See Better, Chris

I started planning and writing this blog entry in January, and I am completing it in February during the first Covid lockdown of 2021 - call me pessimistic, but I think there will be more before we are rid of this foul pestilence, despite encouraging news over recent weeks: daily fatality and infection rates starting to decrease; three vaccines developed and in the process of being rolled out nationally; the resignation en masse of all government ministers for their inept handling of the pandemic. (OK, I made that last one up, but one can but hope). It is still too soon to breathe a sigh of relief into our face masks however: there are new kids on the block in terms of Covid variants, whose personalities (passive submissive or active aggressive?) have yet to be determined; hospitals are still struggling to cope; one of the vaccines has had concerns raised over its efficacy; and so many people have died, leaving behind grieving friends and families. Then there are the hidden domestic tragedies: people losing their jobs or trying to manage on reduced incomes; the rise of domestic abuse cases; marriage breakdowns; scammers. As I said in my last post, events such as a pandemic bring out the best and worst of human beings and society. There are green shoots of optimism however, and I hope we are witnessing the beginning of the surmising of the possibility of a carefully managed, caveated introduction of a relaxing of some of the restrictions at some point in the unpredictable, minister led future in a month when there isn’t an upwards R in it. But I won’t get carried away just yet (other than lexically).

The gestation period for this new arrival has been longer than planned, but I hope you will continue to indulge me. My wife says I should stop putting so much pressure on myself, viewing it as counter-productive; she believes there is no harm in writing less but more frequently. She’s probably right, and I will try to make my writings more compact, but old habits die hard...it’s a function of a tendency not to write sequentially but thematically, and then knit all the threads together at the end; the result is frequently a prolix cat’s cradle. Which means I have to do a lot of untangling.

Anyway…If you enjoy, appreciate or empathise with my infrequent ramblings and meanderings, the offspring of the dirty, rusting vehicle that is my brain, then I thank you for your patience. If I can pursue the metaphor a little further, my memory would undoubtedly fail its MOT currently. Its last full service was probably when I was employed by the Open University as a lecturer in International Development, teaching undergraduates on approaches for not destroying the planet, ecologically, socially, and politically; and encouraging global society to play nicely together. That was a period when I was on top of my thinking game, and my head was a quiet, reliable, regularly serviced vehicle. I revelled in intoxicating trips along theoretical and practical country lanes, bathed in intellectual sunshine and the gentle, fragrant rain of thought. In the face of cold biological truth, those halcyon days are over. The memories are proving harder to retain, and my engagement in intellectual debate is severely compromised. The tyres are are becoming worn, and the engine won’t always start in the cold, dark mornings of fatigue, nervousness, and memory failure. At times it leads me to mentally rail and shout at the hidden assassin stalking me (when I can remember to do so).

I’ve been doing a little research over recent weeks, to get to know and “see” my lurking assassin a little “better”, and to tutor myself in the changes that occur in the brain of an Alzheimer’s patient that lead to early onset dementia. A little more knowledge is soothing in a strange way. I used to picture Alzheimer’s as some sort of primordial soup in my brain, simmering constantly and sometimes boiling over, like tectonic shifts and magma eruptions on a volcanic planet (if you ever watched it, think of the low budget Red Dwarf comedy series, with its clunky opening credits and theme tune, and a space capsule crashing into the boiling surface below). As you would expect, the clinical reality is more prosaic. AZ results from a combination of amyloid plaques and tau proteins. Amyloid plaques are hard, insoluble accumulations of beta proteins, which attach themselves to the nerve cells (neurons) in the brain; tau is a brain specific, axon-enriched microtubule-associated protein that also joins in the attack on neurons. [Still with me?]. Proteins and plaques both form a sticky barrier on and between the neurons, which hampers or prevents the transmission and content of signals. Neurons are basically information messengers - picture them as a cross between a paper boy and a traffic warden. They use electrical impulses and chemical signals to transmit information between different areas of the brain. Normally. But my head isn’t normal any more: the neutrons get sticky and any messages in or out get sticky too. In an Alzheimer’s brain the neuron activity has been reduced to a frustrating, intermittent, increasingly random game of Fuzzy Felt (remember that, any of you?) between the soup that passes for an Alzheimer’s brain and the consciousness that is trying to deliver or receive messages from said brain. Getting the pieces to stick on the felt becomes more haphazard and unpredictable…

“See Better, Chris”, the didactic title of my blog, seems to be a lost cause sometimes thanks to the biological thought police who have decided to take up residence in my head. In an attempt to wrest at least some control back from “it upstairs” however (no Brexit comments please), I view the comparative “better” in the title as meaning “doing as much as possible with the same neurological tools as before, and adapting to loss and decay as best as I can”. But why is it my sight that needs to be “better”? Why not wear glasses, have an eye test, do puzzles, play tiddlywinks better? Or is there a more subtle take on this topic - in which case why not “listen better”? or empathise, react, analyse, resolve, touch, understand “better”?

