Shared Natures: getting out, and meeting Ellis the fox cub

Like so many people who suffer from chronic pain or illness, isolation is a constant difficulty. I spend a lot of time at home, only able to move around for short periods because too much activity can trigger pain flare-ups. I go for a short walk each day. I’ve never learned to drive, and to do so now would be too expensive as well as painful, due to problems with sitting. For three days a week I’m completely alone because my partner Angie lives and works in London on those days. In these circumstances it can be very difficult to stay positive and cheerful, and I know that this isn’t unusual amongst the many other people who live in similar circumstances.

As I rest, on and off, in my very comfortable reclining chair in the living room, I am sometimes prey to a kind of existential loneliness, where I feel cut off from the rest of the world. Because I have periods of anxiety, noise can be stressful, and silence can be spooky. Four years ago I had a nervous breakdown in this house, suffering severe anxiety for several months, and with a lot of hard work and support I recovered, but I still occasionally have setbacks. I work hard at various relaxation and self-help techniques, and they do help a great deal. But despite the frequent presence of our beloved cat Tally, nothing helps to combat isolation like contact with other people does. For several years now, my main contact with the outside world on those three days has been television, the internet and the occasional phone call. Facebook, that social network with a bad press, which is often accused of encouraging isolation and ‘virtual’ relationships, has made a huge positive difference to me, all the more now since I’ve joined a closed group for other sufferers. The support and friendship we people in different corners of the world give each other is an absolute joy, and my only regret is that because much of my computer time is taken up with writing, I don’t spend as much time with my friends there as I’d like.

This rather lengthy preamble is meant to contrast the life I experience most of the time with an episode of sheer joy when I was actually able to get out and do something different. The episode itself gives me an opportunity to write about a recent passion of mine which is all the more intense because of the current British government’s obsession with legalising the persecution of wild animals – and the surely-not-coincidental proliferation of anti-fox stories in Conservative tabloid newspapers. All my life I’ve related to those who are persecuted, bullied, legislated against or bombed to smithereens – so no wonder I became a peace activist! Maybe it has something to do with years of bullying in my childhood, or maybe it doesn’t. But like I said once to my therapist, in a moment of realisation, one of the reasons I’m so against fox hunting is that “I always felt like the fox”!

The British Wildlife Centre is an hour’s drive away from Eastbourne, and very close to the beautiful Ashdown Forest (where a certain Winnie-the-Pooh once lived). Last autumn I visited it with Angie, and for about half an hour or so I spent time in their fox enclosure, photographing these beautiful animals as they were fed by the keepers. I got some lovely photos, but it was also a very moving experience for me. As I sat so near the foxes, I couldn’t imagine how anyone could want to chase, terrify and kill them. Their resemblance to certain household pets (and I always think of them as curiously cat-like dogs, even though they’re far more closely related to the latter) was incredibly striking. The same look of intelligence was present in their eyes and behaviour. Would any of those ‘hunters’ traumatise and kill their beloved dogs or cats? No!

My passion for foxes really began in those moments of closeness. I tend to agree with the Buddha that most acts of evil or cruelty are done in ignorance of our shared natures. We don’t have to anthropomorphise animals to make this true. It’s a scientific fact that we’re all related; humans and all other animals have common ancestors.

Earlier this month, in the midst of the Ashdown Forest spring, Angie and I got a chance to go again. This time it was to meet Ellis, a rescued orphaned fox cub who was being reared at home by one of the keepers (where he apparently enjoys playing with her adult black Labrador). Once he’s old enough, Ellis will be released into an enclosure with Biscuit, one of the adult foxes.

As Katie the keeper held him, we got so close to Ellis that we could have cuddled him ourselves. The cat-like quality was even more evident; although a canid, Ellis still reminded me of Tally in his movement, eagerness, and nervousness battling with curiosity. The little thing couldn’t keep still! – constantly moving from one side of Katie’s body to the other, and consequently not easy to photograph. But both Angie and I felt the same strong impulse to smuggle him home. And although he was born a wild animal, Ellis seemed already at least half-domesticated.

