When hydration turns into habit — and habit into harm
This is not about fear — it’s about informed choice.
It’s an uphill battle trying to explain why children should not be given “energy drinks” with their school lunches, just as it’s difficult to explain to adults why “diet” soft drinks can wreak more havoc on the body than sugar-laden ones.
Today, there is an added problem: electrolyte drinks — touted as the ultimate answer to sluggishness and marketed as a way to restore lost verve and energy.
The Cleveland Clinic explains that electrolyte drinks are not intended for daily, casual hydration; they are specialty products. Consuming them excessively can lead to electrolyte imbalances. Because they are marketed as “healthy,” consumers rarely connect symptoms such as headaches, fatigue, nausea, irregular heartbeat, hair loss, and confusion with these products. These consequences occur when the body is overwhelmed by mineral concentrations — sodium, potassium, magnesium — that exceed what the kidneys can regulate effectively, disrupting normal electrolyte balance.
Unless you run five miles to school or work, or swim twenty lengths of the pool before breakfast, electrolyte drinks are unnecessary for your well-being. Regular consumption is the problem — not emergency or athletic use.
Harvard Health notes that most people already obtain sufficient electrolytes from food and water. Regular consumption of sports or electrolyte beverages — particularly those with added sugar and sodium — can have negative consequences, contributing to high blood pressure and obesity. These drinks should be reserved for specific circumstances such as intense exercise or illness, when adequate food intake is compromised.
Electrolyte beverages are not harmless daily hydration aids. A balanced diet and plain water adequately meet hydration and electrolyte needs (Harvard Health). Routine use can lead to imbalances and unnecessary sodium and sugar intake (Cleveland Clinic). Overuse may disrupt heart rhythm, blood pressure, and renal function (Cleveland Clinic). Drinking them “all day, every day” offers no health benefit for typical hydration (University of Stirling).
Electrolyte drinks were designed for specific physiological needs, not as everyday beverages. When marketed as harmless daily hydration aids, the risks of excess minerals and synthetic vitamins are often minimized or ignored. Their perceived health value has been inflated well beyond common sense. These products were originally intended for targeted replacement of minerals lost through heavy sweating, vomiting, or diarrhoea — never as substitutes for water.
Some electrolyte products include added vitamins such as B6 and B12. While not harmful at nutritional levels, exceeding recommended daily intakes can be dangerous. Vitamin B6 toxicity and nerve damage are real. The recommended daily intake for adults is only about 1.3–1.7 mg, yet fortified products can contain far more per serving. Electrolytes and vitamins are not neutral when taken daily. The dose makes the poison. Cigarettes come with health warnings; these drinks do not.
There is also the issue of synthetic vitamin forms at high doses, which have the potential for toxicity when consumed regularly. Perhaps it is time to reconsider whether unrestricted access and aggressive marketing are appropriate.
High-pressure marketing blurs the line between occasional replenishment and everyday consumption. This is a commercial strategy, not a health recommendation. Ingredient lists on some of these products are mind-boggling. Synthetic vitamins and unnecessary additives — potentially harmful in high doses — make many claims misleading, if not outright deceptive.
This is not a warning against electrolyte drinks in all situations, but a call for honesty about their risks when used daily by otherwise healthy people.
This pattern is not limited to electrolyte beverages. Artificial additives once marketed as harmless — such as aspartame in diet drinks — have long raised concerns when consumed daily and in large quantities under the assumption that “diet is better than sugar.”
While approved as safe within regulatory limits, aspartame breaks down into compounds including phenylalanine and methanol, and some individuals report neurological or inflammatory symptoms with heavy or chronic use. Although aspartame does not literally accumulate in the joints, it remains another example of a widely marketed “safe-for-daily-use” additive that becomes controversial when consumption is frequent and habitual.
The broader issue is not panic, but normalisation: substances designed for limited or specific use becoming everyday staples without adequate discussion of cumulative exposure or long-term effects. Additives declared “safe” in isolation are not necessarily safe when consumed daily, habitually, and without medical need. Marketing encourages constant consumption by implying innocuousness — while individual sensitivity and susceptibility vary widely.
The Armenian Apostolic Church observes Christmas on January 6. Advent is a Quinquagesima known as Hisnag, or Hisnak, from “fifty”; this period begins with the first of three periods of fasting for one whole week, as preparation for the Holy Birth -…
1 December 2009| Tanja Cilia |03 min readTimes of Malta
The Armenian Apostolic Church observes Christmas on January 6.
Advent is a Quinquagesima known as Hisnag, or Hisnak, from “fifty”; this period begins with the first of three periods of fasting for one whole week, as preparation for the Holy Birth – Sourp Dznount. In earlier times, Advent was a time when fasting was practiced throughout its duration.
After “The Fast of the Beginning of Hisnak” comes the one following the third Sunday of Hisnak, “the Fast of St. James Bishop of Nisibis”. The commemoration of the Saint takes place on the Saturday following. The third and final fast precedes “the feast of the Nativity and Theophany of Christ our God”. Besides, during the remaining weeks of Hisnak when there is no fasting, Wednesdays and Fridays are also regularly observed as fasting days.
