Book Review: I Piped, That She Might Dance by Iain MacDonald

Angus MacKay (1815-1859), Queen Victoria’s First Piper, died by drowning in the Nith River and his body was never found. His later life was a jumble of the highs and lows of manic depression, although many have assumed that syphilis was the cause of the insanity that ultimately led to his death. The treatment of the mentally ill in those years was poorly understood and even more poorly treated. This first novel by Saskatchewan author, Iain MacDonald, is an imagined autobiography of Angus Mackay, a man who contributed his music and writing his music to Scotland and to England. He rose from a croft on the island of Raasay, Scotland to become the Queen’s First Piper in London. He and his brothers were taught to play the bagpipes by his father, John MacKay. John MacKay is also a renowned and remembered piper from Raasay.

I spoke briefly with Iain MacDonald at a book event this spring. His goal was to give Angus MacKay a voice. He wrote skillfully, writing from Angus Mackay’s mind as a boy, as a young man and in his decline. The passages at Bedlam where he was first incarcerated and his continuing decline, take us into a mind who believed desperately in his delusions. Well researched, it was obvious to this author that, because of his decline into insanity, he was only footnoted in history. Many details were found in hospital records at Bedlam, and after he was moved to a more enlightened facility at the Crichton Royal Institution at Dumfries. 

Angus MacKay did marry and had four children. The author imagined an initially happy marriage that slowly deteriorated, along with his penchant for drink, the onset of his insanity and the demands of his employment for Queen Victoria. He was frequently away from home at Royal Events and played each morning for the Queen while she was breakfasting. Iain MacDonald also showed the rude treatment that anyone from the Highland received from the English.

Besides a forward by Professor Hugh Cheape of Scotland, the author has included a Gaelic Glossary, and a comprehensive list of Further Reading. Author Iain Macdonald was founder and long time pipe major of the City of Regina Pipe Band (1992 - 2022) with extensive band experience.

“A chuid de Phàrras dha.”

“May he have his place in paradise.”

~ Iain MacDonald, Gaelic Glossary, 

I Piped, That She May Dance

Title: I Piped, That She Might Dance

Author: Iain MacDonald

Copyright: 2021

Publisher: Printed and bound in Canada by Imprimerie Gauvin

Type: Novel

Format: Paperback

ISBN - 978-1-7357747-0-1

Attitude Changes Stigma

I’m thinking about stigma this morning. On a bright summer day when the wind is calm and the sky is blue complete with two swallow tail butterflies flitting past to the next flower. So how does that work? Sweeping my patio of all the debris the wind of the last few weeks has blown in, I let my thoughts wander. The winds had also spread some of the mulch for the gardens into the cracks and corners of the patio blocks. Spider homes webbed behind my storage bin. You see, my wandering thoughts were also about the stigmas towards a variety of chronic diseases and conditions ~ addiction, epilepsy, diabetes, cancer, mental illness, etc. and on and on ~ burdened by the attitudes of stigma. Recovering from or living with any chronic condition is enough of a challenge in and of itself. Especially if it is very fragile and difficult to manage while trying to enjoy an interesting and rewarding life at the same time.

The attitudes of stigma are like the crusted leaves, fine dirt, crumpled bits of paper and even dry discarded flower petals nestled on my patio. These attitudes, much like my patio debris, have come from somewhere, piling up in corners and crevices to be ignored until a broom comes along and sweeps it all up. But is stigma that neat? Can we just sweep stigma up and toss it in the garbage heap, in the compost or under the hedge? I don’t think so. 

Stigma resides in the cracks and crevices of our minds and heart. Where has it come from? Our own experiences with watching someone live with chronic disease? From the sometimes dubious lessons learned on the playground without challenge by any other knowledge? From gossip and conjecture in ordinary conversation? Certainly from many more people, places and situations I can suggest here. No, banishing such long held beliefs and attitudes is not as easy as sweeping a patio. Recognition of the attitude of stigma and deciding if there is any value to nurturing it any longer begins this very personal journey. With willingness of heart, changing even a long held attitude can be done.

“…the issue becomes not whether a person has experience 

with a stigma of his own, because he has, but rather 

how many varieties he has had his own experience with.”