I spent a while on my feet, not only with Ellis but also photographing polecats, adders and a sleepy adult fox who rested under a yellow-flowering gorse bush and looked a little warily at the small children crowding by the fence (“Hello, Foxy Loxy!”, said one). So I was in a little worse pain than before, and the car journey home seemed longer than the one earlier. But I can do these things sometimes, just not on an everyday basis or in a flare-up. The pain settled down again – and I got some lovely photos of Ellis!

As I sat telling my therapist about this a few days later, I realised that when I have these special times – getting out somewhere new, meeting other people, doing something I love – “I feel indistinguishable from my old self”. I meant the self that I felt I was before I became ill. And this is one of the dilemmas for all of us living with chronic pain or illness. We long to be able to do the things we used to do, live the lives we used to lead. We all feel a great sense of loss, as if we’ve lost our identities as well as the ability to do things. But we’re held back by pain, or by severe fatigue, or (in my case) anxiety and loss of confidence as well. This isn’t always obvious to non-sufferers, because our illnesses are often invisible – indeed, we are often invisible, when forced to spend most of our lives at home or even in bed. This is partly why I feel such a sense of kinship with my friends in that Facebook group. We all understand these dilemmas – our frustrated needs, our isolation, our physical and emotional suffering, and our frequent misunderstanding by other people. It can be very healing, comforting and cheering to get in touch with people I share so much with.

Even so, I am trying to get out a bit more now. I felt like hibernating in the winter – spending more and more time curled up in bed. Now I’m starting to come out again. We could have gone back to see Ellis yesterday, as he was running about in his new photographic enclosure; but that lack of confidence I mentioned returned, and I didn’t quite feel up to it. It’s a difficult balance – doing too much could precipitate a flare-up. But I want that feeling again, of experiencing the ‘old me’, of being Michael again. I’m still Michael at home, of course, the same as I ever was. But thanks to pain, anxiety and isolation, it doesn’t always feel that way.

Now a new opportunity has come up. The Fox Project (in fairly nearby Kent) has days when the public can meet the foxes in their hospital, and other days when we can meet and hold the cubs. This is too good an opportunity to miss! The next day is 6^th May, and if we can’t make that one then I’ll make sure we get there sometime soon. To hold a cub!!! What a privilege! Such noble animals, yet sometimes so easy to get close to!

I know I’m a bit fluffy. But one thing I learned four years ago when I’d recovered from my breakdown, was that it doesn’t matter how embarrassing or childlike I behave any more – and my love of furry animals dates way back to my childhood. As long as it doesn’t hurt or harm anything, if it’s fun and brings pleasure to life then it’s okay. I’m learning to be kind to those aspects of my personality, instead of feeling ashamed of them. So I’ll carry on being fluffy! But it doesn’t mean that I lack respect for these wonderful creatures. Wild animals they may be at heart, but I recognise and rejoice in our shared natures.

Sunshine Made From Rain

For some time now, I’ve been trying to think of a good title for this blog. All the really great ones seem to have been taken. As I ran through the blogs of friends of mine who similarly suffer from chronic pain and illness, a beautiful phrase kept coming into my mind. ‘Sunshine made from rain’… It’s not the name of a blog but a poem, written by a Facebook friend last year, not long before she died.

Amberlin Wu was a dancer, a writer, and activist and a therapist, living in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. She kept chickens in her back yard. She also suffered from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome – as she put it, “the bad kind”, the kind that is absolutely devastating to sufferers’ lives. I didn’t know her well, so the details of how CFS affected her life I’m not really sure, but I do know that she had good periods when she could go out to the beach with friends, and flare-ups when she could barely get out of bed or even move. She worked hard to publicise an illness (or, quite possibly, a collection of different illnesses) which is still deeply misunderstood by many of the public and even medical professions. As my friend (and Amberlin’s) Toni Bernhard has said, ‘chronic fatigue’ is an absurd misnomer. It is a state of deep and chronic sickness, nothing like the ‘fatigue’ that most of us experience from time to time.

