Stepping into Santa's Shoes

At the end of last summer’s cricket season at our Club, amongst the Junior Awards I wanted to present trophies to three “Most Improved Players” for the year. As our playing members’ ages spanned 6 to 15, I decided to award them to three players of differing ages – as improvement can vary at any stage of our development.

Now the youngest recipient was actually our youngest member – a lad who has now just turned 7 – but he couldn’t make the presentations night so it was down to me to get his trophy to him somehow. Of course, no one except me had any idea that he would be getting an award, but at some stage I knew there would be ways of getting it to him, albeit away from the ‘glamour’ of ceremony!

 

Alignments

On occasions, events and happenings take place that might seemingly be random and just occur ‘by chance’. I call these cosmic alignments, because some kind of order has been wrought out of the random chaos. It is of no concern to me why these ‘orderings’ take place, or who contrives them. There are minds much greater and far more revered than mine, who will readily postulate views as to who or what might be responsible for such things. I’m just happy to put it down to Cosmic Order, and leave it at that. It keeps the magic intact, I feel.

 

See Me after School

This afternoon I had the opportunity to visit one of the primary schools where I go to teach cricket for Chance to Shine in the Summer Term – ostensibly to talk about how they might want to run the cricket part of their next summer’s sporting activity, in conjunction with me.

Now the teacher I wanted to see was the father of the player I mentioned above - so I took along the little trophy to give to him to take home for his son. In terms of my plans this was a ‘two birds with one stone’ situation!

I arrived after school had officially ended, although with the run up to Christmas there was a lot of extra-curricular activity going on in various classrooms. I duly found where he was, still at work, in a room with a couple of other teachers as well. To my surprise and delight there was one young pupil in a corner - filling his time doing some painting, while waiting for his Dad to finish off work.

After our greetings I said to his Dad, “I’ve actually come for two reasons. One is to talk about next summer’s cricket and the other is to make a presentation.”

The following moments were – for me – pure gold; the icing on a coach’s cake if you like – yet the kind of icing that wouldn’t have been the same if I’d actually presented his trophy when the others were awarded some months earlier.

This was totally, but totally, unexpected for both Father and Son, and I felt like I was standing there in Santa’s shoes, fulfilling the role of Santa for both of them.

I gave the young man his trophy and shook his hand - and we all clapped. I then asked him to read out what was engraved on the trophy, which he did – and then he had to leave the room for a bit to compose himself, as he was quite overcome by the emotion of the moment. 
 

Magic

This was, it turns out, his first ever award of any kind – yet thoroughly deserved, and. I suspect his Dad will need to get him a trophy cabinet in years to come!

Now we can all get job satisfaction, a sense of achievement for all the stuff that we do.
It is part of what I sometimes post up as being #LoveMyJob!
However, these particular golden moments are off the satisfaction scale - and yet are nothing to do with the actual work that I do.

The simple act of giving an award to someone for what THEY have done over a season – was, for three people concerned, transformed into something truly memorable.

That is what comes about when circumstances are presented for alignments to possibly occur. The facilitation of this particular alignment required some compliance by the three people concerned, albeit unwittingly by the young lad and his Dad.

Santa

And that’s the thing about Santa, as he wings through the night on Eves before Christmas, delivering these goodies here and those delights there – spiriting his way into people’s lives, sometimes via chimney, sometimes not; gradually filling up with sherry and mince pies, as his trusty steeds fill up with crunchy carrots.

He is all about the Magic and the Wonder that we experience.
It isn’t about the Gift, per se, it is all about the experience.

Father and Son didn’t wish for anything today – and I was just planning to drop something off in the course of chatting about next summer. Yet in our separate ways, all three of us had a special experience.

It may be December, and I may be Old Fashioned ... but I stepped into Santa’s shoes today and it was wonderful!

Dementia Diary - Stuck in a Moment

In amidst the bubbling and boiling emotional sea that can beset the voyage of any dementia carer, there can be intuitive and insightful moments. Needless to say, the depth to which we are almost submerged in that sea can mask any level of learning and discovery we may get from the insights. It is in the very nature of those things that we are coming to terms with all the time.

