My crush on death

~ Rachel McAlpine ~ 17 Comments

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I was busting to share my great idea:
I had a crush on death.
“I can hardly wait to die!”
Celia was horrified, so I explained.
I could see it all. I would die young
a hero mauled by lions and after that
I would explore the jungle of death!
It was a great idea, don’t you agree?

Meantime some actual deaths were history
but most were in detective books.
Murder was a puzzle, amusing until the day
they sat me down for a chat so weird
that the air got squashed and I had to faint or cry
but I didn’t know which so I shook
and the blood sank into my feet.
I was fourteen when I found out
that a real life murder isn’t entertaining
and it isn’t a puzzle because everyone knows
who done it
and murderers can be girls
fresh out of your own classroom
girls you tried to be nice to
but in your heart you do not like
they’re not your sort of person.

That’s when you learn that murder hurts
everyone, even the public who go feral
with theories and fear
even the murderers who had been
so vain about their work
and you learn that every teenage girl
must be prised away, sliced away
from her best friend
in case they kill their mothers too.

That’s when I learned to feel guilty
for not seeing what was under my nose
for only writing twice to Juliet in jail
guilty for not saving her, guilty for retreating
when our mothers tried to make us friends
guilty for not liking her model horses
guilty that our IQs were not a bond
guilty for not feeling as guilty as I should
because it was all my fault.

The Principal decreed that nobody
should talk about the murder.
I learned that life is not a book
and that was how I lost my crush on death.
Someone set me free from guilt at fifty:
only then was I allowed to talk and talk
and talk and talk and cry.

MP3 recording of this poem

Poem by Rachel McAlpine, CC BY 2.0, image from Christchurch Public Library.

Alternative M4a recording

If you only knew

~ Rachel McAlpine ~ 20 Comments
Light through a doorway on a dark night
Light through a doorway on a dark night

Mother (as we called her then) had lost her friend
her dear friend Verity had died
and Celia was sad. Three days later
in the dead of night she had a visitation.
Verity stood at the end of her bed
laughing and laughing and laughing
and shining with delight.
Celia was enraged. “How dare you laugh
when we are weeping?
How dare you laugh when you are dead?”
and Verity said, “Because it’s all so simple!
If you only knew! It’s wonderful!
Dying is simple and death is fine!”

MP3 recording of this poem

Poem and photo by Rachel McAlpine CC BY 2.0

Alternative recording: m4a

Three score years and ten

~ Rachel McAlpine ~ 25 Comments
Celia Taylor relaxing on a mountain top in climbing gear.
Celia on a mountain. I think that’s the Franz Josef Glacier behind her, but please set me straight.

That’s enough said Celia our mother.
The Bible says
that three score years and ten
is our fair share of life, our span.
Always pick your quotes with care
and share with care, and that’s the one
she chose to share with me.
“Don’t let me be a burden, she said
I cannot will not shall not be a burden to you dear
I’ll walk out the door on my own two feet
I’ll leave before I start to leak
and burble and dribble and reek.
At the age of 70 I will be more
than a faint allusion to my self
I will still be my very self itself.
Let that be the age at which
I’ll peak, I’ll be complete.
Later I’d have nothing more to give
I’d be a taker a breaker a faker
my eyes would fail, my legs would fall
and worst of all my wit would crawl.
No no no I’ll die intact
never a burden, always a star.
This is my desire, dear daughter,
so listen with both ears.
When I’m three score years and ten
take me to the Franz Josef Glacier
and leave me there and turn your back.
When you turn around at last
I’m gone, I’m done, I’m down a crevasse
one last fling and I’m off your backs
I won’t be a bother to you any more
I’ll slip through a crack, I won’t be back.”

I didn’t drag her to the ice
nor did I have to hide my eyes
while she squeezed down a chimney
to the Hades of her choice.
My mother died on time at 70
yes, on New Year’s Day
in a common or garden hospital bed
and she was a burden to herself by then
and the glacier shrivelled year by year.
Who can plan their death in detail
decades in advance?

Pick your confidants with care
certain ears for certain truths.
Celia picked me when I was twelve
to hear her truth about dying.
Safe, for no-one believed me.
Sad, for it was sad.
Cruel, for her truth was heavy.
True, but only for Celia, and who knew why?

Audio file (mp3)

PS This is a true experience of mine, and a strange one. Thank goodness Celia didn’t make me promise to help her exit early from her life: that would have been a heavy load. She just expressed a strong desire and I felt more privileged than pressured. I wonder whether you have ever been in a similar situation. Maybe this post reminds you of something in your own life…

Alternative audio file (m4a) if you couldn’t access the first one

Photo from the Taylor family archives, poem and recording by Rachel McAlpine CC BY 2.0. That means please do share and reblog, but always name me as writer.

The Value of Book Reviews

~ Rachel McAlpine ~ 11 Comments

So sad. So true. Even the simplest review is gold for Indie writers on Amazon.

INDIE BLU(E)

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Book reviews are currency for the indie author, especially when reader feedback appears on Amazon and Goodreads. That makes sense, considering the weight of word of mouth marketing. I read an article on Impactrecently that stated consumers are 4x more likely to buy goods and services when referred by a friend, and 63% of visitors are more likely to make purchases from websites with reviews/ratings.

Why then, does word of mouth seem to fail so many fantastic indie writers? Because the number of Amazon book purchasers who go back to leave a review, or even a star rating, are few and far between. Derek Haines at Just Publishing Advice says listing your Kindle book as free for a promotional period can help stimulate readers to leave a review; however, reviews of free books are even lower than for actual sales. This rings true for me. I ran a week…

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How old is old enough?

