Closing circles writing book III, I bumped into an old friend, and the tale of the very spectacular, Philagrea Mancuso. Discover Darkly Wood on Amazon getbook.at/Darkly-Wood getbook.at/Darkly-Wood-II
The delicate matter of remembering where you buried the bodies…
As I am putting the bones on Book three of the Darkly Wood series, I am forced to tie up some loose ends and I have been rather careless, or at least without foresight in writing books 1 & 2. There are a lot of ends that need tying up. The unpicking of one thread inevitably pulls on another. It is a tangled web indeed. That being said, it is a gloriously exciting pursuit of destiny for so many of my characters that are fans favourites, and a delight for me to get lost in Darkly Wood once again. I thought I’d share a taste. Book three takes up with one familiar character, close to where The woman who never wore shoes left off, and with the introduction of 2 rather splendid new ones. Enjoy a first draft opener…
Chapter One – Thrupenny Fuppence
The devil is never really hard to find. Some say he is to be found in the details, but the truth is the devil is always right in front of you, waiting for his moment. For the most part, people are oblivious to him. The dark creature of our nightmares doesn’t need to hide. We just don’t look hard enough or perhaps we just don’t want to.
In the many faiths, God is everywhere. His nemesis emulates his omnipresence with aplomb. He is sitting on the park bench beside you. You look right at him and he sprawls his legs, opens his coat and exposes his thick white flesh to the sun. He is gross, ugly and garish, and it is not about the detail. You look straight through him and when you get up to continue your journey, he joins you. The devil is always there and when he shows himself, you’d better be ready.
Some thought the things that happened in Darkly Wood were the work of the devil. But such people are inclined to blame him for everything. Sometimes the answer is staring you in the face but you simply can’t see it. Of course, others don’t believe in the devil. Hakan Knold was such a man.
“I will find him. He has not disappeared and I know my brother.”
He did indeed know his brother and much like the brave Magne, Hakan was a man more at home in the woods than in towns or cities. He was a man of his word, a dependable man. Hakan set off to find his beloved younger brother with a heavy heart; for he feared that he was at best going to find tragedy at the end of his quest. What he never anticipated was where his search would lead him. How could he? No one expected what they found in Darkly Wood.
When he left home the journey ahead was long and arduous and he had not yet even heard of that foreboding forest that overlooked the quiet village of Cranby. What he did have, were the crumbs of a story, a determination that was about to lead him into danger, and the shoulder of another brother. The middling child the second of the three brothers, Marius was slighter in stature and his hair was less fulsome. The older and younger brothers had the looks and build of their father. Marius had the narrow frame of his mother and all of her guile. A quiet man by nature, Marius was nonetheless a force in himself. He was determined and strong and his wits saw him as more than a match for his taller, more athletic brothers.
On the very day of their departure and many miles away, a sea and more between them, another man was pondering what the future might hold. He sat cross-legged on top of a thick fence post on the small wooden bridge that Cranby locals crossed to get to the meadow, which led up the hill, to the wood that watched over them for generations.
He giggled a little. It was a private self-indulgent giggle almost like that of a child and he covered his mouth.
“Thrupenny fuppence.” He repeated the phrase that had made him laugh in the first place and giggled again.
“Thrupenny fuppence, Thrupenny fuppence.”
He chuckled and his shoulders shook. His long, thin, grey hair fell in straggles about his narrow, bent shoulders, and dandruff snow-flaked the oversized, black, woollen overcoat that hung about him uncomfortably.
“What are you up to Danby?”
The question was asked in a low growl and the owner of the voice had gathered up the strange man’s loose grey hair into a fist, as he jerked his head back, demanding an answer. Danby didn’t need to ask who it was, nor did he cry out. He knew better.
Druzel Leek looked over Danby’s shoulders and saw the old coins in his hands.
“Give them to me.”
Without argument, Danby held up his hand for Druzel to simply snatch them from him. He was released and fell forward from his perch onto the bridge. He barely managed to avoid falling off the bridge into the stream.
“I…I… was just…enjoying them Mr Leek, nothing more. No one could see…I meant no harm.”
He looked up at Druzel and instantly regretted his decision to do so. Danby had known much fear and pain in his life, but no man was more frightening than his master. When he looked at Druzel, there was a sense that nothing he could do or say would ever be right and living in a permanent state of being a disappointment to such a master, was indeed a perilous position for any man to find himself in, that much he knew for certain.
“Where’s the girl?”
His accent though polished with time, was still exposed with his Slavic pronunciation of the letter W and in the way he rolled his R’s.
“In the house sir. She’s sleeping.”
“And why are you here then Danby? Did I not make myself clear?”
He stepped forward and Carstairs Danby stepped back like his shadow. Druzel slung his hands behind his back and looked up towards the wood. Without looking at Danby he issued his orders.
“Go back to the house. Stay with the girl. Don’t interpret my instructions to be anything other than exact. I don’t care if she’s asleep, having a bath or dead, you are not to leave her again.”
“Yes… yes Mr. Leek, of course, sir. Right away.”
He was about to step around Druzel when he hesitated. Danby looked down and rubbed his hands together nervously. Druzel knew what he wanted.
“I will hold onto your fortune for now.”
Poor Danby was beginning to panic. Those coins meant everything to him. They were his and he never went anywhere without them on his person. Afraid though he was, his compulsion to see his coins, to touch them, finger them and rub them together was impossible to ignore. Druzel Leek wasn’t cruel. Not in the ordinary sense of the word. The things he did could indeed be more than cruel but they were not done out of a desire to be cruel. The cruelty of his actions was inconsequential. They either were or were not cruel, it never mattered. He simply didn’t think in those terms. He understood that, but he wasn’t cruel for cruelty’s sake. Druzel knew what the coins meant to Danby. He held out his hand and opened his palm, watching Danby’s face light up with a smile. He reached for them and Druzel snapped his fingers closed.
