Joyce Barrass's Blog, page 46

MOTHING MOTTEPHOBIC

Small Dusty Wave (Idaea seriata)
Mottephobia: the irrational fear of moths.

My phobia of moths goes way back, to this childhood incident.

Now I'm working on overcoming my mottephobia through my camera lens. Through curiosity. Through my stubborn determination  to refuse to be deprived of moths in my life forever more.

This summer, I'm even starting to do mothy things with sheets, torches, sugaring and wine ropes I never ever dreamed I could steel myself to do. Even opening a window with the lights on in the evening has been a no-no for most of my life!

The following poem squeezed its way out on such an evening of lying in wait for the whisper of wings.

Female Bee Moth (Aphomia sociella)

Let's sit suspended in this burning dark
Moths mutter and barge in watch-spring arc
Kidnapped wings
From nectareous things
Sheets running rivers of fluttering light
Retina flexes to flatten night.

Still heart-deep primal phobia
Shrieks headless panic under buddleia
I tense transfixed, pinned corpse on card
In the melting dusk of my own backyard
They blunder through gaps 
Between stratus and star
To the flames of our fears 
To wherever we are.

White-shouldered House Moth (Endrosis sarcitrella)

HEDGEHOGS AT DUSK

It's been a long time.

It's been many summers. Too many summer nights snufflefree and still.

But they're back! First an oval of shadow on the lawn. Then a shuffle, a ripple of spikiness along the flower borders.

I know they are a pair. One night at the start of the current heatwave, I met the first one on the lawn where it had crept close to observe me as I leaned, steadying my camera against a tree trunk, trying to capture Jupiter's string of moons in the southwestern sky. The other was waiting for me on the patio, smaller, with mischievous eyes. The second one was less interested in a peculiar human stargazing, more in gazing at the goodies the departing birds had left unpecked for the creatures of the night.



Hedgehog numbers are declining on these islands. They are now a rare sight in British gardens. Fewer than a million remain, down from nearer thirty million when I was born at the dawn of the Sixties. A third of that catastrophic loss has been just in this past decade. These little souls are survivors of this long slow bereavement of the English countryside. I feel unutterably blessed.

Once the birds have flown off and the heat of the day has decanted itself down the thermometer into the soft melt of dusk, I wait to lionise them with dried mealworms, crushed sunflower hearts and peanuts. I top up the bird and bee baths as the sun dissolves into pastel glad-rags of coral and titian on the western horizon. Someone else has need of the nocturnal libation.

I wait. I wait, holding my breath to catch the rustle of their coming. Footfalls across the lawns, threading through hedges, triggering security lights, trembling the dreaming heads of daisies.



Then they're here! Noses badged with leaf litter, eyes more accustomed than my own to the gloaming. Above us, bats skip and soar under the trees and out into the crepuscular backcloth of cloudless sky, tiny Pipistrelles skittering through twilight. Their nationwide numbers too are in steep decline. The hedgepiggies and I, below, must celebrate and survive today and hope for tomorrow.

Before my head hits the fridge-cooled pillowcase, they have melted back into the sweltering South Yorkshire nightfall, making unspoken promises to lighten my life again tomorrow night, and the next, promises I hope against hope they will be cherished enough by humankind to be able to keep.

ANTIDOTE TO THE TOXIC TIDE

Another outrage.

Another day when love has to be stronger and more creative, wiser and more resilient to show that hate can't win.

Another day when indifference and silence is a mask for complicity, smugness, cynicism.

Today my heart breaks for those families and friends in our country, fellow human beings, innocent citizens who were murderously attacked in the midst of life, terrorised in their community, by blind hatred outside their mosque in Finsbury Park.

I stand with my friends, beloved Muslims with whom I mourn at this latest horror.

I know and love people of every kind, friends rejoicing in a rainbow of colours, beliefs, persuasions, personalities, gifts and orientations. I hold them all precious. Friends of endlessly rich variety, each worth the world to many and to me.

I wish all my beautiful friends the strength to hold on to your unique loveliness.

Those who try to divide us in so many subtle and not-so-subtle ways will never win.

