Show me yours and I'll show you mine

A Rapunzel figure with a sweep of hair sat alongside me in a wifi cafè. She leaned across to plug in her notebook at the communal wall socket, so I was conscious of her fresh-smelling hair brushing my arm. I noticed, too, that her arms were fully covered and that her long, clean nails were perfectly filed. But I did not turn to look at her as such. My personal space had been concertina-ed, and so I kept my eyes on my own screen.

And then her fingers began flying across her keyboard with a speed that begged commenting on. I turned to compliment her on her finger fandango, and it was then that I noticed, peeking out from the cuff on her sleeve, a delicately inked scene of tropical complexity and possible spiritual significance. I noticed, too, because my now all-seeing eyes caught sight of her ankle, that Rapunzel was tattooed in what seemed to be an enveloping inked body stocking. Only this was a body stocking that could not be peeled off or back.

Once upon a time - perhaps fifteen years ago - tattoos were the preserve of sluts, convicts and sailors. Rapunzel was, to my mind, pretty and dignified (and possibly intelligent) prior to my espying her body art. My remaining impression, after catching a hint of her panorama, was pity and revulsion. Why indelibly stamp beautiful skin? Why allow a delicately inked panorama to become faded and crepey, and to remain a sad impediment and permanent reminder of a mad moment in time?

The same can be said of those people - photographers included - who post soft porn (or worse) pics of self or others onto the Web. Recently a teenager was heard to say that 'everybody's doing it so it's no big deal', and when pressed to respond to the charge that such pics would be unearthed one day and blight her chances of promotion or political office, 'cool' teenager replied with another 'no big deal' response because 'everybody' would, by then, have an Internet porn history.

Paul Simon was right: we are, indeed, 'slip-sliding away' ...

Copyright © Barbara Elion, 2010

Pollyannas and other cheerful chicks

I was born a Thursday child: what this means is that I am, by nature, not bonny, nor full of grace, and certainly not fair of face. A Thursday child is 'full of woe'. How much more chipper life would have been had the contractions started sooner.

At times, so it has been said, I am curmudgeonly , especially when faced with the Happiness industry - which pedals trite, hollow affirmations, the spread of 'glow' and 'light' and 'love' and whatever else sanitises, and flattens, and reduces to sushi bite-size catch-phrases the full range of human feeling and the complex responses to people and events that shape our lives.

This industry, once only the domain of the greeting card business, or featured on the back of cereal boxes, is everywhere: in email signatures; in platitudinous quotes and channelings and slogans; in the blogosphere and, particularly, on social networking sites, where the expectation is that you should be a constantly happy camper.

There is no room for complex thought or for soulful feeling in the face of the Happiness quaffers of bubbly and nibblers of bon-bons.

Does one join the Gatsby crowd in order to find a place to hide?

I wonder.

Copyright © Barbara Elion, 2010

The Wisdom of Hiss, ISBN 978-0-620-44478-1

Cat whispering

The cat to whom I am an obedient and adoring slave is getting on in years. In human years, he is now seventeen. For the last six years he has suffered from fluctuating symptoms associated with lupus, a condition that not only distresses the animal but which drives the caregiver not only into bankruptcy but also to despair.

Naysayers and conventionally minded people have, for years, been muttering words about 'the long goodbye', or, to put it more specifically, 'the long needle'. In the vet's surgery, the options have been antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and antispasmodics. For a magnificent, willful feline lord presenting new symptoms almost weekly, there's little respite to be found in those injections.

And then there is the animal whisperer, who, from afar, has been chatting to m'lord about a number of things, including the fact that his other vet – the one who has been treating him homeopathically ever since the recommendation by the regular vet – needed to know. The cat whisperer has never met m'lord and knows nothing abuot his condition other than his toilet habits.

The feedback from the cat whisperer (who holds down a corporate position by day) has highlighted a number of issues which have provided guidance for the homeopath.

Most interestingly of all, the slave was informed via SMS last night that she was much loved by m'lord and that she needed to tell him at that moment that she knew of his love.

Hamlet informs Horation: 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Indeed, the gift of animal whispering is ''wond'rous strange'. More wond'rous, though, is the gift of animal love for and insight into the world of humans. How reprehensible our actions towards them in our slaughterhouses, in the forests and on the plains.

The Colour Purple

Oscar Wilde once said: "Lead me not unto temptation / I can find the way myself."

The right shade of purple is the snake in my garden; the apple on my tree; the cocaine in the shopping mall. A mere glimpse of a perfectly hued amethyst, or the sight of lush, inky dark velvet cloth somewhere inside a store, makes me lose all sense of reason and self-control. The object has to be touched; has to be had.

If the colour verges on crushed mulberries, there's no second glance. Where cool lavender and midnight blue find refuge in the heart of purple, there's healing there – and hope, and inspiration, and pleasure.

Everyone should have a totemic colour. Not just broad colour, but a specific shade. The preciseness of variation is the key, for those who know this, know you.