Even if it falls within the week of the fasting, The Feast of the Presentation of the Holy Virgin in the Temple is celebrated on November 21st, since it is not a moveable feast. When this happens, the feast is celebrated liturgically, yet fasting is nonetheless observed. This also holds true for the Feast of the Conception of the Holy Virgin by St. Anna (December 9).
Armenian housewives traditionally prepare their homes for “The Feast” by cleaning it thoroughly.
During Hisnak some of the important and major saints of the Christian Church are venerated; St. Gregory; St. Basil; the Apostles Thaddeus and Bartholomew; St. Clemens; St. Ignatius; St. Polycarpus; St. Nicholas; St. James of Nisibis; King David (as a prophet); Saints Peter and Paul, and others.
On the eve of Christmas, the rite of Divine Liturgy is celebrated through the Eucharist of the lighting of the lamps – Jrakaloutz Badarak – in honour of the Theophany; Jesus as the Son of God.
After the readings comes ceremony of the blessing of water, to evoke Baptism of the Lord in the River Jordan. During this ceremony, the Cross is submerged in the water and three drops of Soorp Muron (Chrism) poured into it, to signify the Holy Trinity. This anointing unction, a combination of first pressing olive oil and forty-eight specific aromas and flowers, is symbolic of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus.
A lay person is selected for the honour of being the “Godfather of the Cross”, holding it upright while the congregation approaches. At the end of the service, people take home with them some holy water, and a candle lit from the sanctuary lamp, so that the “light of Christmas” burns inside their house too.
Every day of the week following is also considered to be Christmas, and people visit one another’s homes. Traditional greetings are Tzez yev mes medz avedis (To you and us the good news); Krisdos dzunav yev haydnetsav (Christ is born and revealed among us); and Orhnial eh haydnootiunun Krisdosee (Blessed is the revelation of Christ)
Fleur and Lee were excited. Nanna Kitty’s old schoolfriend, the one who had given her the Vedas and Puranas books, had invited her for supper, and told her to take them along.
The moon rose full and deliberate over Sunita’s garden, hovering over the almond tree, and silvering the leaves, as if it had an appointment it did not intend to miss. Fleur tilted her head. “Doesn’t the moon seem larger than usual?” Lee squinted, following her gaze. “Yes!” he said. Nanna Kitty smiled quietly, as she tends to do. The night felt wider suddenly, stretched thin like dough about to rise. Lee had that familiar feeling; the one that always came just before the world shifted.
One moment the twins were standing on Sunita’s porch, and the next, on cool, dark soil threaded with roots. Winter had stripped the land almost bare, yet somehow it glimmered with quiet life. Fleur looked at Lee with her here-we-go-again look, and he grinned.
They saw her. They knew they had seen her before… “She looks like the ones in the books,” said Fleur. Lee nodded.
The goddess stood before them, blue-skinned and luminous, wrapped in red and gold, her many arms offering not jewels or toys, but food: leaves, roots, and fruits, all gathered patiently from a reluctant earth. She also held a bow and a water-lily. When she looked at the children, her eyes held the calm of someone who had fed the world through its hungriest seasons.
The twins stood side by side. The goddess said that she had noticed Fleur’s t-shirt scattered with Diwali fireworks, and Lee’s decorated with a soft map of India. That felt weird, because they were facing her. But goddesses tend to notice things.
“You have come as two,” she said, her voice steady as a simmering pot. “That is how nourishment works best.”
With a wave of her hand, she taught them how to look at the land differently. Not for what was missing, but for what remained. How bitter leaves could be sweetened and softened with care. How roots, scrubbed clean and sliced thinly, could become comfort. How scarcity was not emptiness, but just a quieter language. How nothing was too humble to matter.
“Food,” she told them, “is what unites us. It is the simplest promise we make to one another: we will get through this. Nourishment is ancient and shared.” She gave Fleur and Lee a small bundle each, tied with grass, smelling of petrichor and wet earth.
And then they were back. Nanna Kitty had gone inside. The house smelled of dal curry, lemon peel, and stories that had waited a long time to be told. Sunita smiled when they told her about the moon and the goddess. She looked at the bundles in their hands and nodded, eyes shining. “Ah,” she said softly. “You met her. Tonight is Shakambhari Purnima. When the earth gives little, we learn how much little can be.” She didn’t explain further. She didn’t need to.
Sunita’s kitchen hummed with evening glow as steam rose from the pots. Fleur and Lee enjoyed the feast. They ate slowly, savouring every morsel, grateful for what grows, for hands that cook, and for the quiet magic of being somewhere beautiful. Wild greens stretched with roots. Citrus peel reborn instead of wasted. The meal was an experience, and not just food.
After the dishes had been washed and dried and cleared away, Sunita explained that gods and goddesses are painted blue not to feel distant or strange, but to feel vast. Blue like the sky. Blue like deep seas. Blue like something that holds everything, without being held itself.
Outside, the full moon watched over Malta, over India, over all the places where hands worked with what they had. The children understood; they didn’t need the theology… they just felt it as old, familiar, and true, all at once.
