BADD2013: Demi-Wife (3/3)

All the time that I've spent thinking about writing this blog post, I have had The Decemberists 'Crane Wife' in my head. As such, I suggest you give it a listen as you read (or see the lyrics here and here).

As much as the tech I've written about makes me a very lucky chap indeed, there's something that makes me even luckier. It makes a lottery win look mundane. A narrow escape from a sticky end seem every day. A large portion of chips when you only ordered a regular...well...perhaps it's on a par with that.

What am I talking about? Well, I am now (sort of) Mr Goldfish. Deborah and I recently went to Weybridge registry office in the middle of an unseasonable blizzard (which I choose not to take as some kind of supernatural sign) and got legally hitched. Not that things are ever that straight forward for us. And the funny thing is, that's not actually a bad thing at all.

You see, with our health, Deb and I are both used to the concept of pacing. We have to take weeks to accomplish something someone might do in an afternoon. We break up the task with rests, sometimes having to change to a different task if, for example, it is something which, done too often, leads to a dramatic increase in pain. Pacing. It's one of the greatest leasons a chronically poorly person can learn. Because without it, it's all too easy to become frustrated.

I have noticed, however, that when applied to something like a wedding, which is a very public event and one which involves other people directly, if they don't get the concept of pacing, they can misread the event entirely.

Our registry office do became significantly larger than we'd anticipated. Honestly I think we'd both felt that we might have two parents there, mainly as wheelchair pushers. Four parents max (which is lucky as we only have the four). This number tripled. Not that that's a bad thing - it was very nice having everyone there. But an event which we thought of as just a legal doodah suddenly became quite a bit more daunting.

Deborah, Stephen, Granny, Alex and Sophie.
Sophie might have been a bit happy, but it's so hard to tell with her.

This does serve as a prime example of why pacing is so important - it took us quite a while to recover from such a big event. If we'd tried to do things traditionally, we'd not have made it through the day.

So come late July, we'll be finishing the job we started with our own, specially planned day with the absolute minimum of stress and with everything carefully planned. And of course, those plans will never go absolutely smoothly, but because of the way we're doing things, if there is a hickup, we will be able to raise our voices, shout 'All right you horrible lot, we're starting that bit over and stop your complaining' and everything will be fine. Having such a period of time in between means that we have been able to spend time organising one section without worrying too much about the next. And we should, barring Deb's toe trying to fall off, be as healthy as possible come the day.

My parents get this - my mother's chronically ill and my father has worked in special schools most of his life. Deb's parents find it a bit more difficult to fathom, but are doing surprisingly well. I think that they saw that the registry office do really wasn't that meaningful and I think, as time moves on and the concept of a fish and chip wedding lunch becomes a bit less alien, they can see why this means so much to us. It's also, I hope, clear to see that we're both truly excited about July.

But I am aware that, because our marriage will not be conventional (which, as much as I could try to blame it on disability, is perhaps equally to do with the kind of people we both are), there are people who might not quite get it. In the same way that same-sex marriage, or inter-faith marriage, or, heaven help us, marriage between people who feel differently about chorizzo sausage, might be considered not quite official and meaningful. Not quite real.

But what do they matter?

In other posts I've spoken about tech, both special and widely adopted, and how important it is to me. So I wanted to tie them together with the wedding.

Firstly, walking sticks.

You know that a walking stick is an intrinsic part of your sense of self when you're watching a good film, have sunk so deeply into it that you have become the hero, and, watching them wander out of their front door, think to yourself, "Idiot, you've forgotten your walking stick!"

My walking stick is a part of me. And so, I have to have the right one for the wedding. Yep, I have several! And as I try to create the perfect ensemble (more on which later), so I have to choose the perfect stick. Should I choose the eagle-headed stick? The dragon from Cyprus my father picked up for me? Or should I go with the knobkerrie my sister bought me when she went up Kilimanjaro? I'm still not 100% certain, but I think I am favouring the dragon.

I hope that being able to consider my stick as an intrinsic part of the outfit means that I am fully accepting of it as a part of who I am without that having any negative connotations. In the same way as I am accepting of my glasses.

Cassie inspected my partly-made shoes from
Green Shoes, and decided that they really should
have been black...