~ Erving Goffman, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity

Success vs Stigma

Success

Invisible unless

Managed by the marketplace

Discerned by a Degree

Imagined by a cleaned up image

Success

Grows from deep in the soul

Through the sludge of years

Hope hung on the heart ~ tender threads heart to head.

Stigma ~

Part of the struggle.

“Success is not final; failure is not fatal: 

It is the courage to continue that counts.”

~ Winston S. Churchill

Don’t forget!  March is Epilepsy month with Purple Day for Epilepsy on March 26 each year.

Author's note: Edited July 27, 2024

Daring

Daring to try one more time 
Is really unfair
Stay down
Stay in one’s place
Keep the status quo
Do not rock the boat!

Just because
there’s a desire to survive,
wanting to rebuild family is strong ~ a desperate need to live in safety, another chance to grasp health ~ embracing recovery from active addiction brings balance?

Daring to try one more time
may be unfair to you or to me
~ rocking our boats ~
but the determination to go against
entrenched stigma is more than fair.
It is absolutely daring.

“Risk anything! Care no more for the opinion of others…

do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.”

~ (Journal entry, 14 October 1922)

~ Katherine Mansfield,  Journal of Katherine Mansfield

Author's note: Edited January 27, 2024

Article Review: I Knew My Daughter Smoked Pot - Stigma Magazine

I saw the magazine Stigma at work today. I read the interview with Clara Huges, flipped through the pages and came upon this article I Knew My Daugher Smoked Pot. Looked interesting, it wasn’t long and as I was on my break I had time to read it. There has been much controversy, opinion and research about marijuana and cannabinoid: the benefits, the dangers and the legality of marijuana. In the light of all of this, this article was a brave one and so well written with a surprise - it was written by a colleague, Sharlene Law, a driving force in the Umbrella Society. 

I Knew My Daughter Smoked Pot by Sharlene Law was a very clear and poignant look into one of the risks involved in marijuana use:  Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome. Symptoms of this syndrome are recurrent nausea, vomiting and severe crampy abdominal pain, very confusing and difficult to diagnose if a physician is not aware of this Syndrome.

Thanks for this Sharlene!

Find this article and previous magazine issues online at www.stigmamagazine.com.   

“Be wise enough not to be reckless, but brave enough to take great risks.”

~ Frank Warren

Contact Umbrella Society - An Addictions & Mental Health Resource at:

www.umbrellasociety.ca

Contact:

Info@stigmamagazine.com

Shadows

               Shadows

He was an urban legend. One of those legends that settle deep into the community, amidst all the technology and electronics, to become real but not real. He was an old man. Scruffy beard, long dirty tweed coat, boots that never laced up and hair that hung in a braid down the middle of his back. There was no colour to him, unless you were able to get close to him and see his blue, blue eyes.  Eyes that twinkled beneath his shaggy eyebrows, buried deep in his weathered face. But no one had ever really seen him. The stories about him could never be confirmed. He was like a shadow. Sometimes he was very, very old.  Sometimes he was only 60 something. There was never anyone with him. He didn’t seem to have a place, and yet his place was wherever he was - sleeping on a sidewalk, eating a meal in a diner or striding down the middle of a road. What made this man a legend is that his stories were told me when I was ten, when I was in my twenties and then I had my own stories in the decades that followed. After hearing all of the stories of his wives, his children, that he was really a millionare, that he was a spy or that he was really an alien ~ I began to see him myself and tell my stories to my children and my grandchildren.  He was not a mean man or a good man, just a man who was only a shadow of what he could be. This man, this shadow, never changed. Only the times and the stories that were told.

Stigma is like that. Painting long shadows over the men and women that are marginalized and lost. Never allowing anyone to see the twinkling blue or brown eyes. To see the legends that they have lived. To learn whether they are mean or good or just ordinary. Stigma does not allow a place but places the shadows in alleys and dark corners.

“What men call the shadow of the body is not 

the shadow of the body, but the body of the soul.”

~ Oscar Wilde,  A House of Pomegranates

Stigma: A Challenge on Both Sides

The challenge of stigma:

Deeply felt inside by both sides

Disgust anger fear or

Shame remorse guilt

When these two trilogies come together

Sparks and words do fly viciously back and forth

understanding and compassion become debris

communication and connection last in the tumultous storm

Stigma creates it’s own challenge of

“You’re wrong and I’m right!!” vs

“I must be a wrong person but I don’t want to be!”