Mentioning an unspecified ‘her’, Ogden Nash [Primrose Path, 1936], wrote “Her picture’s in the papers now, And life’s a piece of cake.” He chose not to write ‘a piece of pie’ – in any case, for whoever ‘she’ was, ‘the living was easy’. In the same year, British author Evelyn Waugh used it in his novel A Handful Of Dust.
There are still some people, however, who insist that the idiom is connected with slavery in the American southern states, in the 1870s. The owners threw parties during which slaves competed in “cake walks”, dances burlesquing their owners’ flamboyant mannerisms and movements. The prize for the best interpretation would be a cake; an easy thing to acquire. However, there is a snag to this theory – slavery was abolished in 1865.
Both “cake” and “pie” are used as metaphors for things that can be done ‘with the eyes closed’. It must be pointed out that both are easier to eat, than to make.
In Air Force jargon, a mission that is SEAD/DEAD (Suppression/Destruction of Enemy Air Defences) is a dangerous one, because aircrews in aircraft often called “Wild Weasels”, must actively seek out and destroy adversary air defence systems.
In contrast, “a piece of cake” suggests an uneventful flying mission, with no fatalities.
Another theory has it that cakes were [and still are] given out as prizes at county fairs. Winning one of the contests was easy; as easy as taking home a piece of cake. This came into being well before cakes stared being sold in slices, to avoid waste… and calories.
Some of us will eat cake batter, but not cake. We whip it up, but eat it from a mug, without baking it; not even bothering to zap it in the microwave. Making batter is much easier and faster than baking a cake. So, wouldn’t “as easy as a spoonful of batter” be better?
There is ice cream that tastes like cake batter; I don’t like ice-cream, either. In any case, batter tastes better at room temperature. Heat and cold destroy the texture.
In New Zealand and Australia, people might say something is a “breeze” rather than a piece of cake. ‘A walk in the park’, ‘a doddle’, ‘cutting butter with a hot knife’, ‘taking candy from a baby’, and ‘child’s play’ are clichés with more or less the same meaning.
Herculean tasks, steep learning curves, nailing jelly to a tree, and uphill battles, are definitely not slices of cake.
Ċelestinu: Jien ukoll, ta. Għandi l-ġwienaħ ma nistax inferfirhom iżjed.
Stella: Anzi, sibnihom.
Ċelestinu: Iva, vera. Jien kont ser nibda’ naqta’ qalbi…
Stella: U jien kont ser nibda’ naqta’ nifsi…
Ċelestinu: Dawk it-toroq kollha dojoq u jserrpu ta’ Nażżaret, għall-ewwel ma stajtx inisb irkaptu.
Stella: Jien ma kellix problema, għax il-mappa studjata sewwa qabel ma tlaqna ’l isfel.
Ċelestinu: Minn daqshekk anki jien, imma taf int, meta tħares lejn Google Maps, ikollok l-ismijiet tat-toroq miktubin minn tulhom, imma fid-dinja ta’ vera, irid ikun hemm plakka mal-kantuniera. U lewwel ħaġa, mhux dejjem ikun hemm, u t-tieni, jien ma nafx naqra bl-Ebrajk.
Stella: Sewwa qed tgħid. Imam jien, ħaddimt moħħi, tafx.
Ċelestinu: Is-soltu tiegħek int, kif jafu jagħmlu l-bniet! Mela x’għamilt?
Stella: Twejt il-ġwienaħ taħt il-libsa, u kulħadd beda’ jiggustani, meta bdejt ngħidilhom li rrid infittex liz-zija Marija, għax għandi aħbar tajba għaliha.
Ċelestinu: Kos! Kif ma ġietnix f’rasi xi ħaġa hekk, lili…
Stella: U int mhux moħħok biex tfittex tlesti l-qadja, biex tiġri ittir lura hawn? Naf ta, għaliex – ħalli tmur ir-reħearsal tal-arpa, biex meta jitwieled Ġesu tkun taf iddoqqha perfett.
Ċelestinu: Qbadtni! Jien ma rridx inkun wieħed mill-kori kollha tal-anġli – irrid inkun mużiċist! Taf x’eċitament għandi!
Stella: Allura, allura, x’qallek Ġużeppi?
Ċelestinu: U ruħi! Meta rani, qisu ra fatat. Taf kif bjad wiċċu? Għedtlu, le, ħi, Ġużeppi, jien anġlu, mhux fatat. Lili baġhtni is-Sinjur Alla biex ngħildek dan li ġej…
Stella: U mbagħad?
Ċelestinu: Insomma, spjegajtlu kollox. Fehmtu bil-mod li jien wieħed mill-Messaġġiera tal-Għoli, u li Marija kien ser ikollha tarbija.
Stella: Min jaf kif baqa’ skantat!
Ċelestinu: Uhh, qed ngħidlek. Beda’ jistaqsini jekk hux qed joħlom…
Stella: Tajba din!
Ċelestinu: Iva, imma fl-aħħar, ipperswadejtu li jien anġlu ta’ vera, u li dak li kont qed ngħidlu kien għax Ġesu kien ser ikun is-Salvatur tad-dinja, u li dak kien il-Pjan t’Alla.
