Harvest

Harvest is a microfiction in Crack the Spine's themed anthology Neighbors, launched in February 2020. 

This was a strange little one for me. The prompt originally came from a creative writing workshop called Write On - Creative Writing Workshop (September 2019) run by the author Z. Nia Reynolds at the Waterloo Action Centre. Such a lovely supportive workshop with a range of writing activities - some of which I begrudgingly engaged in but all of which paid dividends in learning.

Writing to prescription is not my strong point so if asked to choose an item from a bag and use it as a prompt to write there and then, I panic. I have a contrary nature - I like boundaries but if they feel too tight I push against them or try to flip them over.

On this occasion I got a glass jar from the bag and although it was more of a Crème brûlée type, thoughts of jam jars and recycling, conservation and preservation came to mind. So my first line starts with the narrator holding a jam jar to collect and preserve someone's last breath. 

Maybe something to do with pollution levels of where I live in Tower Hamlets? This article talks about how our children are 'growing up with reduced lung capacity' because of this pollution. 

Some neighbours are better than others.

52x52: Recycle for Charity

52 random acts of kindness that each take under 52 seconds. One action each week, over a year takes less than an hour of your life.

Old phones and ink cartridges can be recycled for charity. Either by picking up plastic recycling bags at a charity shop or community organisation or by registering with recycle4charity who will send you some bags for the charity of your choice or if you are part of an organisation can arrange for a box of a certain quantity to be picked up.

Charities such as the Red Cross benefit from the donations and you get to have a good clear out, do something for charity and for the environment.

Recycling Ideas, Learning and The Christmas Spirit

CAYR (Christmas All Year Round)

Recyclng ideas or reinforcement of learning works for the positive when the ideas and learning are positive. When otherwise are otherwise. The learning cycle can have an upward or downward spiral which can evolve like a virus creating immunity. Bacteria can multiply in the psyche and are not always the good kind that keep us healthy and protect us from the bad.

Gladwell's ideas of epidemics mentioned in a previous post are much like Dickens' in A Christmas Carol :

"It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour."

(Dickens, 1843)

Leading up to Christmas, I was ill and not feeling at my best. So, when one day after another, one man screams blue-murder and another says he hates Christmas and another stares vacantly at me not even able to comprehend its Christmas, I try to put up barriers agains infection and instead try to spread good humour, however hard it feels. 

Its not just the person who doesn't have a certain belief or tradition in their culture,  or a moaner or groaner or the 'Scrooge' saying 'Bah Humbug'. Many blame the loss of 'Christmas Spirit' on the 'business' of Christmas. The so-called commercialisation of Christmas is regarded as one of the great epidemics of our time. So is the answer to the problem simple? Not to get involved in it...be part of the solution and not the problem? As Dickens' Ghost of Christmas Past said of what we should make our business:

"Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"
(Dickens, 1843) 

One of the men, who I had seen become disillusioned over time, complained of people wishing him Happy Christmas when the rest of the year they ignored him. We talked of people having the Christmas spirit all year. Of seeing the caring behaviour of people at Christmas-time being an all year-round norm.

As Scrooge learned from his ghosts so too will I try to learn from mine and say as he did:

"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year."
(Dickens, 1843)

So the answer: To recycle Christmas all year long. Not just the tree and cards and empty bottles, but the feelings of love and joy and caring for those around us. 

CAYR 
 
 Christmas All Year Round

or more simply put...

  Caring All Year Round