The Easter weekend came and went. I spent some of the time sitting on a wooden bench and some of it rubbing baby lotion into my feet. I spent time curled up on my yoga mat in the foetus position, licking the last of the Terry’s chocolate orange from the silver-foil wrapper, while singing along to the songs of Dolly Parton.

“Don’t call it love, coz heaven’s above, we got a better thing, baby”.

I spent time reading Werner Herzog’s “A Guide for the Perplexed” which meant that I was narrating a lot of my domestic chores in the voice of Herzog, for my own amusement.

“And here is Ruth now, in the kitchen of discontent, preparing a coffee for the broken hearted and pouring it into the cup of honest solitude. She tries to keep some rituals in life’s chaos which soothes her and yet paradoxically makes her long for the old forgotten world”.

I say reading. Reading is getting more and more difficult now though isn’t it? It’s really just staring at words with the vague hope that their silky, snaky slitherings will eventually make sense. If you stare at them for long enough, they will.

I spent some time watching people queuing up for confession at the Church in our street and I wondered what on earth they were confessing? Sins are pretty hard to do these days, no? I mean obviously I’ve been guilty of gluttony and envying my neighbour’s oxen, but apart from that it’s nearly impossible to commit any of the interesting sins, isn’t it? Actually, I’ve been thinking more about cows than oxen. In particular, I’d like to know where all the McDonald’s cows have gone now that we’re not eating them? Is there a special Cow Farm where they’ve all gone to retire, eat grass and discuss Jung? That’s taken up some of my time.

Can you believe it’s only week five though?

It seems like a long time ago that we used to go to the office and meet people in the evenings for things like the cinema or food or beers. Sometimes we would do all three things in just one evening! Perhaps you used to send texts to friends that said things like “hey, let’s just meet for a beer before the film, and grab a bite to eat afterwards, OK?” Sweet Mother of Jesus, all three things in just one night. Hard to remember isn’t it?

Since the 12 March I haven’t been within six feet of anyone outside of my household for longer than a moment or two in the supermarket, the street or the hallway in my building. The last person I spent real time with was Patricia, who was visiting Dublin from Lima. We spent that morning talking about pea farming in Peru, and how the timing for the harvests are so specialised and precise. The difference between picking the crop from one day to the next can be the difference between being able to sell the peas or not. It’s a very delicate business; planting, growing and harvesting peas in the rural areas of Peru.

Do you know what makes all of this so odd though? It’s like this; say you’ve been on a trip to Tanzania for a month right, and you come back and you tell everyone all about Tanzania and they want to hear more and they listen carefully. But then, you meet someone who’s been to Tanzania for six months, so now it’s you who must listen to them for insights and anecdotes. Then both of you come across a third person who is married to a Tanzanian and has two Swahili speaking children. Everyone knows where they are in these situations: there’s the one month person, the six month’s person, and the fully integrated person. It’s easy to follow.

In this new reality we have all just arrived in Tanzania and we don’t know how to get from the airport to the city centre. We are all dithering about in the arrival’s hall. Some people are weeping, and some people are upset about the luggage and someone doesn’t have a visa. People are cross, tired and very annoyed with one another and some people are wandering off to the toilets. I just want someone to walk up to me and say “hey, you want to get a taxi to the hotel?” and for me to nod and say “yes, please”.

Is that so much to ask?

My friend Annie called me Tuesday and told me that she was finding week five very manageable and almost like an exclusive, avant-garde retreat. I agreed with her but then I told her about the dead rat I’d seen on the pavement on my way back from the park that morning. I said that I didn’t know what had taken its head and shoulders clean off, if it was a fox or perhaps a larger rat? Then Annie said that she didn’t feel that much better after all, and she said goodbye and hung up the phone.

On the whole though, I think I do feel better this week. I’m not worrying less, but I’m monitoring the worry better. I’ve even caught myself using the present tense to describe my daily activities, which as we all know denotes regular routine and habit. “Yes, usually I do a yoga class on Tuesdays” I’ve said to friends, or “I like to sit on benches on Saturdays”. So at least linguistically I’m getting used to the intensity.