The Long Day

Yesterday my Dad was awake and came downstairs early and, as happens sometimes, he ‘dressed’ by putting another pair of pyjamas over the top of the ones he was wearing when he woke up! Life is easier for us both when I choose to not take an interventionist line, so I paid no attention to this double layer of nightwear. However, I did fetch his dressing gown and helped him on with that, as I knew it would afford him an extra layer of warm and protective raiment – however long he would be choosing to stay up.

As it turned out, he stayed down for probably the Longest Day Up he’d spent for months. Pottering around, reading, eating, drinking and playing a considerable amount of music on the pedal harmonium in his ‘lounge’. I’d written him out a list of Christmas songs and carols and he worked his way through it several times, and at some point he found me and proceeded to tell me all about them – and “what a good list this was that someone had done” for him! And this was another thing there was little point in labouring, i.e that the someone was me!

Loops and Exits

We are all conditioned to certain habits and behavioural loops. It is part of how we pattern up our world, make sense of it and make it work for us. Routines are just that – strategies to help things function at both a macro and a micro level. From how we brush our teeth and get dressed, to the route we take to work, to how we deal with our social interactions, eat our food etc. Patterns and routines; how B follows A and how we make our way to X, Y and bed.

Prisoner

My Dad was a POW for most of World War 2, and through the winter of 1944-45 he was part of many camps in Poland and the east of Germany where the inmates were moved westwards ahead of the Russian advance. This movement was not by transport, but on foot – day after day, week after week. It was known as the Long March to Freedom.

My aunt told me what happened to him one day after he’d arrived back home in England. He’d gone out one morning for a walk up into town, yet well into the afternoon time was moving on and he still hadn’t returned home. Eventually he arrived back after dark, worn out and hungry and when asked where he’d been and what he’d been doing he just said, “Walking and finding my way home.” However, after some further enquiries and discoveries it transpired that, when left to his own devices, he’d always walk on the right hand roadside pavement, and he’d always turn right at road junctions. Needless to say this accounted for his somewhat convoluted route along the suburban streets, back from his visit to the town.
He’d got into marching rhythm as he was coming home from the centre of town – and got into a loop that had been imprinted on him during the trauma of the Long March.

A Matter of Life and Death

They’d been told by the accompanying guards on the march that when they were ordered to get off the roads – because of swoops by Allied aircraft – they were to ALWAYS get off to the right. If they stayed where they were they would probably be shot by the strafing cannon fire from the aircraft, and if they went off to the LEFT they would be shot as escapees by the German guards. Apparently, some prisoners failed to obey orders and ended up being shot dead. So the imprint – and the habitual loop – went as deep as it gets. It was, quite simply, go right to stay alive.

Bedtime

So the time came round and he eventually made his way back upstairs to bed. But it was taking him ages to get into bed, and every time I looked in to see, or take him the promised cup of tea, he was still walking around the bedroom clearly looking for something.

He’ll often be hunting for stuff and will tell me when I ask him, but last night I got no meaningful answer to my questions. He kept looking in the bed, feeling how warm the electric blanket was and so on, and then he’d carry on the search elsewhere. Even when I invited him to take off his dressing gown and I’d hang it up, so then he could get into bed, he was still just Stuck In The Moment – as the U2 song goes!
He couldn’t get himself together as he was stuck in the moment and he couldn’t get out of it!

And then I realised he was looking for his pyjamas. He was looking for what he was wearing, but he couldn’t see the pyjamas on himself because he was wearing the dressing gown and they were hidden from view.

Thankfully, once the dressing gown was hung up, he stepped out of the loop and got into bed!

Later Was better;
His way had faltered along his stony path;
But it was just a moment and the time had passed.

Think Like A Dog

Isn’t it in the very nature of parables and intuitions that sometimes they are framed up in the oddest ways?