Then there is all the help we've had from conventional tech. We booked the registry office on the strength of its website combined with the help of google maps and streetview. EBay has been our constant companion and, as Deb is making her own dress with a rather unusual fabric, we'd not have been able to source it easily any other way (although we did have some help from friends who could access charity shops...). I have always wanted a made-to-measure suit, and indeed I have one ordered. No visiting a tailor - Deb measured me up and everything has been ordered online from Suitopia. In a display of blatant greed, I have also ordered made-to-measure boots from Green Shoes to match. I will write more about both of these on another day - but as a disabled man who would have a slightly hellish time clothes shopping otherwise, these internet-accessable busineses have been a real blessing.

On the day, we want a small do. We'd not cope with having all of our friends there, and indeed, many of our friends would simply not be able to travel and cope with the ceremony. So we will hopefully be setting up a live video stream for all those people who can't manage it. This is, I think, one of my favourite bits of our system. It, along with several other ways of doing things, has made a day that will be inclusive. It will allow everyone to be involved in the ways they can be. And that is, at the heart of all things, the essence of love. Love is inclusion. An understanding and acceptance of people and things as they are. Love does not seek to change.

Which reminds me of this - perhaps one of my favourite bible verses;

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
(1 Corinthians 13:4–8a)

So, in my mind, disability has helped to teach me all these things. I have become less rigid, more yielding, and yet I also have the strength to endure for the things I believe in. I have a confidence which does not stem from showing off. I do not look at the ways of others and feel envy, because I am certain of and happy with myself (whilst, I hope, being entirely accepting of other people's beliefs). And I know that, although disability can make me feel physically fragile, I can see my soul underneath and know its nature. And that it is eternal. 

All that because I'm poorly. And because I met the right poorly girl to share a world with. A world which you're all a part of.

3/5 - Olympic Rings

Yesterday I was writing mainly about something that happened two years ago.  Today I'll write about something that happened two weeks ago.

You wouldn't believe it given the soaking we've had this morning, but for the last few weeks the Welsh skies have been relatively free of rain clouds.  The ground, though, has retained the consistency of slightly thickened ocean, having been pelted for the last few months.  But this also means that the surroundings are green and lush and full of life.

A demonstration of the lush green life around these parts.

We drove down the coast road for fish and chips.  The particular chip shop has recently been visited by royalty, and so they should - the food they produce is absolutely outstanding.  It's always a really special occassion eating their food, particularly as we tend to wolf it down whilst looking out over the sea.  There's a circular unity of smells and tastes.  It is perfect and infinite.  And that's just the portion sizing.

This time was a little different though, as I had with me a ring.

Deb loves silver and her favourite colours tend to be on the blue spectrum.  So I'd chosen a ring inspired by the Welsh coast line.  Set in it (because we don't much like the ethics surrounding diamonds...not that other precious stones are necessarily that ethical, but you know what I mean...) was a deep blue sapphire.  It was, of course, too big and will need to be resized.  But she accepted it nonetheless.  She then gave me a silver band into which the skeleton of a leaf has been pressed.  It was, of course, the perfect size and I'm wearing it as I type.

So we got engaged overlooking the pewter sea.

It's a funny feeling, really.  It's not a massive change, but it was a massive emotional event and that was quite challenging.  I was rather poorly for a few days...in fact, I'm not that sure I've entirely recovered.  And there is also the added pressure of planning a wedding.

However, and I wonder to myself if, in fact, all couples think this way, but even so I reckon that we might be right - I think we will have the best wedding ever.  We are limited by our health, but already we've got the bare bones of a day planned out that will be calm, relaxed, joyful and easy.  There will be no pressure for perfection.  It will not be expensive and we've decided one of the fun bits of the process will be making our own rings.

The day will be, I hope, about the equality and universality of love.  It will be small and wonderful.

When I studied Classics I was particularly interested in narrative.  One of the traditional ways of telling stories is to mirror the structure of the beginning in the end.  This, appropriately enough, is called Ring Composition.  And so, in my attempt to be traditional, I should point out that I'm already gunning for a wedding dinner of fish and chips.

My fiancee.

Gay Marriage - an ex-choirboy's perspective

As an ex-choirboy I know everything there is to know about marriage.

