Nonstop

by Martha Medeiros

  I have recently read Rhyming Life and Death by the Israeli writer Amos Oz. The protagonist, known as The Author, is at a literary event giving a reading from his latest book. As his attention wanders, various stories and scenarios unravel in his mind about those in the audience. We follow his innermost thoughts on a fascinating journey. At some point in his reverie he says something that got me thinking – even after our death we live on in the memory of another. It can be our child, a grandchild, a great-grandchild or a friend. While this person is alive we live on as well. Only when this person dies – the last one to still remember us – do we truly die, forever. We are as dead as if we had never been born.

  I’ve been lucky enough to have endured few losses in my life. I lost a good friend twenty years ago, I lost a grandmother to whom I was very close and I lost an aunt who I adored. I often think and dream about them – I search my memory for them, to keep them alive. In a hundred years no one will remember any of them. They won’t have any friends, children or grandchildren still alive – they will be truly dead. Just to think about it hurts me as much as if they were going to die again. People who write songs and books, who make films, break records, will further their immortality. The Pelés, Picassos and Mozarts. Yet, they will always be remembered for their public image, not for who they were in their private lives. No one will remember their voices, their laughter, their caprices. Their fame will survive but they will no longer be missed by those with whom they shared Sunday lunches and nights out on the town.

  Someone told me that if I believed in reincarnation none of this would matter. Only, I really don’t. Even if I’m mistaken, what good is eternity if I can’t prove its existence? If I’m a reincarnated beetle or an Egyptian princess from a former life, what difference does it make to me now? I’m guided by my consciousness, not by abstraction. I am who I am now – someone who can be remembered. Speculation doesn’t bring me comfort.

  It’s likely that the last person who will remember me, the last one to see my photos and to have good or bad memories of me, hasn’t yet been born. I don’t even have grandchildren yet. When will I truly die? It won’t be after my last breath, but rather after the last breath of that one person who will still love me – or hate me. Hate can equally keep us alive. Enemies and murderers also live through the memories of those who they once hurt.

  On this All Soul’s Day I’d like to pay homage to this person – the last human being to remember us. The last one to miss us, to remember our laughter, the way we walked and the way talked. The last one to remember our stories. The last one to say our names. The last one to allow us to live in their memory. Blessed be this person who will keep us alive long after we’ve gone.

  The Scheme of Life and Love

  I was given a book by Carl Jung, the founder of analytical psychology, in which he talks about that inexhaustible and fascinating topic, namely, love. While reading it, I came across a passage that I found intriguing. He says that a woman’s love isn’t real love – this only happens to men – but is rather the consummation of a life’s desire, which, at times, can be frighteningly unemotional and even lead to self-denial.

  Hang on a second! This is serious stuff! I understood from this assertion that only men are capable of genuine and selfless love. Even the pressures of society towards marriage won’t inhibit their search for love. Men will only answer to their truest feelings – if the feeling isn’t there, they won’t simply make do. Men don’t create love when it isn’t there.

  For women, love is not an emotional issue – it’s a lot more than that. Together with this latent feeling there’s also our life’s project, which is extremely rational and which needs to be carried forward for us to attain true happiness. Love is a bridge that will take us to other important destinations. Love acts as a catalyst to a state of fulfilment, which, in turn, will fulfil other needs besides our romantic ones.

  In short, men are the true romantics.

  Women need to find their place in the world. Women need to accomplish their mission – primarily, to have children. Women want to find answers to their inner questions. Women have a great need to complete this project that is our life’s endeavour. As women we take our aspirations very seriously. We are driven by a desire to have all that was promised to us since birth. Love is a path that leads us to greater things – which is a lot more daring and ambitious than to love for the sake of loving. Perhaps our love isn’t true love, but it’s through finding some kind of love that we will define our place as women. Men are already born with their place.

  Did Jung really mean that, or have I completely misunderstood him? If I’m right, perhaps true love, for a woman, really only comes with age and maturity, when we have finally achieved what we set out to achieve in the first place. After so much effort women can finally give in to love, for its own sake, as men have always done. Men and women will at last love each other, free of secret anxieties.

  I’m going to venture my thoughts a little further here, even perilously so. Perhaps this interpretation explains why it’s normally the woman who asks for the divorce. We’ve achieved our purpose and now we want to experience love in its purest sense, without sacrifice, whereas men only ask for a divorce when they fall in love with another woman, since they’ve been driven by love from the start.

  Jung, please forgive me if I misunderstand you, but allow me to fulfil this insatiable desire, to think about love rather than only to feel it. After all, I’m a woman.

  Your Highness, The Child

  Children’s lack of boundaries is a common topic nowadays. They make the rules, and the parents, ensnared in guilt about their own absence, abide by them. In this reversal of roles, children give the orders and will soon be sending their parents to the naughty step.