“The girl.”
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
You can find details about Max Power’s books here : –
http://www.amazon.com/author/maxpower
https://maxpowerbooks.wordpress.com
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twitter @maxpowerbooks1
Universal book links
http://getbook.at/Darkly-Wood
http://getbook.at/Darkly-Wood-II
http://getbook.at/Little-Big-Boy
http://getbook.at/Larry-Flynn
http://getbook.at/Bad-Blood
The space in the break of my heart… an update
My mother died 28 years ago. She was sixty. To be honest it was a devastating loss. We lost our father two years earlier through a long battle with cancer but Mam? Well she simply disappeared one night, or at least that’s how it felt. She had come through a brief enough medical battle which in itself was life threatening. She was on the way back out of that battle all seemed well. Mam went out with her sisters for the first time since her battle began as if to celebrate her return. She dropped dead holding on to her sister’s hand, singing.
Today is her birthday. She would be eighty eight years old. I saw her two days before she died and I never saw her again. I was called to the hospital at two in the morning, but the body that lay on that hospital bed wasn’t Mam. She was gone and it truly broke my heart. Some people have a big influence on your life, some fade in and out without registering a mark. My mother’s love, left an indelible softness in my heart that has shaped all that may be good about me.
When I wrote Little Big Boy, it was Mam that sculpted my tale. Many think the book autobiographical which of course it is not, but there are elements and stories from my life that I called upon, to evoke the emotion needed to make this book something special for me. At the heart of the book is Little Big Boy’s love for his mother and her love for him. It was my mother that I called upon when I needed to find the words to portray the deepest joy and sorrow and as such Little Big Boy was actually a very painful book to write.
People say things like they poured their heart and soul into something. I did something quite different with what has become my readers’ favourite Max Power book. I gave of my pain. I shared a hurt I could never fully describe and I offered a taste of what love means to me. It was neither my heart nor my soul; it was the space in the break of my heart, the gap that had been forged through loss, an unfulfilled lonely pain that no one but you can know in your own terrible darkness when you lose someone you love. Little Big boy is not my story yet it carries the weight of my pain and the lightness of my joy. Perhaps that is why it is so special to me and why so many readers connect with it. I lost my brother nine years ago. Where once we were six now we are three and in writing Little Big Boy, I came close to following Dad, Mam and Brian through my own dice with death which is well documented in my blogs of the time. I miss them all, but today is her birthday so today I think of Mam.
I miss her every day in truth but in a very subjective way. I miss her by her absence, which may sound an obvious thing to say but I mean more than just the obvious in this. In her not being there I have no one to scold me, no one to tell me I’m being foolish or selfish or unkind. I miss her ability to read me like a book and offer direction even when I disagree with her. Her absence left me rudderless. My north star clouded over as I sailed in the dark alone and despairing, wondering if I could ever find my way without her guiding hand.
To be brutally honest, it took me many years to recover the loss, far longer than I either realised or imagined. Now I am a changed man. Perhaps I am just a man. She is not there to take my hand and guide me as I cross new roads in life. I have to make choices without that critical eye watching me with love. There is no doubt I have found love in other places. My heart is filled with my true love’s blessings every day but that is something very different. Now my darling Jo holds my hand and we cross roads together she and I. Over time I have learned not to be afraid of life’s traffic. I have found my own way at last and I can cross most roads safely. But sometimes, I miss her standing at the door watching me as I look left and right. I want to look back to see her smiling at me and then giving me a stern look, telling me to look where I’m going, urging me to walk and not to run.
Looking back is too painful so I look forward and up to stop me feeling down. Mam is with me always anyway. She is in my eyes and in the sallowness of my skin. She is in the words I say, the thoughts I think and most of all in the softness of my heart. But sometimes, just sometimes specially on days like today her birthday, I turn my head to look over my shoulder, to see her smiling back at me. I still seek her approval even in her absence. She never got to see my children grow. She never got to see me grow to finally become a man, whatever that means. I am a man I guess, the one she made, the one she never got to see…
Little Big Boy is available to download here…
http://getbook.at/Little-Big-Boy
You can find details about Max Power’s books here : –
http://www.amazon.com/author/maxpower
https://maxpowerbooks.wordpress.com
http://facebook.com/maxpowerbooks
twitter @maxpowerbooks1
Universal book links
http://getbook.at/Darkly-Wood
http://getbook.at/Darkly-Wood-II
http://getbook.at/Little-Big-Boy
http://getbook.at/Larry-Flynn
http://getbook.at/Bad-Blood
Raindrops look better by the light of the moon…
Falling not failing… Failing not falling…
I’m not destined to be anything I cannot fake. If I can fake it, I can be it, and the fantasy might just turn out to be real. My destination is beyond what results I get from trying, and hidden from the recesses of my imagination. We are after all, just star stuff as Carl Sagan once said, born of that to which we will one day again return. Destiny it seems is only what we can imagine, create, design and dictate. We find it through who we are, what we do, and how we pretend, in order to fool ourselves that we are indeed, anything more than star dust.
But this is not a reason to despair. I reminisce about the boy I once was and sometimes I even miss him. That doesn’t mean I want to be him again. There is no me now, that could have come about without reinvention, reimagination and a determination to find joy despite the dark sometimes. For some, their star stuff is a creation, compliments of a God above, others see it swirl through multiple lives as reincarnation, and some see a finite existence where nothing exists but the day. Whatever your truth, we forge our own path whether consciously or not, and our footprints touch the world around us leaving something behind, a trail of our very own twinkle dust as we go.
