Letting The Music Find Me...

Over the alarmingly close to 40 years that I have been attempting to play the guitar and using it to try to get the stuff that's inside that needs to be outside outside, I have written, in whole or in part, an awful lot of songs. And a lot of awful songs. Some have perhaps been tolerable. There has even been a handful that have escaped into the wider world, and that other people have said that they liked... 

To be honest, I don't actually care if other people like them. Obviously, I would rather like it if people did like them, or find them in some way helpful in their journey through life, but really, I do it because I have to.

The other day, I read something by Robert Fripp about "finding out where the music wants to go " and "getting ourselves out of the way". (To be honest, the more I read of RF's ideas on music, artistic creation etc., the more of these "Yup!" moments I seem to have.) 

That got me thinking (oh dear!). Most of the "worst" songs that I have written are the ones where I have thought about it - where I have thought about writing something that is about a particular subject, in a particular key or style etc. Most of the "best" (note that these descriptions are personal perceptions relative to my own output, not relating to the general corpus of musical works!) have indeed been things where I have "got myself out of the way" and allowed the music to found me - a random sentence that has appeared in my head that somehow grows into a lyric, or a riff, a chord or even just a sound that grows into music. 

I know that this is not an uncommon way of writing, but perhaps Mr Fripp's words have given me some sort of validation that what seems to work for me, while not hugely productive, is kinda OK.

(I am also reminded of some thing that I think Sir Terry Pratchett wrote about particles of inspiration sleeting down, neutrino-like and occasionally interacting with the artistic part of our brains... I am currently too lazy to research it further.)

An example of this is my recent songwriting effort, "Snowfall". It emerged from an attempt to arrange an existing song ("Acid Kisses") for potentially playing acoustically at open mic nights. I had been struggling to combine two guitar parts, one using a capo, into one. I eventually came up with a variation on Open G, with the low string left as E and not tuned to D. With a capo on the second fret (should you care!). I had left my main acoustic tuned this way, and, a few days later, picked it up and started aimlessly noodling. Something appeared. 

Fortunately, I wasn't too lazy that day, so I fired up my recording software and recorded it for future use. Or perhaps, as often happens, forgotten and left cluttering my hard drive. Only this time, the music kept coming. I had the parts for a whole piece. Then came the crunch. I had to save it. That required a name. There are many files on my laptop called things like "A Riff" and "Bass Thing", but this time a word came - "Snowfall".

I closed the file, shut my laptop down, and thought no more about it.

Until I did. 

That night, going to bed, my brain did that thing it often does, and started working just as I was trying to shut it down for the night... A line "The silence fell like snowfall" came, so I did what I usually do now (where once I would have scrawled it into one of a large collection of notebooks) and typed it into OneNote, along with many other random fragments of language.

This one, however, wasn't finished with me. More words came. And I had a complete lyric. And it seemed to be about the events surrounding my son, Christopher's birth and our first of many encounters with Edinburgh Sick Kids. This is something that has lurked in my brain for over 15 years, but has never emerged in coherent words really. Until now, it seems.

The next day, I realised that the words and music worked together and added a rough (very rough!) vocal. I shared it with my bandmates. Sammy Jo, singer extraordinaire, came back to me almost straight away and said that she  wanted to record it as soon as possible. So we did. Sammy Jo did an absolutely amazing job of bringing my words to life, in a way that I really struggle to do myself. And now, it lurks on my Soundcloud account. Some people seem to like it.

All that matters to me is that I got out of the way, the music and words found me, and a song that I have needed to create for years found its way into the real. 

Snowfall

So here I am once more... Musings on another redundancy.

“Changes aren’t permanent, but change is…” (Tom Sawyer – Rush) 

 I can rarely resist the temptation to quote Rush lyrics, but in this case, I think I have a very good excuse. In the almost exactly 23 years since I started working in financial services, the only constant has been change. In those same 23 years, I have been made redundant three times. It’s about to be four.

The first time, it was definitely a lot harder. That said, each time has come with its own nuances… 

That first time, I was leaving a job that I enjoyed and a company that I had liked working for. I missed it tremendously, but I was moving to a contracting role, so at least for a while I was earning a lot more than I ever had – but that proved not to be enough. 

Apart from a sizeable dose of imposter syndrome (“I can’t really be worth what they’re paying me…”), I lacked that sense of belonging, which, it turns out, is something that I really need. I went permanent with that company when the contract finished, and I discovered something else that I “need” from a job – the company has to feel right. To this day, I am not really sure what that really means, but I “know”. That feeling of unease combined with the breakdown of my first marriage to leave me in a pretty dark place. 

Somehow one sliver of light got into my dark skull – I went and got professional help. And it did help – it gave me sufficient clarity to realise that I needed stuff to change. So change I did.

I left that job of my own volition, and made several changes to my life over the next year or so – moving to a General Insurer in their new Edinburgh office, I moved in with my new partner, and having done so, moved into a more stable mind space. Also, I found out that I was going to be a father. 

Fast forward to late the following year – I am now father to Christopher, who was born with some fairly serious medical issues requiring multiple surgeries, but reasonably happy in my new role(s). We are all called in to a meeting – the Edinburgh office isn’t working as well as hoped and our parent company wants to move our roles to London – potentially us too. Worst timing ever for me (not to mention that I have been in London often enough to have no desire to live there!). 

So there I was again – though this time it almost came as a blessing since it allowed me to spend Christopher’s first Xmas in Glasgow’s Yorkhill Children’s Hospital with him (and my wife, of course). And another role was lined up for mid-January. 

This time, the timing seemed right, but the role just wasn’t – it was supposed to be “temp to permanent” but ended up being “temp to nada” because of re-structuring. 

Another Xmas, another job hunt. It seemed like it was becoming an annual event… 

This brings me to Standard Life – ironically, initially working for my old boss from the first redundancy again. And Standard Life felt like coming home in a lot of other ways – a few familiar faces from the previous roles, and the “vibe” of the company just felt right for me, and indeed, for most of the past 11 and a half years I have found myself in just the right role for me – where I am doing what I enjoy and able (I think) to give good value for money to the company… 

This though, is also coming to an end, and in a lot of ways, perhaps this time is the hardest. I have been in this job longer than any other, I have made some really good friends, and even grumpy old me has had fun! 