Stella: Tajjeb, tajjeb. Isma’ jien ukoll ta’, meta mort għand Marija, għall-ewwel instarmet xi ftit.
Ċelestinu: X’qaltlek mela?
Stella: Skantant sewwa, hux. Bdiet tgħorok għajnejha. Qaltli li kienet għadha ma marritx tgħix ma’ Ġużeppi, u li kieku kellha jkollha tarbija qabel il-waqt… ħeqq…
Ċelestinu: Fhmitek. Imma allura, imbagħad?
Stella: Għedtilha li hi sabet grazzja mingħand Alla, u li kien ser ikollha dan l-Iben li semmejtilha, u kienet ser issemih Ġesu.
Ċelestinu: Min jaf la jgħidilha Ġużeppi li jien mort għandu u semmejtlu l-istess isem…
Stella: …kemm ser jiskantaw.
Ċelestinu: Imma Marija u Ġużeppi it-tnejn nies sew. Qalbhom tajba.
Stella: Iva. Marija qaltli li hi l-Qaddejja tal-Mulej, u li kienet aċċettat li jsir minnha skont kelmti… insomma, mhux kelmti, propja, kelmet Alla.
Ċelestinu: Ftakart dik il-ħaġa important li kellek x’tgħidilha?
Stella: Xiex?
Ċelestinu: U ajma, mhux li kellha żżomm kollox f’qalba u ma tgħid lil ħadd – ħlief ovvjament lil Ġużeppi?
Stella: U żgur li ftakart. U int, lil Ġużeppi fakkartu li għal Alla, m’hemm xejn li hu impossibbli?
Ċelestinu: Iva, għedtlu. U qalli, “Naf, naf!” u tbissem. U qam mis-sodda, u qalli li mela aħjar isib ftit injam tal-fraxxnu biex jagħmel benniena, għax dak injam sabiħ u b’saħħtu!
Stella: Kos! Kemm iġġib ferħ tarbija ġdida, hux.
Ċelestinu: Tabilħaqq.
Stella: Biex ngħidlek, jien lil Marija rajtha tħares minn taħt il-għajn lejn armarju li għandha fir-rokna tal-kċina – għax hemm sibtha jien, kienet qed issajjar u tkanta s-Salmi fl-istess ħin.
Ċelestinu: Eh, allura?
Stella: Tbissmitli, u qaltli, “Issa mela, hemmhekk, ara” – u writni l-armarju, “għandi biċċa xoqqa sabiħa, kienet nisġitha il-kuġina tiegħi Eliżabetta, u ftit drappijiet oħra, u nibda’ nħit xi ħwejjeġ ċkejknin.
Ċelestinu: Xi ħlew, hux! Fidi perfetta li taċċetta il-kelma t’Alla bla ebda’ dubji.
Stella: Iva, sewwa qed tgħid. Issa fittex lesti, għax dalqwaqt irridu nerġgħu ninżlu!
Ċelestinu: Dalwaqt? U ajma, int, x’għaġeb. Baqa disa’ xhur tafx.
Stella: Mela ma tafx li elf sena huma bħal jum wieħed, hawn fuq? Aħseb u ara disgħa xhur, jgħaddu qishom f’minuta.
Ċelestinu: Kos, vera. U barraminnhekk, irridu nippjanaw sew kif ser immoruu nxandru l-Aħbar it-Tajba lis-Slaten Maġi…
Stella: Dawk, hux – Balthasar tal-Arabja, li ħa jieħu d-deheb, Melchior tal-Persja li ħa jieħu l-inċens, u Gaspar tal-Indja li ħa jieħu l-mirra? Nagħmel imħatra li Artaban tant hu artab li ma jasalx fil-ħin.
Ċelestinu: Tajba din! U lir-ragħajja…
Stella: … iva, lir-ragħajja…
Ċelestinu: … u lin-nies ta’ rieda tajba…
Stella: Biex ngħidlek, anki ftit kliem bil-Latin tgħallimt, biex inkun nista’ nitkessaħ ftit.
Ċelestinu: U mela l-Maġi u r-ragħajja jafu bil-Latin?
Stella: Le, ma jafux, imma naf li ser nimpressjonahom meta ngħidilhom “Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum”! U naf ħafna iżjed Latin minn hekk. Għallimni Pietru, bl-aċċenti b’kollox.
Ċelestinu: Dejjem toħroġ b’xi waħda int. U allura x’iffisru dawk il-kliem?
Stage direction: Stella tfesfes xi kliem f’widint Ċelestinu, u flimkien jgħidu:
Glorja ‘l Alla fil-għoli tas-smewwiet,
U paċi fl-art lill-bnedmin ta’ rieda tajba.
Mulej Iben waħdieni, Ġesù Kristu;
Int li tneħħi d-dnubiet tad-dinja.
Infaħħruk, inberkuk, nadurawk, nagħtuk ġieħ, irroddulek ħajr għall-glorja kbira tiegħek.
Glorja ‘l Alla fil-għoli tas-smewwiet!
Stage direction: It-tfal jaqbdu idejn xulxin, jagħmlu inkin, u jitilqu minn quddiem il-kongregazzjoni fuq ponot subgħajhom qed taparsi qed itiru.