We believe the lie that we are the better version of ourselves and then try to convince the world of that particular interpretation of who we are. Me? I am the lie I have created, that has become the truth made man. I was never meant to be the creature I have become. Left to my own devices, unencumbered by social morasses, I would have turned out much the same or entirely different, who knows. I suspect the latter.
Give a monkey a gun and sooner or later he’ll shoot something. Give a man enough choice and he’s bound to get confused along the way. There is no point in trying to fool ourselves, we are all indeed just star stuff. We are never shadows of our former selves. We are giants to our early incarnations, casting shadows on that which we once were. There is no doubt that we are what we have become by stepping over the bodies of our former selves. Nothing is real, nothing is permanent. We are sprites in the wind, hoping to catch a lucky break.
I am not the man I once was and I am glad of it. He was never who I wanted to be. I have lied to myself all these years to get over the next hill, only to discover that it was sometimes only the lie that got me there. I am the little engine puffing upwards with “I think I can” on repeat in my head as I go. In truth I have always doubted way too much, but the lie always got me there and I became someone new each time. Someone who could, when I didn’t even believe it myself.
Determination got me only some of the way. Deceit has been my friend. But before you get too excited, the lies I told were to myself and sometimes they helped me fail dramatically. If I have learned anything, it is that the world will not implode if we stop teaching our kids not to fail. Failing is not falling, falling is not failing. We see things as we choose. Sometimes things look better in the morning and raindrops look better by the light of the moon
There is an inherent sadness deep in my soul. A melancholy man like me has no right to be happy, yet I am. Whether it is by fate, chance, desperation or inspiration, it doesn’t matter, I will never reach my destination and I will never fully be me at any given point in time. I am all that I was and all that I might be, caught up in just that moment when you cross my path. That’s all.
When the darkness arrives and overshadows everything else, how do we find the light? When the noise that can’t be silenced, doesn’t just fill our heads but starts to overwhelm, how do we listen to ourselves and find a moment of calm? Our star stuff should be the thing that lets us fly and the thing that keeps us grounded.
Never one to assume, I can only talk of my own shimmering dust. The boy I was became the man I had to be and what I had to be, changed many times in order for me to become the man I needed to be. Those versions of me were never easy in transition, but ultimately, I am now the man I want to be – for now at least. Who knows what tomorrow brings and how many lies I will internalise to be whoever I become on my journey though myself? I am star stuff on a journey of infinite possibility, always fearful, but never afraid, always casting shadows on my darkness.
I am an imperfect journeyman who has found his smile, knowing there are others in search of the same, telling you that it’s OK for now. It’s OK to be someone else tomorrow, for we are all just star stuff, changing form infinitely. Joy is in the moment and each day is filled with moments to find the joy. I am grateful each morning when I wake. Grateful to be given another day to be whoever I want to be today, the past beyond me, the future to be forged.
Thanks for stopping by…
While you are here, please check out the links to my writing below:
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Universal book links
http://getbook.at/Darkly-Wood
http://getbook.at/Darkly-Wood-II
http://getbook.at/Little-Big-Boy
http://getbook.at/Larry-Flynn
http://getbook.at/Bad-Blood
A smuggled grin and kissy lips…
My mother kept me on the straight and narrow and me auldfella did his best to set me astray. Mam was always my moral compass. Dad was … well I’m not sure he was but his morals were often a little sketchy despite his best intentions and I don’t think even my mother would have wanted me to follow his direction at times.
My da was a bit of a rogue. He was far too clever for the mundanity of his daily work and it showed in the stuff he got up to. I never truly got to know him the way a son should and that makes me a little sad. He died way too early, much like my mother and I think it’s often only later in life that one comes to appreciate one’s parents. He’d have never said “One” so he’s probably turning in his grave.
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Not a word of it a lie…
Englebert Humperdink, Errol Flynn, polar bears and pirates.. and that’s just the half of it…
Having gone through another slice and dice interaction with my friendly local surgeon, I have spent the past week enduring the challenges that naturally follow. They joy of simply breaking wind without bursting stitches is one memory I will hold with me in particular.
Now those of you who know me, know I have had a chequered history with medical procedures and I have given plenty of blow by blow detail in the past. So, this time I thought, rather than give you all the gory details, I might take a different approach. You see, I was examining my wounds as my dressings were being changed and I saw, as I would, an opportunity to perhaps reinvent how these scars came about, with particular consideration to any grandchildren that I may someday be blessed with in the future.
With that in mind, I am going to tell you the ‘true’ story of how my fabulous body was scarred as a result of a particular adventure that I went on many years ago. This is what I will tell the grand kids when they ask about my scars. So, let’s begin with this one off to the side, the nasty raw looking one that’s killing me.
Now I can’t remember the year exactly, but it was a long time ago now and I was given the opportunity to work with the Arctic Restoration and Scientific Evaluation group (A.R.S.E.), an environmental group working to restore the Arctic to its pre-polluted state. For those unfamiliar with the organisation, one of their early technical research projects helped Inuit groups fish more efficiently, using a machine powered by the sun which drills multiple holes in the ice at once, so they could fish on a more sustainable level. The locals called them A.R.S.E. holes, or at least I think they were referring to the ice holes when they shouted this over to us.
Following on from the success of that project, Dr Herman von Tinklebaum, came up with an innovative prototype for an ice transport system using tennis balls, chewing gum and ladies tights, to haul almost anything through the roughest of ice fields. That’s where I came in. It was my job to deliver half a million tennis balls across the vast snowy north in a line of giant baskets hauled by my husky pack.
