The Missing Super Bitch Sock, The Uncertainty Principle and My Bifurcation Point

Today I was confronted with a dilemma which has been plaguing mankind since the village hosier in Chaucer’s day weaved a fine hose – where do all the missing socks go?   Why is it that no matter how many socks you have, how careful you are to transfer them directly to the laundry basket when you take them off, directly to the washing machine and then to the tumble drier (immediately next to it) and then directly to the drawer once they are clean, you eventually end up with fewer socks than when you started? Why is there always one single sock that's a completely different colour or pattern or shape than all of the others?

I’m frequently confounded by this – how is it that half of the matched socks disappear but they seem to be replaced with socks which I have never seen before.  What happened to my cute Eyore socks and my other Super Bitch sock (a tongue-in-cheek gift from my sister on my 35^th birthday)?  Why is it that I have 3 different socks?  As I stood there confounded at the tumble drier – I figured the only possible explanation is evolution. 

As I stood there staring at three different socks, I became convinced that socks are shapeshifters – they change their appearances to fit a new situation – like the way an old sweater will assume the shape of the person who wears it.  Perhaps they figure if they stay the same, we will keep wearing them, wear holes into them only to be discarded.  So they change, they develop new shapes and patterns but only in water followed by heat.  The other alternative of course is that my tumble drier is a portkey and my missing socks are out there somewhere in a parallel universe where some other woman is shaking her head looking at three odd socks wondering where on earth the Super Bitch sock came from.

Isn’t life like this too?  Just when you think you have all your ducks in a row (or all your socks) you discover that things are not what they seem. I blame scientific reductionism – we have all been brainwashed by Isaac Newton.  We were raised to believe that the only way to understand something is to break it down into its constituent parts and functions.  Newton declared this when he stated that all moving objects moved in mechanistic ways governed by certain laws and principles.  His brilliant explanation of gravity persuaded us all to think that everything in life is determined by the laws of cause and effect and that everything in life can be understood by scientific reductionism.  While the apple may have fallen on his head, I cannot explain the three mismatched socks and I certainly cannot explain some of the circumstances I find myself in by cause and effect.  It also does not explain why people leave you when you give them your heart and soul and vulnerability.  In fact, there is nothing more you can give to someone than your complete and utter vulnerability.

This brings me to the Uncertainty Principle.   I am beginning to think that some of the basic tenets of quantum physics are far more relevant to our everyday lives than we even begin to realise. I find it amusing that while scientists previously considered matter to be solid – physicists have since discovered that there are in fact no solid particles underlying the structure of any objects which we perceive as solid.  What we perceive as solid matter is in fact an assemblage of countless miniscule energy potentials vibrating in relation to each other at incredible speeds.  Isn’t that true about so many things in life too?  What appears to be is often far from reality.

Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle asserts that a detached objective observation or measurement from outside a subatomic system is not possible.  The act of observing affects what is observed.  In other words, the observer influences the system which is being studied.  The principle asserts that  it is impossible to know everything there is to know about a particle with absolute certainly.  When you know about one aspect of a particle, you lose information about other aspects of it.  Isn’t that true about people too?  For example, when you think you are sure someone loves you, you don’t know why; and when you have figured out why they love you, you don’t know if they do.

I know that the quantum world is abstract and mathematical and in some ways a “shadow” world because we can never know it directly by observing it.  When we attempt to measure a quantum system or entity, the very act of measuring it, changes the system.  If someone says “I love you” and you ask them how much, do they love you less?

I have written before that everything in life seems to be connected somehow – there seems to be an intricate web of invisible strands that holds our existence together.  Isn’t if funny that a quantum entity is said to be in every possible state at the same time – called a “superposition” – and upon measurement, it chooses one state – the state that best conforms to the experimental conditions or context at the time.  In other words, if you are looking for signs of cancer you will find them.  If you are looking for the negative in people, you will bring out the negative in them.  Perhaps my socks knew I thought they would be missing and then shape-shifted.  The same is true for relationships – perhaps if I was listening and waiting for the other shoe to drop, trust me I am still reeling from the thud.  Perhaps I should take a lesson from my Super Bitch sock...