“To not have your suffering recognized 

is an almost unbearable form of violence.”

~  Andrei Lankov

A Jumbled Non-Essay

I feel like writing an essay tonight,
words tumbling over themselves ~ but not lining up with any coherency.

My essay is something about stigma ~
Unforgiving stigma that pushes people aside
when their behaviour is erratic and frightening,
their intoxication is over the top.

I suppose I understand that ~
wanting to be protected from someone else’s unpredictable behaviour
I don’t like to be injured, whether by word or deed ~ actually I shrink from it.

‘Good’ behaviour apparently always warrants care and attention
‘Bad’  behaviour also warrants care and attention
but only warrants arms-length care and attention 
even after the ‘bad behaviour’ is gone ~
after intoxication is no longer in your face.

There is no humility in these thoughts of ours.
Merely an arrogance that dictates our own behaviour
So that certain individuals become lost in rules and regulations
Sitting still in a chair, on a sidewalk or couchsurfing into oblivion.

No, I guess I’ll not write an essay tonight.
Thoughts too jumbled and frustrated……….

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. 

Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”

~ Marie Curie

Keeping Secret

How does one talk about an inspiration that is not my personal secret to talk about?
Many secrets anonymously walk the streets of any town or city.
Tall or short, smiling and confident; parents or siblings; 
Non-descript or stunning; boring or entertaining; quiet or effusive ~
Secret stories of falling down and standing up and 
falling down and standing up again ~ how many times?
Too many to count………...
Always going full circle till balance is restored - one day at a time.
Motivated to avoid stigma?
Or just growing into normal?

“Many of the bravest never are known, and get no praise.

[But] that does not lessen their beauty….”

~ Louisa May Alcott

World AIDS Day - An Essay

On October 27, 1988, the United Nations General Assembly officially recognized that the World Health Organization declare December 1, 1988, to be World AIDS Day. 

AIDS -  Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. It is caused by the human immune system being depleted of it’s cells by HIV. 

HIV - Human Immunodeficiency Virus

The first patient that I cared for, diagnosed with AIDS, was in 1985 while I was still in Regina. The AIDS fear was palpable at that time among the populations and thus among nursing staff. The young man, our patient, was only 21 years old and terrified. He didn’t stay on our unit long as he was transferred out to a hospital in Ontario where this newly discovered disease could be treated. I don’t know what happened to him, however I do remember one of our nurses was so frightened that she would not care for him unless she was completely gowned, gloved, wore a mask and cloth boots over her shoes.

Fast forward to the present. I have had many patients and clients over the years with HIV. Gloves and gowns are no longer required in all instances. Most people are treated with a variety of different anteretroviral drugs. Viral loads and CD4 counts are monitored through blood tests to ensure that the client with HIV is not converting to AIDS. When AIDS develops, the potential for severe and awful infections multiplies and the client ultimately, and very sadly, succumbs horribly to one or several infections. Many, however, live long healthy lives. On CBC yesterday, a news report said that one of these antiretroviral drugs can be used prophylactically as a preventative measure. This research is still in early stages.

The spirit of stigma remains, and the spirit of survival remains despite stigma. The spirit of curiosity also remains and grows because this auto immune condition also remains and continues to grow. Researchers, physicians, nurses, the afflicted and many, many workers and volunteers continue to work to ensure the survival of body, mind and spirit.

 “It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will 

survive but those who can best manage change.”

~ Charles Darwin

AIDS Vancouver Island, or AVI, offers those with HIV/AIDS many forms of assistance
http://avi.org

Canada AIDS  Society - a coalition of community-based AIDS organizations
http://www.cdnaids.ca

Single Stories

Green and lovely ~

radish leaves about to be tossed in the garbage

because....................

that’s what’s always been done

prickly tongue feel,

sharp to taste buds 

Very unbecoming to serve

unless alone and in private

a food once considered a sign of poverty or only fit for pig food.

Nurses

Angels of mercy,

kind and knowledgeable about health and well being

caring for those who cannot care for themselves

Individuals considered altruistic and health minded

Addicts and alcoholics

drug fiends, drunks and junkies

such horrible defining of a human being

sharp, prickly and unbecoming

individuals buried in stigma.

Nurses

human beings subject to addiction

how to reconcile these single stories

defining both good and horrible.