Love, respect, empathy and compassion are our best antidote to the toxic tide of hatred that seeks to rip our hope, humanity and peace away.

Blessings.

THOSE TOMORROWS - in memory of Manchester

You can't unsay one word you've sown
You can't call back the shade you've thrown
Unfling one fragment of shrapnel flown

Can never recoil from the hatred snarled
Or bask in a bubble in a broken world

You can't backpedal once the tree is split
Unspill the milk when you curdle it

You can't retract and you can't retrace
The spiral down from this burning place.

The coward whimpers.

But courage cries:

My broken won't weaken to bitterness
My shattered won't melt into caring less
My outrage won't turn me to hate or hit
This awful day
I will live through it.
I will not be changed by revenge or rage
Nor fold my arms nor turn the page
I won't be diminished by fear or dread
Betray the innocence of the dead.

I will make those tomorrows they can't now see
As full of true love as they'd want them to be.



Link to Fundraiser to support families of those killed and injured in the Manchester Arena attack

YOU CAN RING MY BELL, or THE DOORBELL THAT DOESN'T

I love my doorbell.

You see, most visitors refuse to take this notice seriously:



Campaigners. Odd jobbers. Chancers. Passers-by.
Maybe some don't notice my notice.
Maybe some can't read.
Maybe some don't care.
Maybe some think "Me? I'm harmless! This can't apply to ME!"

So they march up and hammer at my door anyway.
If I'm lucky, they ring my bell, too.

It isn't so much a doorbell. It's more of a dumb-bell.

Its buzzer button is next to the side gate that leads into the back garden.


There's a narrow rectangular peephole in this gate that looks mysteriously like a letterbox. If somebody comes to the gate, they can peer through it and scry into the easternmost reaches of the conservatory. If I flatten myself against the back wall, just where the old back door now acts as a portal between original house and newer conservatory, I'm invisible to doorstep invaders. Saves the bother of a foil hat and dark glasses!

My doorbell isn't connected up to its voicebox any more.

Parts of its innards lie tucked away inside the little back utility room. In there, its ancient workings live above the washing machine, which disgorges fluffy water down its pipes and hoses through the wall into the drain that still dreams it's outside the back door. But that drain's actually inside the conservatory now. So when it pumps out its rinse-water, scented with camomile and jasmine, it fills the glass palace of morning light full of its sweetness.

The doorbell's jangly bits above the washer are in a little soundbox near what used to be a little window looking out onto the garden. These days if you want to see the garden from the utility room, you have to look through the conservatory first.



My doorbell, like me, isn't fit to function fully any more.
Charmingly, it continues to *look* like it does.

When I first moved in, I planned to repair it. Get some wire. Buy a battery. The usual technical stuff.

But I never had the heart for it.

Friends, after all, have twigged the basics of chronic illness after all these years. Real friends invariably check with me first, to make sure I'm prepared and well enough for a visit in person. In person can be exhausting and excruciating when you've got M.E. Friends know my health limits. They understand the energy it costs me to talk, make cuppas, have a slice of chocolate cake ready for sampling, bat words back and forth, laugh, enjoy a friend to the full. They know how drained and sick it may leave me later once they've left. They'll text or email first, to be sure I'm up to it, even for a short time. Because they care. They don't bang on the door at random times or ring the bell.

They know it doesn't, anyway. Ring, that is.

Quite simply, that's a little slice of heaven on this earth.

I sometimes open the door, on a good day when I'm able, when the postie knocks, or the meter reader, or the delivery courier, only to find them not standing outside the door, but further along the house wall, trying to look over the gate where they've just pressed the button. I frighten the shivering shenanigans out of them by appearing from behind them when they were just convincing themselves nobody was at home.

So, I love my doorbell.

Precisely because it doesn't do what's expected of it.

It takes the world by surprise.

But, thankfully, not me!