I’m fascinated by this “knowledge” that emerges and change the trajectory of life completely.  The chromosomes in a fertilized egg do not carry a final and complete blueprint for the body that will develop.  They are just a starting point – potential.  As the cells multiply and differentiate, the new cells seem to “know” what functions have to be assumed and they go on to become different types of tissue. 


I’m wondering why we don’t have the same superposition in our psyche – why is it that when adversity strikes we don’t always choose the best behaviours when it comes to our thoughts and responses? Where does the synapse misfire?  Perhaps it is because we become the observer in our own tragedy and it changes us and the situation.  I am wondering if it is not a case of grasping that the experience itself is not who I am but what makes me, in the same way that it is not the crucifixion that counts but the resurrection.


I have fielded another nasty curveball from the outfield this week – albeit on the nose – but I am beginning to accept that change is constant – the only stable reference point in life. Newton also got a ball on the nose – from Prigogine – who coined the term “bifurcation point”.  


He found that certain phenomena in chemistry did not fit with Newton’s universal and reductionistic laws.  Specifically, he stated that if the energy input increases beyond what a closed simple system can withstand or absorb, the system’s structure becomes disorganized and fluctuates in chaotic ways. The system will either collapse completely or reorganise into a new structure.


As I write this, I wonder if he was not looking at my life….  When external demands exceed the capacity of your coping mechanisms – you are driven to “bifurcation point” – a moment in your life when you will never be the same again.  It is here that meltdown occurs – and while today was a total waste of make-up – it may not be a bad thing.  


When you reach bifurcation point, if you can avoid being crushed beyond recovery and do your best to bounce back, you will emerge a stronger and more resilient person.  I reached my bifurcation point this week with the discovery of a large lump on my neck (perhaps that is where the socks went). As clichéd as it sounds, perhaps chaotic disequilibrium keeps us protean – we keep evolving like the crazy socks that keep morphing into unknown mysterious socks I have not encountered in my laundry basket before (and avoid getting thrown away - clever socks!).


Perhaps that is what this chaotic disequilibrium is all about – reinvention and post traumatic growth.  Perhaps I have been too Newtonian in my approach to life – examining it by reducing it to the nuts and bolts and in doing so, I didn’t see that what I thought was solid was in fact nothing but a void of potential.  Living life in quantum terms may be the healthier but painful alternative.  Perhaps embracing the bifurcation point and  the falling apart of all I know and hold dear is necessary for the evolution of the new person – perhaps my Eyore must morph into Super Bitch.  Perhaps this total disequilibrium is required to reset me to my default superposition.  I’m not really sure.  For now, Im still reeling from the impact, searching for my favourite socks, and yearning for the one who has always been able to silence the churning storms around me with a silent hug.


While I am gripped by cold fear and fervently praying that the cells in the lump will choose to be benign, hoping that the Uncertainty Principle can work positively by actualizing what it is I hope for and wish for so fervently, I must let it be.  Hopefully it will manifest what I am looking for and not what I fear.  In the meantime, perhaps this lump is like the lightning that struck a tree in my forest – it may destroy the tree as it is.  But a fallen tree becomes an ecosystem for a whole new range of organisms on the forest floor.  It will become a substrate for a host of organisms and will give life.  Perhaps I have to lose it all to gain it again. Perhaps that is the Uncertainty principle at work – when you think you have lost it, is when you will find it; and when you think you have it, is when you lose it.

My Torschlusspanik and the Widow's Oil

My son loves French Toast – with melted cheese for extra calories.  This morning, I got up early to make it and as I poured the last few drops of olive oil from the bottle into the pan, I smiled because it was just enough for what I needed.  It reminded me of the Biblical account of the widow and her jars of oil.  This morning I identified with her as a woman in crisis – although for altogether different reasons.  It is funny how the mind wanders when you are doing really mundane things.  (I will return to the widow and her oil shortly.)