But please don’t fret if things are not getting better where you are. We all have our own dragons to slay and we’re all doing our best. I’ve a fucking kitchen full of dragons, but for some reason they seem to be sleeping, for the moment. Lord knows what will happen when they wake up, but at least this week they are snoozing.

While they sleep I wonder if the skies were always this beautiful, this striking azure and cerulean? Did I always have such hiraeth for Wales? Did a glass of sparkling water with a slice of lemon always taste so refreshing? Were sunsets always this poignant? Did my body ever thank me so much for resting when tired and waking when done? Was I always this frightened? Did the sound of the birds in the morning always make me smile so much, and were the skies ever or always this blue?

I’m a lot more skittish when I’m outside now.

I look like I’m auditioning for River Dance with my high jumps and skips. I can be walking down the pavement quite calmly until I see another human, and then I leap into the road like a member of London Contemporary Dance Theatre in order to avoid being within 6 feet of them. There I continue with a free spin and a heel turn, and I like to finish with a plie or the moonwalk. The performance changes daily as it’s improvised rather than rehearsed, but I really do feel I’m getting good at twitchy arabesques.

Of course there are some people I avoid more than others.

I hate the people who spit and the people who drink their take-away coffees while they are in the queues for the supermarket. I don’t like the people who keep looking at their mobiles while they’re walking and I’m not very fond of the couples who take up the entire pavements either. These people make me more nervous and tense and so my irrational dislike of them grows exponentially after every outside visit and it never occurs to me that they could be frightened of me too.

Never.

Week four wasn’t a great week for the joggers though was it? It wasn’t easy for those people who own second homes or caravans by the beach either, nor was it great for people who believed that dropping a couple of Easter eggs off at a family home was essential travel. Still at least this meant that those who take their children to the supermarkets got a break this week, as we all concentrated on the other people to boo at and to hiss at and to hate.

First, they came for the joggers.

The problem with blind hatred though is that people can belong to more than one group. So while I’m perfectly entitled to pick up my pitch fork against the person looking at their mobile phone while walking down the street, what if I later find out that they’ve just finished a 12 hour shift at the hospital and are sending a text to let the babysitter know that they are going to be late home? What then? Can I still hate them? No, not really…but this is the problem because I want to hate them for their inconsiderate, hopeless, reckless, maybe even murderous behaviour on the pavement. But I also want to reward them for their front line, essential service.

It’s getting tricky isn’t it?

All I know for sure though is that it’s better to be shouting at rather than to be shouted at, so I’m just keeping my head down and out of the online debates. I wonder who it will be next week? The people who chew gum, or the smokers, the people who walk their dogs or those with highly pitched, vapour filled laughter?

I wonder.

But anyway, Week Four for me was all about eating my body weight in chocolate while constantly holding a hot water bottle to my tummy for reassurance and calm. How was it for you? Not exactly what we planned for the week before Easter, was it? But here we are. Here we are.

Actually, this week was all about memories for me. I’ve been drifting in and out of oceans of reminiscences that meander back and forth like the tide itself. The other day I spent just ages thinking about the first car my mother ever bought. It was a blue, two door, Ford Escort that never started on the first go. We would have to push it or jump it or let it roll down the steep hill at the end of our street to get it going and just thinking about it made me smile. My mother bought it just after she passed her driving test and she loved it more than anything else she ever owned. She really did love that car, and when I was thinking about it the other day, I could smell the interior and feel those leather seats.

Oh, but isn’t there also so much love about?

In amidst all the panic and the worry and the fear I’m seeing these infinite atoms of love. No one is really worried about their own health or safety, but only for their older ones, their younger ones, their already sicker ones and their front-line, essential ones. All we want to do is protect them and keep them safe and envelope them with our love. Even the ones we don’t even like that much, like those who spit and drink take away coffees and take up too much space on the pavements. We even want to protect them too.

Like I said, it’s getting tricky isn’t it.

But well done you, yes you, well done! You’ve reached the end of week four and you’re managing it all just fine. The moon has been all the way around planet earth since we’ve been living like this, and no doubt it will go around again. Yes, there’s no doubt about it, it will go around again.

