The silver cord snaps

It seems as I get older I am more inclined to dislike and truly resent death. Of course this may seem a perfectly good waste of one's energy when little is as certain as death, but it doesn't wash my mouth of the bitter bile that it leaves.

A friend of mine, Pauline O' Briain passed away recently and I found out when my phone beeped with a new email breaking the dreadful news. It's hard to describe what you feel when someone you last saw with breath in them, a wide, eye-creasing smile and glittery eyes full of life no longer has one. There are few words that can capture the way your insides have suddenly been left hanging suspended in the air- how everything about you stops as you try and reconcile that earth, and all of us has lost another soul's light.

Even as I write this I feel outraged with death. I feel maddened by its blood thirst and disregard for this most holy of gifts that God has given- so much so, am shaking and crying.

I watched two films this week that probably helped solidify this in me. Remember Me and Everything is illuminated. Both of the closing scenes in these films have gone beyond haunting me and left a sad yearning.

It isn't just the fact that moment of death is still uncharted territory until our silver cord snaps or that we go there alone but it's all those we leave behind. We leave them to reminicise, cry, lose sleep, have recurring dreams, wish and miss and hopefully, heal and carry on.

I've been worried I'm losing my God perspective on all of this. He experienced death, firsthand, on both sides of the fence and he is alive to tell the tale (so to speak). He also spent much of His human life comforting us with what would come next and somewhere in all of the riddles and rhymes, hinted He would be there to meet us.

There are those that argue that this life is it - that one day we'll be merely dust. But even despite my fury with death I refuse to believe it has the final say. Perhaps I am being a silly beatnik, but there is too much in this life of ours, too much for it to simply end in nothing.

And so that is where my hope will be - that the one who wept on his knees for his dead friend, just moments before He raised him, understands this grief that lies in me. Understands those who still remember their dead.

It's time

As I sit back at my desk in London, after spending far too long reading about writers that have made it I am hit with the realisation that it's time.

Naomi has read and proofed my book. She has made suggestions and aired her thoughts. She has encouraged and constructively criticised me.

My husband, Kendall, has spent hours reading over the manuscript, finding willing 11 year-old guinea pigs, stood for ages in Staples, hole-punching and collating the pages to send to Naomi.

Everyone has done their bit. And now it stops with me. I keep thinking of other things to add, to change. I keep thinking I'm not ready yet to submit it-just a little while longer. But then I wonder if it isn't anything but fear keeping me from sending out my first three chapters as you're supposed to and allowing the agents to decide to see the balance of it.

I'm afraid after all this time of crafting it, it still won't be regarded as good enough. I'm afraid of the hole that rejections leave you in.

Yet, perhaps these fears are irrational now. I've been offered and signed a real contract to write a non-fiction book for a publisher in the U.S. (no small feat). Publishers don't invest time and money where they don't think they'll get returns.

And so this week I have to do it. Send out the first three chapters and let God deal with the rest.

This week I have to let my writing speak for itself and remember this isn't the end yet.

Hills, wood trails, yellow back spiders and heat!

Yesterday husband dear and I decided to invigorate ourselves with a walk in the woods. We started on the beaten trail, went to ogle at the Bilharzia looking lake and then started to climb. We climbed and climbed and climbed, cutting through huge webs feeling like quite the explorers. (I especially felt Lord Stanley-esque when I smacked a huge black and yellow spider off Kendall's back with my bare hand!).

We reached the summit of this hill/baby mountain and took in the beautiful view. (This would have been a great place to insert a picture except we forgot to bring a camera). Kendall wanted us to stand on a huge rock that was jutting out the side (he would!) there was a lovely drop to the rocky bottom had we have lost our footing.

We then followed a semi-trail down to the old canyon which looked more to me like a limestone quarry and scaled some rocks. A swan couple squawked and told us to piss off, which we soon did because it was too hot for sense.

South Korea has a natural beauty that I wasn't expecting to find. It has hills and mountains full of fir trees and trundling through them I felt like I was in Narnia, when the White Witch's strength is starting to fade and summer is returning.

Standing in the green with just a bottle of water, a stick to beat away the webs, good walking shoes and if you're clever sunglasses to protect your eyes (I forgot mine) will make for some lovely trekking.

What one of my students wrote to me :)

Hi, Erina!! I'm beth~ Do you remember me? I was your student~ Handong English camp~
I really really miss you~ I'm so sorry that I send this email so late~

Although I use wrong grammer.. I believe that you can understand! I believe.. :(

I want to go handong again~ Before I went to handong, I really hated Handong English camp

but After I went to Handong, I love this camp! hahahahhahahahah

Erina~ Where are you now? Are you in Korea until now?? or Are you in England?

I hope you are in korea~ Especially in Pohang!!

I really miss our classroom, classmate, every ELT, every cc.,....and all of Handong!

But the best person was you:< !!

Although I couldn't speak english well, you always understand me, and told me "good~" "great"!!

you are the best teacher!!!

I really miss you~ I want to see you again goodbye ~

and do you know talisa's email?? If you know please let me know talisa's email !

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOOXOXOXOXOXOOXOXOXOXOXOO

from. Beth To.Erina~

I read that this morning and begun my day with sheer happiness :)

Don't Panic

I'm in our little room in Pohang, prepping for the English Camp that's about to begin and listening to Coldplay's 'Don't Panic' and being transported to London at night.

