Elephant Trees

Elephant Trees are the most fantastic sort of thing. They're a bit like a baobab tree, huge, with full, bulging trunks and branches that curl around their crown in thick, fantastical wooden tendrils. Their leaves are thick and lush, a sort of wide oval, and dark green on one side, lime on the back. The seeds are pods, as large as the leaves, and the same sort of shape- although these bulge out, and if you tap them they sound hollow. They're hard and light brown. These seeds, on a healthy elephant tree, grow in abundance, rows of them dotting the uppermost branches, some 35 metres up. On a day in summer, perhaps set, perhaps not, all of these seed pods open, like a flower blooming, and from them tumble thousands of light balls of white fluff- like the heads of dandelion clocks the size of your fist, and they're caught in the wind and tumble away in a delicate, fantastical cloud.
Elephant trees are amazing things, they really are.
The only problem with them is that they don't actually exsist- I think.
Which is why me having a memory of watching one's seedpods open and tumble down a street in India whilst my Dad was getting cash from a bank is somewhat..disturbing. It's always been a particularly precious memory of mine- the glaring sun, shining like liquid silver on the backs of the half-broken cars limping down the street, the awe inspiring breadth and height of the tree, learning it's name from an indian man with clever eyes and a nice smile, and watching with baited breath as the seedpods cracked open simultaneously, and those dandelion clocks tumbled in a light wave through the wind, transforming that grotty, back end part of the city into something remarkable. It was such a special memory that around last Christmas, when my family and I were talking about various countries we've visited (both varied and numerous) that I felt the need to recount it in detail- finally unburdening myself of this beautiful memory that had been nagging at the back of my mind. As I finished I looked at their faces, smiling at the past, waiting for them to add their own view on the experience. Their perplexed expressions were not exactly what I was expecting.
I mean sure, if I'd told them pigs could fly, or the sky was green, or I really WAS sane, then maybe...well, probably, but a harmless, pretty little memory? I mean yeesh, I thought, I CAN remember some things guys... So when they explained that it had never happened- at least not when they were there, I suppose my own portrayal of perplexity mirrored theirs.
I suppose that's the thing about memories- they're slippery, glimmering, ephemeral things- like those gauze ribbons you get wrapped around fancy presents (yes, I'm thinking of a certain wonderful Australian aunt)- I mean really, think about your memories, really THINK about them- it's a collection of echoes into the now and the future, shadows, half-remembered songs, words, faces...You sort of know times, but even they are uncertain. The biggest resource for humanity to know where they've come from and what they've been- a collection of multicoloured scraps swimming in the etha of your thoughts, 'electrical impulses and chemicals', and apparently nothing more than something which can be easily explained. Yeah, right.
And of course they shouldn't be- because, in so many ways, memories are the building blocks of the soul, scaffolding, mortar, cement- of emotion and experience and lessons learnt, that make us react logically or irrationally, favour and ignore, develop and grow. They're as much a part of our 'heart' as everything in the now.
And of course- the most precious thing of all is the memories we're given: stories and scraps and words and sounds that grow in precious corners of our mind, for us to pass on to those we love and for them to do so too in turn- it's all very well being politically correct, and 'behaving in public', trying not to exclude other 'ethnic groups' (we're not allowed to call them races are we now?) But the treasures of our culture, the ballads and rhymes and poems and songs, surely they at least are worth preserving? It's one of the many things that make us human- the way we are nourished by a collective set of stories, wild and bright, as old as anyone can remember.
So maybe my Elephant Tree was a memory of a dream, or a daydream, or just a figment of my imagination grown in my subconscious to epic proportions, but that's not going to stop me from passing it on- from reminding everyone around me, those I love and those crazy enough to listen to me, that the world, our lives, each one of us is not only unique- we are a work of art 200 000 years in the making and still growing, still living, making magic and lives and memories, memories, memories- together a tapestry of life and triumph and loss and love, beautiful and surreal and as alive as we are.
At whatever stage of our lives- birth, childhood, adulthood, death and whatever comes after, we're part of something more already- we just need to remember from time to time.