So I’ll leave you this week with a very strong recommendation and some good advice. Do not, I repeat, do not go googling Male Finish Shouting Choirs because I’m afraid that you’ll find it very upsetting and uncomfortable and alarming. So whatever you do, don’t do that! That’s my top tip for week four – you heard it here first!

You’re very welcome.

Now take great care and I’ll see you next week.

I’ve spent a great deal of time this week looking out of my window.

I look at the Church and the small closed shops, the other apartments and the Spire. I watch the empty street until a person passes. If they have a dog with them all the better, but I don’t mind if they’re alone. It’s good if they have some detail of interest, like a funny type of walk or an interesting shopping bag. I like the people who wear hats. It’s ok if they don’t as well. Some of the people pop into the Church to pray, but I like to imagine that they have a secret rendezvous with their lockdown lover, or a meeting with an old friend from outside of the 2km zone.

Maybe they’re just praying though, who knows.

Sometimes when I’m looking out of my window, I like to recite poetry.

“The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me?”

Only kidding!

Of course I’m not doing that yet. No, we are much more Beckett than Tennyson in this household anyway. It’s much more like…

What time is it now?
Now? The time now is Now.
Will it always be Now?
No. Soon there will be After Now. Wait, is that someone sounding in the hallway, do you hear them? Are their hands washed?

A lot of people are struggling with time and numbers this week. It’s all gone a bit elastic hasn’t it? It’s like a big, long, never-ending-all-consuming piece of elastic. Some people didn’t know if the clocks were going forwards or backwards last weekend, and there was worry about the circumference of a 2km radius here in Ireland, when the new restrictions came into place. Basically, anything to do with numbers or rationale or time was just a little bit challenging for most of us because I believe we all said farewell to Concentration this week. We also seemed to have said so long and adieu to Patience and Tolerance too, who packed up their bags and left late on Wednesday. I waved goodbye to them from my window screen and they waved gleefully back from the LUAS, while practising responsible social distancing, of course.
It’s a shame these three things have gone just as virtual reality has become reality, because I think we might need them more than ever. The Internet was a fine distraction or a sweet treat from work, but now that it is work, rest and social time, it’s really rather exhausting isn’t it?

Hi, I’m having this really cool event.
Where are you having it?
Wait, wait until I tell you…I’m having it…online!
Online! My god what an incredible idea! Whatever made you think of doing it virtually and online? You are indeed a blessed genius in our midst!

The internet is where we see that while we are all affected by this thing, the impact of it is quite different from person to person. Some of us can self-isolate in castles with Gucci face masks and a full staff, and some of us can’t wash our hands in clean water. As the Italian novelist, Francesca Melandri said recently “that boat in which you’ll be sailing in order to defeat the epidemic will not look the same to everyone nor is it actually the same for everyone: it never was”. And if you don’t believe me or Melandri, then re-watch Titanic. They were literally in the same boat and not in the same boat!

That’s how different our boats are.

The internet is also where we follow the movements of the Virus and we make our own deals and appeasements with it daily, don’t we? We whisper “please Virus, don’t take my people, please Virus, leave my people safe”.

And the adverts, the online adverts? Did you notice how quickly they started trying to sell us stuff online though? I’ve already seen adverts for cashmere lounging outfits that are “perfect for working from home” and high-end hand creams that are “essential after all of this handwashing”. I’ve seen adverts for luxurious slippers and Peloton Bikes. It took less than three weeks for them to identify and cater for our new desires. I feel like telling them, “look guys, I don’t have time for all this online consumerism, OK? I’m far too busy eating, looking out of my window and watching The Tiger King. I also have to monitor the movements of my Spider Plant and nap, so I really don’t have time for shopping. Leave me be”.

But to go back to Concentration (sorry, I was getting distracted there), isn’t it a shame that it went away before we could really make any proper sense out of all this? We keep comparing the new reality to fiction don’t we, like the Twilight Zone, or Black Mirror, or The Handmaid’s Tale. We wonder if it might be an extravagant piece of performance art by Derren Brown or we ponder if we might already be in the future and are watching our own simulations subjectively. But as the Virus is new and our global response to it unprecedented, we don’t have anything to compare it to. It simply is what it is. That might leave us feeling a bit weepy or in a loop, but it is what it is. People are still having babies, and getting married and completing their PhDs and writing haikus. In between managing the fear for those we love, we are still going for walks, and taking photos of sunsets, we’re making bread for the first time and contemplating crochet. Our friends make us laugh daily and, the life moves on.