The relatively drawn out period between announcement and “the end” has probably given me a fair (too long?) period for reflection. I am leaving in September – a lot of the dear friends that I have met here are already gone – and with lockdown, there has been no real closure there. 

Then there are the panics… Am I getting too old to easily get a new job? Do I have the right skillset for the new digital world? Is this somehow my fault? What if I fall ill before I get a new job? (This is a new one, thanks for that, “50+ increasing sense of your own mortality”!) 

So many things. 

Along with these comes a feeling of abandonment and loss. A sense of “unfinished business” coming from the things that I know will not be completed by the time I leave, however hard I try. Then there’s feeling guilty that this is bothering me when some of my colleagues have known no employer other than Standard Life. I can only begin to imagine how they are feeling.

Now rational, cynical me knows that this is the grown up world, and whatever a company may say, the profit margin is always going to come before the feelings of employees. But that me isn’t always (often?) in the driving seat – that role is usually occupied by “bleeding heart poet, in a fragile capsule” me, who doesn’t always cope that well with loss and endings.

Somewhere inside me the thoughts are growing though – each time has been a progression in my work life, and in myself – new friends and experiences, new horizons. There is something good out there. The hurt will be metabolised into hard won experience. 

Also, there is the “professional pride” – I will work to leave things in the best place possible for the good and honest human beings that will carry on once I have left. 

If you should find yourself going down the road to redundancy, please remember a few things:

It is the role, not you that is redundant. 

It is not your fault – the world just happens, often in ways that you would rather it didn’t. 

You will still have the friends and memories that you made there. 

Don’t be afraid or ashamed to take whatever help and support is offered. 

You are not alone. 

Given half a chance, you will grow stronger and gain from it. 

Turn redundancy into a rebirth.

Fading Light?

As I type this, I have just passed the end of my 51^st year on this planet. It feels like time is passing quickly – too quickly, but I know full well that it is passing at the same pace as ever – one second at a time, one breath at a time, one heartbeat at a time. My perception of the passing of time, however, is a whole different sock full of custard. It seems to pass ever faster as I grow older. To quote Neil Peart:

“Summer's going fast
Nights growing colder
Children growing up
Old friends growing older
Freeze this moment
A little bit longer
Make each sensation
A little bit stronger
Experience slips away...
Experience slips away...
The innocence slips away...”

And mentioning Mr Peart makes me realise that growing older is not a problem, though it may bring with it various issues (yes, I am looking at you creaky knees!) - over all it is a privilege, and not one afforded to everyone. This year indeed has perhaps brought mortality into somewhat clearer focus – not just because it started with my 50^th birthday (and thus with a certain amount of reflection, but that was viewed through a lens tinted by a beautiful, shiny new Les Paul, and also, more importantly, a wee gathering with as many as possible of my even more beautiful and shiny friends and family!)

In the time since that gathering, a lot has changed in the world partly due to a certain “c” word, but also due to another even more malevolent “c” word that has stolen a couple of my musical heroes (the aforementioned Mr Peart, and of course, more recently Eddie van Halen), but also some more “Everyday Heroes” in my life.

My friend Alan “BY” McWilliam was a talented musician and a genuine nice guy – known throughout Dundee for his busking and being in quite a few local bands over the years. I had known him for a long time through being out and about on the Dundee rock scene, and it was always good to see him because of his generosity of spirit and supportiveness (there was also the eternal fellowship of being Rush fans!). I had lost touch with him – mainly due to my moving to Edinburgh – but I was delighted to make contact again a couple of years ago though Mally, another old friend, who was playing keyboards in his latest band Bravado. It just so happened that one of their gigs coincided with a trip to Dundee, so Freya and I went along. It was a great night, I saw quite a few other familiar faces, and I got a chance to reconnect with BY – and it was as if there had been weeks since we’d last spoken, not years… Little did I know that that would be the last time that I would speak to him in person. I am even more glad now than I was at the time to have shared that little time with him – with the added bonus that I had genuinely enjoyed the gig too.

Going back to my 50^th, I had been really glad to share it with a good number of people that I hadn’t seen as much as I would have liked, and none more so than my friend Colleen. I had first met her through friends in Glasgow, and then had met her often through the Edinburgh goth scene, and rather more prosaically, through shopping in Cameron Toll often with her daughter. Collen was simply a beautiful person – kind, generous and gentle. I can’t think of particular “special” memories in her company, since she had a knack of making any meeting special in some way. That said, seeing her at my birthday do was rather special – I already knew that she was ill, so the fact that she was able to come was amazing. Fate is rarely kind in my experience, but in Colleen’s case, it feels like it was particularly cruel. She was a trans women, finally finding her path towards truly becoming herself, if that makes sense, when she fell ill. I don’t think that the pandemic affected her treatment negatively, but it made it a lot more difficult to visit her in her final days. Thankfully some friends were able to spend time with her, and her ex-partner and daughter made it over from France in time to spend a few days with her too. It also brought a group of her friends together online, to arrange things and share stories. Small mercies. (Probably the only ones that we can realistically hope for in these times.)

When she passed, it hit hard. The particular cruelty of her fate, her bravery and her gentleness of spirit probably made her passing, though expected, harder to take. Sometimes, these moments can bring special things into being though, and I have gained new friends through Colleen and my frequently errant muse returned. Words formed in my head, and spilled onto the page with a fluency that I have lacked for a long time. It rapidly became a full song/poem, which after a moment of self-doubt, I shared with the group… I was amazed, humbled and terrified in roughly equal measure when Arielle, Colleen’s former partner, asked me to read it at the funeral. It was an emotional moment, but I guess that I was glad to in some way do something for Colleen, who had given all of us so much. We have to remember, especially in these times where we are forcibly separated from those we need so much, that we have to make sure that they know how much they mean to us. Don’t contemplate your mortality so much that you forget to live. Be kinder. Love Everyone. Be More Colleen!

Fading Light

Fading Light

It means too much to let it fade away

Have to keep it close for the future days

So much bravery

Shining from your smiling eyes, selfless.