Now I’d like to aver at the outset, that THE world really is akin to that never ceasing and random quantum soup that Nobel Prize winning neurophysiologist Sir John Eccles referred to in his famous quote.
It is all out there beyond the limits of our perceptual apparatus. And, of course, part of the way we use that apparatus is to endeavour to make sense of the world for ourselves. We apply make-up to the world because we can; because we’re worth it – as the phrase goes.

 

Match Preparation

One of the less than savoury elements of the home match preparations for our rugby club is to remove canine faecal matter from the field of play. Our field is a community open space and it is in the selfish nature of some – though not all – local dog owners, to use the rugby pitch as a free range dog toilet.

However, I am not here to rant at this local version of man’s inhumanity to man, but merely to frame the scene.

This particular week, our exceedingly willing ball-boy was sent out with the bucket and shovel to see what he could find. Meanwhile, I’d set up our team’s warm-up equipment at the far end of the field, and I noticed him walking around and casting his attention hither and thither.

Eventually he came down to where I was, saying, “I saw some earlier but now I can’t find it anywhere. It’s so annoying, because I know it’s there somewhere.” I had some time on my hands, so I walked back down the other end of the field with him by way of being a helpful and extra “pair of eyes” in his search for the dark (and foul-smelling) matter.
On the way I looked at him straight-faced and said, “Of course the best way to search is to think like a dog.”
As he looked at me his jaw hung slightly open as if he couldn’t quite believe what he had just heard. “Think about it,” I continued. “Part of why you haven’t been able to find it is because you’ve been thinking and looking like a human. But this is dog business, so think like a dog and you’ll find it.” A smile began to creep across his face because by now he was probably thinking I was joking. “No, seriously,” I said. “A dog doesn’t just go anywhere does it? It wanders around, and then selects the right spot. It’s a canine thing – so let’s think and look ... like a dog.”

And then, in a moment where my “weirdness” ranking in his eyes must have gone up to that of a Grand Master, we saw what he’d been looking for. It was literally seconds after he’d directed us to the general area where he thought it was. “See how easy it is when we change our thinking!” I said.

Lessons

In the midst of this comedy moment, I felt a sense of cosmic magic and profound intuition. It was similar to discovering those ‘lost’ car keys or spectacles right where they had always been – there right under or at the end of our nose! It’s the same as a great detective solving the whodunit by understanding the criminal mind that perpetrated the scheme of things.

And the fascinating answer with this particular case is, quite literally, down to our thinking versus canine thinking, which gives us all the clues we ever need to know about our problems, issues, conundrums and eventual solutions. It ‘s all in our thinking!

One of my favourite TV programmes is The Dog Whisperer, where hapless owners bring their problem pooches to canine psychologist Cesar Millan. His results with the dogs are rapid, and then the fun begins as he sets about educating the owners in changing their thinking, habits and behaviour. However, the rapidity of his Whispering with the dogs is that he understands what is happening for them, from a canine perspective, and directs all his attention to making that better.

The other thing I know from all this is the impact on one particular young and impressionable human mind – because I’ve worked with enough young impressionable human minds to know that nothing I say or do ever goes unnoticed. Even though what he was originally looking for, armed with bucket and shovel, really was unnoticed!

Connect 4

I was on a train the other day and four young lads got on and came and sat across the aisle from me. I surmised they were good buddies from their casual demeanour and body language – and there were no particular leaders and followers, they were just cool and comfortable in each other’s company. I expected conversation, banter, some quips, some laughter, and a general raising of the dynamic in the part of the carriage nearest to me.

Then they all got out their mobile phones and started texting, or tweeting, or answering emails, or going on InterFace or some other Tinterweb book, or ... whatever. Essentially they had retreated inside their electronic shells like hermit crabs with super-dextrous thumbs. In world terms it is a balance of real and virtual.

Now back in the day I can remember hanging out with mates and occasionally we’d go to the cinema. One favourite morsel of fare was Westerns – and we’d all leave the cinema talking like John Wayne or walking like Robert Mitchum, shooting things with a finger pistol and blowing down the imaginary barrel.
In world terms it was a balance of real and virtual.