I only ‘met’ Amberlin on Facebook only a few months before her death; we had both written contributions to a mutual friend’s book project, and I thought hers was just wonderful. We only really exchanged a few brief messages over that time. As a result, I still don’t know exactly what she died of, but assume that it was from complications of her illness (little known fact amongst non-sufferers: CFS – or ME, as it’s more commonly known in the UK – can sometimes kill). And her poem, ‘Sunshine made from rain’, has felt even more touching since she passed away; it expresses deep sadness and joy in almost equal measure. To experience the world around her so fully, even through pain and illness – and then, quite suddenly it seemed to her friends, to leave the world entirely… At the time I had no idea she was so ill, or that CFS could take away a life, just like that.

What came across most, however, from Amberlin’s life, her writing and her personality, was that she truly loved life, and that she was determined to live it as much as she possibly could – and to help others live it too. Her Facebook page is still online, kept going by her mother Ann, and messages to Amberlin are still posted by her friends, saying how much they love her, miss her, and value the friendship she gave them. She was an incredibly loved woman – that much is so clear. With respect to her cluck-clucking chickens, it was Amberlin who made sunshine out of rain.

Although I’m not nearly as devastatingly ill as Amberlin was, my own chronic pain and anxiety have affected my life in some similar ways. And having been through periods where I was tormented and couldn’t see a way out of the hole, I’ve re-assessed aspects of my life since and am trying now to create something positive out of the pain I’ve been through – both for myself and for others. Because of this, the title and content of Amberlin’s beautiful poem resonate with me all the more. So the poem has given me my own title for this blog. Warm thanks to Ann Wu for kindly giving her consent for me to use and quote from it, and to Amberlin for writing it. And of course, for living her life and being the warm and giving friend she so clearly was to others.

You can visit Amberlin’s blog at http://bealightcfsawareness.blogspot.co.uk/ Meanwhile, here is her poem.

Sunshine made from rain

Today, I’ve been teetering along tears

I don’t know what or why

To stay in bed

Or get into a car and go

Go somewhere that might take me away.

There’s a grief inside me

Though I don’t know its name

It reaches up into my throat

With its clenched fist

Making it difficult to swallow.

The cluck cluck of chickens

Comes through the open window

Floating in from the farm

It’s magic born from sadness and suffering

It’s sunshine made from rain.

CD Review: 'The Fragile'

It’s become almost customary, when discussing O’Hooley and Tidow’s albums, for reviewers to mention Belinda O’Hooley’s previous work with The Unthanks. But that’s understandable, because not only did Belinda’s piano style contribute a great deal to the sound and mood of the award-winning ‘The Bairns’, but her later work with Heidi Tidow is fully worthy to stand beside The Unthanks’ refreshing brand of English folk music. O’Hooley and Tidow are less traditional than the other group, though, and both this and their first album ‘Silent June’ consist almost entirely of memorable, self-penned songs – each album paying homage to its roots with a beautiful, lone and melancholic song by Ms or Mr Trad.

On the whole a jauntier album than its predecessor, ‘The Fragile’ shares with it an underlying sense of melancholy and tenderness, and a preoccupation with ‘outsiders’ and with people and animals who are so often ignored, unseen or victims of prejudice in our (it seems to me) increasingly cold and pitiless society. The tender compassion that permeates the album is far from hidden by the singalong tunes of some of its songs; ‘The Last Polar Bear’, which was a recent online Christmas single, has a tune that lodges itself in your head, until it’s immediately replaced by the irrepressibly catchy ‘Gentleman Jack’, about a 19^th Century gentlewoman whose serial seductions enraged countless boyfriends and husbands. Throughout these songs the arrangements are sparse but subtle and at times punchy, driven along by O’Hooley’s piano while their voices float above. None more so than ‘Little Boy Blue’, which creates some haunting sounds with no more than a prepared piano and the duo’s exquisite voices. ‘Teardrop’, meanwhile, showcases acappella harmonies that rival The Unthanks and once again reveal O’Hooley and Tidow’s traditional roots.

