Vestigia - Something to Get Your Teeth Into

“Some pains are physical and some pains are mental, but the one that’s both is dental.” Ogden Nash (1902 – 1971)

If you are an adult with four, perfectly formed and completely erupted wisdom teeth that have taken their rightful place without a twinge, you are very lucky. Or you have a big mouth. Not all of us can accommodate these vestigial teeth, still they come pressing and squeezing and causing pain with no sign of evolution stepping in.

Our ancestors had large jaws and extra molars to cope with their natural diet. Meat was sometimes raw and plants took lots of chewing. Upper and lower canines were more pointed and sharp.

Wisdom teeth, which, if all goes well to become our third molars, start to make their presence known from the late teens onwards. There was no room for mine.

The worst thing for a seventeen year old trainee dental nurse is to find herself on the receiving end of some oral surgery, take it from me. It’s one thing assisting a dentist and reassuring a patient, but when you’re the patient and you know exactly what’s going on, it’s a bit scary. And it is fair to say that even with self-knowledge and lots of faith in dental professionals, I can be anxious.

The pain started at work. It was mainly ear-ache then the jaw started hurting. My boss was on to it, having a look, taking xrays and making the kind of calming sounds that lets you know they are very happy in their work. A few days later and Sunday morning found me in safe hands, in the private dental surgery at his home address, with his wife making my dad a cup of tea. Dad had driven me there and was more apprehensive than me. I was making my best effort to be brave. Out came the wisdom tooth, no problem. About three weeks later, we were doing it again with the other side.

Our son has been blessed with a fabulous smile of straight, healthy, well-cared for teeth with no fillings. However, he has a ‘text book’ horizontal impacted lower-left wisdom tooth, the best – or worst, depending on your point of view – I’ve ever seen on an xray. He wants to keep it, at least for now.

Wisdom teeth, problems for lots of people and not needed anymore. Future generations, millennia ahead, might have got rid.

  

A poem from Manasi Saxena on the All Poetry website,

 





Dear Wisdom Tooth,

I am sorry for not having attended to you so far,
I did not realise you were needing more space to grow
and that you had things to say.

I thank you for troubling me now,
when I can understand that you mean well,
for the lesson you are offering me
that sometimes we need to let go of things
we cannot make room for
because they cause pain and anguish and
need to be returned to the universe lovingly.

Please forgive me for having neglected you so long
and for not being aware of your pain.

I love you, and now lovingly give you back to the universe.
May you find peace and space and freedom in your
return to the origins.

So it is, so it is, and it is done.

Love,
Manasi

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

  

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Fairies - Titania and the Tooth Fairy

Stitching ‘Titania’ was one of the longest projects I’ve ever done. The end result is far more beautiful than my photograph shows. Perhaps I should have taken pictures before it was packed off to the framers. She is mainly cross-stitch, but what the camera fails to pick up, due to too much reflection, is the delicate, gold threads, tiny sequins and seed beads on her wings. They are noticeable on the picture it was worked from, but again, it doesn’t do the completed embroidery justice.  She doesn’t live with me otherwise I’d do another photo shoot.

Titania, the queen of the fairies from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is placed majestically on a wall in the home of my friend, who is also my sister-in-law in Troon, Ayrshire. Titania belongs there in the company of lots of fairies. Some, like Tinker Bell, are easily recognisable, others are pretty garden fairies, Christmas fairies and even mischievous fairies. My sister-in-law loved her on sight and I knew, not that there was any doubt, that my surprise gift was very welcome.

Needlework helps me to relax. When I was working on Titania, about ten years ago now, I’d taken her with me on holiday to Wales. We were staying in a static caravan on a very nice site in St Dogmaels. I was feeling particularly ‘strung out’ at the time. Our son didn’t want to come and was old enough to leave at home. I knew he’d be fine, but I worried anyway. Our daughter didn’t want to come but had to because she was too young to leave at home. It’s just life, I suppose and most days she was fine, as long as she could take her lap-top over to the family bar and link up with her own world via the holiday park wifi every evening. I was unwell with hayfever because of the trees and that didn’t help. After a day out it was nice to get a smile from Tilly-Flop when she was given the heads-up to go off with her lap-top. I was happy to sit in the huge, caravan lounge, surrounded by daylight from three sides of windows and stitch a bit more of Titania.  My sister-in-law, knowing how I felt, had asked if I had some cross-stitch to relax with. Little did she know.