Catharsis

One definition of that funny sounding (and looking word) is: 'A release of emotional tension, as after an overwhelming experience, that restores or refreshes the spirit.'
Now today, I've been hurtling along on what some people would call, 'an emotional rollercoaster', (which really makes no sense whatsoever, I paid no fee, didn't sit next to an obsese American, and was not once concerned that the metal railings seemed a little too unstable) Still, I suppose it's as good a description as any.
Today I woke up at 6.05 am, I listened to my ipod, with some great new music, and wondered if I preferred Vampire Weekend or Death Cab for Cutie. It took about 45 minutes for me to realise I'd set my alarm early so I'd get time to pack. It took another 15 minutes for me to realise I was supposed to be up early for breakfast anyway, for 7.30am, which lead to me whirling round my room, knocking over several precarious stacks of books, and sprinting down the stairs. It really was quite a whimsical awakening.
When I got downstairs, I realised another thing I'd missed in my half sleeping state. Everyone else was wearing white shirts. Which meant they were in our school's 'best dress'. And as I sat down with my 'healthy' breakfast, and saw a certain picture hanging on the wall, I remembered why they were. Why I should be.
Today was Tony Ho's memorial mass.
It's funny. White's not even a colour:it can be transparent or opaque, good, clinical or detached. And sometimes it just hits you in the face. Bright, blank, clean. Thus began the rollercoaster.
I didn't know Tony particularly well. It took me a moment when I first heard of his murder to even conjure up a fuzzy mental image of his face. I could only remember, in a flashback sort of way that Hollywood would be proud of, a moment in his last term, and my last before starting boarding. It was summer, and he held the door open for me. Generally, people didn't hold the door open for me. I'm normally the one holding the door.On an impulse I told him how my family and I were going to move to Hong Kong, and I'd start boarding. The delighted surprise on his face, followed immediately by an offer to teach my brother and I Chinese, help us settle in with boarding and maybe take us round Hong Kong brightened my day. Just a moment. Just a few words, a smile, and sunlight. But it was special to me.
It also reminded me that in my life I've had an inordinate amount of luck. I feel almost guilty about it, and filled with growing trepidation. In my whole life, I've only known 3 people who have died after I've met them. I have lived 9 and a half thousand miles away, I currently live in two countries 6000 miles apart. I've had at least 4 houses and have family spread across the 93000 square miles of this country. I've known so many people. Yet I've never had to confront death like that. The last time was when I was 10, with my babysitter. I still feel hollow when I think about it.
But that's not what I'm writing about.
The roller-coaster involved frustration with certain inept scottish house mistresses, anger at a lot of things, sadness, empathy, pity, recognition, nostalgia (in great soggy buckets), and then my Catharsis.
But just before I mention that, I'll pinpoint the moment in the mass when I started to cry. I'm in the choir, and we wanted to sing to remember Tony. Before anyone sang however, before anyone even spoke, someone played some music on the piano and we all stood up.
And we watched as two of Tony's close friends, old pupils, came up and put a school rugby jacket at the foot of the altar, next to his picture. That was when my tears started. I really had to fight to suppress the sobs a few minutes later when our DT teacher did the first reading, and started crying as she read it. It was one of the most agonizing, touching, beautifully painful moments of my life. And I loved the fact that we could sing for him. In that mass, everything became very real to me, and at the same time, for a moment, we could all mourn in our own private space. Just for a time, we could give in, and be sorry, and sad. And that, I think, was very right indeed.
Perhaps most remarkable of all was that all of over 400 children from 11 to 19 kept completely silent, sang with all their hearts, and for once made no fuss. Just goes to show, even the 'youth of today' can appreciate some things.
After followed yet more stress, frustration, confusion and me living life as I usually do, in a hectically chaotic state of disarray. (also, my comforting fish and chips were cruelly stolen and replaced with salad and a banana. I was not impressed). Yet now my roller-coaster was somewhat more subdued, there was a fuzzy sheet of glass between me and the me that was on the outside, grinning and yelping in mock outrage and rushing back and forth. And then, finally, at around 4.40pm came my Catharsis.
Sometimes, I love Shakespeare. Considering without us and the scene he wanted to rehearse, there would be no rehearsal, my director came to the chapel and all but dragged me and the 3 other 'lovers' to the theatre.
Thus followed enthusiastic, passionate, hilarious and exhilarating rehearsals,in which I laughed throughout. It was brilliant, and my little bubble of private sorrow melted away. I don't think it was too quick, considering I've felt it for about 2 weeks, but it was nice to feel free again, less inhibited. Plus, seriously, those rehearsals were hilarious.
Really though, when we're gone, what do people remember us by? I don't mean how many Michael Jackson-esque concerts will you receive, or if they'll plant a forest in your memory. Really, what will your friends and family remember you by? Your grades? Your achievements? The latest color you dyed your hair? Or a little fragment of memory. Sunshine. A drawing. A rugby jacket, and a shared loss. Songs and tears. Sometimes, it's the ordinary things that make the most exceptional memories. And to be absolutely honest, it's the best way really.