I thought about the word “crisis” and what it really means.  This is where the diachronic language studies switch is flicked and the etymologist in me splutters to life for a while out of sheer curiosity.  While reading about the etymology of the word, I stumbled across some gems.  We generally tend to think of a crisis as some kind of trouble but interestingly enough the origin of the word points to “a time of decision and judgement”.  

The word first appeared in English texts around 1500 and was inherited from Latin which in turn got it from the Greek  κρίσις (krisis) < κρίνω (krinō) which denoted “a turning point in a disease” as it was used by Hippocrates and Galen.     Our understanding of the word is fairly recent but prior to that it referred to a point in an illness when the patient either took a turn for the worse or improved.  The Greek root is said to go back to the Indo-European word meaning which denotes “to discriminate”. I find myself at a particularly curious juncture in my life and am faced with several options and realize that there are some decisions that I have to make. 

I stumbled across another gem – Torschlusspanik.  This German word which literally translated means “gate-shut-panic” is used to describe a midlife crisis.  It denotes the fear of being on the wrong side of a closing gate. The term originated from medieval peasants who were terrified of being locked out when the castle gates were closing when an attack was imminent.  I have written about midlife crises a few times and generally in terms of the male ego and their foolish attempts to soothe it.

 

However, today I realized that I am having my own Torschlusspanik of sorts but not in the conventional sense of the word – no I am not turning into a cougar…  In my case, my Torschlusspanik is more about critical life decisions which will forever change the direction of my life.

 

The notion of crisis as a decision point, is rather comforting.  I guess the fact that you have decisions to make implies a measure of control.  That brings me back to the widow and her oil.  Has your emotional pantry been as bare as Mother Hubbard’s cupboard? I guess the biblical widow arrives on everyone’s emotional doorstep at some point in time.

 

Don’t you get annoyed when your widow has arrived and everyone tells you it is going to be just fine, that things will work out and be just fine?  Isn’t that like putting a band aid on a gaping wound?  Then there is the cliché that Time heals all wounds.  It doesn’t. All that Time is able to do is to make it more distant, put some space between you and what happened.  It doesn’t heal anything.  I don’t know how or what it does that does the healing but it certainly isn’t Time.

I just wonder what went through the widow’s mind when Elisha asked her what resources she had in her home. She replied that she had nothing but a little bit of olive oil but it was barely enough to meet her immediate needs.  Can you imagine the incredulity of her expression when Elisha told her to collect empty jars from all her neighbours - as many as she could find?  The story goes that she and her two sons borrowed jars from her neighbours, took them inside and behind closed doors, filled them to the brim with olive oil from the widow’s jar.  The oil kept flowing until the last jar was filled and then it stopped.  It was just enough. 

This morning when I dribbled the last drops of olive oil into the pan, I realised that a bottle can only contain so much and at some point it will be exhausted.  I think human beings are the same – we have a limited capacity for heartbreak and for stress, but do we have a limit in terms of what we can give?  Are we finite in terms of our capacity for giving and for loving or are we like the miraculous jar – overflowing with abundance and the ability to give and give and give when your reserve light is glowing red?  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could be as adaptable as oil – to fit our circumstances and crises as oil is able to mould itself into the shape of the bottle? I’m beginning to think that an act of love that fails is just as much a part of the divine as an act of love that succeeds because I wonder if love is not measured by its own fullness rather than by its reception.

I guess it boils down to two things – taking stock of what you have and doing something unusual with what you do have rather than wishing for what you don’t; and secondly taking a leap of faith and giving what is there so that it can morph into something new.  Isn’t it sad that too often we allow ourselves to be defined by others’ opinions and value judgements on our sense of worth and our place in this world?  

Isn’t it ridiculous that when we find ourselves suddenly at a crossroad or crisis in life, we tend to think of ourselves as having “only this” or “only that”.  We define our position and our self worth in terms of our current heartache or crisis.  I think we minimise who we are and what we can do because we tend to see our “only-ness”.  I think it is this Only-ness syndrome that keeps us trapped in suspended animation.  I realised today that I have had the same mindset as the widow – one of “only-ness”.  When she was asked what she had, she replied “nothing… only a little bit of oil.”