Honestly, there's nothing that's a mystery to me.  From my point in the pews near the ceiling of the local church, I could look down upon the whole thing in much the same way one may look down on a football match from a (much more comfortable) box seat.  But while the bouncy ball of football fate may be fickle, the game of Wedding is much more easy to read.

Once, I and my be-cassocked brethren sang The Locomotion from our lofty position.  Complete with actions.  That marriage was going to do well.

Once, the bride collapsed into hysterics when asked 'Do you take this man...'.  That marriage...well...what do you think was going to happen?

But the most important thing, by far, was the way the bride and groom looked at one another.  If they looked with true love you knew that the marriage would be successful and joyful (for the most part) no matter how much Australian pop or inappropriate laughter was involved in their lives together.

So as an ex-choirboy who knows everything about marriage, it surprises me that some people think that gay marriage is wrong.  How can any marriage be wrong if it's about love?

But no, says Lord Carey, marriage is actually about these things;

Children and Tradition

OK, call me silly, but surely that means that any couples wanting to get married should first have a fertility test, right?  Only those capable of squeezing out at least five infants in the first ten years of life together should be allowed to marry, right?

Forgive my Classicist-Choirboy thought processes, but Musonius Rufus worked this out many many many many many years ago.  Marriage, he says, is not chiefly about the begetting of brats, because, you know, animals produce offspring without a ceremony and we're perfectly capable of it.  Marriage is about;

"...complete companionship and concern for each other..."

and it is destroyed when one party sets their mind entirely on what is outside of the marriage, rather than the wellbeing of their other half.

Even if it were about children, though, why should we stop infertile couples from marrying?  They could always adopt, right?  And if an infertile heterosexual couple can adopt, surely so can a gay couple?  And arguments against the ability of gay couples of raise children sort of went out of the window when this chap spoke.

So there's tradition.  Cool, I like tradition.  So which tradition do we follow?  Ancient Spartans staged a mock kidnap and shaved a woman's hair before dressing her in military attire.  I can see that going down well in the UK.  Just imagine all the enraged hair-dressers who'd be losing out on income?

Tradition's a funny argument.  For many many years in the UK there was no religious or ceremonial element to marriage and all people had to do was live together and consider themselves to belong to one another.  Traditions change.  And as any ex-choirboy knows, love trumps tradition.

And anyway, how was Kylie traditional, eh?

Then there's the argument that gay people can already become civil partners and that's as good as marriage.  OK, so if we define Lord Carey to no longer by human but just a bipedal life-form, that'll be ok then, right?  I mean it's just the same thing by another name.  He doesn't want to be human.  It's just a word.

Honestly, how anyone can make that argument without rolling their own eyes at themselves is beyond me.  Of course everyone wants to be married.  And of course using a separate terminology is going to make it second class.

Finally there's the argument that this is another of a long line of attacks on Christian values.  As a Christian I guess I should be very worried by gay marriage.  But I'm not.  I'll tell you why.

One of the examples given of previous attacks was the hotel argument.  Now, as a vaguely liberal sort, I should be appalled that someone should want to exclude certain people from their guesthouse.  I'm not, though.  I think that's fine.  What I do believe, though, is that there should be some consistency.

So you think being gay is wrong because it's "written in the bible".  Fine.  Firstly, make it plain and clear that that's what you believe.  After that point, you have a few more obligations.

There are seven deadly sins.  And this is how they relate to B&Bs.

1 - Wrath - No action films must be available on television lest the guest be allowed to get too worked up.  Likewise bills must be extremely reasonable.

2 - Greed - So no excessive luxury in the room, nothing aspirational or impressive.  We're talking monk-cell levels of accomodation.

3 - Sloth - Check-out times must be 4am or earlier and beds of nails must be rusty and barbed.

4 - Pride - The removal of mirrors, those free packets of shampoo and the little books of matches that you can pull out to say 'Oh, what these?  Oh yes, we just went away for a few days in October...it was such a lovely little place...'

5 - Lust - So you must make sure that any guests (of whatever sex) bring with them appropriate night-time attire to discourage lustful thoughts (I suggest one of these*).

6 - Envy - All rooms must be exactly equal.

7 - Gluttony - No full-english-breakfasts can be served.

Anyone not complying to all these points should be prosecuted for hypocrasy.  Which in my Britain is a capital offence.