The thing about Shakespeare...

Is that he always seems to need a heck of a lot of words to say something that could be said in what? Two? I mean yeah yeah, literary genius, language devices, that's all very well, but when I'm trying to learn my lines and I'm repeating six or seven thou's and hateth's when I could say what I'm trying to learn in six or seven words (and I'm a verbose sort of person) you do have to wonder what was going through the great man's head. I mean, really!
Ok, so lets be honest, when he wrote the play 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' it's...unlikely the poor bloke was in his right mind, (and using Puck to apologise, cos even if he's having a funny phase, that man could self edit). Don't get me wrong, I love how bonkers it is- kind of like me, but you look at Midsummer and then you look at, say, Hamlet, and you think, yeeeaahh, ok Shakespeare...
Mind you, he was a funny guy. I mean, I don't think I've ever had the fortune to partake in such amusing rehearsals, I spent most of the time on the floor laughing (and the rest of the time on the floor holding onto the legs of my true love, who hates me). Whether he was a farm boy or a secret Royal (I don't buy the whole gang of people idea, I mean c'mon, they'd have to have a Hive mind to synchronise their style to that degree, and I don't think there were ever that many people who were that brilliant in the same place) Shakespeare was brilliant. A bit like any one of you.
Because Shakespeare, if I'm honest, in my opinion was absolutely exceptional, and I'm not saying that any of you are going to sit down one day and write Macbeth, the sequel. At the same time though, no matter how low your self-esteem, how bad your latest grade or what kind of job/lifestyle/family you've got at the moment, I think it's important to realise that each and every one of you is brilliant. (Especially you, since you read my blog, obviously. ha) Because it's true! There's something special about every single person I've ever met, and I've got to tell you, it continues to astound me. Whether they can sneeze like donald duck,(yeah I know, so cool!!) or just know exactly what to say and when to say it.
Because if you think about it, it's not necessarily the fairies or the Athenians or the dukes that stick in your head when you watch A Midsummer Night's Dream, it's not those fantastic costumes or fancy (over worded) speeches, their ceremony or power. I tell you what, when I saw it the first time when I was twelve, all anyone could talk about was the mechanicals. A bunch of ordinary, average, clumsy people putting on a play in a play. The least remarkable characters, the ones who's very creation was a joke- and yet even as they stumble through their lines and overact into a tragedy so prolonged it's funny, they're great.
And maybe that's what was quite so stunning about Shakespeare. Not the sheer brilliance, or the way he painted words into a dance of tongues and an explosion of colour and emotion. Just the way he could recognise and forge something extraordinary into anyone or anything. Or maybe he just brought out what was already there.
It's a bit like my director said- it's all very well to want to enhance the mystery by saying there's some kind of conspiracy behind Shakespeare and his plays, something to make the intellectuals feel better and us ordinary folk less intimidated.
But isn't it magical enough to just think that some bloke, just an ordinary, average bloke five hundred years ago sat down in an inn with an old feather and a pot of ink and made something so beautiful, so brilliant, so outstanding that it's still alive even today, throbbing at the heart of our society?
Thinking like that, I guess I can probably forgive Shakespeare all those words. But just this once.

Gimme a sec..