Elderly people feature twice on this album. I remember Paul Heaton of The Beautiful South lamenting the ageism of pop music’s usual subject matter, and the two on here are both beautiful and subtle tributes to another of society’s almost invisible groups of human beings. ‘A Daytrip’ is a jaunty but touching song about Vera and Albert’s trip to the seaside, while ‘Mein Deern’ (my personal favourite; it has a truly gorgeous melody) immortalises the last words to Heidi Tidow of her German grandmother. ‘She Lived Beside the Anner’ is a haunting rendition of a traditional song, and prefaces the album’s quiet climax, ‘Ronnie’s Song’, about an aging, homeless homosexual man, who was taken under the wing of an actress at a Huddersfield theatre. Her attitude – “a person is a person; it makes no odds to me”, becomes the refrain of the song, and when the words are taken up by the London Diversity Choir at the end it takes on a wonderful, universal quality, without ever becoming embarrassingly overblown. The refrain has been in my head many times since, and for me it feels like an anthem to all victims of prejudice, for whatever reason, everywhere.

After this ‘big’, yet always understated song, the album closes with a brief but touching tribute to a much-loved cat (animals and the environment being another ‘fragile’ theme). There’s a subtlety, softness and humour about O’Hooley and Tidow’s music which (together with the catchy tunes) allows the listener to be completely free of any sense that they’re being hit over the head with a political hammer. And yet, Belinda and Heidi’s political sympathies are at times devastatingly clear, and nowhere more so than in the opening song, ‘The Tallest Tree’, where a robin looks down on the world it sees below:

The second night her sleep disturbed by visions of a street

Where crows in pinstriped uniform gather to repeat

The systematic ruin of the commoner’s nest egg

To feast upon their bonuses, then freely fly onwards

With its witty, touching lyrics, stick-in-your-brain tunes, gorgeous singing and wonderfully subtle arrangements, ‘The Fragile’ deserves to win not only folk awards but the Mercury Music Prize as well. It’s garnered many excellent reviews, and fully deserves them. Let’s hope that like The Unthanks, who have to some extent transcended their folk / roots classification, it’s not only in the folk world that O’Hooley and Tidow become popular.

'The Fragile' is available from http://ohooleyandtidow.com/

Explaining Invisible Illnesses

I had a typically frustrating and hurried visit to my doctor this week. He's normally quite good, but a lack of empathy and understanding does sometimes come across. I wrote him a letter this morning, which many sufferers from invisible illnesses, such as ME/CFS, anxiety, depression or chronic pain may be able to relate to. I haven't decided whether to send it yet! Anyway, here it is...

Dear Dr -

Thank you for your help and support yesterday regarding my concerns about my anxiety and diazepam intake, and also for reassuring me about the other matter. I’m very grateful and in fact I was a lot less anxious yesterday as well!

I appreciate you as a doctor and all the help you’ve given me and the work you do. As you know, however, I sometimes feel frustrated by an apparent lack of empathy and understanding of me and my chronic illness, and I felt that way yesterday as well.

I readily admit to having difficulties sometimes in managing my anxiety, and that my fear of anxiety feelings sometimes encourages me to take a diazepam tablet for the sake of immediate relief; that was why I came to you yesterday for help and support. As you said, I am not addicted but the drug needs to be managed carefully. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t try my hardest to manage my anxiety in every other way I know as well. You suggested that I use distraction; well, I do that as much as I possibly can! I mean, I have a book to write! I love music, watching tennis, doing photography (landscapes and animals, mostly), socialising when I feel up to it, having sex when I can, playing with my cat, breathing in the fresh air of the downs, paddling or even swimming in the sea when I’m able to… I also practise meditation and relaxation and breathing techniques that I learned from a charity supporting anxiety sufferers (these same techniques also help my chronic pain, and were a vital part of the pain management programme I attended this summer). I do everything I can to manage my anxiety constructively and to try and get better. Yes, the temptation to take diazepam is there and I may give into it a bit too often at times. But I am the one who has to live with a condition which frightens me and causes great distress at times. And I feel sometimes that you don’t always give me enough credit for what I do to help myself which such a difficult condition. I have several friends who manage worse! (although as a fellow sufferer I fully appreciate the difficulties they face and that their anxiety is more severe and disabling than mine).