I'D RATHER BE CALLED UNCOUTH THAN COUTH

I'D RATHER BE CALLED UNCOUTH THAN COUTH.COUTH'S PERCHED ON A PEDESTAL VOID OF TRUTH.MUCH RATHER BE SCORNED FOR MY LIBTARD HEARTTHAN BE SNEERING SUPERIOR SET APART.I'D RATHER STILL THINK AND CARE AND FEELTHAN TICK ALL THE BOXES, THE LIQUIDISED MEAL,TOP TABLE, TOP DOLLAR, MEAN NOTHING TO ME.SPEECH NEEDS TO BE KIND IF IT'S MEANT TO BE FREE!IN AN AGE CRAMMED WITH ISMS, A CATALOGUEOF OPINIONS NICKED FROM A NODDING DOG,DUMBED-DOWN, PSEUDO-'NORMAL', TABLOID AND TOFF,IT'S TIME WE WERE FLINGING THOSE BLINKERS OFF!WHEN JUDGING AND HATING END UP AT THE PROW,IF YOU CATCH ME SEAL-CLAPPING, PLEASE - SHOOT ME NOW!

RACE TO THE RAINBOW BRIDGE (Flash Fiction)

No idea how I made it here. Without my shoes! Last thing I remember is the vet's voice:

"I'm sorry. We did all we could."

Here's his lead. In my pocket. I fly that dog like a kite. He weaves in and out the bollards and lampposts like French knitting.

I know it's here somewhere in the wood. Our wood. Mine and my lad's. Between the Horse Chestnut and the beck. Between the dell and the darkness. The Rainbow Bridge.

I'm scuffing leaf litter from my paws. Everything's gathering on my soles as I run. Seeds, dead things, lichen, carapaces. Did I say paws?

If I can make it there before he comes, bounding, baying, I will throw myself in his path, block him and baffle him from crossing. He'll mop my tears with his loppy tongue. He knows me better than my shadow. Better the shadow than the space.

I'm limping, now. Thorns and nettles. It must be here. Has to be! What if he's there already? Now I'm sliding down scarps, colliding with hazel and bramble. Ricochet echo off the wind turbines. Scent of oilseed chasing us across the folded fields. That copse where the cuckoo surprised us.

My feet, finding themselves in my shoes again. The carpet with the corporate logo under me. Worming powders and pet insurance.
"He was lucky to find his forever home with you."
I was the lucky one.

Staggering, now, not haring down all our dreams. Our old walk feels wrong. Tilted, somehow.  Leads were never meant to be so slack. Collars so empty.

How can I ever go home without him?

#MILLIONSMISSING FROM THEIR LIVES WITH M.E (M.E. AWARENESS DAY 2017)

In the middle of living my happy, busy, joyful life, a monster called Myalgic Encephalomyelitis came and ate me whole.

The M.E. monster stole my work, my home, my income, my social life, my health, my independence, my spontaneity, my possibilities and a big chunk of my future.

I spent years blogging about it here:- M.E. Myself & I Ask You (Joyce's other blog about living with M.E. and Type 1 Diabetes) if you want to know more about my journey.

Today is M.E. Awareness Day worldwide.

Today, millions of people with this devastating, life-changing disease, are uniting under the #MILLIONSMISSING  banner to raise awareness of M.E. To fight the willful misunderstanding, underfunding and neglect patients have suffered for decades, from the medical establishment, the media and government.

For years I pushed through, blaming all my pain, bone-crushing exhaustion, vulnerability to infections, heart arrhythmia, unsteadiness, sickness and cognitive dysfunction on my diabetes. But it wasn't just the Type 1. Autoimmune illnesses love to flock together. M.E. had decided to join the party too, to move into my central nervous system, my immune system, my brain stem, my whole body.

One of my social media posts for M.E. Awareness Day 2015
Nobody knows how all this started. One day, we will. I had M.E. symptoms back as long ago as my teenage years, with periods of boom when I felt fine, and bust, when I was totally unable to function for months on end.

It worsened in my 30s when I was working in South America and contracted giardia, a common M.E. trigger. It worsened every time I crashed and tried to struggle back to work and life. I had severe shingles in my head (not "all in my head") 4 times in 8 years as my body struggled to cope with the onslaught of being attacked mercilessly from within.