..I'm feeling sentimental. Hello all! Did ya miss me? 'Course not, miss never ever updates any more can't be too popular around her lovely readers at the moment, but I promise I'm going to make it up to you. Promise. Really. I've written the post and everything, just in case I forgot. However, first off, I really am feeling rather sentimental, and I just wanted to say a token farewell to David Tennant. Yes, I watch Doctor Who but lets be honest, I've done worse. (I'll give you a clue, it starts with T and ends with t and has got a whole lot of guilty pleasure but not all that much plot in the middle) And really, David Tennant is just a fantastic actor, and that last episode was brilliant. Maybe Russel T Davies could have made it a touch more believable, but it was epic, and Tennant flew through it, pulling on my heartstrings, and even convincing a few tears (ok I admit, I was sobbing). It's a new year, a new doctor, new resolutions (ever actually kept to 'em?Yeah thought not, haha) In fact there's quite a lot of new things, but lets just have a moment to say goodbye to last year- 'cos you know what? It was fantastic.

Britain's education system...

You know the real problem with British school's these days? You know- apart from the obvious incapable dealings with the weather, persistent struggle against the addition of any useful subjects, abhorrence of a decent exam board or system and insistence on 'talking about our feelings.' Seriously, apart from all that, you know the real problem with British education today? Stationary. Well, stationary refunds, anyway.

Because, you see, in the past two weeks I've been doing practice examinations for my GCSE's, (which lets be honest, will be almost completely irrelevant by 2011) and I've got a really big problem with the way my school's been running things. I'm not referring to the 'men' in power's pointless struggle against mother nature and their own pride, or the bizarre tenacity with which the school insists on cramming two weeks worth of exams into one with only half their pupils present. No. I'm talking about the fact that before I travelled my 6,000 miles to go to school, I, like a good little school girl, got myself a new pack of pens. 4 of them, black Biro's, as specified by the exam boards our school has chosen (in it's infinite wisdom) to associate itself with.OK, I'll admit that one was, inevitably lost in the etha, most likely whilst my brother and I conversed in Pig Latin whilst going through security in Paris- (we were a little 'slaphappy' what with having just travelled for 13 hours watching my mini TV go technicolor and trying to convince ourselves the strange pieces of meat in our little tin foil packs really were pork, really...). However, the other three, perfectly fine looking, decent, average black Biro's remained in my possession. I even managed to get them to school.

In fact, I hung onto them whilst I unpacked my things (again), the boarders went on our weekend trip to the closest shopping centre (again) and I got soaked and freezing and hyper in a snowball fight (again).

But now, with my 'actual' GCSE biology, French reading and History exam looming, I find I am without a suitable implement, and I really honestly think I deserve recompensing.

Why you ask? Because, that school has destroyed all three of my lovely new black Biro's in less than two full weeks! No, my physics teacher did not finally lose all sense of reason and put them on the ice in front of his car before running them over repeatedly whilst cackling madly in his latest attempt to shut me up. No, because of our mock exams, all three pens are completely out of ink!

I mean, I know I've been criticised for being somewhat verbose, but it was all the school's fault for setting the questions in the first place- I swear! Really, they demanded that I wrote a sum total of 52 A4 pages so far...honest!

And now look! Three more big exams and I don't even have a pen. Can't even recycle it! I mean it's no wonder they've got problems with excess waste, the amount of exams we're having these days...I mean that's a heck of a lot of black Biro's!

Lets face it, climate change is happening, and it has been for a long time, and always has been going to (ice age anyone?), whether or not it's global warming speeding it up for quite such an eclectic multitude of reasons is debatable, but really, instead of looking back on a past we can't change, shouldn't we be looking forward to future that we can prepare for, and a present in which we can act?

I mean seriously, they're the educators, they ought to be providing the stationary in the first place! And whatever happened to the pencil?

Photos

It is a surprising but true urban myth that people living in the so-called ‘Third World’ think if their photo is taken, then their soul is captured inside the machine, and then pressed onto paper. They seem to be under the impression that their soul has been trapped: caged, you could say- and this will somehow prevent them from continuing to the next life after death.