Alone in the empty wasteland, my husky companions tucked up for the night, I decided to have a tinkle behind one of the largest baskets, when a low snort alerted me to the fact that I was being observed from behind by a rather hungry looking polar bear. Before I had a chance to escape, he came thundering toward me, with only one thing on his mind. I was to be dinner. With no where to run and no weapon to protect myself, I dived headlong into the massive basket of tennis balls, a mere second ahead of the giant bear. He dived in straight after me, thrashing about desperate to eat me for dinner.
When he stood up, I was in his mouth and he shook me from side to side like a seal pup. But something was wrong and he was confused. In his eagerness to gobble me up, he had opened his mouth extra wide before snapping down on me. Fortunately for me, in addition to my cold body, his mouth collected at least 40 tennis balls – which stuck to all of his teeth but one big incisor to the front. That one pieced my side, and gave me the scar I am looking at as I type. The tennis balls saved me and in his moment of confusion, I had to act fast. I don’t know what made me try it, but I was desperate. I grabbed a tennis ball and waved it in front of his face. He was mesmerized and couldn’t take his eyes off it. Like a puppy, he wanted the ball so I threw it over his head. He dropped me like a hot stone and went chasing after the bouncing yellow ball, his new fixation.
Now I know what you’re thinking… lucky escape. But no. His attack had loosened the pack ice beneath me and as I sat there feeling my bloody side and thinking how lucky I had indeed been, the Ice broke away, and drifted southwards off to sea. I spent many months drifting along, surviving on water from the ever-melting mini-iceberg and catching dog fish with my tennis balls to eat. Just when I thought I was never going to be able to eat another dog fish, I awoke one morning to find myself stranded on a beach on a tropical island where I later learned, the MmmBalaWala tribe ruled. The largest scar on my belly comes from my first encounter with a man called Umfeffibollongo (meaning – smart arse), the tribal leader. They found me on the beach with no visible means of transport because my Iceberg had melted in the tropical sun and to them, it was as though I had appeared from space. Umfeffibollongo poked me hard in the belly, driving the spear into my belly button and shouting “MMMBALAWALA.” I later discovered that this tribal name actually meant “MMM, man food.” They were a very literal people.
Sinking to my knees, convinced I had met my end, I looked up to see what looked like a crude tribal tattoo of a face on his calf, that looked very much like Englebert Humperdink. It couldn’t be I thought, but desperate once more to stay alive I would try anything. Facing certain death, I started to sing.
“Please release me, let me go.” I began “For I don’t love you anymore.”
Astoundingly and to a man, the warriors dropped to their knees in praise.
“To waste our lives would be a sin…” and so on to the end of the song, at which point they carried me triumphantly on their shoulders back to the village and not just fixed up my wounds, but bestowed me with many gifts from their collection of things washed up on shore. This included a toilet brush which I still use and treasure to this day, a kettle, a magnifying glass and three packets of pop rock. Now in the interest of keeping it brief, it transpired that a missionary had landed on the island 20 years before. He was promptly eaten but left behind a windup gramophone and an album of Engelbert Humperdinck’s greatest hits. Having never heard music before, the tribe fell in love with the album and treasured it ever since, playing it once a year but only on their annual feast day as it was so special.
I spend three months there, playing every Friday and Saturday at the big Tikki hut or as it later became known the Tikki club, until they agreed (with great sadness) to set me free in their finest canoe with an old pirate cutlass to cut open the coconuts, a supply of coconuts, mangoes, water and dried fish for my journey. In return I promised to get them some other albums.
The cutlass it transpired turned out to be a life saver, as after only a week at sea, I was attacked from below by a very feisty swordfish who I promptly christened Errol Flynn. He sneak-attacked my canoe, driving his sword into my side through the bottom of the boat, (that’s another scar) whereupon I leapt to my feet, grabbed my cutlass and dueled him all through the night. It was a swordfight like no other, me frantically fending off a 400pound swordfish with a cutlass in one hand, while bailing out the boat with the other and at the end we were both exhausted, neither willing to give up until we simply had no fight left in either of us.
My little canoe finally sunk beneath the waves and I was sure I was doomed. However, such was the respect that had built up between Errol and I, he decided to help me and allowed me to cling to his fin as we bobbled along on the waves. It was with great relief that a passing old sailing ship spotted me in the water and hauled me aboard.
Relieved to be out of the water, it was too late when I noticed the Jolly Roger flying high above me. When the captain stood above me and offered me his hook to help me to my feet, I knew I was in trouble. His name was Greenbeard, a name given to him due to a peroxide hair-dying accident with his once ginger beard, and he wore a patch over his left eye. He explained that he had been diagnosed with lazy eye and was trying to get his bad eye to work better in accordance with doctor’s advice. Besides, he liked the look and he was after all, a pirate.
Seeing my toilet brush tucked into my belt, Greenbeard immediately took a shine to it and demanded I hand it over. Apparently, it was just the thing they needed. Life on board a pirate ship filled with an all-male crew eating biscuits, fish and beans, and drinking way too much rum, had apparently left their portaloo in a terrible state.
When I refused, he immediately challenged me to a duel, but being a pirate, he cheated. Before we started he told me, we had to shake hands. I reached out and took his hand, only to find he gut-hooked me with his rusty hook while we shook….
Now there is more, or I should say, there will be for my grand chiddlers to enjoy some day, and that very toilet brush will be in the bathroom with its own tales to tell, along with the coasters I took from the captain’s cabin later in that same day, oh… and a pencil that went to the moon with Neil Armstrong, – but that’s another story.
And thanks for stopping by… I’m on the mend thankfully, hoping to do something meaningful with my life one of these days, now talk to you later, I have to take my meds and get some much needed rest…
While you are here, please check out the links to my writing below:
https://maxpowerbooks.wordpress.com
fhttp://facebook.com/maxpowerbooks
twitter @maxpowerbooks
Universal book links
http://getbook.at/Darkly-Wood
http://getbook.at/Darkly-Wood-II
http://getbook.at/Little-Big-Boy
http://getbook.at/Larry-Flynn
http://getbook.at/Bad-Blood
A ramble through the debris…
Be grateful for the struggle – in there we find our strength.