I realised that all too often women fall into this trap – we give all we have to give and when the relationship lies in ruins at our feet, we believe that we have nothing more to give – as if the failed relationship has confirmed our worst fears about ourselves and we question our lovability.   

So there are decisions to be made in this Torschlusspanik of mine. 

Some have told me to follow my heart.  That is the problem – how can I follow my heart when it is waiting around for the rest of me to make a decision?  And decision I reckon is a risk rooted in the courage of being free.  Perhaps I have been living my life too much as I-could-have-beens instead of I-tried-to-do’s.  I can see that I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.  I have come to accept that sometimes the ground may shift between my feet and I may lose my footing.  I may stumble and when that happens I will naturally grab what is close to me and hold on as tight as I possibly can.  

Recently, my emotional larder has been rather Spartan like – much like the widow’s – with only enough oil to keep me going and sometimes not quite sufficient.  Today, a precious friend told me what to do with my little bit of oil – empty it out- surrender what you do have and let it go – fill up the empty jars around you that are crying out for some substance. 

In a sense all of us become like the widow at some point in our lives – desperate, lost, broken and with no immediate solution to a looming crisis.  Elisha listened to her with compassion and understanding and when he asked her what resources she had to work with, she responded by saying she had nothing but a little bit of olive oil in a jar.  I think we all tend to do that – see the “nothing but” side of things and in doing so reduce ourselves and our possibilities to “only a little bit of olive oil in a jar”.  Think about Moses who replied that he only had his staff when he had to visit the Pharaoh, David had only a slingshot and a few pebbles to defeat Goliath, Samson had a jawbone when he faced a lion, and the disciples had five loaves and a few fishes to feed a multitude.  In each case, it required a leap of faith and surrendering the little bit that they had. 

Interestingly enough, if you look at the Chinese character for faith “xin” also means “trust”.  The Chinese character for faith shows a “Man” (radical at left) standing by his words.  So, “stand by your words” is synonymous for trust and faith in Chinese.  Making a decision, emptying my oil jar to give me the capacity for filling new empty vessels with abundance, will require a leap of faith, trust and standing by my words. 

And the beautiful thing about the story of the widow and the oil, is that the miracle took place behind closed doors.  The miracle takes place inside of us.  I guess what the caterpillar may consider the end of the world, the master will call a butterfly.  As I grow to understand life less and less, I seem to live it more and perhaps the real magic wand lies in the mind…

Dimples and Dark Brown Eyes

I miss my daughter so much today.  I woke up from a dream at 05:00 this morning and I have been thinking about my little girl all morning.  I have been blessed with two beautiful children who keep me sane and grounded.  I watched my son sleep before I woke him for breakfast, and I realised what a wonderful gift it is to be a mom.  Watching him sleep flicked the gratitude switch in a big way this morning.  He is the sweetest, gentlest loving boy in the world and I adore him.

Aimee-Leigh is my first child.  It was after she had had her first feed that I discovered her dimples – she had wind and suddenly smiled…  and deep dimples appeared in both cheeks.  It was the most beautiful smile in the world.  It made me cry and I remember holding her tight and kissing her all the time.  She still has the most beautiful smile in the world – the kind of smile that lights her up from within.  She still lights up a room with her smile and I still want to hug her tight.

She is now a beautiful 16 year old girl and in her I see a world of possibilities.  There are so many things I miss about her today.  I miss the sleepy smile when she stumbles from her room in the morning with her tousled hair, the sound of her giggle, a good morning hug, listening to her squabble with her brother, the thumping music, watching her curl herself up on the couch like a lazy cat, hurrying her up to get ready for work on time, girl talk, shopping and of course her beaming dimpled smile.

I wish at times I could make her see what others see about her.  I have watched her look at herself in the mirror and I would do anything to give her the gift of loving herself as much as I do.  I would love for her to see her reflection and realise how beautiful and lucky she is to be exactly as she is.  I don't ever want her to deprive herself of food, or to twist around and ask whether her bum looks big, to lie awake at night and promise herself that tomorrow she will start a diet.  I want her to know that beauty sometimes makes you happy but happiness always makes you beautiful.