Getting at least halfway across the bridge was my only hope, but they were closing in rapidly.
The taxi-driver was one of those garrulous ones who tells you what he would do if they were President, Pope, Prime Minister, or Dear Leader.
I answered him in monosyllables, and laughed and sighed and grunted and exclaimed when he expected it of me. I didn’t even correct him when he showed off and mispronounced Wǔhàn Chángjiāng Dàqiáo differently, each time he said it.
All the while, I kept looking at the side-mirror, hoping my pursuers would get a puncture, or crash, or fall into the river. They had switched off the cherry lights and the sirens, so as not to draw attention to themselves, as soon as they passed The Wuchang Uprising Memorial.
Anyone with an ick of sense would have recognised the vehicles for what they really were, nonetheless. Beat-up Ford Escorts that are more suited to stock car races, than to Mafiosi chasing an informer, are a tad out of place in China. They stood out like a sore thumb, but everyone assumed they were crazy tourists having fun.
They didn’t actually know who they were looking for… the last time they saw me, I had hip-long, black, straight, hair with a fringe that covered my eyebrows, and perfect saubhaya makeup. I was wearing a distinctive oriental red silk dress with slits halfway up my thighs, and teetered on stilettos.
Now, I sported my own gamine blonde haircut, jeans, and a Barney the Dinosaur t-shirt I had picked off the floor in my son’s room, after I got the coded phone-call that told me they were on to me. It smelled of Nutella, butter, and rancid sweat… but I didn’t care.
I wanted to put as much distance as possible between me and them, just in case one of the minor staff at the hotel was a spy who had seen me make a run for it.
They knew they would be powerless to act once I crossed Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge, and that is why they were heading that way. It was an educated guess. Not that they could be called educated, by any stretch of the imagination… but you know what I mean.
A traffic jam… just my luck.
Fifty yards? Shall I make a dash for it? Or will the sight of someone running trigger their responses? What if they have a sniper rifle with a telescopic sight?
The thought lodged itself in my skull and refused to move, like a brain-worm bad lyric you can’t stop humming. I imagined a red dot blooming on the back of my neck, just below the hairline, a delicate little flower of death. I hunched my shoulders instinctively, as if that might help, and the taxi-driver mistook it for impatience.
“Bridge always like this,” he said cheerfully, gesturing at the snarl of traffic ahead as if it were a beloved family trait. “Government say fix it. Government always say fix it. If I were Government, I would…”
I grunted agreement and stared out of the window. The Yangtze lay beneath us, broad and indifferent, carrying silt, history, and secrets eastward. Revolutions had begun here. Empires had bled here. It seemed absurd to imagine that my own small, ignominious end might take place on the same stretch of water, felled by men who couldn’t even be bothered to visit a barber.
The bridge, all steel and concrete confidence, was strung with cables like the ribs of some vast mechanical beast. Once across, jurisdiction would blur. Paperwork would burgeon and phones would stop ringing and the internet would be patchy at best. Favors would suddenly be owed instead of demanded. They knew it. I knew it. That was why this stretch felt longer than the whole journey before it.
The taxi jerked forward a few feet, then stopped again. I risked another glance in the mirror. The Escorts were still there, nosing forward impatiently, drivers hunched low, eyes hidden behind cheap sunglasses bought in bulk at some motorway service station half a world away. I looked away quickly, heart hammering.
I tried to slow my breathing, counting the seconds between the blinks of the indicator lights ahead of us. I told myself that panic was a luxury I couldn’t afford to show, that fear-breathing was noisy, and noise attracted attention. If I bolted now, I would really become a problem that needed solving. If I stayed still, I was just another tired foreigner stuck in traffic, wearing a ridiculous shirt that advertised a purple dinosaur.
The taxi-driver launched into another story; something about his cousin, a failed restaurant, and a misunderstanding involving the only authentic recipe for Peking Duck. I clung to the normality of his voice. Every word he spoke was a thread anchoring me to the ordinary world, the one where bridges were just bridges, not links to life, and traffic jams were just inconveniences, not threats.
The car rolled forward again. Slowly, inexorably, the midpoint of the bridge crept closer. I felt a curious lightness spread through me, not relief exactly, but resolve. Whatever happened next would happen quickly. There would be no more disguises, no more borrowed clothes, no more mirrors.
I straightened in my seat, wiped my hands on my jeans, and fixed my eyes on the far side of the bridge.
Before I stepped through the Distortion for the first time, and found myself there, I would have assumed that the Catskills were somewhere in Shropshire or Lancashire. I mean, I knew that my granny was American, and that my father moved us back to Malta to be closer to his dd who was terminally ill- but I didn’t make the connection.
The Catskills are a subrange of the Appalachians, or, as the Brittanica eloquently put it, ‘…dissected segment of the Allegheny Plateau… lying mainly in Greene and Ulster counties, southeastern New York, U.S. Bounded north and east by the valleys of the Mohawk and Hudson rivers, respectively, the mountains are drained by headstreams of the Delaware River and by numerous small creeks…’
All this mention of waters partly explains what they now remember as The Catskill Chaos, which actually was more of a Catastrophe, plain and simple.