Perhaps it is partly because, when I come to see you, I tend to be worried about something and therefore come across as quite negative. Maybe I seem passive and not always giving myself enough credit, so you don’t see that positive side of me. I did however explain all this to you in an earlier, longer letter which you kindly read.

I also feel a need to correct a possible misunderstanding of yours regarding my ability to get out and exercise. I’m quoting you as accurately as I can remember. When I said that it’s more difficult for me to distract myself by going out and exercising because of my frequent need to rest, I think you said: “There’s always a reason. In my case it’s because I’m working. In your case it’s because you get a little bit tired.”

If I was a sufferer from ME I would probably feel insulted by that! But Dr -, I do not suffer from fatigue and I am generally no more tired than most people. I actually have a lot of energy and wish I could do a lot more than I presently do – as indeed I always did in the past. I often feel resentful of my frequent need to rest, which results not from chronic fatigue but because I have a chronic pain condition! My resting is not due to laziness or lack of motivation but because I am trying my best to follow a pacing programme which I learned years ago from an expert in managing chronic pain. The leaders of the pain management programme I attended taught the same thing: little steps forward, a gradual increase in activity interspersed with rests when needed to avoid incapacitating flare-ups. My chronic pain is only severe during flare-ups, but it is disabling at present because there are limits to what I can do. Those limitations are not due to being tired! I am not tired, I am not fatigued, I have a neuropathic pain condition which is notoriously difficult for anyone to manage.

It’s possible that I’m over-reacting to your comment, because I hear so many similar comments elsewhere. If that is the case, then I’m sorry. I don’t usually hear them from health professionals, however, and I think that’s why I find it especially frustrating. Please excuse me if I am over-reacting but I kept thinking about it yesterday and it really affected my mood quite badly.

I am writing this, really, not just to get things off my chest but because I believe it might be helpful to you in understanding my condition and situation. I hope it does not bother or offend you that I’m doing this. I do appreciate your work as a doctor and you have of course been very helpful to me over the years.

I also understand that you must have a huge number of patients, and that it may be difficult to remember what I have told you in the past and therefore the details of how I manage my condition. I fully admit to my difficulties sometimes with medication and that I need to be a bit tougher with myself sometimes, as well as the fact that I have never yet really been able to overcome my fear of pain and anxiety and therefore my tendency sometimes to need a ‘quick fix’. I was badly traumatised by my experience with anxiety three years ago, and would do anything rather than go back to that. But because of that, I also do much that is positive and constructive, especially as I have two difficult conditions to manage, both of which tend to worsen or trigger the other.

Thank you for reading this, and I hope you understand and accept my reasons for writing to you about this.

With best wishes

Michael Bentley

Love Letter to Myself

I do hope this doesn’t make anyone feel like puking. But I got this idea from another blogger, and due to a recent painful experience I really need it now. And I can recommend it to anyone whose self-esteem needs a boost! How often do we criticise ourselves each day? Writing a love letter feels a lot better, I can tell you!