It simply is what it is, and the life moves on.

But anyway, I’ll leave you this week with some advice from an account I follow on Twitter. It’s a joyful and funny account and I think you might like it too. Well done this week, by the way, well done you! Whatever your challenges are, you’ve managed them again this week, and although it might not be pretty, you are getting through this thing. I think you’re fabulous and I think you’re fine. So take kind care of your good self and I’ll see you next week.

@mindflakes “Sometimes the best thing you can do in any situation is grab a microwave by the power cord and swing it in big circles around your head”.

Well I think we can all agree that week two was pretty shit, no? Whether you’re a sunny optimist or a fiery pessimist, you’ve got to agree week two was just a little bit woeful.

Some people have come out this week as the Covid Optimists. They have been reminding us of the unexpected joys and pleasures of the pandemic, for example, the improved air quality and the fish in Venice. They’ve been celebrating the now possible one-tier health system in Ireland, and the opportunity to spend quality time with the kids and old friends on House Party. They are using their abundance of new time wisely and they seem to be saying “look I know COVID19 isn’t all about me, but isn’t it great to learn ancient Greek and T’ai Chi all the same?”

At the other end of field are the Covid Sceptics, who believe that this virus will herald in the end of times. They point to the empty shelves in some supermarkets, the spitting stories, and the fact that some people can’t socially distance properly. They believe that the post-Covid society will be based on greed, hate and jealousy, and they think it’s a shame that it took a global crisis, and fear for our own selves, to implement decent health care.

I feel that most of us are still dithering around somewhere in the middle, very unsure about the whole thing, and slightly behind in our catching up.

My favourite new people though, are the ones who seem to allude to the fact that they may have been through all this before? You know the ones. Those people who offer helpful advice and suggestions and say things like “you should keep to a regular schedule and keep to business as usual. That will help you in the long run”.

How, for the love of God, do they know this information?

Did we have one of these pandemics before? Did the whole entire world, apart from a small area of Antarctica, go into state supported lockdown before? Did I miss that one? Maybe I wasn’t paying attention that time? Maybe I was on a zoom call?

No, of course these people don’t know what they are talking about. They are winging it. And you know what, if winging it makes them feel slightly less on the edge, then good for them. I guess you and I can pretend we believe them and then the triangle of self-delusion is complete.

So, I had my first panic attack a few days ago in Fallon and Bryne. Yes, I know that no one expected the apocalypse to have chicory, but one must keep standards up in these dark times. I was wandering the aisles and I had a delightful moment where I forgot about reality and I gave my full attention to all the posh food and the treats for the evening. Just for that time, everything was fine and nice and pleasant, and I was even looking forward to the walk home and dinner and a film. Anyway, out of the corner of my eye, near the cured meats, I saw a woman coughing into the open air! Coughing into the abyss. I scowled at her, as did the other shoppers and I almost went to speak to her about her appalling coughing hygiene when, all of a sudden, and out of the blue, I started sneezing myself.

I covered my mouth into the inside of my left elbow while I tried to raise my right arm to speak. “I have these allergies” I said quite frantically “in particular, I’m allergic to dust and house-hold mould”.
The other shoppers turned their attention from Coughing Woman to me, and their faces contorted with wild hate.

“Really” I repeated “I have a very sensitive nasal passage” but it was too late. I had to pay for my goods very quickly (some anchovies and capers) and I headed home in shame.

Anyway, ever since that day and now for every day at around 5.30pm, I feel like I’m going to vomit. It’s really very odd, but just like clockwork, vomit. During these times, the unambiguous and agonising fear that people I know are going to die takes over and I feel sick. The faces of those I am worried about come into my mind’s eye and the only way I can make them go away is to do a sort of surreal “whac-a-mole” with them. I imagine hitting them over the head with a bright, yellow, inflatable hammer (the type you might win at the fair) and then their faces flow away, and the panic passes. It lasts for about 15 minutes.