Years earlier, when the children were little, they received letters from Peggy, the Tooth Fairy. She was always pleased to collect beautiful, looked-after teeth from under their pillows. Her letters reflected the importance of brushing teeth, keeping them clean and not eating too much sugar. She always praised my children for doing it ‘exactly right’ and she was happy to leave them a reward. I think it worked out at £1 per tooth. My daughter had a wobbly tooth that came out at school. She was sent to wash it, but lost it down the plug hole. Peggy was unfazed. She read the note that was left under the pillow and went to see if she could retrieve it from the school drains. Poor Peggy even had to hide in a doll’s house when the caretaker came along. I think she must have found it because a shiny £1 coin was under the pillow, with an account of Peggy’s adventure.

 

 

From “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Act II. Sc. 2. Enter TITANIA, with her train.

TITANIA.—Come, now a roundel, and a fairy song; Then, for the third part of a minute, hence;— Some, to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds; Some war with rear-mice for their leathern wings, To make my small elves coats; and some keep back         5 The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots, and wonders At our quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep; Then to your offices, and let me rest.   SONG. 1 FAIRY.—You spotted snakes, with double tongue,               Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;         10             Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong:               Come not near our fairy queen.   CHORUS.  Philomel, with melody,             Sing in our sweet lullaby;       Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby:         15             Never harm,             Nor spell nor charm,             Come our lovely lady nigh;             So, good-night, with lullaby.   2 FAIRY.—Weaving spiders, come not here,         20               Hence, you long-legged spinners, hence!             Beetles black, approach not near;               Worm, nor snail, do no offence.   CHORUS.  Philomel, with melody, etc.   1 FAIRY.—Hence away; now all is well:         25               One, aloof, stand sentinel. [Exeunt Fairies. TITANIA sleeps.

 Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Mouths - Open Wide!

“Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings comes forth wisdom.”

 Or sometimes surprise, but nearly always truth, as they see it, and they always say it. I was mindful of this when out with my three year old son, many years ago. We were walking along a street in town when we saw a rather large gentleman taking time to get into the driving seat of his car. The car was a Metro and I was thinking he could do with a bigger vehicle when my son piped up, ‘He’s a very fat man, isn’t he Mummy?’ We were right next to the car by now and of course, he heard my son. I remember offering what I hoped was an apologetic smile to the man as we passed. My son was just saying what he saw. The innocence of his young age had not yet grasped the feelings of others. That would be a chat for later.

It was a privilege to spend a few years working with young children. They are amazing at sharing details of their lives in and out of school. I was good at keeping a straight face. ‘Mummy was being sick because she had wine.’ There was lots of ‘My Nanna/Daddy/Mummy said…’ followed by a serious sounding statement from them. I would be sympathetic hearing about fall-outs and possible consequences, who was shouting and who was crying. I shared in their joy of holidays, parties, friendships and special family occasions. I loved to feel included in their lives. Parents would have been horrified at some of the things their children said, whether truth or fiction. I’ve missed being part of that school. I should have stayed longer.

Dentistry has been a major part of my working life. I trained as a dental nurse before moving into other things, then coming full circle to work on reception in a large NHS practice. I’ve done my best to help people and I hope I’ve been successful in that but I’ve had enough of mouths and teeth now. I’m planning a slightly early retirement, soon.

And where will I be? Back to the ‘mouths of babes and sucklings’ with everything my grandchildren tell me.

Try this to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

 

‘Got my toothpaste, got my brush,

     I won’t hurry, I won’t rush.
     Making sure my teeth are clean
     Front and back and in-between.
     When I brush for quite a while,
     I will have a happy smile.’

Anon.

 

Here’s Pam Ayres,

   

 Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth

 

Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth

And spotted the dangers beneath
All the toffees I chewed,
And the sweet sticky food.
Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth.

I wish I’d been that much more willin’
When I had more tooth there than fillin’
To give up gobstoppers,
From respect to me choppers,
And to buy something else with me shillin’.

When I think of the lollies I licked
And the liquorice allsorts I picked,
Sherbet dabs, big and little,
All that hard peanut brittle,
My conscience gets horribly pricked.

My mother, she told me no end,
‘If you got a tooth, you got a friend.’
I was young then, and careless,
My toothbrush was hairless,
I never had much time to spend.

Oh I showed them the toothpaste all right,
I flashed it about late at night,
But up-and-down brushin’
And pokin’ and fussin’
Didn’t seem worth the time – I could bite!

If I’d known I was paving the way
To cavities, caps and decay,
The murder of fillin’s,
Injections and drillin’s,
I’d have thrown all me sherbet away.

So I lie in the old dentist’s chair,
And I gaze up his nose in despair,
And his drill it do whine
In these molars of mine.
‘Two amalgam,’ he’ll say, ‘for in there.’

How I laughed at my mother’s false teeth,
As they foamed in the waters beneath.
But now comes the reckonin’
It’s me they are beckonin’
Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth.

 

 

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

 

 

 

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