 

And even as you faded away

You made the rest of us stronger

Even as you drifted further away

You brought the rest of us closer

 

Cruel Fate

As you finally found your own way

Cruel torrents washed the path away

So much bravery

Worn with a humble coat of kindness

 

Falling tears

They’re all I seem to have today

No real answers are coming my way

So much bravery

But I seem to have none myself

 

And the beauty in your soul

Is an honest story simply told

The gentle kindness

That should be obvious

Your warmth that soothes us all

As we walk onwards, with a piece of you in our soul.

The light isn’t fading at all…

 

Caring In A Time Of COVID... (And other times too)

This is a "blog wot I wrote" for the Carers Network at work...

I was standing in the middle of a busy hospital, in Edinburgh at the height of the Festival; most of my family were within 5 miles of where I was, but I felt lonelier then I ever had before – or have since. I was outside of one of the operating theatres in the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, or Sick Kids as it is more commonly known. I had just kissed my 2-day old son on the forehead and watched him wheeled into theatre.

There are many books and websites dedicated to parenting, not that I had read many of them, but none of them prepare you for this. To be fair, I have my doubts as to how much they actually prepare you for any of parenting, but that’s a whole other story. Actually, nothing prepares you for this. Looking back, I feel like I got through all of it mostly intact. Perhaps only by the skin of my teeth, but I guess that I did get through it.

How did I come to be standing outside of that operating theatre?

My son, Christopher, had been born two days before in the Simpsons Maternity Unit in Edinburgh. The birth could have been less traumatic (an emergency C-Section), but all seemed to be well and fatherhood was a happy place. Early afternoon on the day after he was born my in-laws persuaded me to tear myself away from the wee man and his mum and go for some lunch. Halfway down Leith Walk ‘the call’ came – some routine tests had shown up something unusual. Back at the hospital I heard a diagnosis that has become part of our lives ever since. Tracheo-Oesophageal Fistula with Oesophageal Atresia (TOF/OA). When the doctor told us, I felt like my entire being had been flushed into the void. So many questions flooded into the vacant space. Not least “What is it – and can you fix it?”

The answers to those questions came at Sick Kids – TOF/OA is a congenital anomaly where the oesophagus doesn’t quite form correctly and the upper part finishes at a dead end in the upper chest (the OA bit) and the stomach end is attached to the trachea (the TOF bit), and yes, with a bit of radical re-plumbing, it is usually fixable. Fortunately for us, Sick Kids is one of the leading centres for repairing TOF/OA and one of very few at the time that were doing the repairs using ‘keyhole’ surgery. Some light was creeping into the darkness.

After the longest afternoon of my life, back at Simpsons with my wife, family and some friends, the phone rang, and we got the news that the surgery had gone well, and that Christopher was in recovery. The collective sigh of relief almost blew the windows out of the rather overcrowded side room that Freya had been moved into by the thoughtful midwives.

Thus began a long journey, which we are still on. Medically, this has included numerous trips back to Sick Kids, some planned, but most not, and a spell in Yorkhill in Glasgow for heart surgery. The physiology of a TOF child means that food can quite easily get stuck – sometimes it can be dislodged by judicious application of fizzy juice (Irn Bru works a treat!), though it often requires an endoscopy to wheech it out. Along the way, we discovered the wonderful TOFS charity, appeared on the STV evening news and in various newspapers (they took a particular interest in the ‘medical’ applications of Irn Bru), and generally experienced a very different baby/toddlerhood than we expected. Now, Christopher is almost 12, and we are in a fairly good place, relatively speaking. He still has annual MOTs, and we as parents are also still dealing with the psychological aftermath.

Which brings me at last (at last!) to the actual point of this blog – the mental toll that this has taken on my wife and I. We have not just been parents, we have been carers too. We have learnt things that most parents never need to know, we have had experiences that are probably the stuff of nightmares for most parents – and still, compared to others we know, we have had it relatively easy.

It seems to me to come in two parts, like many things in the medical sphere – acute and chronic.

 The bits I think of as acute are the obvious stress points – the chest infections, the operations, seeing his heart rate somewhere north of 200 bpm. The chronic is the half-life existence – in and out of hospital, nights in camp beds on wards, wondering “what next?”, watching him like a hawk as he eats his lunch. This makes up the daily routine when your child has issues like this. Also, there is the guilt – did I somehow cause this? Is there something that I am missing?

In a way, the acute parts are almost easier to cope with – there are people there all the time, sharing the burden, watching out for you. The chronic parts build up over time, there is often no telling when it is going to tip over into ‘too much’. Ultimately, I think that you learn to spot the signs, and become better at knowing when to reach out. Freya, my wife, found the guilt side of things particularly difficult – she felt that having carried him for nine months it must be her fault somehow. Being a maths/science geek, I took some solace in the statistics, sought to understand what I could, and tried to use that to support her however I could. We got through it together.

That is even more important than it seems, because ultimately, no-one else really understands the carer’s journey the way that they do. It is isolation. Not in an uncaring way – we have been surrounded by love, support and care every step of the way – but because no-one else, not even other “TOF Families” walk quite the same path as you.

Perhaps this has made our current shared, but different path through this strange land called Lockdown a little easier.

Along with the worries that we all share in the shadow of COVID 19, there are those specific to our son’s condition. TOF children are generally more susceptible to chest infections than non-TOFs due to an aspect of the condition called Tracheomalacia (also known as ‘floppy windpipe’) which means that they can’t clear infected mucus as effectively. TOF/OA can also come alongside other conditions, so it can become quite complex quite quickly. In this, we have been truly fortunate that the TOFS charity has been able to give support, and act as a conduit for advice direct from some of the foremost experts in the UK.

There is of course, also the worry that Christopher could get food stuck (although he hasn’t had a real issue for a few years) – would we be able to take him in? Obviously, we would not want to burden the NHS any further either, so he has been well warned to chew carefully! While these issues are fairly specific to our situation, these, I am sure, are the sort of things that all carers will be worrying about.

I have learnt a lot over the past 11-and-a-bit years, about a condition that I did not know even existed before that, about what it means to care, and about myself. My mental health has not really been that great for most of my adult life, but this journey has stress tested it in ways that I could not have imagined. I have fallen many times along the way. Fortunately, my fellow travellers have picked me up, and I may even have managed to pick myself up once or twice. One foot in front of the other. Failure is perhaps as they say, not falling down, but staying down. Strength is not inexhaustible though, and perhaps the most important thing that I have learnt is that there is no shame in taking strength from others when you are running on empty.