They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, but ‘they’ don’t speak for everyone. In my own case, I have gained much from the worst that life has thrown at me but I don’t believe everyone has the same experience. Often what doesn’t kill you, leaves you mortally wounded.
While I say that I have gained much from that which should have crushed my spirit, there have been times in my life where I have indeed felt broken. Grief was something I struggled with and if I am honest, I handled it badly for many years. In some ways I was lucky to come out the other side.
What that difference is, that thing that makes you or breaks you, is not something I can put my finger on with any fact-based analysis, I can only speculate based on observation. Who you have in your life, that person or people that you can depend on and lean on, is without doubt a key factor? But it’s never just that. One’s own personality is a big element. It certainly was in my case but I won’t call it inner strength, for in those few bad times in my life where things were running away from me, I know I was running on empty. There was nothing strong in my survival. Circumstance and timing, experience and mental muscle memory, there are so many things that are needed to push people through a crisis. What may be minor can turn to tragedy with little more than a nudge. At some point in our lives, we all stand on the edge of a precipice, a step away from disaster.
I believe myself to be fortunate. The many trials I have encountered in life are no more than others, far less I know to be the truth, yet I have indeed encountered challenges that could have broken me irreparably, were it not for that thing I cannot pin down. We each are gifted with a personality at birth, one that gets something spilled on it every now and then, leaving a fresh stain to taint the innocence behind the eyes that first opened to the world as babies. I came with a dark streak of melancholy and I often wonder if on the day I first opened my eyes and looked out upon the world, if through the haze and confusion of birth, my first thought was perhaps a sad one.
That my journey through life is good now, is almost an irrelevance when sadness comes to join me on my walk. Fortunately, I am calmer now than in my youth and having melancholy as my companion is something I have learned to get used to, not something to fear. For many, some of the challenges that come along can be overwhelming. It might be financial burdens, family worries or deeply personal emotional challenges that can overwhelm the strongest of people. We cannot always rely on what we perceive to be strength, when overpowered by grief or other stronger forces.
In the heat of despair there is nothing to drink sometimes and a parched soul can wither. It is all to easy to offer platitudes in such circumstances. Even the most empathetic can feel like they don’t understand you, for it is had to reveal whatever your full secret of despair might be, to even the closest of friends and as such impossible for them to understand. It’s not their fault, nor is it ours. Such is the human condition.
Sometimes we simply break. That feeling, is not a thing to speak lightly of, nor to diminish by saying everything will be fine. We cannot always imagine the light when all we see is darkness. Blundering around unable to see anything in the abyss, light can be unimaginable for some.
These days I think it may be even harder for younger generations. Whenever I have struggled in life, I had a scaffold built through my experiences as a child, to help keep me up. That I had to find toughness even though I had such a soft heart as a little boy, is my own very personal tragedy, but in my own way I was empowered by anguish for much that was to follow, by all that had preceded my transformation from boy to man. What I lost as a boy bolstered me as a man. While I hardly recommend such a training, for such a troubled early life is in of itself a contributory factor to much of my failings in later life, I do know I was at least in some way prepared.
The challenges that young men and women today face, come on the back of a lie in many cases. The lie that you are special, that you are great, that you are a prince or princess without compare is the lie that grows like a giant if not tempered with the truth. We should all be empowered as children to believe in ourselves, but not to believe in ourselves as entitled nor through intuition, righteous.
Humility over hubris, generosity before greed, strength through tenderness, there are things that only experience can teach and then there are things we need to teach our children. The notion that it takes a village to raise a child is very true but can sometimes manifest as our human desire to fit in, to be like everyone else. Being yourself can be hard in such circumstances. Making mistakes can seem like the worst thing you can do and it can crush the spirit of those who feel they can never do right. But failing is nothing more than learning and we need to be thought this and reminded of it constantly, for the human spirit is fragile at times.
Fundamental to surviving the worst of ourselves, is an ability to find a way to avoid the abyss, when it lies before us. We should teach our children well through considered, meaningful dialogue. Without the arsenal of thought and a desire to understand, we as a species are little more than a herd of animals, destined to follow each other off the nearest cliff. Nothing we do is pointless unless we choose to believe that we cannot succeed. Learning to fail with aplomb teaches us to understand the joy of success, the happiness beyond the sorrow, the true meaning of life.
When we throw an imagined blanket of invincibility over our children, we delay their ability to build character and grow through real learning. We are challenged, we are error strewn and we are limited. The challenges we face need to be worked through to gain strength, the mistakes we make teach us lessons, and our limitations show us how we can get better, improve and grow.
Children need love and guidance. We can be there when they fall, but fall they must. We must all walk our own path through life. We all fall at some point, but sometimes; we must get up alone. We save ourselves. My boy-self became a man not through someone holding my hand, but not without it either. It is good to feel the security of another holding you up, but sometimes we must let go and this most important lesson should begin early in life.
I guess I am grateful all too late in life. Being blind when you’ve never seen, means that you don’t truly know what you’ve missed. The older I get, the more I depend on glasses, but the easier I find it to see. Maybe wisdom really does come with age or maybe I’m a slow learner. Whatever comes my way, what the next trial may be, I hope I have learned if not completely, but at least enough, to face it with sufficient strength to get through it and carry on. May it be the same for you. Let me finish with a quote from a far more eloquent Irish writer…
“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.” – G.B. Shaw.