Individuals courageously, yet tentatively, move into recovery

their lives no longer a single story of stereotypes.

Green and lovely

radish leaves when washed and cared for

become a delicious, spicy part of a salad.

“The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with 

stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are 

incomplete. They make the whole story become the only story.”

~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche

Two books by Paula Scimeca, Nurse and Author

Unbecoming a Nurse: Bypassing the Hidden Chemical Dependency Trap  and

From Unbecoming a Nurse to Overcoming Addiction

http://www.unbecominganurse.org

Stop Being So Serious!!

Well, yesterday was a bit dark! At least my blog post was, because the sun, as it is today, was brilliant. This morning's writing is different. In my search for theme, what it is, and how to be creative with theme and content I am, once more, listening to four TEDx speakers about creativity and story listened to on a regular basis. I include one by Brené Brown on vulnerability.  Today a new one has been added to my 'classroom lectures'.

What has been bothering me is the dreadful seriousness of this writing process that I work on. Not that writing is serious, but the topic certainly can be. In this case ~ Addiction and Withdrawal Management. Wherever these topics are, the challenge is confronting Stigma and Stigma by Association for those of us working in this field. 

There were a couple of reasons why I maintained an interest in this many years ago. The first was that I was amazed that, in 24 to 48 hours, a dishevelled, angry and/or psychotic individual of any age, became mostly rational, reasonable and ‘cleaned up pretty darn good’.  Secondly it was the dark humour easily shared with those same folks whether cleaned up or not.

My problem? When writing I have not been 'playing' with these two issues in order that I might write a serious nursing guide for withdrawal management. I have continually bumped up against the issue of stigma, and felt all the ‘should have’s’ of that writing a serious nursing manuel apparently requires. Fortunately today, I found a new, and humourous addition to my TED talks series ~ John Cleese on Creativity. Listening to him at Cleese Talks Creativity by Virtual Training (on YouTube), tickled my funny bone. I have been putting very tiny bits of humour in some of my writing today about the very serious topic of Addictions and Withdrawal Management.

“The most creative people have this childlike facility to play.”

~ John Cleese

Monochrome

.There was an issue of theme
tissue paper thin
no details to strengthen meaning.
A tree with few branches or leaves.

Stigma is like that.
It is a barren theme.
Monochromatic, bleak and devoid of meaning,
but so much easier to understand or avoid.

“The truth of the story lies in the details.”

~ Paul Auster, The Brooklyn Follies

Expansion

Themes

literary or poetic

for parties or galas

face and body of a gathering

ideas and subject woven through and wrapped around

Themes

seldom only one

a single story is limited and limiting

creating stereotypes with false belief

creating stigma and rigid margins.

Themes

fleshed out with meaning

developed with colour and intent

grow the humanity past rigid margins

becoming heart and soul.

“We’re all stories, in the end.”

~  Steven Moffatt

Bouncing Back

Stigma

silently invisible with loud voices

thick, spongy walls of judgement

blocking real advances

broken bits swept under the rug 

believability challenged and strained

bouncing back ~ 

    challenged and strained

“Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.”

~ Mahatma Gandhi

Secrets in the Open

Communication through anonymity is difficult.

Talk, talk, talking the talk becomes wah, wah, wah...

Anonymity silently walks the walk with little talking.

Communication through anonymity is a challenge.

Practicing principles above personalities takes lots of practice

Anonymity humbly accepts many tests of tolerance.

Communication through anonymity builds a new bridge, 

gently spanning deep chasms of stigma and heartache.

Anonymity allows wounds to be joyously healed in good company.

“The truth is more important than it’s teller.”

~ Eric Schaub

The Sting of Stigma - Revised

The sting of stigma ~ cruel jest wielded with force, needled by

fear, anger and derision

shame, blame, and helplessness.

Peeling away 

stigma’s black mark

from eyes blinded by 

ancient, recent and modern

law, cultural mores and learning,

is painful to think about.

A bitter pill to swallow,

but unconditional antidote ~

Respect and compassion 

Kindness and detachment

Stigma 

is not cured by indifference

does not tolerate indifference.

Aging ~ 

stigmatized rather than honoured

crumples mind, body and soul.

“Ageism is as odious as racism and sexism.”

~ Claude Pepper