If it wasn’t for the dread, all this would be ok wouldn’t it? I mean, I like reading and watching 18 hour documentaries about the American war in Viet Nam, I enjoy watching silly films from the 80s and listening to the radio, so none of the indoor living stuff bothers me so much. It’s just the relentless fear, and dread and worry.

That’s all.

But if you’ve made it to the end of week two, well done you and even more well done if you’re a chirpy-silver-linings-type of person who is keeping the rest of us sane with your helpful comments and free, online yoga sessions. If you’re still under your duvet and refusing to come out until all this is over, that’s OK too. Just make sure you don’t get bed sores and try and open the curtains once a day, as they say it makes all the difference.

Of course I’m so grateful for my health, the health of those I love and the security of my shelter. I’m also grateful for the wonderfully inappropriate, offensive and core-achingly-funny chats I’m having with some girlfriends in these times. Jokes and comments that I couldn’t possibly repeat and some moments where I’ve cried with laughter. But what I thank God for most of all this week, is without doubt, my internet access.

I’ll finish with a haiku I wrote in response to the Covid19 crisis. It doesn’t have a title yet, but I posted it on Facebook yesterday and some people seemed to like it.

Good luck with it all, and I’ll see you next week.

Shit, shit, shitty shit
Shit, shitty shit shitty shit
shit. Oh, so shitty.

 

 

 

Well done you!

Yes you, my imaginary little audience. I don’t know if you’re a friend or a family member, a colleague or a virtual acquaintance, but I do know that we share something in common at this moment, and that is that we are both experiencing life in the time of corona.

Now I don’t know if you’re coronafearful or coronazen or somewhere in between, but I do know that you have an opinion about it all and that you are worried about something: maybe your health or the health of another, your business, your job, rent, how you are possibly going to entertain the kids, and take care of your older people, or just how you are going to not die of boredom now that the pubs and cinemas are closed.

If you’re based in Ireland, you have just completed week one of social distancing, so again, well done you. The first seven days of any new way of life are going to be hard, right? The first seven days in a new job are horrible, the first seven days of dry January are appalling, the first seven days of any new regime are terrible.
Right?

Well maybe don’t ask me, I’m new here myself.

One week ago the schools and the colleges in the Republic of Ireland were closed down, and those of us who could were told to work from home for the next two weeks. I knew it wasn’t going to be just two weeks, which is why I packed up my desk plants from the office. I didn’t like to leave them there on their own and it suddenly became very, very important that I take them with me. One is a lively old spider plant that has given me such joy, and the other is a purple and green thing, that was almost destroyed and died, but now lives out its old age in a pot that’s too big for it. I carried them down Capel Street, while people bought toilet rolls and pasta and I took them home.

I haven’t done this before, it’s all unprecedented, so I don’t have any tips or advice. But I have been on a few international volunteering placements before, and it feels intuitive to treat this new way of life a little bit like that?

Bear with me as I explain.

Firstly, I think it’s ok to be feeling a little bit sea-sick at the moment, as this is week one of adjustment. Everything is a little different, and a little strange and we have to get used to the new surroundings. We all have new pressures now and life has changed quite dramatically. Even small tasks are going to take a lot longer now, and we probably don’t know the new language.

Every day so far, I’ve felt a whole variety of emotions from happy and calm, to scared and frightened and all under an umbrella of denial and disbelief. I am so grateful that I have shelter, a permanent job and that all my family and friends are OK at present. It’s nice to take books I haven’t read down from the shelf, and drink coffee in bed and go for walks when I want to. It’s a bit mischievous to watch films in the afternoon and then to suddenly decide that what I really want to do is a half an hour of yoganidra. It’s lovely to write.

I am also frozen with fear about the health of my VIPs (my Vulnerable and Isolated People). This visceral fear takes me to the verge of screaming and I feel like I need to slap myself across the face harshly and give myself a glass of brandy, like they used to do in those films from the 50s.

“Calm down God damn it” I might say to myself “you’re not helping anyone with this hysterical behaviour!”

Maybe, like me you could do with a good cry? A proper snot inducing, hyperventilating, sobbing waterfall of a cry that goes through several tissues (which will obviously then be disposed of quite safely). Maybe it’s a good idea to pop on a film which you know will get the tears flowing, and then blame the tears on that.