While you are here, please check out the links to my writing below:
https://maxpowerbooks.wordpress.com
fhttp://facebook.com/maxpowerbooks
twitter @maxpowerbooks
Universal book links
http://getbook.at/Darkly-Wood
http://getbook.at/Darkly-Wood-II
http://getbook.at/Little-Big-Boy
http://getbook.at/Larry-Flynn
http://getbook.at/Bad-Blood
Finding calm on the edge of a precipice…
The day got off to a bad start, only to get worse. To be fair my Doctor gave me no solace and his vagueness of diagnosis, left me wondering what the point of him was. Eventually he referred me to A & E, where I went and will continue the events of that first day in hospital, with a story about a South African doctor with the weirdest bedside manner ever. Trust me, while it was no fun for me, if you are of a fan of the unpleasant, you’ll enjoy this I’m sure.
In triage, a very positive nurse from the Philippines told me a bit about himself, before engaging me with intelligent, useful questions, the type my Doctor should have asked, while he took my blood pressure, did an E.C.G., took my temperature etc.. He then handed me over to a rather large, young, junior Doctor from South Africa. He had the look of a man that played at Number 8 for some pain-hungry, all blonde, all enormous, rugby team in the Transvaal. The type of guy you’d be weary of taking a lift from on a dusty African back road, for fear your remains would never be found. On the one hand, he was probably handsome beneath his PPE, all blue eyed, tanned with a quiff of blonde hair, but on the other hand there was an air of serial killer about him. Maybe I was reading into it way too much for a first meeting. I am a people watcher, but I do tend to over analyse. It’s the writer in me.
He was the first Doctor I encountered in the hospital, tasked with unravelling what turned out to be a complicated mystery with a twist or two along the way. But that’s the medical stuff. That’s the boring stuff. At that moment I was in excruciating pain, I was there, hoping for a resolution. and there he was, a man with the eyes of a serial killer, examining me. He said little but stared at me intently. He poked and prodded me, asking the occasional question. Just when I thought he was done he said something which at first seemed odd, perhaps because of his Springbok bluntness, but more by his insistence on repeating the strangely phrased statement.
Quite simply he said “next I’m going to send you for an X Ray … and then I’m going to stick my finger up your bum.” An Irish doctor would never put it like that surely and I wasn’t having any actual problems in that department specifically. But then he repeated it, still holding me in the same intense blue-eyed, I’m going to tackle you into touch and try to break a bone while I do it type of stare.
“An X ray … and I’m going to stick my finger – up – your bum.” Now what made this worse was, he showed me the aforementioned, offending, rather large and bony, standard South African back-rower’s middle finger. As if that wasn’t enough, he actually raised it up in a literal ‘up’ movement in time to what he said. And then he left the examination room for a minute. It was only when he returned, that I noticed there was a rack of disposable gloves on the wall which had four separate dispensers; small, medium, large and extra large. You guessing? Yep- extra large.
Now for the sake of not corrupting my readers, I shall draw a curtain around what happened next, much like he did before performing the procedure. He sent me on my way, telling me to follow the footsteps on the floor to find X-Ray. I didn’t see him again and you know, looking back, I really hope he actually works there now. But that wasn’t the half of it. I was poked, prodded, pinched, injected, had lots of bodily fluids tested and then the fun started.
There was a problem you see. Apparently they discovered multiple issues. They were pulmonary and gastric in nature and their exact locations were so close to each other, that it was giving double positives for every test. Team after team had a go. They said my body was a magical mystery. I told them that’s how I managed to marry such a beautiful woman. No one laughed. I normally laugh at my own jokes, but frankly even I was too sick to be bothered.
Eventually it all became a little more serious, when they discovered a surprise package in the collection of problems I had brought to them that day, and this one was life threatening. Everything changed at that point and they immediately began my treatment in the emergency department while they set about looking for a bed for me. Oh my Lord what a kerfuffle. It was one crazy ER day and beds were like hens teeth. Eventually at 11 pm, I found myself sitting in a ward with what looked like the cast of Thriller. I know I’m no spring chicken but holy God! By the time I was hooked up to IV’s and tucked up in bed, it was midnight and the old man snoring and farting fest began. It was like living at the edge of a swamp in toad mating season. One guy actually started barking in his sleep. I was like “seriously, you put me here!”
But then, the piece de resistance. At 4 am and forgive the language but I shit you not, auld Johnny, a deaf old coot with dementia, broke out into song, but not just any song. Oh no! He sang a collection of familiar, Irish, miserapauling ballads, to make you feel worse than you already might have felt, when you were transported to Van Diemen’s Land or wherever you were sent back in 1798. One after the other, an 82 year old, deaf, dementia sufferer, giving it socks in the night. There was ‘Where only the rivers run free’ and ‘Peggy Gordon’ and the hits kept coming. He only stopped to pick a fight with the nurses. A part of me smiled, but the sick, in pain me, wondered if I’d have the strength to hold a pillow down over his face long enough to shut the fecker up if not actually put him and the rest of us out of our misery.!
The morning was a long, sleepless time coming but with morning came the hope of clarity. I did manage to nod off between 5 and 5.30 but I must have bent my elbow because it set off an alarm on my IV monitor. The nurse had briefly mentioned that it happens and if it did I just needed to press the green button to restart. What she didn’t consider was how wrecked I’d be, and startled in my exhaustion, I pressed everything until it stopped. But then there was the problem of how to start it again. Me being me, I switched it off and on again until it asked me for dosage and time. There was what looked a default option or two and I rolled the dice. It started, I’m not dead so whatever I did worked – piece of cake. Any normal person would have called the nurse.
In another bout of engineering (with a very small e) genius ( with a very big head) a coupe of days later I fixed my bed whose electronic control were only partially working. So bored I was at that stage, that rather than wait for some hospital repair guy to appear ‘eventually’ I used the power of google to find the technical manual on line and troubleshoot the issue. It took me half an hour sitting in a chair with my iPhone, to eventually reset the bed’s controls. if only they knew what I was up to.
