#50finethings 30 – 35

“The life unexamined is not worth living”.

Socrates

“Cherish the thought
Of always having you, here by my side (oh baby I)
Cherish the joy
You keep bringing it, into my life (I’m always singing it)
Cherish your strength
You got the power, to make me feel good (and baby I)
Perish the thought
Of ever leaving, I never would”.

Madonna

I went home to Ebbw Vale in June. 

As usual, I travelled by ferry and train.  This time my plans for a relaxing journey, where I could catch up on my correspondence like a lady from the 1800s, was ruined by the train strikes in Wales.

The strikes were a huge inconvenience to me, the way the removal of essential services often is. If I stopped doing my job, it might take a few months before anyone noticed.  You notice the absence of railway workers immediately.

Remember the first year of the pandemic?

Remember when we clapped for the health workers, the teachers, the supermarket staff, and those working in transport?  We wrote messages to these key workers, and front-line staff on windows, and on our social media channels, and we said things like, “we will never forget”.

Turns out those messages were metaphorical bouquets, as governments didn’t want to pay these key workers at all. 

It was good to see the rail workers bite back.

I’ve been a member of the Irish union, SIPTU, for years.  I joined for my own protection, and I stayed for the protection of others.  I support unions, because I like bank holidays, holiday pay, sick pay, and maternity pay, and I also like working in safe and healthy environments.  I wish the rail workers all the best with their industrial action, and I hope they get the pay and the safe working conditions they are asking for.

While in Wales, I spent time with family and friends, and I attended a terribly sad funeral.

I went for walks, and went swimming and enjoyed coffees, gossip, and chats.  I also popped into Ebbw Vale Institute for a visit and to see all their new activities and programmes.  They have a Bee Hotel, a Repair Café, art therapy classes, yoga, and a professional sound studio.

Ebbw Vale Institute was founded in 1849, by Thomas Brown, who was the manager of Ebbw Vale iron works at the time, and the building was completed in 1853.  To put that into context, this was just six years after the Coal Mines Regulation Act of 1843, which made it illegal for women, and children under the age of ten, to work underground in Britain.  Children over the age of ten, of course, still went down the pits and spent their lives there, but at least this put protection into legislation.  Ebbw Vale Institute provided educational supports.

The owners of the industries in Wales justified sending children, as young as five, down pits for twelve hours a day, because they said that without this cheap labour, they would not be able to make a profit.  Critics of the Coal Mines Regulation Act of 1843, said that not sending children to work in darkness all day, would be a terrible blow for the industries. 

When I was a little girl, my mother used to take me to the Institute for art classes and coffee mornings.  We didn’t call them that in the 1970s.  We just said we were, “going up the ‘stute for an hour,” and the result was the same.  I remember the smell of the paint from those classes, and the sound of the echoes from the hallway, like it happened late yesterday afternoon.

I grieve for my mother so differently in Wales.

The grief I live with in Dublin is quiet, well mannered, and tame.  While the grief I walk with in Wales is loud, erratic, uncaring and wild.  In Ebbw Vale, I can feel my mother all over the house.  I see her in her siblings’ faces, and I watch her mannerisms in her nephews and nieces.    

Welsh grief can be harsher, but it can also be kind.

Sometimes in Wales, I feel the tip of grief touch me with brilliant and overwhelmingly love.  There’s no loss or sadness, but simply, pure love.  Sometimes it comes from finding a pair of her old glasses unexpectedly in a drawer, or noticing a robin sitting on the recycling bin.  It can come through the ways the net curtains move, or from an old keyring hanging on a hook.

Sometimes, it’s in the water.

It makes sense to me to support Ebbw Vale Institute and go back to Ebbw Vale for their official opening in the first week of August.  It’s more practical than crying, easier than yearning, more helpful than hiraeth, and more refreshing than melancholy.

It’s a living headstone, and I think mam would be pleased.

At home too, I reviewed these #50finethings.

I discovered that the areas of “Work” and “Finance” are not the key priorities in my life.  (Please see figure 1. from the home-made pie chart above, for evidence).  In fact, I’m not very interested in them at all.

Jobs come and go. 

I’m very happy to have a job that I find interesting and I’m happy I didn’t go down the mines as a child.  One day, however, my job will be an app or won’t exist, and I’m fine with that.  I don’t mind.  Work and money aren’t real, and while I must exist alongside them, I don’t exist for them.   

After Wales, I went to Menorca with some old friends to belatedly celebrate our 50^th birthdays.  Sian didn’t celebrate hers, because she’s so much younger than the rest of us, but we, the Vintage 1972 women, celebrated well.

We celebrated being 50 and the women who gave us birth.  We celebrated our lives and our ever-going friendships with one another.  We laughed so much we nearly puked, and we swam, ate, told stories, and enjoyed sunsets.  These friends are indeed some 50 fine things, and I love them more each year.

It’s a good thing to know what is true for yourself.

Finally at fifty, I realise that I’m most at ease when I’m honest.  When my thoughts and actions are in harmony, and nothing I do needs defending or explaining.

I’m at my most comfortable when I enjoy the days, cherish the loves in my life, and laugh frequently.  I’m best when my day aligns with my values, and when I check those values frequently, in case they run amok.

My intrinsic motivation then, seems to be more around laughter and good tapas, than money and work, and this makes me happy.  If nothing else, 50finethings is teaching me about myself, and this moon’s reveal was a smashing one.

I’m very pleased to meet you, my name is Ruth. 

31 join a union

32 support Ebbw Vale Institute

33 review #50finethings

34 cherish the love

35 celebrate being 50