CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT AND DAWN

Darling Eva and Elyssa,
The day you were born, I sat inside a little room beside a rose garden, reading Virginia Woolf, and this passage struck me particularly...
'Here then was I, sitting on the banks of a river a week or two ago in fine October weather, lost in thought... such a wash and tumult  of ideas that it was impossible to sit still. I found myself walking with extreme rapidity across a grass plot. Instantly a man's figure rose to intercept me... His face expressed horror and indignation. Instinct rather than reason came to my help; he was a Beadle; I was a woman. This was the turf; there was the path. Only the Fellows and Scholars are allowed here; the gravel is the place for me.'

Woolf decides to cross the quadrangle and visit one of the famous Oxbridge libraries, when...

'there issued, like a guardian angel barring the way with a flutter of black gown instead of white wings, a deprecating, silvery, kindly gentleman, who regretted in a low voice as he waved me back that ladies are only admitted to the library if accompanied by a Fellow of the College or furnished with a letter of introduction.'

How things have changed and changed and though some things remain the same, you have arrived at the time of Malala Yousafzai taking on the Taliban single handedly at 15, and although America may not yet have a woman President, plenty of other countries do from Liberia and South Korea to Kosovo, Costa Rica, Argentina and Malawi.  While I was writing this, I noticed a butterfly trapped behind the glass door... she flew out the instant she heard the sound of wind and freedom that come with an open door...

For a while, I have moved onto a quiet farm to create more space for your two grannies, grandpa, other aunty and all the other friends and relations who will flock to visit you in abundance. You are both loved.

You are both celebrated. Although, would you mind if we celebrated your cousin Isabella's one month birthday today too? She is very far away but hopefully you will meet her soon.

The first meal I made on the farm for your parents, who that very night were detained by your imminent arrival, so your grandparents enjoyed instead, and together we waited for news.

And now you are both here!

Love forever and ever, your Aunty Shai-Shai xxxx

FATHER, ON YOUR BIRTHDAY...

who would have thought you would be a grandfather twice over? That your glorious, mischievous son would be a father twice over? I feel sure Rafael knows how lucky he is to have baby Isabella or Sissybella as he likes to call her... someone to play with and tease and employ in mild acts of destruction, someone to point the finger at knowing she will never hold a grudge, no matter what.

And who would have thought you would have the other beloved son, the First Born as you like to call him, waiting to add to your cricket team?

Once, it was just the five of us, with no plans other than to enjoy each other, invent new games, and look forward to sharing hours of reading in silence... Once, we even fit in the same cot, all three of us...

Darling Popsy, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways... Infinity to infinity, and all the days beyond... here's to the ever unfolding of the beautiful family you keep helping to create and recreate...

THE YELLOW WORLD

I don't normally do book reviews because I've always trusted that books find us and even a passionate book recommendation cannot save it from poor timing. So this isn't a review, just an About A Book I Liked. It's called The Yellow World and it is a very neat, concise memoir by a man who once was a boy who had cancer. I know. I'm really selling this to you :)

I felt quite jealous reading it because in the book, Albert Espinosa recounts how the cancer kids (the Eggheads) were part of a tight, intimate clique. They shared their lives, experiences, journeys, losses and banded together against and with the different shades of the disease. I've never had anything like this. Mine has been a desperately lonely road in the hospital, especially when I was a teenager and even in my twenties. My friendships have always been with the staff, especially house cleaning and nurses.

On Thursday, during my infusion, I met a young man who could easily have been Albert Espinosa in disguise. He was freshly graduated and didn't mind letting everyone know he was now part of The First Class With Honours brigade. 'Me too, me too!' I wanted to boast. He was very cool in a Cool Patienty sort of way - showing off the expensive diabetes contraption attached to his flesh. We discussed the possibility of subcutaneous infusions which might be in my near future (the prospect of self injecting does not appeal), and he had some good advice about it. He talked a mile a dozen, but what I envied was his life in his usual hospital, on his usual ward. 'Everyone knows each other. We've all been coming there for years. We have the same three nurses. It's brilliant!' And then he dropped the real gem - they're allowed to manage their Own Drips! That's unheard of. I've never been allowed to manage my own medication on the infusion bay. How green I felt, how green with envy... I doubt we will see each other again. As the record stands, I don't think I've ever met the same patient twice and I've been at this gig for almost seventeen years now. I did meet a lady, once, for a second time - she recognised me because the last time we'd met, I'd inflicted a leaf on her with a poem inscribed on it...