Super Scared...

This blog post has been gestating in my addled old brain for quite a while – or at least that’s my excuse for not having posted for ages.  That it has crystallised now is largely due to last night’s Doctor Who episode – specifically one line “fear is a superpower” – that is the piece of grit that this (ahem) pearl of dubious wisdom has finally formed around.

Fear feels like it is a large part of my life (and those of many others).  Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of dying, fear of living, fear of crowds, fear of being alone, fear of falling, fear of flying…  There are so many flavours of fear to sample in this life.  Is it true that, as FDR put it, “the only thing we have to fear… is fear itself”, or is it something more positive in our lives?  Is it something that makes us faster, cleverer and better able to survive?

To me, it seems that the answer is, as it is with so many other things, that it depends what we do with it.  If we sit cowering and letting it master us, then it is certainly a negative.  If we use it to fire us and move forward acknowledging that it is part of us, then it is something else entirely.

I am scared of many things – some perfectly rational, many completely irrational, but no less real to my less sane parts.  Part of me is perpetually afraid for the safety of my child and my wife.  That is probably part of being a parent and husband.  I would rather be scared and that bit more careful when they are relying on me (poor souls”) than not.   I am scared of my own body and its various malfunctions that appear to be part of growing older – my Doctor must be sick of all the queries! 

This, to be fair, hasn’t been helped by my optician spotting cataracts in both my eyes – but at least it explains the deterioration in my eyesight that I wasn’t sure if I was imagining or not.  I keep wandering on. 

I can still get up and go to work, rather than hiding from the world as I often want to do.  I am driven to do better by thoughts similar to Alan Shepard’s supposed “prayer” when he was awaiting launch, 

Fear is a theme that is looming large in these parts this week in particular…  All that I will say about that is – vote for what you feel that you must, what is true for you and what may bring the future that you wish to see.  Step forward into the unknown, as you do every second of every day and do so with hope.

I’d better go and check my “Super Feartie Man” costume is laid out for tomorrow morning.

When the going gets TOF, the TOFs get going...

TOF/OA - Tracheo-Oesophageal Fistula with Oesophageal Atresia.  A condition that means that a baby's oesophagus doesn't connect to its stomach (the "OA" bit) and that the stomach end of their oesophagus is attached to their trachea (the "TOF" bit).  There are many other aspects and potential complications, but that is basically what it is about.  It can be corrected surgically, usually soon after birth, but that has only been the case for about 60 or so years - before that, there was nothing that could be done.  Five years, two months and and about 6 and a half days ago, I had never heard of it.  Now, I probably know more about it than I know about any other medical condition.

On the 7th of August 2008, my world changed completely.  For the second time in 24 hours.  The first was relatively easy (for me at least, for Freya, not so much) - I became a father for the first time.  The second was not so easy for either of us.  There were, for me, two heart stopping moments - number one was the phone call that cut short my, and Freya's parents quest for lunch and sent us rushing back to the Simpson's.  Number two was the moment when a doctor  there did their best to describe what was wrong with Christopher (it is a rare condition and not the doctor's area of speciality).  Words cannot describe the way that I felt.  It was as if someone had flushed every fibre of my being out into the void.  Those are words, but they don't come close to describing the intensity of the feeling.

The rest of that Thursday is a bit of a blur.  Seeing Christopher in the Special Care Baby Unit at the Royal - looking like a giant next to the truly tiny miracles that surrounded him.  The trip through Edinburgh to Sick Kids with Freya's dad.  Practically being frogmarched into the chippy along from the hospital by the great man that I am now proud to call my father in law, who was smart enough to know that I actually did need to eat, no matter how trivial my own welfare felt to me at the time.  Hearing (with a not inconsiderable amount of relief) the much more positive prognosis for Christopher than the one that I had imagined from one of the surgeons that would be involved in his operation.  Holding the Wee Man in my arms for what seemed like no time, but was actually about two hours, until the nurses persuaded me that I'd be better off going to bed in the little room that was available to me, just along the corridor.  Not thinking that I would be able to sleep. but actually conking out as soon as my head hit the pillow.  The dreadful wrenching pain of separation, kissing him before he went into theatre.  The eternity of waiting in the side room at the maternity ward, and the explosive collective sigh of relief when we heard that the surgery had gone well.  I thought that we could have blown the windows out!

It has been a long, winding, sometimes joyful, sometimes painful road since then, but it has been massively easier with the help of our families and friends.  Many of those friends are ones we would likely never have met but for TOFS - the support charity for Christopher's condition.  It is not a big charity like the ones that have ads on the telly and bus stops and the like.  It is a small but dedicated group who work to support people affected by TOF, spread awareness and support research into the condition.  It is a relatively small charity, but it occupies a huge place in our hearts and minds.  We owe them so much.  

Also important is that much maligned entity, Facebook.  It is not all "selfies" and amusing cat photos - the TOFS groups on there are a vital and useful part of the "TOF family".  

Now, we are in a position to offer some help and support to new TOF families - I am "TLC" (TOFS Local Contact) for Scotland, which means that I call new TOF families and welcome them to the larger "family" and offer whatever help and support I can.  It feels great to be able to "give something back" - a cliche, I know, but true.  

Mainly, I aim to offer friendship, an ear to listen and understanding - a real sense that there are people out there who understand some of what they are going through, although everone's journey is a little different.  A feeling that you are not alone can be a powerful aid.  At risk of sounding arrogant, I know that this can help; but I know that because I know that it helped us a lot to hear from other TOF families when we were just starting our own journey down the TOF road.  Also, I hope that Christopher and his story can inspire and give hope to others because of how far he has come and how much he has achieved in 5 and a bit years.    

To try to get to the point that I think that I am trying to make here, this week (12th to 19th October) is TOFS awareness week, so I thought that I should try to spread some awareness.  If you wish, follow the link below and learn a bit more.  Maybe tell someone else about it.  Roughly one in 3,500 babies is born with this condition.  It is rare, but that is still roughly 20 a year in Scotland alone, if my back-of-the-envelope calculation is correct.  So, please be aware, understand, if you know someone affected by TOF, support them by sharing their experience and and "being there" for them.  It means more than you would believe.

http://www.tofs.org.uk

Peace for our time?