An example. For the first time since I was a child I developed a fear of the dark over the last year, almost certainly in sync with my symptoms as they became more pronounced. I didn’t forget what darkness was (i.e. the opposite of daylight; the sun sinking below the horizon etc. etc.) and seeing in the dark ‘better’ has very little to do with ocular enhancement. If it’s dark; it’s dark. Really dark. We don’t have street lights in our village for historical reasons, so that makes the blackness almost total on moonless nights. I can of course take a torch to help me “see”, but at the same time I am a helpless bystander as my brain (showing signs of panic and stress) does all the calculations and processing of what is out there; any input from me is redundant. What I was getting back from my brain was twisted; distorted; frightening. It also doesn’t take much to link darkness anxiety with heightened nervousness generally. Fear of the future for my family; fear of death itself; fear of more potent, debilitating and antisocial symptoms further down the line; fear of daily Covid press briefings; fear of the letter R…I need to “see better” in the dark, but not just with my eyes; with common sense and a firmer grasp of reality and rationalism as well. Eyes are only one part of the mechanism of sight, and I am increasingly “seeing better” in this sense. It is about focussing mindfully and being open to rational self-awareness and techniques for reducing distress. It works for me: I now go (reluctantly if not happily) down the side of the house in the pitch dark to put the rubbish, recycling and food waste in their respective bins. I was blind to reason and common sense for too long. “Seeing better” doesn’t prevent or nervousness and fear, but they it be contextualised and weakened.

As well as nervousness, traditional symptoms have advanced according to plan (the illness’ plan not mine). I continue to make hot drinks and then forget to drink them, or even where I put them. I frequently wander about the house aimlessly in the pursuit of something that is lost, and eventually find it, then realise it was a completely different item I’d come back with from the one I’d actually set out to find. I can forget facts or the briefest of conversations in seconds. I love cooking, but even following a simple recipe can fox and unnerve me. Oddly, memories of recipes that I have prepared many times over the years seem remarkably reliable and intact, e.g. my spaghetti bolognaise recipe. It’s probably down to different areas of the brain having responsibility for different tasks and levels of memory, i.e. short-, medium- and long-term. But I am still left with the problem that following simple instructions, including sequential lists, can be problematic for me.

Most sadly of all, I have substantially reduced visual memory, particularly of holidays and walks we as a family have had in and around our beloved Cotswolds and further afield. But I will see better in terms of memories by helping to make sure that as a family we take time to water and replant those memories; continue to feed and nurture them. As my boys grow older they will then recall our trips away from home together: walks and visits here and abroad as a family. I would like to be part of their present as well as their past. Oddly, my only clear and extant memory from holidays in the past is of me having a meltdown in the Leaning Tower of Pisa, brought about by a very narrow, winding stone staircase, uneven paving stones and a large group of schoolchildren; the noise was deafening and there were youngsters and harassed teachers rushing up and down the staircase repeatedly, calling and shouting to each other. No others are quite so vivid. Other memories still lurk in the shadows, but they are largely fossilised and only fleetingly grasped. They leap out sometimes before my eyes: droplets in a cloud of images that appear and disappear in an instant before my eyes, like a slide projector on steroids, a flash of clarity immediately replaced by the next mayfly. My memories live in fragments. This can be unpleasant and frightening, but sometimes it is engaging and almost enjoyable.

But as I said earlier, some memories are there, somewhere, clinging like limpets to cold rock, and I can fuse intent and method into techniques help to me revisit photos in albums and on my laptop, and see them afresh; I try to and embed memories using text and annotations, and through conversations with my friends and family. Further into the future I hope my sight will be broader and more concentrated. My wife encourages me to explore walks, holidays and visits more mindfully, by writing down a date and a short description of my activities and companions. She is absolutely right. It is a pleasurable activity in its own right, and and will afford more pleasure in future visits to these little pages; “seeing” good times clearly.