So I was scrabbling around trying to find a nice yellow image to go with my yellow post when I came across this bench... derived from the concept of Random Acts of Kindness, the purpose of the yellow bench is to invite strangers to share a moment, a chat. The business concept, of yellow benches everywhere, struggled to survive red tape and city councils, but one day a woman volunteered to carry the mission forward and put a Yellow Bench in Dublin. Isn't my love of Ireland justified again and again? (I can imagine some of my Irish friends thinking less than salubrious thoughts about the TYPE of person that might want to 'chat', but then again, you never know... you might meet someone extraordinary...)

Images of The Yellow Bench taken from All About Ideas

TOUCHING TIME

Tucked away
inside a wooden cabinet,
I find the Tibetan Book
of Living and Dying.

Books can save your life,
some say
they can even help you
die.

In Stanley Park I stand inside
a dead tree;
a hollowed out by time tree;
a rescued by man,
propped up by iron tree;

I feel nothing.

"You are touching time,"
my mother observes,
but the tree
says nothing
to me.

The Big (Living) Tree, Stanley Park, Vancouver, 1924

I have just returned from a brief visit to my family in Vancouver, to spend time with my grandmother who will be ninety this year and has become too frail to travel to her beloved England. I went with my mother, who is an easy travelling companion. Vancouver's trees are a glory - the scent of cedarwood and pine entwined with blue haze of mountains is a balm, but the Hollow Tree made me sad. It is raining in England now, the wisteria is no longer flowering but the roses are out... I like the living. I liked seeing my grandmother's cheeks still blooming...

'ONLY CONNECT'

My mother and I can never agree on which year we travelled to Madeira. But I have journals for every year, and so I have checked. It was 2004. At the airport, we were unable to resist buying a Bird of Paradise bulb. It held promise, and we were prepared to be patient. We waited and watched over the plant as it grew and grew, green, leafy, tall. But we were really waiting for the flash of orange beak and blue headdress. It has taken nine years for the first flower to grace us with her presence. NINE! I feel anticipation of something special heralded and, at the same time, desperate - imagine waiting on a flower!

The sun is shining today, and I am twice returned: once from a flying visit to Ireland again, to attend the first public reading Marian Keyes has done in four years, since the axis of her world shifted into the worst of the horrors. Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin last night witnessed many transformations in her audience, from raucous, joyous laughter to the raw ache of mirroring each others' human suffering. Yes, we wanted to cry out to her, yes! Just exactly that. The soul laid bare quivers, pulls itself taut, appears impenetrable, hard as bone, and as easily shattered as bone.

I breathe. 2004 turns to 2005 and the dissolution of my own mind, cracked wide open by unbearable pain of optic nerve damage, of corneal ulcers, of catatonia until sunset when the painkillers had numbed me enough to descend the stairs and make a cup of tea for my father and myself to discuss death with biscuits. Chocolate cake might mysteriously appear if it had been a particularly brutal day. It took years for the edge to begin to soften.  That's what I call it. The Edge. I can taste it against my teeth. I fear it. And I try not to fear it. My surgeon saw it all and continues to infuse me with optimism inspite of some bleak realities, but my eyes are unpredictable. Which is why, sitting opposite him today, having a relatively gentle procedure felt like small waves of torment. My eye wept for itself, pooling a little river by my chin like the Walrus in Alice in Wonderland ('I weep for you,' the Walrus said, I deeply sympathise... Holding his pocket-handkerchief before his streaming eyes'). 'It's been a while since you've made me cry,' I snarked at Blue Eyes, which actually made me feel much better, because it has been a while. And I have come leagues and travelled miles, and been blessed with new friends, new horizons, glorious humour and extraordinary kindness. And leprechauns. Shur, how can I forget the leprechauns?

We move forwards, ever conscious of the road ahead, gripping on for dear life to any vine of light. We want life.

E. M. Forster teaches us the way forward when he begins Howard's End: 

'Only Connect'.

BLOOD OF TREES

Gustave Klimt

I lie,

fallen tree.

Yesterday, they

cut a hole in me

three needles thick

They read my paper skin

in Braille and rust

and bone

They sucked my limbs

of milk and marrow

and when I cried for home 

They sought my neck

pale birch, fat jugular,

and drove their cannula

in.