It's so bizarre how certain chord progressions and tones of voice can do that. It's as if home wraps itself inside of musical notes and tucks itself inside of secret parts of me. It means that when I play certain music I don't feel so odd or misplaced. I'm standing sure-footed and secure.

I'm definitely an oddity here in South Korea. In a sea of pale skin and dark hair, my bronzed brown and woolly 'fro is enough to stop the old and young from eating their weird stewed kebabs or from walking down the beach promenade to literally gawp at me.

Whether the staring is disbelief, amazement, horror or fear-I can't always tell. But Koreans are a curious people. Considering they've been on this peninsula so many centuries and survived the Japanese and other empires, they still seek and wonder at new things.

Yesterday when I was walking to the cafeteria, a small old man bowed and greeted me (even though I was wearing sunglasses-usually regarded as a social barrier). I was so taken aback at his small but sweet gesture I beamed all the way to my position in the queue.

I see that as God saying, 'I see you. I like how you look. You're welcome in this place.'

And that's all I needed.

iLie

The iPad has arrived- in all its pomp and glory. For a mere £340 ($499)* you can hold one of these electronic beauties in your hands and do everything from surfing Safari, look at high res pictures of friends and even some work with iWork.

This new contraption has probably pleased Steve Jobs like little else- what with it selling to 1 million merry buyers in 28 days in the US (thus causing a 3 month delay to launch here in the UK). The iPad is expected to reel in a grand profit of £41 billion ($60 billion) in sales this year.

Personally, I am not too taken by an over sized iPhone that has similar features but can't call out (a bit like iTouch). But then again I've always been a little late on these things. I only got a new phone last year because my husband thought the one I had was an affront to the noughties period we're living in.

But back to the iPad. The thing that jars me beyond its annoying fresh, clean, hip and addictive marketing strategies is what it is doing to the value of human life.

Across the plains of Asia, in recent months, in a factory city called Shenzen, China, 10 young adults have committed suicide and two have attempted it. Perhaps 10 out of a 400,000 strong employee list isn't regarded as too bad because it's within the national averages, but the leaking revelations of the conditions of Foxconn's factories leave a lot to be answered.

The average Foxconn worker (Foxconn being the biggest global electronic manufacturer, who make gizmos for Sony, IBM, Dell and Hewlett-Packard as well) starts work by being ready for the the day's headcount at 7:35 am and finishing work around 9:00pm. They may get a 10 minute break-but not in peak production times (which with the iPad's current popularity means now). They will earn an average of £2.90 for that day's work. They will not be allowed to talk to any other colleagues during the day and will be constantly watched by militant security guards. This all after they have survived the initial severe induction drills to ingrain in them, Foxconn's ethos, 'Value efficiency- every minute, every second.'

For reasons that Foxconn, psychologists and Apple are still trying to grapple with, young people are throwing themselves from their dormitory windows to their death. Some say it's mass hysteria or that China's young people aren't as hardy as the previous generation. Parents' silence is being bought, Foxconn will not comment, Apple says it's saddened, a 17 year-old girl is now crippled from the waist down in a bodged attempt and still the iPads sell.

Perhaps some may argue: "At least they have jobs..." and other economically focused reasons, but it is a little hard to ignore something is going horribly wrong in China.

We want more iPads and other iThings and Apple tells this to their manufacturers (who also happen to be able to produce a high quota to maximum quality at very little cost-monetarily speaking) then an 18-year-old worker from rural China realises that dropping a drill in a panicked moment will result in them being forced to clean lavatories with their bare hands at times.

Do we stop buying iThings to make a point? Do we turn aside and thank God the suicide numbers are at least within China's national averages?

Or could we write an email to Apple and remind them as Foxconn's biggest client that what they say holds sway and that even though we can't pronounce the deceased's names correctly their life was extremely important? Just as important in fact as the scores of others who are thinking of ways they can get over the new barbed wires and take that leap.

Six months and 15 days on...

I was face-lurking earlier when I came across a friend in Nashville's comment of being married for one week and thought, 'ah bless, how sweet'.

There truly is something amazing about those early weeks, after the fanfare and fuss of the wedding has passed and you're getting used to finding your toes tangled in someone else's (as well as having to learn it is not appropriate to do star jumps in your sleep as you are now sharing a bed!).

But as I said to her, I say it here: "It only gets better." Some good friends of ours in Indy told us this. Some think the wedding day and honeymoon will be the best day of your lives-but I beg to differ. They will always hold something special in them of the gravity of those vows that are spoken but it's the next mornings for the rest of those long years you live that will be the best days of your life.

Those coming days will try, pull, tear, soothe, kiss, comfort, hold and embrace you. But the thing is, you face all those future days with your beloved. You get to dream with them, plan, talk it out, see the changes, learn your differences, find out those secret things that no one else knows (yes not even their parents!) It's in those days that those spoken vows grow deeper and anchor you in something so old and prehistoric you wonder how it found you.

And so six months and 15 days later I wake up next to my curly haired, handsome husband and best friend and think: "Ahhh, how is it possible I love you even more?" And the biggest compliment is that these short months later and he's feeling it just as strong.

Love.