75 years ago this week, the Munich Agreement was signed by Neville Chamberlain, consigning Czechoslovakia to Nazi domination.  Whether or not his actions made sense at the time, the gift of 20-20 hindsight suggests that it was most likely a mistake, we will never know what would have transpired, had Britain and France stood up to Hitler then.

By coincidence, I am reading "Berlin Diary" by William L. Shirer, an American journalist who broadcast from Berlin and around Europe between 1934 and 1941 - seven years that saw Hitler's power grow and Europe slide inexorably into war.  It gives a fascinating insight into what happened and how ordinary people came to believe in Hitler's twisted view of the world.  Shirer risked arrest, expulsion and possibly worse to bring his view of the Third Reich to the outside world.  He also shares his views on how America's then powerful Isolationist Lobby risked playing right into Hitler's hands.

I have long been fascinated by history, particularly military history for a long time.  Not for any ghoulish reasons, it is not a morbid fascination.  Reading Shirer's book has possibly helped me come to realise why I am so fascinated.  

As a scientist at heart (and in my head!) boundary conditions, that critical zone between yes and no, where many of the most fascinating things in science happen - the event horizon of a black hole for one, have always intrigued me greatly.  They occur on a human scale too - I feel that I have spent most of my adult life enmeshed in the grey area that is the boundary between depressed and not depressed.

That period in the late 1930's that Shirer wrote so eloquently and perceptively about was also a boundary - between war and not war.  What tipped the world over the edge?  What drives ordinary people to do the heroic or the horrific?  These are the human boundary conditions that can make history such a compelling subject.

I have heard war described as "the continuation of politics by other means" (von Clausewitz originally, I think) - it seems to me that really, war is the failure of politics.  The failure to steer us away from, or the crazed urge of some leaders to steer us towards, that most bloody boundary condition between not war and war. 

Flying through cloud,,,

A couple of days ago, I finished reading "Luck and a Lancaster", a fascinating and moving account of a pilot's experiences during a 30 mission tour with Bomber Command.  It really brought an increasingly distant, but important part of our history vividly to life.  His descriptions of flying by night and day, in all sorts of weather allowed me to almost feel like I was looking over his shoulder in the cockpit.  

I have always wanted to learn to fly, but I will probably get no closer to it than flight sims and trips on airliners.  Lately, however, I have been feeling like I am flying in cloud - that stage in a flight before breaking into the glorious, sunlit paradise above the clouds, when you can see no further than the wingtips of the plane.

It seems an ideal metaphor for the dead, numb nothingness that is depression.  Occasionally, there is a break in the cloud that allows one a tantalising glimpse of the sunshine or the Earth below - our familiar, comforting home,  Our condition forbids us the power to climb above to that golden place above the weather.  

We have our "crew" along with us, those whom we love and who love us, our "navigators" helping us find our way home, our "radio operators" keeping us in contact with some sort of reality, our "air-gunners" keeping an eye out and protecting us from the "flak" coming up from below and the night-fighter (both real and imagined) that are out to get us... 

We fly on, through the blank, featureless void, hoping for a chance to find our base to land, rest and refuel.  Some flights like this are short hops, others feel like endless missions into the unknown.  The cloud may often seem impenetrable, but I am glad to know that I have a top-notch crew and my "kite", while a bit clapped out and past its best, is mostly dependable, and has always got me home thus far.  

No covers, no compromise...

I am (hopefully) about to embark on a new artistic journey - in the shape of a band with another guitarist.  Obviously, I have no idea how it will turn out - but I am hoping that it will be rewarding and feed my need for music making.  

It is a tricky business, because, like any other kind of relationship it inevitably relies on compromise and that seems to be something that gets harder as I get older.  I have been in a few bands over the years, some better than others, and some involving more compromise than others.  I have tried (other than one band) to resist the temptation to go the easy route and do covers - not that there aren't songs that I don't want to learn to play, or that I necessarily think that my songs are any better than anyone else's - it's more that I need that kinda personal investment in the music.  

Also, if you start off playing covers, people will often like your band because you play songs that they already like, and it makes it harder to move on to doing originals.  And to be honest, I don't play music to make other people happy (though I don't mind if they do) - I do it because I need to - and I feel that this is the most honest way to approach music making.  It is far too personal to do for other people. 

It perplexes me greatly when people complain because a band progresses and changes over time - particularly when they are talking about "progressive rock" bands.  It seems that they secretly (or not so secretly!) want them to keep making the same album over and over again (some bands appear to have made entire and alarmingly successful careers of doing just that).  That is most assuredly not what I want - I want bands to go away, search their collective "souls" and express what they find however they can.  I will listen.  I may well not like it, but if it is honest, I will respect it.  And it may grow on me.  If the artists are prepared to work hard on their music, I am prepared to put effort into understanding and appreciating it.  No X Factor(y) bad covers or written by committee nothingness.  (Yes I am probably a music snob, but I don't care - it is too important to me to take it lightly.)

So I go into my new band line up eyes open, sleeves rolled up and heart laid bare to feed the music.  I may get frustrated at my limited ability, but hopefully we will find something that will feed our souls, drive us on and maybe even someone somewhere, similarly twisted, may like it.  But in my heart, I don't care.  This is for me and my fellow travellers.

Who ate all the pie..?

Chart.

I have been having a bit of a mixed time lately - good times with family and friends, things are good at work, and Freya and I have had a chance to go and see a bit of the Fringe with Wee C away for a holiday at Granny and Papa's in Killie.  But the "Enemy Within" has also been in evidence, which is, I suppose, nobody's fault but mine.  The ol' Black Dog has been chewing my brain like it was a manky old slipper.  Which, in a way, it is.

I was thinking a bit about it this morning, and (being the sad old Excel-jockey that I am) I started visualising it as a pie-chart.  In my life, the vast majority is good, with my lovely family making up a substantial slice, and with friends, music, books and work etc. making up most of the rest.  Just now, however, I don't seem to have the whole pie - I am in possession of less than 100%.  One section appears to have been substituted for dark matter - or just nothing.