© Shaista Tayabali, 2013

A few days ago, May 10th, was World Lupus Day. This Friday, May 17th, is Put On Purple day for lupus (POP! if you like...) Cancer has pink, Lupus has purple...
I never remember these dates. I remember moments, small unforgettable invasions.
At a recent poetry workshop with a Cambridge poet-in-residence, we were given two words from which to create a draft of something to 'take away'. The words were Blood and Trees. I didn't have to rummage very deep to find the words above. I sat in a stairwell and within a quarter of an hour, I had my poem.
I rarely write poetry at a desk unless as a happy alternative to writing something else! Like my term paper, for example... which, however, I finished and handed in yesterday. In time for another hospital infusion today. Another cannula will greet me with the wry question, "Where, this time?"
But, when I return home, this cheerful blue butterfly doormat will await me, and also, if it hasn't blown away, this heart shaped leaf I found and placed beside it. Butterflies are the symbol of lupus, did you know? Well, didja?

FAITH (the other side of the coin)

Renoir

If I were to marry
it would surely
be springtime in England;

The birds would sing sweetly
all morning and
                     evening
The sun would shine brightly
                  but ever so gently;

My feet would step lightly
on a carpet of daisies...

White as the blossom
pure as the dove,
My heart full and golden
with love.

- Shaista Tayabali, 2013

Young Woman Picking The Fruit Of Knowledge, 1892, Mary Cassatt (for magpie tales)

FAITHLESS

Lay your sleeping head, my love,

Human on my faithless arm...

W. H. Auden

This I can see:

cherry blossom tumbling free

blackbird on mossy green;

Red tulip marrying

blue forget-me-not

in a wedding of wind 

and peace.

Hold still the moment

to etch the memory,

but there will be none;

We are as faithless 

as each other

and by nightfall, 

will both be gone.

- Shaista Tayabali, 2013

Certainty, fidelity

On the stroke of midnight pass

Like vibrations of a bell...

Every farthing of the cost,

All the dreadful cards foretell,

Shall be paid, but not from this night

Not a whisper, not a thought,

Not a kiss nor look be lost...

Let the winds of dawn that blow

Softly round your dreaming head... 

Nights of insult let you pass

Watched by every human love.

If I may be morbid for a moment, I think I'd quite like to have this poem by Auden recited in my dying hour as I'm drifting away like the Lady of Shalott downstream to Camelot. Mind you, I might be so swept up by the beauty of the poem that I refuse to die... "Bring me a pen! Quick!" I'll command, (in a croaky voice), "I've a last poem in me..."

Meanwhile the blossom is being driven away by rain, and meanwhile my major eye operation has been temporarily set aside for a gentler approach; one last gasp before the surgeon decides whether the second tube is necessary after all. I should be ecstatic at the reprieve, but truthfully, my left eye is a torment to me anyway. Some days the little hot nerve centre of pain is so bad I want to be sick, but I try not be faithless. Everything is bright and glorious and green and lit around me. I am trying not to be faithless.

statue above:  'Youth' by Kathleen Scott

FRAGMENTS OF MUSIC

A bright red tractor just rolled by across the field at the bottom of our garden. A bright yellow butterfly just floated by the window of my little writing room in the garden. Bright, bright day today, the first of the summer to come, and the cherry is finally in bloom. Father is the only one tall enough to detect that fine sakura scent...

I have, as you may know, another major eye operation coming up soon, and as is my wont, I have been packing in SIGHTS. After Ireland, I scuttled off to visit my beloved friends Mary and John in Chichester, and filled my eyes with swans at Bosham, and caught the beginning of lambing season at West Dean College...

I have known Mary since I was 15 years old, and newly arrived on English soil. She was a soulmate of my Father's long before I was born and one of the great joys of our lives has been to hear Mary play Bach, Mozart, Beethoven on the piano (even though she denies any extraordinary talent - "Hang it all, I do have judgment you know!"). I cannot play the piano, so to me it is a magical, wizardish gift.
Last week at the hospital, someone presented me with more magic. A doctor, who recently read my blog, felt moved enough to compose a piece of music - a beautiful, haunting piece, which she permitted me to listen to on the ward. She says I inspire her. She is presenting my case to the British Society of Rhuematologists tomorrow and is going to weave in some of my poems - fame, my beloveds, fame! No longer a number, they will know my NAME! :)

THE GATHERING: A COLLECTION OF IRISH BEAUTIES

Give me peat fires
and candles lit
at the Church of Mercy

Give me soft haze of blue
mountains and sharp edges of ice
on our way to The Connor Pass

Give me Dingle
and Slea Head
and blue butterflies on Inch Strand Beach

Stop at Fermoyle
after kissing the Stone,
then touch the sands of Dun Chaoin

Time is a dandelion
but not the land
She is constant -

Waiting, waiting,
for the gathering
of the poet and her clan.