So not much has changed, has it?

Well, on the face of it – no; but here’s the thing that really flags up in the real 21^st Century world ...

When Lad A and Lad C spontaneously started laughing I thought it was a moment of cosmic synchronicity – until I realised they were communicating with each other by text. Then Lad A showed Lad B his phone screen, as did Lad C to Lad D – and then they started laughing as well!

An interesting and maybe fascinating form of Connect-4.

 

Terminus

So where is all this leading, because nothing ever stands still does it? This whole developmental train is moving in some direction isn’t it?

Is the art of communication expanding outwards, like the universe after the Big Bang – or is its diversity fading?

Will certain communication skills that we diligently encourage children to develop “into the muscle”, then atrophy in the conduit of the monotone digital interface? Will, in some bizarre Darwinian twist of selection, our tongues fall silent and our ears dissolve?

Is the train hurtling towards the buffers of some not too distant terminus; where the need to develop our sense of identity is irrelevant in comparison to the bandwith of our electronic capabilities; where no one really Minds because our brains are just sophisticated computers; where eventually the only true sense of one’s identity is encapsulated in their “Me Myself and I Phone”.

 

I’ve had some amazing and wonderful connections these last few weeks, with people just happy and comfortable with making meaningful conversations the “old fashioned” way. Interestingly, the topic of all things communicative and interactive gravitating towards the Insular-Virtual axis, just kept coming up.

Mobiles have already become comfort blankets for our insecurities. Public gathering and meeting places, places where people have to wait for something to happen or arrive, and other similar venues are where you can witness a lot of symptoms in action.
It starts with our hands - we have to do something with our hands – keep them occupied. Smoking a cigarette used to keep our hands busy, however nowadays it is the mobile that fits the bill. I find I do it myself when alone, waiting – I reach for the mobile, only 30 seconds after I’d put it back in my pocket.
Then there’s the self-esteem thing when no one has rung, texted or emailed for a period of time. It starts with “I wonder why not?” and ends with, “What’s wrong with me?”

Stress, anxiety, OCD, addictive behaviour, low self-esteem, lack of confidence, boredom – your friendly virtual interfaces will help you with all of the above, by the feeding of your insecurities for a seemingly miniscule fee per session.  

The “Quiet Carriage” on some of our trains seems to be a particular battleground – which is perhaps why I like to travel in them, like some kind of War Correspondent! Only last week I witnessed a near fight when a fellow traveller took exception to someone’s audible mobile ringtone. (QC passengers are requested to turn off mobiles and keep noise to a minimum as a courtesy to other rail users.) He ended up effing and blinding at the top of his voice at the perp - which was a total irony.

The danger with all interfaces is that they become reliable and familiar middlemen. Through that reliability and familiarity they become more than useful, they become indispensable.
“I don’t know how we ever did without them,” is something we’ve heard said all too often.
The danger with all middlemen is that, when everything is scaled up, the middlemen become increasingly important and increasingly powerful.

At the moment, in parts of our culture populated by people like Lads A-D, the mobile phone middleman is further up the importance scale than both the imparters and the receivers. Without the middleman people would have to talk to each other – OMG! They would have to form sentences and use tonal inflections in their voices AND act out their acronyms!
“Please help! Can somebody tell me what do I need to do to ROFL?”

There is an interesting factor about the communications middlemen and it is this. In any part of the globe you will find that for those who actually sign up to being part of the modern world, all people seem to have either one or both of these:- television; mobile phone. There can be widespread and abject poverty and no money for food – yet there they are! And how are the TVs and mobiles provided for, as I’m sure they don’t come free? Unless they are hands free of course, LOL!

Conclusion

Long gone are the days when the pen was mightier than the sword; now the pen is being out-muscled by the key-pad and productive sex – sorry, predictive text. And the next metamorphosis is...?

Remember this:-
Knowledge is Power – Communication is Knowledge – Power is Communication.
It is just another form of Stone – Paper – Scissors innit?!

So when all is said and done - what DO we connect for?