This missing part is, I think, the creative part of me.  And I damn well want it back.  I have tried asking myself nicely, but I am not playing, so to speak.  I know that it is all down to me.  I want to make myself feel better by grabbing my guitar and flooding my empty parts with music.  But I won't let myself.  It is too damned easy to not bother.  

If I do manage to get as far as picking one up, it is too damned easy for my mind to fill with the conviction that it is sounding awful and I should give up.  I need to play through this, I need to get involved in some sort of musical collaboration with others so that the creativity can flow between us and be amplified like in the cavity of a laser, reflecting back and forth and growing stronger with each pass.  

Of course, organising this takes the sort of energy that the depression steals away.  Depression, I feel, (and may well have mentioned before) seems to have a self-preservation instinct that tries to stop you acting to lessen its effects.

There have been small signs that I remember where my creativity is - I have been experimenting with odd tunings, and tiny fragments of passably ok new music have been emerging.  I have even been using my phone to keep these pieces for when my muse has returned sufficiently for them to be of use.  There are embers, but the flame is not yet returned.

I will though take strength from my family and friends and try to get my fire burning strongly again, because I know that when it does, it helps to make the rest of my pie/world shine that much more brightly.

A Long Way Away...

“You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.'”

― Edgar D. Mitchell (Lunar Module Pilot, Apollo 14)

44 years ago today, Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the Moon, the first ever human being to set foot on another world. The last human being to set foot on the Moon left in 1972. All of the men who went to the Moon were profoundly affected by the experience - there is an excellent book, called "Moondust" by Andrew Smith which relates those experiences via interviews with the surviving Apollo astronauts. I wholeheartedly believe that we should be going back sooner, rather than later.

Not just for the challenge, we have proved that it is possible. Not just for the science, although I believe that we could learn a huge amount more about the origins of our planet, its Moon, and indeed the whole of our Solar System. A whole lot of other things too. Mostly, because I wonder if it is something like a return to the moon that could be our best hope for saving ourselves and our planet.

We need perspective, to remind ourselves just how tiny, this, our home planet is in a universal context. It is small, fragile, and so very vital to our survival as a species. Yet it seems that we don't value it, or each other anywhere near as much as we should. If we could see our planet from the moon, small enough that you could blot it out with your thumb, perhaps then we may come to realise that we need to start treating it and each other with an appropriate amount of respect and that we have to start sharing it more thoughtfully with all of our fellow inhabitants.

There are many ridiculous arguments about economical effects and the rest. I feel that if there is a plausible risk that we are poisoning the planet sufficiently to make it uninhabitable, then that risk is too much, and we shouldn't be quibbling about the minutiae of it. We should aim to make our world safer and better for all. A renewed space programme could create a lot of jobs, potentially. Both directly and indirectly through technology spin offs. I would argue that it is possibly more cost effective than baling out investment banks that should be allowed to fail. In addition, nowadays you could get a lot more buy-in from commercial interests without necessarily jeopardising the scientific worth of the missions. 

Without a viable planet, money is not a lot of good. Indeed, anything that made humanity focus more on the plight of the planet and its inhabitants and less on the artificial construct that is money would be welcome. I don't believe for a minute that we will achieve even a fraction of what I hope for, perhaps we can get just enough.

Fact is, if we let the planet die by our actions or inaction, there will be no "standard of living", no industry, no economy - there will be no human race to create or need them.

Mibbes aye, mibbes naw...

I had an interesting conversation last night with someone last night about a topic that is only going to become more important over the next year or so - the Scottish Independence debate.

I am genuinely undecided on which way I will vote when it comes around.  I am proud to be Scottish, but have no real problem with being British and am proud of the things that Scots and people from the other British nations have achieved over the years.  

Nationalism troubles me deeply however - far too many terrible things have been done "In the name of a piece of dirt, For a change of accent, Or the color of your shirt" to quote Rush's song "Territories" - which pretty much echoes my feelings on the topic.  I try to judge people (if I need to) based solely on the person that they are - where they happen to have been born is irrelevant.    

However, my real issue with the current Independence "debate" is not anything to do with Nationalism.  It is simply that I have seen nothing yet that can be reasonably described as debate.  Childish yah-boo yeah-but-no-but squabbling, yes, reasoned, adult debate, no.

All of it seems to be "if you vote yes, we'll do..." followed by something great that they probably can't guarantee that they will be able to carry out.  Or "If you vote no, then maybe..." followed by some dire apocalyptic consequence.  Neither side seems to be able to back these statements with anything even resembling hard facts.  Surely someone, somewhere is able to provide us with actual, definite answers to these sort of questions?  What we really need, I think is an independent (irony, we do that, yes!) assessment of the key issues, so that we can make a realistic and informed decision as to which box we want to check.

Maybe we could even extend real, grown up, sensible debate into the rest of politics too?  Nah, it'll never happen...

Just a Spanish Minute...

Hola!  We're just back from a wee sojourn in Southern Spain, recently enough that our collective skin tone has not yet reverted to our natural Scottish light bluish tinge...

While we were there, we headed off on a day trip to the Alhambra in Granada for our token bit of culture.  And it is indeed a stunning icon of the medieval Moorish culture of Southern Spain.  Our guide pointed out a feature of it's decoration that got me thinking a wee bit (oh no not again, I hear you cry!)  The outside of the Alhambra is quite plain, but the inside is beautifully decorated with intricate designs - as our guide put it, they "kept it to themselves"...

It made me think about how much is to be gained from sharing our creations - be they arts, scientific discoveries or even just daft blogs by depressive weirdos!  The thing is, I suppose, that you don't know what other people will gain from or do with what is shared - in work, for instance you can share something that you have learned and save your colleagues from having to discover it themselves.  Another way that I have seen this bear fruit is by sharing our experiences with Christopher, we have hopefully given other TOF parents, who are earlier in their journey, some idea of what they can expect.  I know that we have gained from the experiences of others.

I suppose that there is a risk sometimes of "oversharing" or perhaps becoming self-obsessed (which seems to be quite common these days) but I think if you can foster a sensible "interrnal editor" and a reasonable degree of self-awareness, hopefully you can realise what to share and when to have as positive effect as you can.  (Or you can put it in a blog that people can read or ignore as they see fit!)