Dear Michael

Your self-esteem has taken a vicious blow recently, so I know you need to know how much you are loved. I want to tell you that you are very special to me, and that I know you are a good person. I should know! – I know you better than anyone else does, because I’ve lived with you every minute of every day for forty-five years! You may not always feel or believe it, but you have some special qualities you can be truly proud of. I know how kind and supportive and empathic you are to your friends. How much you are willing to listen and care and understand when they have precious few people in their lives who are able to do that for them. I know how sensitive you are: how this makes you vulnerable to hurt, but also sensitive to the hurts and feelings of others. I know how intelligent and creative you are, and also how playful; while perfectly capable of speaking and behaving as an adult, you are not ashamed of your inner child and your capacity for play. This too connects to your love of animals, which was with you throughout your childhood and has recently been revived. I know how much you care about the myriad forms of life on this planet, and the dangers that threaten them – and how you see humans as an integral part of the ecosystem with a unique responsibility towards all species. I know how much you care about peace, justice and human rights, even though your willingness to fight for these causes has led to emotional suffering in your own life. That this too is a part of your sensitivity, and of the anger you feel towards those who persecute and destroy. You are not afraid of the stigma that so often comes with mental distress or illness, and are willing to admit your vulnerability and share it with others. Not only have you had to deal every day with some very difficult circumstances over the past seven years, but you have come through the worst time in your life and are now endeavouring to share the benefits of your learning experience with others, with the aim of reaching out and helping others with similar problems. And you are trying to be honest and real in your relationships with others, despite difficulties you’ve had all your life which have made it hard to show your true feelings in so many situations. I know how much you are trying to grow – away from the pain and fear of the past and the pull which it has on you, and into someone who can admit to fear and vulnerability but still develop new and stronger resources for your life in the present and future. You are always searching for new ways to look after and respect yourself and all those around you, through your growing holistic view of health and well-being, your willingness even to investigate one of the world’s main religions (you, an agnostic!) because you believe in love and kindness and compassion towards all. You are sometimes all too painfully aware of your shortcomings, and this too makes you vulnerable to the effects of those who can use that awareness to hurt you. But you are learning to develop kindness and compassion towards yourself, and in support of that I want you to know that I like and love you anyway. None of us is perfect and you know that all too well, but I see the good in you clearly and I love you for who you are.

Michael, you love beauty and wisdom and I can see that too, so clearly. You love art and nature and science, with its attitude of vulnerability and willingness not to assume the truth but to keep on testing, questioning and opening up to new uncertainties. You love the beauty of women, and your sexuality is passionate and open and full of longing. And you love the earth and the other planets, and all the wonders of the universe that lie beyond. You love the fact that the cosmos is vast beyond imagining, and that whatever humans do there is a vastness that they cannot touch. But you still love humanity and life on earth, even though you struggle with pessimism and fears for the future. You are a caring person and I love you for it.

You know you have shortcomings, but you feel them all too painfully at times. Remember that the only people who have deeply hurt or been cruel to you in your life (including this latest attack, which caused you such pain because it was by someone you’ve cared about so deeply for so long), are people who were abused themselves and were probably acting out their own suffering. They are also people who didn’t know you well, like your friends know you, like Sally knows you, like Angie knows you, and like I know you. All those who really know you, appreciate you for who you are, without idealisation but simply acceptance of what they see of your self. There are far more of these people than there are of people who’ve hurt you, and they know you far better. You can trust their judgement, as you are gradually learning to trust your own.

Not only do I know you best, but I love you too. I will help you uncover the parts of you that you’re afraid of, that you have always found it hard to express or admit to. And even when you find parts of yourself that you don’t like, and that others criticise you for, I will still love you. I will be by your side and inside your heart at all times, and help you through every difficulty and crisis. I love you. And I know that you don’t have to idealise in order to love yourself. You are okay. You can trust yourself. And you will be fine.

Just trust.

A Life True to Myself

For the past few weeks, as some Facebook friends will know and for reasons which are too personal to go into here, I’ve felt intermittent but sharp pangs of ‘iPad envy’. At times, though I know it’s ridiculous, it’s been quite a strong feeling. “I must have an iPad! I wish I could afford an iPad! Can I find a way of affording an iPad?” And even the additional complication of envy for someone I care about: “So-and-so can afford an iPad – they have such a successful career and comfortable life and they can afford an iPad and an iPhone and God knows what else and IT’S NOT FAIR!!!!!”

In my case, although I do have a fondness of electronic gadgets and mini-computers, my hankering for an iPad is based on an association with something far less mundane, so it’s not quite as pathetic as it sounds. But even so: when I reach the end of my life and look back at whatever regrets I have (and I expect there’ll be a few!), will my lack of a soon-to-be-obsolete piece of hand-held technology be one of them? Will the absence of a high-flying career, ‘successful’ in society’s terms, be one of them either?

Probably not.