I have no idea if this is true- having not yet died, it’s impossible to know. I do know that not everyone in the third world believes this- but there is an element of fear in seeing yourself on a piece of paper, and from a trip backpacking in India, I know at least a few uphold the superstition.

I’ll never forget when my mother took the photo of a young boy in India - his reaction was so unusual to me, it has remained in my mind clearly to this day: a feat which my maths homework has yet to accomplish. Mum took the photo whilst the boy watched curiously from his perch on a slightly rotting gate- when the flash went, he gave a little cry and threw his hands to his face, but realizing quickly there was no danger, he relaxed almost instantly. Mum came closer whilst he watched warily, although he smiled a little as she spoke to him (she’s good with kids). When she turned the digital camera round to show him his photo, he nearly fell off the gate in surprise- then he grabbed the camera and peered more closely at the tiny image, all but pressing his nose to the screen. He poked different parts of his face that he saw in the camera and rubbed his hair. Then he started to giggle, and laugh hysterically- he called his friends over, and all of them stared at the camera with expressions ranging from blank confusion to great amusement.

Eventually the boy gave Mum back the camera- smiling from ear to ear, and when we left, he and his friends chased after the truck, waving and laughing. His grandmother tried to give him to us; so he could have a better future, since he was an orphan and she knew she did not have much longer to live. We couldn’t take him, of course- but I wish we’d found out his name.

I only mention this because it seems a polar opposite to the far east’s obsession with photography. I’ve even seen the Hong Kong Chinese taking pictures of themselves and each other next to unremarkable office building, in Hong Kong! I’ve never understood it, and was only more bewildered when I had a close encounter of the Chinese Polaroid kind.

I was paddling in the sea, on a beach with some friends of ours- occasionally diving and jumping off the pontoon, but otherwise minding my own business- when two random Chinese guys came over and asked me, in poor and heavily accented English that was nonetheless polite, to take a photo with them.

At first, I presumed, so bizarre was their request, that they were asking me to take a photo of them with the camera a young girl who I could only assume to be their sister was holding. I gestured for the girl to give me the camera, getting out of the surf and wondering if my salty hands would damage it, when the boys shook their heads and repeated their request. Blushing and confused now, I asked them why, but they just repeated the question again, and I guessed that they either didn’t understand, or chose to ignore my own inquiry.

Unhappy and uncomfortable, I stood impassively, trying for a closed mouth smile as the girl took a photo with the boys on either side. Afterwards, they thanked me profusely, and I returned to paddling with our friends, waiting for them to burst out laughing or receive some loud exclamation from their friends or ask someone else for a photo. But they did none of the above, simply taking a few photos with each other and the girl before packing up their things and going to the pier to catch a boat back to wherever they came from.

I still don’t know what that was about- but I can see the convoluted attraction in a world based entirely upon artificial image in different places, with different people, at different times of your life- trying to preserve it on glossy paper, even as it slips away; because you can’t see it with unclouded eyes. A cage for our soul, or simply our eyes- perhaps the camera has provided a trap, albeit a pretty one, which is almost impossible to escape…Or maybe not: I wouldn’t know, I can only speculate.

I may have been some time...

Well, you've got to love Captain Oats, what with the heroic last words and all. You probably don't love me as much though, and it's understandable- I mean, I haven't posted in...how long? You see, THIS is why I never used my diary... Anyway, I'm NOT going to bore you with trips to Cambridge, Typhoon 8's in Hong Kong, random excursions to Wales and Somerset. I most certainly will NOT be mentioning scaling waterfalls and bathing in fresh water streams- or speed boating and yacht racing and nearly ripping my leg open in shark/pink dolphin infested South China sea on a paid job. And there's no way I'm even mentioning the massive black, yellow, red and green spider that was in the banana plantation next door and looked like something from a joke store in a completely non funny way. I'm not going to bore you with tales of the burmese python having been caught after eating a dog a month, including huskies. I will not drone about going boogie boarding in Australia, or missing the Perseid meteor shower but seeing wild dolphins, the milky way and numerous shooting stars. Surprisingly however- that then leaves me without that much to say. Oh well, maybe next time.
From somehwere in Australia, listening to 'Daydreamin' Blues', Kat.