The "Spanish Minute" idea is another thing that I encountered on holiday - it is like a less extreme version of "manana"- as in "the show will start in 5 minutes... 5 Spanish minutes, that is".  I remain unsure of the exact correlation between "Spanish" and "normal" minutes but I am pretty sure that it is always a ratio greater than one!

Skin Deep

The past couple of weeks have been quite hard for us, I think.  Sleep has been a very scarce commodity in the Rennie household.  And it is nothing to do with my depression or Christopher's TOF issues, but something that is probably way more common than either of those.  

I am talking about the fiendish scourge that is eczema - the demon itch that can drive even the most disciplined soul to scratch themselves in a frenzy.  I, myself have suffered from skin complaints, as has Freya - we both know the impossibility of resisting the urge to tear at your own skin until you bleed in an ultimately futile attempt to make that damned itch do away.  So it is difficult for us to tell Christopher to stop scratching, though we must.  

It is also difficult to come into his room at some obscure hour of the night, half asleep and nerves shattered by the howling that has woken us, to find him writhing about on his bed, crying unconsolably and feverishly scratching at himself, often with blood all over his legs.  We seem to have every lotion, potion, cream and ointment that exists from the simple emollients to the fierce steroid creams and the positively vile icthopaste bandages.  Many nights he goes to bed bandaged neck to ankle, looking like an extra from a b-movie.  It is no joking matter, though we try to make light of it for him.  

The hardest thing though, is hearing him say "I want to give my body to someone else" or "I don;t like my skin, daddy".  These are not the sort of things that you want to hear from anyone, least of all a four year old.  Once, the blood is cleaned away, the creams and bandages applied, and the tears have been soothed away - something that Freya has a particular genius for - then Christopher starts to reassert himself over his skin, and he talks about how he doesn't like the creams, but he knows that they help his skin.  

I am weak compared to my boy, but his strength of character lends me strength - coffee will push the tiredness away long enough to get the working day over - but my beautiful family are my true love in this world.  "Beauty is only skin deep" they say, but Christopher, to me, is beautiful to the core.

A modest man...

...Who has much to be modest about.  Attributed to Winston Churchill, allegedly speaking about Clement Attlee, his wartime Deputy and postwar successor.  Quite a put down, but my brain being the odd shape that it is, was twisting it about a bit and set me wondering if that might not be a good thing, ultimately.

I have long had my own little theory (which I may have unconsciously plagiarised from somewhere, I really don't know) that we all spend our youth "growing up" and becoming more and more convinced that we know everything, only, if we are fortunate, to spend our adult years learning just how wrong we were.  Perhaps we reach a stage where we doubt everything and know nothing...  I don't have a problem with that.  

Doubt is good.  

Questions and the journey to try to answer them, which inevitably leads to more questions - unless you are intellectually moribund perhaps - is the joy of life in my view.  And I know that I have been at stages where I have reached that point of mental rigor mortis - the darkest times, the most terrifying places in my mental landscape.  Slowly, though, the way back from there has become apparent and I have gradually freed the rusted gears in the me machine,  I know that I am not as mentally agile as I was back in the day, when I managed to persuade a certain seaside academic institution that I deserved a receipt for the mental effort that I had spent there.  

Now though, that thought doesn't bother me as much as it did, because I have got my hunger and curiosity back, along with the humility (I hope) to realise that I can learn from anyone that I meet.  Particularly from a certain small boy who, like all of his kind can reflect our conceits and self-deceit and show us how ridiculous we are sometimes.

I think that we need to recover some of our childlike qualities, stop trying to be so smart and so full of our own importance - and find as much as we can to be modest about

Six words to drive you mad(der)...

"Cheer up! It might never happen!"  Or a variation thereof, generally uttered by (probably) well-meaning people - who have absolutely conception of the nature of depression...  

This week is apparently "Mental Health Awareness Week", and I saw a fairly good article on the BBC Website regarding mental health "role-models", suggesting that the "traditional" famous role-models with mental health issues (Winston Churchill, Stephen Fry etc.) are perhaps not the best ones for those of us less exceptional folk with mental health issues due to their unusual circumstances and that we need more everyday role-models.  Or at least that was my reading of it, possibly somewhat distracted by a ham roll and some soup, given that I was reading it while lunching at my desk.

But it got me thinking (Nooooooo!  Not that! I hear you cry...)  I'm no sure that I need any role-models - I am quite capable of being depressed and coping (mostly) with life without someone to show me how.  Necessity shows me how.  I think that what we still need is less fear, more understanding and for a lot of people with mental health issues a lot more support.  I am lucky - I get a lot of support from my wonderful friends and family and have also benefited from a succession of understanding managers at work.  I have also been helped by medical professionals and the medication that it seems I will probably be taking for the rest of my life.  There is no all better, as I have said before, but there is better than before.  

An analogy for the way that I experience depression came to me the other day.  I think that it is like being tired - that exhausted, bone-weary tired after you haven't slept properly for days.  (Lets pretend that going for a kip is not an option!)  You can force yourself to carry on, you can do your best, you will have times where you get a kind of "second wind" and can almost forget just how tired you are, and of course you can drink coffee or energy drinks etc. to lessen the symptoms - but you cannot simply decide not to be tired, you cannot just "buck your ideas up" and just be well rested.  That, for me, is pretty much what depression feels like - without the "good night's kip" get out clause.

Was that summer that just happened?

I am not really much of a one for flowers.  I don't think that it's a dumb machismo thing - cos I am not really much of a one for that, either.  They just don't really do much for me,  Perhaps part of it is down to the fact that I am, at best a grudging and somewhat inept gardener - few, if any, things that I have deliberately tried to grow have done so.  I have even managed to kill off mint, which I was assured generally takes over and grows like a weed for other less inept would-be exponents of the dark arts of gardening.  Perhaps it's not that; whatever it is, it generally concerns me not a jot.

There is, however one particular flower (if it is truly a flower - I don't know, or much care for that matter) that I do love to see - cherry blossom.  I think that there are few things more beautiful in nature than a flowering cherry tree in full bloom.  I still intend to replace the poster of one of Van Gogh's studies of cherry blossom that I acquired in Amsterdam, then foolishly neglected until it was too trashed to frame.  