Really it comes down to 'He who is without sin' coupled with a bit of 'love thy neighbour' and topped off with a liberal sprinkle of 'judge not lest ye be judged'.  And I feel that applies equally well to the marriage debate.

But most importantly, God is Love.  That's the strongest message in the bible and one that should be kept at the forefront of the mind.  If people love one another, then that union has of itself something of the divine.  That means that whenever a couple fall in love, Christianity is strengthened as there's more of a divine presence on earth.  To exclude certain couples on the merits of their sexuality is to exclude God.

So sayeth the choirboy.

*although in my case, I'd be left in a likely position to break sin no.1

Love & Ukuleles

Love's a funny thing.  It can drive you to do all manner of strange things.
I think the thing about true love, though, is that once you've done that thing (even if it's taken weeks) and you've had time to look back at it and understand the mind-boggling oddness of it all, you still feel proud.  It still warms your heart and gives you a sense of completeness.

That said, if you haven't yet made your peace with the infinite, then I suggest you think twice before pressing play.



So, I hope that whoever you are, and whatever it is that you love (a special person, pet, food-stuff, view, group of people, artwork etc), that you spend the day cuddled up with a comfortable...comforting...sense of the oddness of all things and the truly humanising effect of affection.

As Deborah's also posting the video, we thought it good to combine our two posts.  So here's what she had to say;

I wanted to write a blog post about ukuleles, so Stephen and I spoke about what photographs we could take to accompany the post - ukuleles being very beautiful instruments. This conversation evolved into a great deal of messing about and all of a sudden (many weeks later) we had produced a music video. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I'm still going to publish the ukulele post, but for your information, the first ukulele is a concert uke, the second is a soprano we made ourselves in the summer of 2010 from a kit like this and the third is a tenor.

The great picture of the rock-hopper penguins is by Liam Quinn.

It's Love. No doubt.

This Valentine's Day I have watched the end of season 4 of The Wire with Deborah. Not traditional romantic fare, perhaps, but compelling it is. And certainly not without love themes. Indeed, love is the driving force of several characters and, at times, the plot itself. So with less than half an hour left of the 14th, I thought I'd write a bit about the love I've seen. All that I write is without knowledge of what happens in the fifth and final season. So be kind if you know more than I!

I will start with the example which links most to my degree - the Spartan love we see in Omar. Omar; beloved of Obama and, well, anyone with any taste. He is quite clearly a Spartan warrior - intelligent and fearless in equal measure, his younger male lovers learn from him and grow in their own violent education. Their mutual love makes them more powerful than the gangsters on whom they prey and, indeed, means that any death is revenged. Love is his power.

We see a similar, if less powerful, version of this in the comradeship in both dealers and police. Gangs, when working properly (i.e. prior to season four and the extreme violence of Marlo's reign) show men working together and looking out for one another. Likewise, police look after their own. But most interestingly in this season you see police and gang members come together in their shared experience...almost a shared love of their city. So Bunny and Wee-Bey are able to communicate and understand each other. And this understanding allows them to act in a way that encourages the growth of Namond into a good man away from the violence of the corner.

Familial love, though, is not always positive. We see Brianna unknowingly force D'Angelo into a position that leads to his destruction. Bubble tries to create a family of sort with Sherrod, but, in the tradition of great classical tragedy, thanks to events outside of his control, kills him. These failures of love contrast with the positive family lives shown in Bunny, Beadie etc.

Talking of Beadie, she represents a redemptive love which is surprisingly rare in the narrative arch of The Wire. And I would not be surprised at all if it doesn't last. Even so, living with Beadie and moving away from the moral problems of detective work, McNulty is able to find redemption and happiness...even peace.

Finally, proper romantic love can be found. Daniels' romance with Rhonda is both touching and powerful. They complete each other and benefit from each other's qualities. It could be argued that this is as redemptive for Rhonda as McNulty's is for him. In this case, though, the relationship feels stronger. Neither character feels a need to change their lives in order to change themselves. They recognise the truth of each other and love each other for that.

This is in no way an end to the love shown in the programme. The love of chess, for example (that scene from the first season was so well formed I will never forget it), the love of traditional work shown by the stevedores, the love of power and respect, and the love of mumbling shown by Marlo and his crew. But it's now the 15th and I must sleep.

Here's hoping that wherever you are and whatever you have been doing, that your day has been filled with the very best kinds of love.