~ Rachel McAlpine ~ 33 Comments
Photo of three middle-aged women in the 1950s
Our Grandmother Mim on the right with her sisters Cos and Bim: all middle aged, but perceived as old

Everyone knows it’s best to be young—
or do they? Even a three-year-old knows how
to summon the ultimate insult
to crush a woman in power, a woman of influence
and so when our grandmother Mim
popped little Penny safe on the sideboard
away from the Hoover and away from fun
for at least one awful minute
our little sister knew precisely what to do:
you fan the furnace of your rage and scream,
“Anyway
you’re an extremely old woman and you look it!
So there!” Those words should break her bones
drop her sobbing to the carpet
fuel five ice creams and twenty sorries
so reasoned Penny
from her vast experience of life.
But no, this time the magic curse
was powerless and worse,
she’s cracked a joke it seems.

Mim roars with laughter
and forever after signs her letters
(there were many letters, it was a time of ink
and blotters and postmen riding bikes)
she signs them with a chuckle and a flourish:
“Yours sincerely, An Extremely Old Woman.”
It seems old age can be benign
for anthroposophists—or maybe just for Mim
who was frequently amused.
A three-year-old is old enough
to mimic ageist attitudes.
A woman in her prime is old enough
to find the label of “extremely old”
incongruous and comical and true.

Audio file (mp3)


This is the first recorded instance of ageism in our family, and its goodnatured rejection by our amazing grandmother Mim. Our other grandparents might otherwise have given us a generic impression of the old old as not so sprightly, but Mim was the antidote. Did ageism rear its head in your family, I wonder, and if so, how…

Alternative audio file (m4a) in case the first one doesn’t work for you

Photo from the Taylor family archives, poem and recording by Rachel McAlpine CC BY 2.0. That means please do share and reblog, but always name me as writer.

 

The theology of hell

~ Rachel McAlpine ~ 23 Comments
Rev. David Taylor on horseback with toddler in front.
Rev. David Taylor on horseback with toddler Jill, in the Chatham Islands, c. 1938.

I was worried. I was seven
and Daddy (as we called him then)
was tucking me into bed.
I was worried about hell.
I was worried I would go to hell.

I had done something pretty bad
maybe told a lie or nicked a coin
from the Craven A tin in his study
so I asked him, “Will I go to hell
or will I go to heaven?”
Not a chatterbox, he always thought
before he spoke.
You could see him thinking
with his eyeballs and his mouth.
He said, “I’m not sure there is a hell
because God is love and God is kind
He doesn’t want to hurt us
but if by chance there is a hell, I’m sure
that only a few, a very, very, very few
would be sent to hell, and only after
doing something very bad indeed.”
“Like what?” I asked, still worried.
Was I one of the very few? Quite likely.
Again he pondered. Then he said, “I think
that they would have to kill another person,
on purpose, and not feel sorry afterwards.”
He was a vicar, and he knew.
He gave me a goodnight kiss
and left me wild with joy: I wouldn’t go to hell!
I knew for sure and certain
I would never kill a person
at least not on purpose and even if I did
I would certainly be sorry—
so I wouldn’t go to hell.

Audio file (mp3)

Thank goodness my father recognised my distress. How easily a parent can miss the gravity of a child’s question, when they can easily seem so absurd! Has that happened to you, I wonder, either as a parent or a child? We felt safe with our gentle Daddy on the case.

Alternative audio file (m4a) in case you can’t access the first one

Photo from the Taylor family archives, poem and recording by Rachel McAlpine CC BY 2.0. That means please do share and reblog, but always name me as writer.

 

When Aunty Lesley died

~ Rachel McAlpine ~ 24 Comments
Dark-eyed beauty Aunty Lesley, bridesmaid at Celia's wedding. From a painting by Lesley Evans.
Dark-eyed beauty Aunty Lesley, bridesmaid at Celia’s wedding. From a painting by Lesley Evans.

When Aunty Lesley died of tuberculosis
she was thirty and I was only three.
I have no memories of Aunty Lesley
I have no memories at all from little me
only the mythology of tragic death embedded
but now I think of Celia giving birth
in the deep midwinter to daughter number five
and four days later
her lovely sister dies
only a hundred miles away.
Celia can’t help, she can’t attend the funeral
her duty is to David
in an icy mountain vicarage
swarming with kids already.
We were told the story of the dark-eyed aunt
and her husband Captain Jack in the RNZAF
and the motherless child she left behind
as cute as Sailor Girl
and the kind cousin who took the baby in
when Jack went back to the war.
Later we heard of quarrels over open windows
as if that would have cured TB
but it helps to have someone to blame
someone to drive away and not forgive
when you lose your only sister.
The fact was there. The fact of death
skimmed across the shallows of my child mind
along with the hurts of the plaiting of plaits
or a skinned knee
a short hurt that might or might not
ever occur again.
I had no scale of terribleness
and never imagined my mother’s lonely pain.
That death was just a fairy tale, far away and veiled
a tale she muffled for her daughters
while she gave us sister after sister
a sister for every season for every reason
while her bones surely wept and wailed
and with a broken heart she managed to be brave.

Audio track (mp3)

It’s only recently that I have started to imagine how terrible this must have been for our mother, to lose her only sister, and to be so close and yet out of reach. The pain was worse because she wanted desperately to adopt her niece, but with five daughters of her own already that was not a realistic option. What does death mean to a little child, when it’s somebody else’s mother who dies, not your own?

Portrait of my aunt from a painting of my parents’ wedding, by Lesley Evans, my sister. Lesley was the baby who was born four days after Aunty Lesley died. Poem and recording by me, Rachel McAlpine. Feel free to repost and otherwise share, with attribution. 

Alternative audio track (m4a)