I got to thinking about this because I noticed the first blossom emerging on the tree that is a few feet from the door of Christopher's nursery.  It has evidently been conned into coming out of hiding by the random day or two of sunshine that our wondrous Scottish weather has decided to throw at us, no doubt to pull the rug out from under our over-optimistically sandal-clad feet by then hitting us with a couple weeks of rain/hail/snow/plague of frogs more befitting a Scottish May.  I think though, joking(!) aside, that this is a clue to one of the reasons that I think I like it so much - it is a sign of impending (slightly) better weather.  Which is generally a good thing for my (and everyone else's) mood, coming from the darkness of winter into lighter mornings and longer evenings that make life that little bit better.

On a related note, I was interested to see research (done in Edinburgh) that suggests that the health benefits from exposure to sunshine (decreased likelihood of heart attacks and strokes, it seems) may well outweigh the elevated risks (but still quite low in Scotland) of skin cancer.  Particularly if you manage to avoid getting burnt - everything in moderation I suppose.  Though it is quite hard to get sunshine in anything other than moderation here!

So let us rejoice in the "cherry blossom in the market square", and try to forget how soon we'll be back to "dancing in stilettos in the snow"...

A Mistaken Perception...

I don't know if it is really more common now or if I just notice it more because I am a parent, but it seems to me that there are a lot more cases where people are killing themselves and taking their children with them.  Whatever the circumstances, it is distressing, but I wonder if it is often  at least in part, down to a warped perspective of the nature of parenthood?

I can see that in many cases, it seems to be one parent denying the other "possession" of the children as part of a divorce/break up.  Obviously, these people are not functioning quite "normally", but the bit that confuses me most is where they get the idea that they are in whole or in part the "owners" of their children?  This is certainly not the way that I think of parenthood (though I in no way claim to be an expert).  

My view is that we, as parents, are merely caretakers of our children - bringing them into being, feeding, protecting and educating them and guiding them to adulthood to make their own contribution to the world.  They owe us nothing, other than perhaps a little gratitude and maybe respect (assuming we have earned it) and they are in no way our possessions.  I have seen my son on the boundary between life and death - at one point with a heart rate of 253 - and have had to make decisions (no-brainers really) such as signing consent forms for surgery, that no parent would want to have to make, but it is not my decision to end that life or anyone else's.  His life is his own, and always should be. 

This brings me to another thing that I have encountered in news stories recently that I find difficult to handle.  I am an Atheist.  I am very happy with that and feel more at ease with that aspect of my life now than I ever have.  However, I have no real issue with people having religious beliefs. I can't really understand how they rationalise them, but fair play to them.  There is a definite line in the sand, though.  I think that where religious belief starts to require the suffering of others then it loses validity for me.  

An example of this is the stories that I have seen where religious parents (often, it would seem, American) have failed to get their children proper medical care, preferring to rely on prayer and ultimately resulting in the death of the child ("God's Will" my arse).  This is, in my eyes, one of the grossest types of dereliction of the most important duty of parenthood - to protect your child to the limit of your abilities.  Any god who wants your child to die is worthless in my view.  

I have decided (partly inspired by an interview with Neil Peart that I read recently, though mainly through years of contemplation of such things) that I can see only one rule I need (laws of the land notwithstanding) and the best way that I can think of to formulate it is "Wherever you can, lessen suffering".

Three travellers, Men of Willowdale...

On Thursday, my favourite band was inducted into the American "Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame" - which is basically an old pals club for artists that are approved by the too cool for school hipsterati that run "Rolling Stone" magazine.  I, for one, have never found myself feeling that Rush needed that sort of approval - surely coming third behind The Beatles and the Stones for number of Gold and Platinum records tells you all that you need to know...

I have never really rated the opinion of music critics - they largely seem to be bitter wannabe musicians with an axe to grind and a desire to like the "right" bands and to brainwash the gullible would be hipsters into toeing the party line.  The NME is a classic case in point - pretty much the British equivalent of the "Rolling Stone", and a prime exponent of the vile "build 'em up yo knock 'em down" culture prevalent in so much of British journalism.  They infamously described Rush as "Nazi Fascists" - which is surely particularly hurtful given that Geddy Lee's parents survived the Nazi Death Camps in WWII.  Think of that and listen to "Red Sector A" again...

I don't care if people like Rush or not.  Equally, I don't mind if other people do like them - I am not (or at least try not to be) an elitist.  I would rather like it if people gave them a chance and due credit for being a talented, innovative, hard-working and influential band.  Their music has spoken to me and many others) more than anyone else's, often describing the "view from the suburbs" - a middle class geek's view of the world.  "Subdivisions" and indeed many of the songs from the album "Signals" deals with this sort of theme.  

They are also an excellent live band who are never anything other than well-rehearsed and respectful of their audience - something that certain other Canadian artists could do well to learn.  They are now members of a club that they never really cared for, but they recognised that many of their fans cared and when inducted had the decency to turn up and thank the people whose opinions do matter to them.  Now it's back to the real business for them - see you in Glasgow on May 30th, guys!

A Hielan' Laddie...

This Friday just past, Christopher and I wore kilts of Black Watch tartan to our friends' wedding.  C looked very smart indeed.  I wore it by choice, and am proud to have done so.  

My Uncle Iain also wore it by choice, though in circumstances as far removed from a wedding as you can get.  He wore it as a member of the Black Watch, having (if I recall the family stories correctly) lied about his age to join up.  He then volunteered to join the Parachute Regiment, which was then in its infancy.  Just over 70 years ago (28th March, 1943), he was killed in action in Tunisia.  

I am glad that I have never had to join the Forces - with absolutely no disrespect to those who have - I really do not think that I am made of the right stuff for it, for a start.  I am not a brave man. Then again, I have read many stories of ordinary people who did extraordinary things in extraordinary times - perhaps I could have measured up.  I doubt it, but perhaps.  I am glad that my Uncle, and many thousands of others did, but deeply saddened that they had to.  And, because they did, I am free to choose to not join up, free to choose to wear the Black Watch tartan, and free to hope that my son will know a better world than even I have...

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