  According to their teachers we need to start saying no again. Teachers maintain that it’s the lack of boundaries that encourage youngsters to come and go as they please, to drink alcohol and to neglect their responsibilities. But where are we going to find the energy to argue with them? Parents slump on the sofa and all they can think of is that as long as the children leave them alone to watch TV, they can do as they wish.

  Some parents excuse themselves by saying that it’s impossible to draw the boundaries, to supervise and guide children, when they have to work all day and are exhausted in the evening. I understand that, it’s really difficult. There’s little doubt that there’s a connection between children having too much freedom and women abandoning their role as full-time mothers to enter the job market. Of course it doesn’t even cross my mind to return to the old days. Society has evolved with the engagement of women, and there’s no going back. What really jeopardises a child’s future is neglect – and many endure it even when the parents are around.

  Lack of love is the source of a great number of neuroses, psychoses and bad behaviour. Neglected and unloved children become insecure and fall prey to a great deal of nonsense to regain their self-esteem. There’s no point in throwing a meaningless I love you at them every now and then – children need to feel loved. Showing love goes beyond the odd kiss and cuddle, which is just as pointless as saying no without giving a reason. Love requires explanations: You can’t do this because…, You can’t go because… It takes time – and patience. We need to watch our children’s habits, to note their silences, to show that we care about what they do and what they think. We need to know who their friends are, what they’re interested in, what they fear and why they’re crying. We need to find out if they’re fighting us for attention, or asking us for help. We need to know if they’re risking their lives and need to be stopped. We need to know if they’re hoping for too much or too little, if we are encouraging them enough or expecting more than they can give. We need to share their desires and ambitions. We need to know if life’s demands seem too much for them, if they need to share their troubles, if they feel safe at school, if they’ve been given too much responsibility for their age. It’s hard work, but this is love.

  A
re You Annoying?

  Everyone knows at least one annoying person. Or two. Or half a dozen. We even come to like them; they become characters in the chapters of our lives. It can be a brother-in-law, a friend’s friend, a work colleague. Annoying people are full of good intentions – we can’t deny that. Strangely, it is precisely this abundance of good intentions that makes them so annoying. They are cheerfully over the top – too helpful, too funny, too talkative. Basically they all suffer from the same thing, namely, bad timing.

  I’m inclined to agree with a friend who says that he finds it annoying when people put a child on the phone. No matter how much we love that child – maybe it’s our own! – but on the phone, forget it. We try our best to make some kind of conversation, to get some communication going, but it just doesn’t work. Either the child says something completely unintelligible or they won’t say a word. All we can do is to carry on like an idiot at the other end.

  Everyone knows how annoying this is. Yet every parent has done it to someone or the other. Why? Because first-time parents are naturally annoying – no one escapes. If they aren’t annoying, they’re seen as being indifferent.

  Another annoying thing parents do is to show off endless photos of their babies. When the baby isn’t ours it can be a painful ordeal. All babies look the same, except our own. Now, be honest, how long can you cope when the smartphone comes out with the baby’s photos? A single question about the baby’s health is all it takes. Here, see for yourself!

  We know it’s annoying but we tolerate it with half-fake smiles – we know we’ll do the same when it’s our turn, or we have already done it. If it’s over for you, grit your teeth and start smiling. What goes around comes around.

  Other ways of being annoying? When someone asks: Remember me? Well, seeing as you’re asking, chances are I don’t. But haven’t we all done it when we wanted someone to remember us? What about stretching out the words to emphasise our meaning? Or when we start our sentences with guess? Guess where I’m going on holiday! Guess who invited me to dinner! Guess who I dreamt about last night!

  On that note, is there anything more annoying than having to listen to other people’s dreams?

  Now guess my next example! Ha ha ha. Do we really need to add the laughter for people to understand our stupid jokes?

  Some more than others, but inevitably we’re all annoying.

  Trust in God, But Lock Your Car

  Until recently Mike Tyson was still in the media saying mea-culpa for a life time of misbehaviour. I remember when he was accused of rape by Desiree Washington, back in 1991. Apparently, she had gone to his room in the middle of the night, but had a change of heart. Everyone has the right to change their minds before having sex, and their partner should respect their decision, no matter how annoyed they get. But if you have any sense you’d avoid making Mike Tyson mad. At the time, the writer, Camille Paglia, said that Mike Tyson made a mistake, of course, but that the girl had been pretty stupid. She justified her opinion by giving an example: leaving your car unlocked in a deserted street doesn’t necessarily mean it will get stolen, but if it is, you were just as stupid.

  That story always comes back to me when I hear someone saying Woe is me! – which is a self-pitying motto. As I listen to their misfortune I almost always come to the same conclusion – they left their cars unlocked. Girls who allow their boyfriends to film them naked, and then find out they’re YouTube stars, boys who drink-drive and wake up in hospital – if they’re lucky. Where’s God? they demand. God is looking for survivors in a tsunami, or comforting those with terminal cancer, because they’re the true victims. They locked their cars, but were still surprised by fate.