I glanced into the mirror at The Pit Stop Café, and, just as I thought, I was granny, again. It is weird that I was either granny or myself, and never mother. Never in-between. There’s a theory about time, something about loops and nodes and inflection points, but for me it always came down to this: the tingling in my wrists meant I was reverting through a Distortion. That I’d crossed another seam in the fabric of things. Perhaps this explains why granny and I never ever met. It is interesting to note that in the film Tenet, we see two men who are the same person, travelling in opposite directions through time. But this is real life, not a film.
Some people still write to me about those old photographs [the ones from the valley before it was flooded]. “You look so much like your grandmother,” they say. “Spitting image.” Well, yes. Because I was – I am – her.
The fact remains that at some level, I knew that if I did not go through with this, I would never be born.
Our Cooperative tried to innovate. We held meetings, even in the Boardroom, where I presented my new concepts. Spinning flax faster, dyeing without mordants, designs that incorporated ideographs that as now-me I’d pulled from an AI model decades ahead of its time. Naturally, it was met with resistance. The usual claptrap from men who had never created anything but paperwork, and tried to instil fear.
But then The Mayor made a noise. You know the type. Thick fingers, always fiddling with a ring. Red nose. Vested authority with nothing underneath.
‘You are acting like a Coven’ he said.
‘We’re a Cooperative.’ I retaliated. ‘And a cooperative should cooperate,’ I added sweetly.
‘This – this is witchcraft and madness,’ he insisted. ‘We will not finance this folly.’
‘I do not want, or need, your filthy lucre,’ I replied.
The room murmured. The Preacher hadn’t even arrived yet. Trepidation hovered over them like mildew. Someone said the word ‘excommunication’, and someone else said ‘fire and brimstone’.
The Preacher had arbitrarily decided we had to tithe the church. It had nothing to do with righteousness. Most of the funds went to support his pornography hobby. Then-me couldn’t prove it, of course, but now-me has seen the records on the Net. Everything, as they say, is archived.
But I couldn’t say a word. I couldn’t risk being branded a witch. Because if I was tried, or worse, there would be no now-me. And the loop would snap.
I told the women that, should they wish to attend, future meetings would be held in my house. I saw the women hesitate. On the day, only a handful turned up. The rest were afraid they would be ‘under suspicion’.
We sat around my dining room table, and I showed them my samples; naturally dyed linen, soft as butter, every thread uniform. I passed around my combed fibres and my diagrams. And then, I gave them the ideograph sheets. Symbols I’d transcribed from the AI model I accessed in the future-future, during one of my Distortions phases.
I didn’t tell them that; I said they came to me in a dream. The women saw the logic and the beauty of what I was saying. They wanted to integrate the new skills and the new patterns and colours into our work. And we did.
It was the mother of all storms. Not only rain and lightning, mind you, but bureaucratic, spiritual, and ideological tempests that churned through our valley. When I warned them, with the foresight of hindsight, that building across the valley was like courting fate, they laughed me off. Called me hysterical. A woman with too many harebrained ideas and too few credentials.
I had run a stall at the fair that morning, selling hand-spun linen and vegetable-dyed skeins. I remember the wind shifting. The ever-so-faint smell of ozone. I had just sold a spool of dyed flax to a woman with a baby strapped to her chest. She complimented the saffron tones. I’d used weld and onion skins, with a rusted nail soaked overnight. Granny’s recipe. My own hands.
That’s when the sky changed. It wasn’t just the coppery sky and purplish clouds; it was like the light bent every which way. The sun turned the colour of bruised peaches. I remember seeing a mother lift her child, and in the confusion, he let go of his balloon. It didn’t rise. It went sideways, and another woman caught it and gave it back to him.
The Preacher was on his usual wooden stool, sweat flying off his brow, and spittle sputtering out of his ugly mouth. Thundering about temptation and raving about rot, and how we women [and he looked pointedly at me] had become ‘too self-sufficient’ and ‘did not know their place’. That the Cooperative made ‘a mockery of modesty’. His voice crackled like something was breaking beneath it. Not just his pitch, but the thread of reality.
Then it happened. The wind didn’t blow. It pulled.
A long, low hum came from nowhere. Stalls flipped. Fabric billowed. My tapestry stand twisted as if the steel was warm taffy. People screamed. Someone yelled an obscenity. My wrists tingled. I turned, and in the corner of my eye, the Distortion flickered like a heat shimmer, right behind the cheese truck.
And my whole body screamed: Run for your life.
I let the tapestry go.
That was the thing. I could’ve grabbed it. It was the first one I ever made; a visual timeline of the flax-dyeing cycle layered over the lunar phases. Hours upon hours, my very own version of the Bayeaux Tapestry. And I let it go.
I ran. Between overturned tables, through flying popcorn and tarot cards, I ran. The Distortion buzzed and popped, and I dived through it like a girl diving into cold lake water.
And I emerged in the woods behind the homestead. As granny.
As it happened, the Wool & Folk 2023 had a massive and messy public fallout, possibly even worse than that of the infamous Fyre Festival. But to me, it was just déjà vu.