Then, in October 2005 I collapsed in the week I had the flu jab. Sometimes over the years, the flu jab has made me very ill, other years, less so - a vaccine lottery, for me! That year, whatever the trigger, from that moment, on a Sunday morning before work, life as I knew it was over, in spite of my best efforts to continue as before. My body, my brain, the me with M.E., would no longer co-operate and in 2007 I had no option but to accept early ill-health retirement and put my life into limbo.



All my GP and the NHS could offer was a dose of CBT & GET (from the now resoundingly discredited PACE trial) which made me and so many others worse. In the end, the occupational therapist forced to administer this torture at one of the government's so-called "Fatigue Clinics," knowing I knew as much as she did about CBT and much more about coping with chronic illness long-term, looked at me and said apologetically: "You really *ARE* ill, aren't you?"



Ten years later, here I am. To put a positive spin on it, I have been worse than I am now, both bedbound and housebound. Even now, though I can occasionally get out into the local countryside or a hospital appointment, this often leaves me so drained and poorly, (with the classic M.E. post-exertional exhaustion) that it takes me days, weeks, or months to recover.

On a better day, I can fill my life with joys, subtly different from, but just as valuable to me as what I treasured before.

Writing.

Researching.

Photography.

Reading.

Dog-sitting.

Birdwatching.

I am one of the blessed. Others become bedbound and never see the light of day again. Children. Men. Women. Just as I was often convinced I would not. Without the support of a loved one, my dear mum, there's no question. I wouldn't still be here. Too many are not.

Today I give a huge shout-out to all my fellow #millionsmissing all over the world. Those and their carers strong enough to join physical demonstrations to raise awareness, hope, understanding, funds (including the excellent biomedical research championed by INVEST IN M.E.), resources, research and, one day, a cure. A shout-out too, to all those who can't be there with their broken bodies, but who, like me, stand shoulder to shoulder in spirit with the rest from our homes and our beds.

The monster can't keep us down. It tries its hardest, though, every day, in somebody's bedroom, darkened, unseen, mocked, forgotten.

There are #millionsmissing - but finally the lost are finding a voice.

HAPPY WINGS: A HOUSE SPARROW'S TAKE ON SOCIAL MEDIA

You wake up. You feel great. Your feathers feel lush. Your beak's full of tasty.
Sunshiny! You feel all sunshiny!
You've got your happy wings on!
Your family's chattering inside the hedge.
You enjoy trips out to the feeders.
Those sunflower hearts, though!
Gourmet mealworms!

Aren't we blessed? The right to flutter! Freedom to soar!

Have you seen our eggs? Some have already cracked. Disaster, I thought! But you should see what came out! Fluffy, funny, downy darling nestlings! We did that! Aren't we clever? And lucky! And special! And unique!

Can't be doing with social media, fakery, trolls.
They try to crush your happy wings. You don't feel so great, so special, so blessed any more. It brings you down off your happy perch.
They say you're wrong, you're stupid, you're the wrong shape, born in the wrong nest, hang with wrong flock, fly with the wrong partner. The world's ending, the elite's still eliting. Your spirit sinks down into the tips of your claws.
Social seedier's better.

So I had a little preen under my wing.

Having a little preen under my wing
Then I looked in a puddle. Had a drink. Saw I was still wonderful me. Me with ripples.
The real world. My world. No malevolent meta-meddling here. Here the sun shines. The rain rains. The wind whoofles through your plumage. Always a song to sing. A chippy chirp to cheep. Or you can be quiet. Let all the other birds be birdy-licious in their own ways. Like a noisy dawn chorus of diversity and joy. Every colour of every rainbow. And some you can't see but feel in your feathers.

You have to keep an eye out for the birds of prey, but back home in their nest, they're just like me with a family to feed. Not an axe to grind. So I don't take it personally.

My happy wings are perfect for me. They don't fit anybody else.

Spring is busy being beautiful.
And so am I.

HERE BE NO DRAGONS

Here be no dragonsThough stiffened necks nodOver greenbelt and wildwood
No breathing integrity Of flame and tongueHere be duplicity
Wolfing up landscapeFlogged to the fattestFracking our green
Blindfold off the cliffSt George with his breastplate goneBare to the drill