I want her to believe in herself and her dreams as I do.  I want my girl to learn to listen to her heart and know that her future is determined by the decisions and choices she makes and not necessarily by the risks she may take along the way.  I wish for her to allow mystery to have its place in her – not to be turning up every inch of her soul in rigid self-examination, but to leave a little fallow corner of her heart ready for any seed the winds may bring.  

We are all broken and wounded in this world but some of us choose to grow strong at the broken places.  As we grow up, we learn that even the one person who was never supposed to let you down, probably will.  She will have her heart broken probably more than once, and it is harder each time.  Similarly, I know she will break hearts too, when she does, I want her to remember how it feels when hers was broken.  My Aimee is strong and resilient. She has bounced back from so many heartaches and still has not lost the light in her deep brown eyes.

I wish I could make her immune to peer pressure and to negativity.  I would love to make her understand that everyone in the world may have an opinion of her but only she can decide what makes her truly happy as a person. Opinions are exactly that – just opinions. Life is often a process of negotiation.  I want her to know that the most powerful tool for winning a negotiation is the ability to get up and walk away from the table without a deal – regardless of who the other party is.   She will fight with her friends and will blame a new love for things an old one did. I want her to know that things happen at the right time – not necessarily when we want them to – happy endings cannot come in the middle of a story. 

It is not always easy to be a mom – but I wouldn’t change it for anything.  I want the world for her and more than anything I want my girl to be happy.  I see so much inner beauty, flashes of strong will, brilliance and inner strength in her but more than anything, I love her spirit.

I want the world for her, but much more than that - I want her to be happy and to know that being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect.  It means that you have decided to look beyond the imperfections and can find contentment regardless. A happy person is not a person in a set of certain circumstances, but rather someone with a certain set of attitudes about their particular circumstances. You don’t have to change the world to be happy – it might get your name recorded in history books but it is much more important to write your name in the lives and hearts of others.

If I had my sweet sixteen-year-old brown eyed girl with me today, I would hold her tight, smell the sunlight in her hair and tell her how beautiful she is – inside and out.  I hope that she is able to enjoy the little things in life today – to take pleasure in small and seemingly insignificant things.  I am so very proud to be her mom and of the woman she is becoming.  She is stubborn, spirited, annoying as hell at times but with beautiful heart that tempers her independent spirit and warms my heart. 

So today, on the dashboard of my life, my girl’s light burns brightly.  The gratitude switch has been flicked, along with pride and hope but more than anything, the longing fuse is blinking intermittently.  I cannot wait to have her home.  She and her brother are the centre of my world.  She is, and always will be the beautiful baby I cradled in my arms when she smiled at me the first time and I lost my heart forever.

My Mystic Bell and the Angel's Wings

This morning I opted to wear one of my favourite pieces of jewellery – my mystic bell pendant - an Indonesian mystic bell in a hinged sterling silver filigree cage. Mystic bells like mine are designed after the ancient Crotal bell form – which is considered the oldest form of bell if current archaeological records are anything to go by.  Caged crotal bells like mine have been made in Indonesia for more than two hundred years.  Apparently the King of Bali wore caged bells with diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires to adorn his uniform.  Mystic Crotal bells have always had a spiritual significance to the people of the region.  Indonesians believe these bells are connected directly to the Buddhist and Hindu spiritual realm. The direct connection of bells to the spiritual realm is as old as Time itself.  

I love this piece not only because it is different but because I love the soothing gentle jingle of the bell.  I was looking at it on the train while contemplating some other issues in life this morning and it struck me how prevalent bells in some shape or form are in our lives.  They are everywhere!  I was alerted to it by an annoyed cyclist who rang his bicycle bell at me furiously this morning to get me to move out of his way.

Think about it – bells announce that someone is at the front door, alarm clocks wake us with a ringing sound, mobile phones ring to tell us that there is a call waiting, you ring the bell for service in a hotel and even my microwave has a chime!  Bells are rung at funerals and weddings and to start off a new round of fighting in a boxing ring. 