Flooded booths, overcrowding, bait-and-switch, last-minute change of venue, overcrowding, bad communications, delays, sundry issues, bad plans, disrespect, poor organisation, inadequate crowd control, a lack of load-in instructions and maps of where our booths were stationed, muddy conditions, and accessibility problems… all these after we were asked to sign a contract that covered the asses of the organisers, rather than protecting us, the vendors, without whom the Festival would not have taken place. Some of us even had to push / pull / lift / carry hundreds of pounds of merchandise.
And the music was loud. Too loud.
Tickets were $45 for early birds and $50 for general attendees, ostensibly for an event that would be taking place in an orchard, with music, food, small vendors, and networking opportunities. But six weeks before the event, the organisers changed the venue to Foreland in the Catskills – a hybrid outdoor-indoor space typically used for weddings, artist exhibitions, and other private events.
The event was set to have 3,000 attendees. Foreland has a maximum capacity of 500 people. Go figure.
The last-minute change in venue occurred because Felicia [I kid you not], one of the organisers, failed to get the proper permits. Days before the event, the Wool & Folk Instagram shared parking information with several lots and shuttles about a quarter-mile from the venue. This, too, was a disaster.
The only thing in their favour… sort of. They never expected a ‘Rain Stops Play’ scenario.
Back in the present-present, I teach workshops, sell fibre art and kits internationally, and donate most of the proceeds to the women’s shelter. I still dye with nettles and onion skins. And I still look over my shoulder sometimes, wondering if the Distortion will ever call me back. Suffice it to say that hopping through and from in the ether was getting old.
I look down at my own hands. Calloused and wrinkled, riddled with age spots and speckled with beetroot and indigo.
There appears to be some confusion about the actual ownership [location as yet unknown] of that tapestry. Indeed, as now-me, I am in negotiations with regards to acquiring it, and restoring it to its former glory. But so far, all is shrouded in secrecy. The story of how granny-me came to be the inspiration for my art is dire. But true.
At Mohair & More, the new guard is reviving what we did back then; community, sustainability, and storytelling through cloth. I saw a young artist with one of my old designs on display. Did not say a word. Just smiled and nodded encouragingly.
I remember the to-do about my GCSE project: Ancient Ways of Combing Flax and Dyeing it. Miss Barlow said I was stark, raving, mad. ‘You’ll never meet the deadline,’ she spat at me, ruler twitching in her hand like she was itching for another excuse to humiliate me.
‘What are the coordinates of the point of inflection for the curve f(x) = x³ – 3x² + 2?’ she snapped at me, rapping my knuckles with the edge of her ever-present ruler, when I was still dazed from a Distortion. I answered: ‘(1, 0).’ She looked spitting angry. Years later, I learned she had had a crush on my father, but he ignored her and married my mother. That explained it; I was being punished for something that was not my fault.
And yes; the book that project devolved into is still the vade mecum in the industry. I bet it’s yet sticking in Miss Barlow’s craw, if she’s still alive.
I am as old today, as granny was, then. Only now I know for sure: the tapestry of time isn’t linear. It’s a loop of flax, sometimes coarse, sometimes fine, threaded through fingers that know when to pull… and when to let go.
‘Listen up, Class,’ Miss Marija announced with an enthusiastic clap of her hands, ‘Would you like to explore the homes of our ancestors?’
‘Oh, yes, please,’ said Rita. ‘My Nanna was from Qormi. They had a big, big, house, with all the rooms around a central courtyard, and to go to the toilet, you had to step out into the yard, even if it was raining…’
‘My father’s granny had a villa in Mdina – it’s a boutique hotel now…,’ said Krista.
‘That’s nice. Both sets of my grandparents lived in Mosta, and their houses have been demolished and there are now flats instead…’
‘That is all very well, children,’ said Miss Marija. ‘But what I had in mind was something totally different. We have been given the opportunity to explore the caves in Ħal Mirqum. As you know, these caves are a protected World Heritage Site, so we cannot all go at once. There will be three trips, each on a Saturday morning. If you would like to be there, you need to get your parents’ permission, and fill in an application form, which must be returned to me by this Friday – no exceptions, not even if it’s for the last trip… The mysteries of the ancient world await.’
The children chattered excitedly.
‘That’s fine then. Now open your Science books on page 56…’
Sure enough, by the following Friday, Miss Marija had a sheaf of applications on her desk. She was looking forward to the trips as much as the children were, truth be told.
She told the children to write their names on a slip of paper, ad then she drew lots to divide the class into three trips. Some of the children, of course, complained that they were not going to be with their best friends, but Miss Marija said that she was not going to allow them to barter places, because that would create a precedent, and it was part of learn to accept what came, with good grace.
Miss Marija had given the class a booklet about the history of the caves. Not all the children had bothered to read them, because they assumed they would prefer it if they saw the real-life version before they read the notes.
The children who had curious minds, however, had read the booklets from cover to cover, and came prepared with many questions, in the pursuit of knowledge.
The group of twelve was made up of Julian, Krista, Larissa, Fleur, Lee, Alison, Anthea, Carla, Chelsea, Christiaan, Clint, and Sabrina had prepared themselves well for the expedition – torches, notebooks, pencils, and snacks and water. They were accompanied by an experienced local guide, Rodney, who spoke with a gentle lilt that carried the wisdom of his Three Cities heritage. His eyes gleamed with excitement as he shared tales of the ancestors’ beliefs and the significance of the art they were about to encounter.