Yesterday, a Facebook friend posted an article by Bronnie Ware called ‘The Five Greatest Regrets of the Dying’ (http://www.businessinsider.com/the-five-greatest-regrets-of-dying-2011-6). Don’t stop reading now! – it’s not morbid, honest! Bronnie Ware used to work in palliative care with people who had gone home to die, and during her work she learned the commonest regrets which they typically had in the last few weeks or months of their lives.

These were:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier (this was the ultimate realisation that happiness is, to a far greater extent than commonly realised, an attitude).

On a personal level, the two regrets that leap out at me the most are the first and third. That’s because they are both aspects of living that I’ve always had profound difficulties with, both aspects that I’m working through the most in therapy. Like many people, I experienced both subtle and unsubtle pressures while growing up, to conform to certain expectations of how I should behave, what kind of ‘career’ to go into, even (subtly) how I should feel – and of course I’ve continued to experience those pressures, not least from myself. It’s not unrelated to the third regret: I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings. Only now, in middle age, am I learning to be more authentic and free in my relationships with others. Many of the biggest regrets I already have are because I couldn’t bring myself to express my feelings to (and for) others, in life situations where doing so might have brought so many positive things into my life, and much sooner.

What strikes me too about these regrets is that they have little or nothing to do with what society, the media, the government, or our peers, tell us we should want most in our lives. We are told to work hard. We are told to buy more things. We are taught that we are worthy if we earn a lot of money, have a lot of expensive things, and are young, desirable and have lots of sex. We are certainly told that we should be happy. Yet even this is sold as something which is dependent on our having other things (money, products, sex appeal, sex). We are not so often told that happiness is an attitude – unless it’s along the lines of “cheer up!”, “smile!”, or similarly (un)helpful encouragements.

None of these regrets have anything to do with the iPad, the iPad 2 or any other very expensive piece of plastic with a tiny piece of hi-technology inside.

Ware’s article, far from being morbid, was for me both a comfort and a wake-up call. It’s comforting to know that some of the things I want so much currently, as well as the status anxiety that often troubles and preoccupies me, are things that will probably seem very insignificant in the last months, weeks or moments of my life. And it’s a wake-up call because it’s never too late to start trying to live authentically and honestly – but the sun is getting lower, all the same!

I’m forty-five years old. My partner is fifty. Neither of us are old, but then we’re no longer that young either. And I already have so many regrets about my teens, twenties, thirties, and even about the present. I have chronic health problems which make it much harder to achieve some of my dreams, to live the kind of life I so much want to live. But things like valuing my friends, learning to express my emotions honestly to others – those are not out of my reach at all.

They’re not out of anyone’s reach – unless they are unfortunate enough to live in solitary confinement. The things that tend to matter most to us, when we reach the end, are the simple, non-material things.

As Bronnie Ware says: “It all comes down to love and relationships in the end.”

And her last words: “Choose happiness.”

Lemurs and other animals

I'm ambivalent about zoos, because I don't like to see animals confined. But a recent visit to Drusillas Park in East Sussex gave me a welcome opportunity to see some of my favourite species, and to take many photographs, especially of the photogenic lemurs! The sociable ring-tails, which seem to spend a lot of time huddled together and grooming each other, are incredibly striking with their inordinately long, striped tails, subtly coloured backs, endearing, wet black muzzles and expressive faces. As with many lemur species, their brilliant orange eyes are extraordinary. Also in the enclosure were a couple of male and female black lemurs (the females, confusingly, aren't black at all). As I watched and photographed these beautiful animals, I kept reminding myself that they are primates, as their grasping hands make immediately obvious. That means that, although their evolutionary line diverged from ours a lot earlier than that of the great apes, they are still close relatives of ours. And since their only home in the wild is Madagascar, it's always a privilege to be able to get so close to them. Having had an emotional time lately, it was great to get out on a sunny day and see some wonderful creatures from all over the planet. So despite being on my feet for far too long and experiencing a pain flare-up afterwards, I enjoyed every minute.

Some of the lemur photos as well as of other animals - otters, prairie dogs, meerkats, fennec foxes - have been added to the Animals gallery on my photography website. You can see them at www.michaelbentleyphotography.co.uk. More to come soon! :)