Bells signify the beginning and ending of something.  Bells summon people to events or inform students that the lesson is about to start and that they have to hurry to class.  Bells are rung to summon worshippers to prayer or to warn us not to cross railroad tracks.  They also soothe – like the tinkling of chimes in the wind.  In traditional Feng Shui bells are associated with prosperity and protection.  Even belly dancers use small bell-like finger cymbals called zills to enhance the music and dance.

Then there is Christmas and the annoying “Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way…” which seems to be the carol of choice in shopping malls.  Even Santa’s reindeer have bells attached to let children know he’s coming.

Our Sleigh in Ramsau

A few years ago, Handsome and I went to Austria in December and spent Christmas day in a ski resort in Ramsau.  We went on a horse drawn sleigh ride around the Dachstein and one of my fondest memories of that day is the jingling of the bells on the reins and the sleigh as we raced along the snowy landscape in the crisp mountain air – sipping schnapps as we went along.  It was the most beautiful Christmas day I have ever experienced.  I recall that there was a rather eccentric Jewish man who resembled Santa Claus with his flowing white beard. The more schnapps he drank, the more jolly he got and the louder he sang Christmas carols in a rich baritone voice. The sound of my mystical bell sounds so much like the bells on that sleigh.  I would give anything to be able to go back to that day.

Perhaps our attraction to the bells stems in part from the sense of unity we experience while listening to the ringing of a bell. The tones of a bell vibrate through the clothes, skin, blood and molecules of its listeners simultaneously. It is a collective experience that subconsciously draws us together.

Think of the Liberty Bell which announced the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence in the United States.  It helped unify the Colonists on a vibrational level down to their very molecules, and according to some sound/healing researchers, down to the level of creation. Creation stories from around the world include passages metaphorically describing sound or vibration as a creative force. When we create sound here on Earth, we are honouring that first creation. 

If you have ever been to Westminster Abbey, Notre Dame, Chartres or any of the major cathedrals in Europe when the bells are ringing, you will understand what I mean. You feel it ringing in your bones.  It is majestic, mystic and indescribably beautiful.   I reckon bells are symbolic of the harmony existing in society. It acts as a medium between heaven and earth, bells and especially their clappers, represent communication and suspension between humans and God.

My little mystic bell may be small and have a soft jingle but it is felt and heard.  It is not only an idiophone but also an ideophone – the sound of it is enough to take me back to the snow capped peaks of Ramsau, gluhwein, fresh mountain air and a wonderful sense of contentment I felt for the first time in many years.  My little bell is special – to me anyway.  Besides, as the adage goes – “Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings.”

I pray my angel hears my bell and spreads his wings...

God has a sense of humour

I vividly remember my first visit to Paris and the first time I stood at the Place de l’Etoile (which has been renamed Place Charles de Gaulle) - the crazy intersection surrounding the Arc de Triomphe.  There are no less than 12 straight avenues which intersect at this point – hence the historical name which translates as Square of the Star.  The apparent absence of distinct white lines to regulate the flow of traffic, with ten cars abreast seems like madness to me.   Crossing seems like definite suicide – hence the subway for pedestrians.  Today the Arc de Triomphe and the Place de l’Etoile seems to be a fitting metaphor for another very complicated crossroad in my life.

Sometimes life seems a lot like the Place de l’Etoile to me.  There is so much hustle and bustle and flow of activity around me and the disturbing thought occurs to me that unless I know where I am  going – I am sure to get lost if I take the wrong avenue.  Trust me, I know – I’ve been lost in Paris and ended up in the Pigalle district! 

And life is never simple is it? I really think God has a strange sense of humour at times.  Why not just place me at an intersection with just four intersecting avenues where the options are limited and therefore simpler:  A, B, C or D?  But no – life is more fun when it is has a buffet of complications  – a pastiche of no less than 12 intersecting and intricate issues and avenues (A to J?) which is enough confuse the hell out of a simple-minded woman like me.