  The English writer William Ralph Inge once wrote “There are no rewards or punishments – only consequences”. I couldn’t agree more. Bad luck is responsible for only 10% of our misfortune; the rest is up to us. That is true for both our professional and love lives, and for the health of our mind and body. I accept that the government is inept, the law crying out for reform, bureaucracy a sham and that everyday life can be cruelly challenging. Even the weather can turn against us. But either we move on – and reap the benefits – or we stagnate and reap the punishments. Take your pick and accept the consequences. In the end it’s all down to our determination, or stupidity.

  So, whether you park your car on a deserted street at night or in your own driveway, lock the door. Don’t enter a room with a brute unless you know what you want. Don’t leave a candle unattended. Don’t grab your boss by the collar if you want to keep your job. Don’t buy chocolates if you’re on a diet. What you give is what you get.

  And finally, trust in God, just in case.

  The New Minority

  It’s a small community, even smaller than the aborigines, who became a minority after the arrival of colonists. The minority of which I speak is being eradicated from the planet, and very few people have noticed. I’m talking about sensible people.

  The sensible people’s community has never been officially founded. Their ancestors mated with stupid people and created mixed children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. This cultural diversity would normally be welcome, but unfortunately it didn’t add up to much. This mixed offspring continued to copulate with other stupid people, until unreason became the dominant gene of our species. We were left with just a few pure sensible blooded people.

  It’s easy to recognise them. They express themselves in a direct manner and base their opinions on rare and disregarded common sense. They look at a situation from different perspectives before taking a position. They make fair decisions even if they dislike the outcome. They aren’t fazed by their partners’ delusions, preferring to use logic and reason. Are they cold-hearted? That’s what some say. What they don’t realise is what they go through for being misunderstood.

  Sensible people act in an obvious way. They know the quickest way to make things happen, but things can only happen when people work together. Alone there’s nothing they can do against the overwhelming confrontation with people who apply themselves to overcomplicate everything. To the stupid majority, directness is always suspicious. What can I say?

  Sensible people follow old principles. They value emotion and dismiss pettiness. They don’t waste their time with gossip and rumour. They don’t agree with everything they read or bow to the media, or criticise people they don’t actually know. If they feel compelled to intervene, they will explain their position without resorting to violence.

  Sensible people don’t think that abiding by the law is old-fashioned. They’re more interested in living in harmony. Their madness is more sophisticated than that. They sometimes break with some conventions, but with their own private conventions, which won’t affect others. Sensible people aren’t goody two shoes, far from it. They have strong personalities. If things work for them, it is because they focus on achieving their goals rather than wasting their time in meaningless drama and self-pity.

  Sensible people live their lives to the full. They understand that it’s better to have a short happy life than a long one full of misery and they make the most of their time. They see that programs such as Big Brother have a certain curiosity value, but they don’t have the stomach for those pointless conversations. It’s the emptiness and the banality being passed down the generations.

  A sensible person told me the other day that he used to hang around with creative people who spoke his language, who valued freedom and who didn’t have time for pettiness, but all his friends had moved away. He looked like the last of his tribe, standing there all alone.

  Despite the small chance of survival, it is better to die in battle. Sensible people: never surrender.

  Cigarettes After Sex

  The email was from one of my readers and contained just a link and a single line: I think you will like it. It’s like a breeze coming through the window. I’d normally delete it without a second thought, but some inexplicable force made me open the link. It could be bad poetry, a dis
gusting image, or, horror of horrors, a fatal virus which could destroy my computer. But what I found was a song by a band called Cigarettes After Sex. Since then I’ve listened to it every single day.

  I had never heard of it, but perhaps you have – the band was created in 2008, in Texas, and became more widely known in 2015, in Brooklyn. In any case, my first time was a few months ago. First time seems the right way to put it. Cigarettes After Sex is a rather suggestive name.

  The mellow tone of their voices could easily be mistaken for sadness. Now, we only feel sad after sex if we’re not with the one we want. If we’re talking about love, the moments after the act can only be compared to completeness, tranquillity, bliss. Life on pause.

  The number of smokers has dropped to an all-time low. The celebrated cigarette after sex stopped being a habit and became a cliché, yet its meaning lives on. The cigarette may be just a metaphor, but relaxation after orgasm is real. Cigarettes After Sex is the musical translation for the semi-darkness of the room, bodies covered in sweat, crumpled linen, discarded knickers, empty glasses. Cigarettes After Sex is life in slow motion, laziness, whispers in the dark, distant sounds coming from a distant planet and when you roll over to look at the person lying next you. Cigarettes After Sex is the moment you rest your head on their chest and take their hand in yours. Cigarettes After Sex is when the clock stops, it’s neither day nor night, the phones are on silent and so are our troubles. It’s a blissful moment when nothing else matters. Cigarettes After Sex is the beauty of nothingness, the pleasure of stillness, the sensuality of what’s just happened.

  Like a breeze that comes through the window and leads us to a few minutes of forgetfulness and satisfaction.