A friend reminded me the other day that  the human body completely replaces itself every seven years. For me, that’s a cheery thought because seven years ago today, just as my home town of Lewes was getting ready for Halloween, I had a major brain haemorrhage which took me out of the celebrations.

I don’t remember much about it and I’m happy to say that I’m now pretty well recovered. So, even though I don’t  like the idea of Halloween any more,  it always reminds me of that grim time, I’m glad I can say goodbye to my old body after these seven years.

As Lewes gets ready once more for Halloween,  I don’t count off these haemorrhage anniversaries any more like I used to when I was still recovering from my brain injuries.  Anniversaries are important markers for significant moments in our lives so, yes, I am celebrating today. Celebrating seven years of life that I nearly missed.

I’d like to share my celebration with other Trauma Brain Injury Survivors and offer them some hope for the future. Recovery is possible even when it seems like a very long time coming.

Have yourselves a happy Halloween tomorrow, everyone.  Life is a big enough treat for me these days now that I’ve known what being one of the un-dead really feels like.

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It’s Halloween so, even if you’re partying in a frantically scary way, dressed up as something creepy, spare a thought for those bats. We’re all supposed to be scared of them, imagining that they are vampires, probably Count Dracula, in animal form.

I’m sure Dracula himself had his cuddly side but nothing like the lovableness of  little bats. So instead of freaking yourself out tonight with visions of ghouls, monsters and the undead, think of this delightful little film about an abandoned baby bat. Halloween suddenly becomes happy time:

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Eight years ago, I took my first timorous steps into the virtual computer world known as Second Life. It was an extraordinarily confusing experience having to create a new image for oneself in a massive online animated game where you  begin with nothing and, ideally, pursue or discover dreams of what you might do if you really did get the chance of a second life. Eight years ago, my second life persona, Wolfgang Glinka, couldn’t even walk across a room without falling over – a bit like an infant in so many ways. Eight years on and I am, I guess, a veteran of this world and I have had a truly interesting time. Now, for the first time, I’ve collaborated in making a film, Sortie, which is premiered (on Youtube) today.

I perform poetry a lot in Second Life, running a poetry event every Thursday, Wolfie’s Poetry Surf, when I’m joined, live, by poets from all over the ‘real’ world. Now, both my lives, real and second, have combined giving me many chances of crossing backwards and forwards between them as I pursue all the writing possibilities that come my way. Now, I am Colin Bell, Wolfie Wolfgang or Wolfgang Glinka, a triple personality perhaps but no, not really. I’ve just embraced the wonderful possibilities, if used wisely, that the worldwide web offers us all.

The film, directed by the splendid Boris Twist is a visualisation of my poem, Sortie, written earlier this year but promptly forgotten until Boris asked me if I had anything dark enough for a Halloween film.  Once I’d found it, it became a real pleasure for Colin Bell to record it and for Wolfgang Glinka to appear as narrator.

Take a look – I’m thrilled by Boris’ clever use of my poetry. Most important of all, the whole project was fun.

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Tonight is Fireworks night here in the UK. We light fireworks, set off mini explosions and make giant bonfires to celebrate a historical attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament and kill the King, James I, They caught the perpetrators including one Guy Fawkes who was sentenced to a gory death and who is remembered or forgotten when all those effigies called guys are burnt on November the 5th every year. Nowhere in Britain makes a bigger deal of this than my home town of Lewes that is already in the grips of excitement getting ready for its great moment of distinction tonight, the annual Lewes Bonfire, the biggest firework night in Europe,  scheduled to bring tens of thousands of visitors to our streets. It remembers Guy Fawkes of course but also 17 Protestant martyrs burnt outside Lewes town hall during the reign of Queen Mary I – the girl the vodka and tomato juice drink is named after, Bloody Mary. It should be good anarchist fun when our streets are taken over by rowdy and disrespectful processions and the effigy burning of this year’s favourite bad guys. I shall try to bring you some flavour of it in tomorrow’s blog if I’m not having too much fun that is to take any pictures.

I thought, though,  I wouldn’t let this time of year pass without drawing your attention to an Existentialist view of another Autumn celebration. There is a new (4th) episode in the wonderful Henri Le Chat movies starring the World’s most sophisticated Existentialist cat. If you’ve missed the previous three episodes then make up for lost time and for missed and mixed joy.

Here is Episode Four taking an Existentialist view on Halloween. I don’t think Henri would like Lewes’ Bonfire party. To see the other three Henri films, type  “Henri”  in this blog’s search window above.

http://www.everydaypoets.com/?s=Colin+Bell

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Halloween brings out all sorts – I can’t decide if this father was being ironic or demonic. I wonder if there is a stash of crack in that little orange bag and shudder to think what they would like for a treat. round here in Lewes in the UK, I only saw diminutive witches. Bad must be getting worse. Not more frightening though if these vintage photographs are typical of Halloweens past ( from Haunted Air by Ossian Brown Published by Jonathan Cape):
        

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Yesterday saw the end of British Summer Time as our Northern European light got markedly dimmer and the days grew noticeably shorter. Also, here in Lewes, it rained. The 30th of October is also the day before Halloween when dismal nights are brightened by pagan ceremonies involving pumpkins and ghoulish fancy dress on the traditional feast when the dead are feared to walk the Earth.

Here in my home town this is also the time when the majority of our citizens are preparing for the great bonfire celebrations that are only a week away on the 5th November when English history conjoins with more pagan rituals as fireworks, processions and gigantic bonfires light up the town well into the night. Already this week premature igniters are setting off fireworks on street corners filling the air with the evocative smell of cordite and the members of the various Bonfire societies wander a round town in their   uniforms of wooly striped pullovers.

This is the most distinctively evocative time of year here in Lewes so any other memorable event that has its anniversary at this time is always wrapped in the atmosphere of grey light, falling leaves, gunpowder and swollen orange vegetables.

The 30th October is just such an anniversary for me because three years ago yesterday I suffered a near fatal brain haemorrhage on a day that is now a muffled mix of disjointedly and barely remembered details. I had promised myself that I would let the moment pass unmarked this year now that I am significantly recovered from most of the effects of that sudden and unexpected drama but this vivid time of year doesn’t allow forgetfulness. Instead this season returns inexorably clamouring for recognition telling anyone with melancholy thoughts, vivid memories or the consequences of life’s uncertainties to sit around fires, – bonfires or domestic hearths – and to contemplate their fate.

So it was for me yesterday – as much a celebration of life as a warning of sudden death. It is good for all of us that we, up here in the Northern hemisphere, have these moments in time when we are forced to mix festivity with melancholy.

Just a few weeks before 30th October 2008, I partied as if there were no tomorrow not knowing that without the British National Health Service, there so easily might not have been a tomorrow. I have been fortunate and now have had three years of tomorrows, three years of borrowed time and three years of realization that none of us know what tomorrow has waiting for us. I celebrate this. After-all if there was never anything to fear, there would be no reason to raise our spirits with fire, explosives, strong liqueur and good company. This is the season of darkness and of light. Let’s enjoy it one and all.

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