Disappointingly and infuriatingly, reading has become problematic over the last year or so, especially books that are long or complex or both. This means I find it difficult to read any novels where memory and understanding of previous chapters or sections is necessary (which renders the entire, unread oeuvre of Jeffrey Archer still accessible to me - unfortunately. I do have some standards to keep up, you know). I look at my bookshelves and wonder how many I will visit again. But there are ways and means and sources and works enough to preserve a deep and meaningful engagement with literature and academic works. I particularly like books where chapters or sections can be read in isolation. As examples, I have read and been profoundly moved by three outstanding books recently: Raynor Winn’s “The Salt Marsh” and its sequel “The Wild Silence”; followed by “English Pastoral” by James Rebanks (the links are to reviews on the Waterstone website). Thankfully for my poor brain, stored knowledge of previous chapters or sections is not required to appreciate these books: each passage or section can stand alone for the beauty and power of the writing. I am sure there are lots more books out there with these characteristics so reading will continue to play an important role in my life, I hope. Any suggestions for reading reading matter for the cerebrally impaired would also be thankfully received, now and in the future. Again, “sight” through reading is not a transparent window, but a dynamic process of developing self-awareness; reading “better”. Coping with Alzheimer’s is a challenge for thought processes as well as memory issues. It’s tough but manageable.

This deeper, nuanced view of “seeing” and “seeing better” is hardly original or new, and Shakespeare himself developed plots that assign deeper contextual meaning to sight, especially in the tragedy “King Lear”. This includes, almost to the point of saturation, more references to sight, eyes and blindness than any other work by the Bard. In the first scene of the play, Lear asks his three daughters to say how much they love him, and in return he would reward the one that professed the greatest love, respect and devotion by bequeathing his kingdom to her. The two elder daughters, Regan and Goneril, flatter him with exaggerated, fanciful and hypocritical words of love that bear no resemblance to truth, whereas the youngest daughter Cordelia gently refuses to play up to her father’s vanity, and is contemptuous of her sisters’ disingenuous flattery. As a result she is banished from the kingdom: “out of my sight!” Lear proclaims. He cannot “see” her honesty and genuine love; it is his ‘sight’ that is failing, not Cordelia’s, as the Duke of Kent courageously reminds him: “See better, Lear, and let me still remain / The true blank of thine eye”.

More gruesomely, in a sub-plot later in the play, there is an horrific scene where the Duke of Gloucester has his eyes gouged out on the orders of the scheming Duke of Cornwall (Regan’s husband). Both Lear and Gloucester go mad and are found walking on a blasted heath, and Gloucester tells the old man who leads him “I have no way and therefore want no eyes”. But if he could see his wronged son Edgar again he would try to make amends: “O dear son Edgar, The food of thy abusèd father’s wrath, Might I but live to see thee in my touch, I’d say I had eyes again!” Lear and Gloucester have eyes but lack insight and understanding; as a result they cannot ‘see’. Instead they place their trust in lies, poisoned reason, machiavellian family members, and poisonous courtiers. If they had applied rational thought earlier in the play, the outcome would have been less politically damaging (and less bloody). Both ultimately do realise their mistakes: there is belated insight where previously blindness ruled.

Fortunately, my fear of darkness did not plunge me into into madness or lead me to wander around in distress on a wind- and rain- blasted heath. My brain causes fear and uncertainty; I can however teach it to neutralise them, for as long as possible. I should not be afraid of embracing the future either. I invested too much nervous energy in the early months in trying to forget about my diagnosis and prognosis. Obviously I can’t say I’m happy about having Alzheimer’s, but there is still so much in my life that is hugely positive, and which I need to “see better”. I remind myself that in so many ways I am a lucky man and there is much to see and celebrate every day. The Roman poet Horace urges us to “carpe diem”, which is usually translated as “seize the day”, but it is actually more nuanced than this (I am grateful to a walking friend of mine for drawing my attention to an article on the subject). A more accurate translation is “harvest the day”, and it is a logical step to include “seeing the day”. We should not simply use the day for individual enjoyment and advancement: Horace believed that strong, dependable friendship and family ties were vital to living a meaningful life; they inform what we do; the values we adhere to; whose company we seek and value throughout our lives. In other words, seeing better. And it leads quite neatly on to one of my favourite poems…

“The Rolling English Road” by G.K. Chesterton seems at first reading to be a superficial piece of comic verse about a drunkard who keeps getting lost on the way back from the pub with his friends. The poem can be found at this link to the Poetry Foundation, but I also include the text at the end of this blog.

