk about that I have seen death up close and personal enough.  I am writing about different plug pulling here.  I was reflecting over the weekend, I feel a little lost at the moment,  job is possibly the biggest issue, nothing on the horizon, not sustainable anyway as for the moment I am stuck where I am for a number of reasons, unable to shift.  I used to boast about my flexibility, if I didn’t have teaching work then there was always cooking, building, milking, driving mowing lawns, you name it I have done it or would have done it. But alas no more.

Since 1988 I have been fighting a narrative of pain in my life due to a back injury.  I made concessions to it for a couple of years but came to a point where I just decided to do it anyway, my back would be sore regardless, I have carried on lifting etc over the years with very few concessions, unfortunately no more, lately the problems I have been having with my back have forced a radical rethink about my life.  It is not just pain but physical symptoms that I cannot live with.  Unfortunately there is at times when I think I cannot even teach anymore.  The prospect of being defined by disability just eats at me in a way that is consuming and terrifying for me.

I have a plan to deal with it, one last shot with a different surgeon I will see what they have to say, I hope for an answer, but if not then it will be plan b.  Plan b is not, don’t think it for one second giving up.  I have pulled the plug on physical work, indeed if I get any worse it may be full-time work that I cannot cope with but I will not be defined by that which I cannot do.  I have been defined by what the world (and at times myself) sees as failure, a broken marriage, broken relationships a constant battle for employment but I am not ready to pull the plug on that which I know to be true.

I am a father,writer, poet,mentor and friend.  these things I hold to and have not failed at.  The rest well it hurts at time, tears have been close for a while, I think a function of tiredness and pain and change, not much I can do right now about those narratives.

I am grateful for those friends and family who have and continue to support me. You can shake me if I am too morbid  (or buy me wine or coffee), encourage me to have fun, don’t let me lift stupid things and understand me if I can’t or don’t do the physical things I used to do, I am not an invalid yet, I can’t walk very far,(I can cycle), I wont last the evening dancing and I am not up to concreting or digging holes anymore, but hopefully with what is left I can still support my friends and look after my family.

Well that is my day done, to those of you still up, sleep well, laugh loudly, and love abundantly.

Paul