Early on the second morning the real fun started. Three of my neighbours were definitely not firing on all cylinders and at least two of them were stone deaf. Now adding to the mix is the fact that we have a lot of very fine Indian nurses working in Ireland. The challenge this presented was their use of vocabulary and their slightly different pronunciation, which while excellent for your average patient like me, caused mayhem with the bunch of old, deaf, bewildered Dubliners around me. To add to the confusion, old men with thick Dublin accents using slang with every second word, can be a challenge for someone from outside of Dublin, let alone from somewhere like India where they use much more correct form English wording. Perhaps a demonstration might help.
The ward sister who happened to be from India, came in and said :Good morning John” to one guy. A different man answered and said “God I forgot where I was, I thought you were my daughter.” The nurse said “Good morning” to him and a totally different man who thought she was speaking to him but didn’t hear her correctly said .. “sorry?” Caught off guard she replied “What?” and he came back with .. “you said you got something for me?” Confused she clarified “No, I said good morning.” And then the original guy answered her “Morning”. FFS! The whole day was like that. There was always some misunderstanding or other, so that there always appeared to be two people having two totally separate conversations at all times. It kept me entertained at least.
Before the next morning had a chance to find itself, the same ward sister was challenged with, “ What’s wrong with my tongue?” as she checked on one of her patients. She gently explained that the doctor would talk to him in the morning when it was time for their rounds. It was My singing friend Johnnie, no doubt a bit of a bully at home, a man brimming with the chauvinism of his time, and not happy being dependent on this strange woman. He didn’t like what he heard one little bit. He had mis-heard her. “In their own time!” I thought to myself ‘Oh God here we go’ and I wasn’t wrong. That little battle lasted a good fifteen minutes as Johnnie was demanding to get an answer to a question, he decided he could win on. ” Is it right that they should see me when it suits them and I cant see them when it suits me…is it?” Trying to explain that the doctors would visit him on their rounds as they did every morning at 7.30, just an hour away, didn’t placate him. She had the patience of a saint.
The catering staff come around every day and took meal orders for the next day, They asked Johnnie if he would like Lamb or Gamon? Again the hearing issue kicked in. “Salmon?” he queried. “No – Gamon, Lamb or GAMON,” It was repeated slow and loud so he could hear. Johnnie again goes, “Salmon?” Patiently the rather experienced woman slowed it down and toned it up even more. “Not Salmon John, it’s GAMON.” She spelled it out for him literally. “G.A.M.O.N. GAMON. you have a choice of LAMB OR GAMON.” John looked at her. He had the look of a man thinking hard and then decided. ” Grand so, I’ll have the salad.”
When she came to me I told her I’d have the salad too and she told me I’d get a salad over the head if I wasn’t careful. Aaah Dublin wit, you can’t beat it. Speaking of which, Dublin hospital porters are a breed onto their own. They never shut up. One lady took me to get an ultrasound and on the way I got her life story, She managed to squeeze in her family structure, she had three sisters and one brother, her father was dead and her mother was in a home with Alzheimer’s – the home didn’t have Alzheimer’s – just the mother ( her words not mine). I got the full run down on how that effected them during the lockdown and discovered which sister was the ‘awkward one’ which one was the emotional one etc. I got to learn where she drank, how many pints she managed to get in during the period where the pubs were open for a while but where, due to restrictions, you could only stay for a set time. I know what she had to eat and where she lived. I wouldn’t mind but it isn’t a big hospital, it was only a short walk! On the way back up to the ward, she stopped my wheelchair and had a gossip not once, but twice, with other members of staff, She cracked me up.
On another trip (I want say to which test for fear of identifying the persons concerned.) The porter told me that the person running that department was an arsehole, To be fair I agreed as I had the privilege of listening to her as I sat invisible In my wheelchair outside, while she single handled, treated everyone like sh*t (staff that is) and even as a patient I could see how things were falling apart around her through lack of management skill. But anyway the chatty porter told me she had reported him for being insubordinate and not having enough respect for her. I asked him what happened and he told me that he told the disciplinary committee that she needed a good ride. ” That actually got me in even more trouble” he said, and I wasn’t surprised he had been reprimanded. He was camp as Christmas and very funny, but clearly need to reign his mouth in.
I escaped the clutches of whatever was after me and was released from hospital late on Wednesday evening thank God, but I took a lot away with me. Again, I was reminded of the preciousness and precariousness of life, the importance of living while we can. I recognised how calm I had become in old age in the face of adversity, and how I took even the darkest situation to be something that having survived it, I should be grateful for, more than anything else. I was also reminded that I watch people and I think that helps me with characterisation for my books. There is always something to take away from every experience in life.
Being a melancholy man at the best of times, the solitude of hospital never sits well with me. In COVID times, there is the added Burdon of not having visitors to shape our day. But my visit to hospital this time was thankfully short. Recuperating at home now, I have time to get my strength back and look forward to how best use whatever extra time my most recent narrow escape has given me. So now if you’ll excuse me, I have another book to finish…
Haven’t read a Max Power Book yet? I think it’s time to pick one up. Max Power’s books include ; Darkly Wood II The woman who never wore shoes, Larry Flynn, Bad Blood and Little Big Boy. Here are the universal booklinks and associated sites where you can find out more about Max Power’s writing and his current and planned releases Books;
Universal Book Links here : http://getbook.at/Darkly-Wood http://getbook.at/Darkly-Wood-II http://getbook.at/Little-Big-Boy http://getbook.at/Larry-Flynn http://getbook.at/Bad-Blood
http://www.amazon.com/author/maxpower http://facebook.com/maxpowerbooks twitter @maxpowerbooks1
Indelible and true…
When we consider our own mortality, many are drawn off the path of reality by romanticism, history, pathos, self-indulgence, vanity or hubris. Death is not something we see for what it is. It’s not hard to see why. We fail to take cognisance of some of the harsher aspects to our demise, and for good reason. No one wants to look such a creature in the eye. Yet I doubt we will ever be closer to ourselves than in those final moments. To quote a line from my Darkly Wood, “death is such an intimate thing”.