As I said above, the poem is deceptively simple in terms of metre, rhyme and descriptions. A heptameter metre makes it swing along quickly and jumpily (if that’s a word) and reflects the “reeling”, “rolling” road, which is also “mazy” and “merry” - exactly like the the revellers themselves. We can assume the revellers do not actually end up in the places on the map, let alone via the other completely improbable locations the narrator says they do, but being drunk would make their journey sufficiently “mazy” on the way home to warrant exaggerating the tale for effect the next time they talk of their exploits to their friends in the pub. (I particularly like the stanza that finishes “The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands”).

We cannot be sure who is the narrator, as the pronouns switch between “I”, “we”, ‘he’, ‘his’; “you”; and I”; nor can we put a name to the poor, lost man who ends up dead in a ditch. But we know that he was mourned with garlands of flowers, and the hedges basking in the sunshine strengthened as he “ran” erratically towards his death over many years and many brushes with the law and the Church. It is also not clear whether it was nature or mourners that were honouring him in this way.

The need to “see better” runs through this poem, and is so obvious that it requires little or no commentary or exegesis. Ignoring the counsel of religious and local dignitaries is one thing, but to cross sandbanks with an inrushing tide or going to Birmingham via Beachy Head is a hardly a sensible thing to do after a session in the pub, and that is the point. Nor do not have enough information to say with confidence that the protagonist went to war with the French, or the Scots at Bannockburn, which would place the poem in the 14th century; or whether it was simply another example of alcohol-fuelled bravado. All we know is that he was found dead in a ditch.

You may be wondering why I have been descanting on this poem, and how it relates to the theme of this blog (to be fair, I was beginning to wonder as well - I’m telling myself to see better…! The secret is in the final stanza. When the narrator addresses “my friends”, I am sure it applies to us all, not just the characters in the poem. The drunkard becomes Everyman. Over time we will all crave a quieter approach to life; a retreat from stress and anger; having “clearer eyes and ears” that will soothe us as we grow older; softening the gradual withdrawal from this world. The inn becomes a back story and a metaphor for our misadventures; mistakes; plans unseeded or unharvested; friendships made and lost through the vagaries of time. It also serves as a framework for the future, as we contextualise our past and shine a torch onto the path ahead: other vistas, sights and climes; the cries and laughter of children; the mistakes; the loves; the losses; the lettings go. The carousing days of pubs and drunken, mazy routes shifts into a metaphor for change, loss, letting go, finding one’s way, joy, stability, remembrance, reflection. Chesterton’s inn becomes “the decent inn of death”: a place not to be feared but revered, whatever your faith or belief. On this earthly journey there is “good news yet to hear” and “fine things to be seen”, but we will remain “undrugged” and at peace as we go to Paradise “by way of Kensal Green” (there is a very large cemetery in Kensal Green).

This last stanza elevates the poem from humorous doggerel to a work that can speak to many. It certainly speaks to me. In the time left to me I wish to see as much as possible, in places and with people. It’s about friendship; relatives; visits; understanding; consoling; praising; thanking; loving; giving; receiving; laughing; crying; resting; remembering; walking. Sight in this context is closely linked to human terroir, which I discussed in the last blog I wrote. I do not want to banish the future to the darkness of my mind: I want it to speak to me from the sunlit uplands. I want to share my hopes and fears and sight with those who mean most to me - work, home, family - so that the future has more pleasure than sadness. Walking will be the window for my mind. Not on the blasted heath in a storm following a mental breakdown, like King Lear. But should you see me, literally or metaphorically, on Cleeve Common in high dudgeon and low mood, then turn me towards the rising sun of knowledge, friendship, family ties and positive memories. Or towards “The Rising Sun” (for pleasure in moderation). Either or both will do…

The ‘decent inn of death’ can wait for me. I am in no hurry; nor am I afraid or in despair.

I am seeing better.

---

Rolling home .. The Drunken Reveller by Thomas Bewick

---

The Rolling English Road

Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,

The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.

A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,

And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;

A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread

The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.

I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,

And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;

But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed

To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,

Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,

The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.

His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run

Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun?

The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,

But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch.

God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear

The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.

My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,

Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,

But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,

And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;

For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,

Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.

---