I wish it were possible to disambiguate life and people as we are able to do in computational linguistics in which word sense disambiguation aims at identifying which sense of a word is used in a sentence when the word has multiple meanings.  Wouldn’t it be useful if we could use the same process to figure out what people are actually saying when their words and actions are infused with a variety of dissonant meanings?  Wouldn’t it be bloody marvellous if we could devise an algorithm to figure people out?  But I guess it would come with its own caveat – people can speak in metonymic terms which screws up the whole discourse all over again. 

 

In fact, people are far too much like their words – infinitely variable and very context sensitive.  Just like words, people do not easily divide up into distinct or discrete sub-meanings.  I find myself empathising with the bleary eyed lexicographer in the dungeons of a library, who frequently discovers in corpora loose and overlapping word meanings; discovers their standard or conventional meanings extended, modulated and exploited in a bewildering variety of ways.  The same applies to people… I have come to the conclusion that some people are simply impossible to pin down and figure out.  Even when you think you know them better than anyone on the planet – trust me, you haven’t scratched the surface to the Pandora’s Box within. 

Which begs the question – can you ever truly know someone – who they are, deep down - there where the Disprin dissolves? 

I am beginning to think that it is not entirely possible.  We are all palimpsests – ancient scrolls of parchment which have been written upon twice, the first writing having been erased to make place for the second.  The first writing is our usually tormented and twisted childhoods, past experiences, memories, defeats, victories, history.  The second – seems to be like the etch-and-scratch magic slates we used to play with as children – with what seems to be written on the surface so easily removed by sleight of hand.  And the text keeps changing, the discourse is discordant, fluid and at times meaningless.  And unfortunately, in many instances the first layer of writing is etched too deeply to be erased entirely.  It still rises to the surface in the most annoying and inconvenient ways and no matter how hard you try to erase it, it permeates the second layer and any other one after that.

I have found myself with the same sense of bewilderment and exasperated confusion as the lexicographer in the dungeons of the library.  Unpredictability, instability and chaos seems to be the order of the day these days.  Nothing seems to fit the way it should and as soon as I think I have the corpora down pat, I find another layer of meaning to this tear inducing mascara haemorrhaging onion of life!  Lately, my favourite three letters of the alphabet are W.. T…F. With good reason.  Even the calendar agrees after Tuesdays…

Lately, I tend to feel like the confused tourist at the foot of the Arc de Triomphe all too often.  I look around me at the bewildering ever metamorphosing life I have and sometimes I wonder  which of the twelve traffic lanes I should jump into first. The challenge these days is merely crossing the street – without getting hit by a bus or worse.  Perhaps I should try to Forrest Gump my way to the other side.

It seems like such a fitting image for me today – at the centre of the chaos is the Arc de Triomphe which stands as a spectacular monument in honour of those who fought and died for France in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.  The names of the French victories and French generals are inscribed on the inner and outer surfaces of this spectacular monument.  

Aren’t we all a similar monument to our own victories and casualties as we struggle through life?  I am a monument to what I have survived and conquered but like the Arc de Triomphe, the names of the casualties are inscribed on the inner walls and the apparent emphasis on Victory belies the sadness of loss and death entombed within.  Underneath its spectacular vault, lies the forlorn Tomb of the Unknown Soldier with the flame that is kept burning day and night.  I too have a Tomb for my Unknown Soldier and he too is unaware of the devastation he has left in his wake.  Like the fallen hero beneath the Arc de Triomphe, he is blissfully unaware of the loving care that is taken to tend to the lantern – to keep the flame burning.

I recall watching the crazy maelstrom of traffic at this bizarre intersection for a while and I have come to realise that there are two options here:  step defiantly and confidently into the lane of oncoming traffic (in the face of disaster defiance is often the only recourse) or find the subway – it is there – you only need to read the signs to find it.  Then again, my French has always been just enough to get me into trouble.  Perhaps that explains it.  So, for now, I’m scouring the landscape for signposts which will lead me to the magical subway to get me from my point A the elusive point D or was it E, or F or…. Dammit!