Loss is a troublesome weight. It knocks you over with the force of a double decker bus and lingers as grief while you struggle to recover. No one person feels the same. I know I struggled with grieving in my younger days and it left scars that were unexpected. The consequences were significant and it was only in hindsight that I can see how it laid waste to my spirit for such a long time.
Although I came through it, I was oblivious to the havoc caused until I had learned to cope, but by then of course the damage was done. Through those experiences, I still chose to avoid the subject of death, or at least I chose not to analyse the prospect of my own demise with any honest introspection. But then of course death came to my door, and surprised me with its kiss. I have felt its caress and though it seems like an age gone now, it has had an impact on me, left its mark indelible and true, and it has undoubtedly changed me.
There is discomfort, disquiet and dilemma when it comes to the very darkest of words. As a student I was drawn to John Donne’s Death Be Not Proud, and to this day I can recite it by heart. It was perhaps my youth that drew me to it, my belief, that special thing of youth that can make us feel invincible, untouchable almost.
It is that very word that is maligned, avoided, diluted where possible, as if in admitting its existence we will fall to its graces. We do it without noticing. He passed away – the departed – the priest on the pulpit who says we lost a good woman – the condolence of, I am sorry for your loss. The language around death, fails to adequately prepare those closest to those at its doorstep, for the moment when it will come.
When someone is terminally ill, we hear people talk of the illness and not the result. When asked, a person is more likely to explain that the person in question has cancer rather than say, he’s dying. I have heard it so many times, people avoiding the D word in all sorts of ways. She is in intensive care, sure he has not long to go, it won’t be long now, the doctor’s don’t hold out much hope.
To say he or she is dying is almost impossible, yet it is a term that we should perhaps be thought to understand, respect and bring back to life. Maybe it is the fear of getting it wrong, for it is such a final word. But you know, there are times when it is such an inevitable thing that it is quite simply the whole truth.
I died. It was a brief and fleeting thing I know and had someone referred to me afterwards in CCU as dying, it would of course have been inaccurate for I came through it in the end. But there are circumstances when there is no getting away from it.
Where am I going with this? I guess I am trying to square that circle of death and grief. My grief was extended through a failure to come to terms with what had happened to my mother for example. Her passing – her death- was sudden, sharp and devastating. It was literally life changing for a young man like me. I had lost my father- he died – just 2 short years before my Mam but he went through a prolonged and in truth more difficult slow march to his end, suffering as he did with lung cancer. Dying because of it. By the time my brother passed ( you see how easy it is to avoid the word) way too young at 53, I had at least begun to understand some of how loss was impacting my spirit. But it was the avoidance, the conflict of knowing the truth and trying to dodge the sharpest edge of the pain, that perhaps meant I inflicted unnecessary suffering on my soul.
Death, dying dead. They are words to embrace before they fall in our lap. People die. It is the harshest truth of all. I think we handle it quite well in Ireland and still we fall short. We celebrate the life of our dear departed, and I have been to many a fine wake in my lifetime, but still we miss the moment sometimes.
How hard it must be for a doctor to pass the news that a loved one had died – to use the word. I remember when my mother died, that a young policeman and woman had to be present for me to identify her as she lay still and unfamiliar in her hospital bed. I doubt I will see such discomfort again and still neither of them used the dreaded D word.
Perhaps I am wrong. It is avoided for good reason maybe, but by avoiding it through many years of grief, long since passed I am pleased to say, I became an expert at such deceit and I did myself a disservice.
I will leave you with my memory of my own dying moments and while perhaps they come from my naturally melancholy soul, they can be taken for what they are at face value, or one can read more into it, if that is one’s inclination. I recall that my strongest feeling as I realised what was happening was sadness. My life didn’t pass before my eyes but I felt sad not for myself, not at all. I was sad because I thought of my darling Joanna and my wonderful children. In that direst of moments I didn’t want to leave the burden of my passing on their sweet shoulders and perhaps that is what saved me, I don’t know. Somehow I doubt it.
I didn’t let go, I was pulled away from life and it was dramatic and harsh and surprising in my case, yet it was my melancholia that rose to the surface. That is thus for everyone I doubt. Maybe we live our last moments as we truly are, who knows. I can only speak for myself.
Coming through the other side was an entirely different matter. Frequent visitors to my site know what followed me back from the far side and I have yet to understand the nature of the beast. What I do know is that having been touched by the sword; I am more in touch with the nature of its blade. Death is nothing to fear, dying is just a word. Loss on the other hand is something we all will suffer but perhaps suffer less if we come to take back the words that frightens us most…
Haven’t read a Max Power book yet? I think it’s time to pick one up.
Max Power’s books include, Darkly Wood, Darkly Wood II The woman who never wore shoes, Larry Flynn, Bad Blood and Little Big Boy
You can find more details about Max Power’s books here : –
http://www.amazon.com/author/maxpower
https://maxpowerbooks.wordpress.com
fhttp://facebook.com/maxpowerbooks
twitter @maxpowerbooks1
Universal book links
http://getbook.at/Darkly-Wood
http://getbook.at/Darkly-Wood-II
http://getbook.at/Little-Big-Boy
http://getbook.at/Larry-Flynn
http://getbook.at/Bad-Blood
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