The cave’s entrance loomed before them, like a toothless mouth. As they stepped into the cool, damp darkness, the sound of their footsteps echoed off the walls, bouncing back to them like the whispers of the ancients themselves, guiding them deeper into the earth.
Their torches cast circles of light on the rocky path ahead, revealing a world untouched by sunlight. The smell of damp earth filled their nostrils as they descended, each step taking them further from the familiar and closer to the unknown. The walls began to narrow, and the children could see the first flickers of colour.
Rodney, their guide, led them through a series of twists and turns, his voice a comforting presence in the quietude. ‘Remember, children, these paintings are hundreds of years old, all hand-painted with dyes taken from crushed rocks and tree barks and flowers…’
The first painting came into view; it was a majestic cheetah, painted in vibrant reds and oranges, stared back at them with eyes that seemed to look directly at each one of them.
‘Look, children,’ said Rodney, ‘the cheetah has with two heads, one facing forward and the other backward, as if keeping watch over both the past and the future.’
‘Like Janus,’ said Fleur.
‘Exactly,’ said Rodney.
The children stepped closer to the wall, their eyes wide with wonder. ‘This is incredible,’ said Miss Marija, her voice barely above a whisper. ‘Look at the detail, the precision. It’s like stepping back in time.’
Some of the children began to scribble in their notebooks, sketching the creature’s outline and noting the subtle nuances of the paint.
As they moved through the corridor-like tunnels, they encountered more paintings, each one more intricate and mesmerising than the last. There were images of humans, serpents, monkeys playing with what appeared to be celestial bodies, and scenes of hunting parties that seemed to leap off the walls. Each painting was a window into the life of a civilization that had once thrived here, the equivalent of photographs. But it was one thing to see the drawings and paintings in a booklet, and totally different to see them up close.
The tunnel-like path gave way to an enormous cavern, a chamber that was like an upturned bowl, with stalactites and stalagmites, some of which had fused to form pillars. The walls of the cavern stretched high above them, the ceiling lost to the shadows.
The children looked around in awe, their eyes darting from one painting to the next. Rodney spoke softly. ‘Here, in this cavern, you can see paintings that are similar to ones found in other caverns all over the world; proof that our ancestors are descendants of people who sailed the seas and chanced upon our Islands, bang in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, on their travels.
That is why you cannot say what a ‘typical Maltese person’ looks like; our genes come from North and South, West and East.’ He pointed upward. ‘Don’t you wonder how the artists could climb up to the very top, and decorate the roof with those red spirals?’
Miss Marija’s heart swelled with pride at how attentive the children were.
‘These tunnels,’ Rodney continued, as he pointed to a series of openings, ‘lead to places far away from the mouth of the cave through which we entered. They stretch as far as Buġibba and Mosta and Birkirkara, but we are not allowed to explore them, because some parts are very low, and some are unsafe.’
‘It’s like a world under the earth, or another earth under the world,’ said Christiaan, his voice full of awe.
‘Yes, some archaeologists have actually used those very same words to describe this tunnel system,’ said Rodney. Christiaan beamed with satisfaction, proud of the fact that his words had also been uttered by Experts; in huis mind the word was in upper case.
Rodney spoke again. ‘You will notice that here, at the very bottom,’ and he pointed to the lower part of the walls, ‘…there is a frieze made up of silhouettes of hands. It is thought that the artists put paint in their mouths, and blew at their hands, which they were holding palms against the wall, to get that effect…’
‘Cool…,’ said the children.
‘Now, don’t you be getting any ideas…’ Miss Marja wagged her finger at Lee, who grinned shrugged, and at Carla, who giggled.
Rodney looked at his watch. ‘That’s it for today, then,’ he said. It’s time to get back outside into the fresh air, and maybe have a snack and run around for a while…
The children’s torches cast their lights on the walls for the last time, and they filed out two by two, with Rodney at the front and Miss Marija at the back of the line.
The exit grew closer, the light at the end of the tunnel growing brighter with each passing second. As they reached the mouth of the cave, the children all paused at the entrance, and turned to look at the cave, wishing they could have stayed inside much longer.
‘Children, I want you to remember this; you have been granted a gift. A glimpse into the world of our ancestors. Never forget what you have seen and learned here.’
The group emerged into the bright sunlight, switching off their torches, and blinking away the darkness. They looked at each other, their faces flushed with excitement; they had visited the past and brought it back to the present with them. The adventure had stirred something within them, a curiosity about Malta’s past.
The class gathered around Miss Marija, their eyes still wide with wonder. ‘Children,’ she said, ‘Here comes the usual crunch. I want you to write a story about life at Ħal Mirqum before it even had a name…’ As usual, some of the children clapped, and some groaned. ‘I hope you took notes…’ and some of the children groaned even louder, because, of course, they had not done so.
The children strolled about the garigue and ate their lunches. When they were all ready, Miss Marija called the coach driver so that they could return to Fleur de Lys.
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