“It’s not me overreacting and being melodramatic” you might say to yourself “it’s this very upsetting film, God damn it!”

But you know what’s funny? I have a wardrobe full of clothes and I’ve been wearing leggings and t.shirts for a week now. I have four different handbags hanging in the hallway and I also personally feel a little bit superfluous to the needs of society. While I’m here reading and practising zen, the health workers, shop keepers, drivers and front line staff are actually doing something of value.

Funny isn’t it?

But anyway, well done you and I mean that sincerely.

These are indeed the most unusual of unusual days so whatever you’re doing, it’s right. If you need to run, or hide under the duvet or learn to speak Spanish or cook yourself into oblivion then do it, and do it without guilt. If you have your health, shelter and a permanent job, try and relax into this new way of living and try and stay calm.

This is just week one of adjustment.

This is just life. This is the whole of it, with its fears and its beauty, its shame and its joy. This is what it is.

 

“Smaller than us”

“Smaller than us” is a collection of short stories, flash fiction and vignettes from Ruth Powell accompanied by a selection of photographs by Carolina Murari.

The stories are fictionalised versions of nearly factual events and the photos are representations of moments, seen only by the photographer. The piece of work is a series of snapshots of moments and reflections of memories from two different observers at two separate times.  Despite their geographical and historical disparity, the observers note the common thread of humanity, which links us together, and highlights our connections over our variations.

Ruth and Carolina are launching their work at the Winding Stair on Friday 01 November from 6.00pm – 8.00pm and will have follow on drinks and refreshments in the Lord Edward pub, afterwards.

Please come and celebrate the launch of “Smaller than us”, either at the Winding Stair, at the Lord Edward or at both.

 

 

 

Chisel these vows down for me, sculpt them in stone.

Protect them with satin from a wedding dress.

Weld these vows on for me.

Carve them in wood.

Play them on the keys of your piano.

Whisper these vows out for me, let a floating cloud hear, that I adore you today and forever.

Let the guests know

as they feast and they rejoice

that you design the very light of my essence.

So love, and love and dance with me.

Stillness, let it breathe.

May they know, that I adore you forever.

 

(photo by Mateja Jaksic)

When your eyes, are the eyes I see me with, then I am indigo.

Not scattered lost light, with no edge or depth, but indigo.

Not a lonely black cat, in an alley you can’t see, but indigo.

Dazzling ice beams, a rainbow colored calling, the brightness and the light.

When your eyes, are the eyes I see me with, then I am indigo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I think about you, you are the Cenotes.

I am sitting in a room where a Picasso is hanging, when I first hear some notes from a cello.  It’s raining outside and the people say it’s the first rain in six weeks.

I’m thinking about drifting and sinking, so I begin to climb down the slippery ladder steps into the water of a Cenote.  I’m afraid that I might fall, but I don’t.

Deep in the middle of Mexico, I remember something that I had long forgotten and it makes me happy.  I balance my breathing and concentrate on just one-step at a time.  For each note of the cello suite, one-step down.  In the end, I’m at the bottom, and the water looks delightful, this indigo cave water is warm and serene.

I breathe into the sound and I forget the rain.  I feel the bedrock limestone of Yucatán groundwater, and I forget to remember Picasso.

I have eased down slowly.  The air is different here, inside the earth.  And I can’t seem to remember the journey at all.  So I swim under it and it smells like history.  I hear a familiar voice say to me, I know you because you’ve been here before.

Is this my own echo, or am I the echo beneath?

Floating on my back, I adjust to the salty warmth and the memory of my ancestors dancing.  My heart expands but I can’t stay here too long.  Beneath the water, the urge to stay is strong, but a waning gibbous moon reminds me to go back to the brightness.  One stroke at a time, movements in harmony with the cello notes, back to the music, to the room with the Picasso in it.

Back to the rain.

I don’t know if you heard, but there was a referendum in Ireland last month.

To recap, the citizens of Ireland were asked if they wanted to repeal or retain the eighth amendment to the constitution, which, in practice, criminalised abortions here in Ireland, but allowed women and girls to travel to the UK for terminations instead.  Over 66% of people agreed that this amendment was hypercritical and unjust and it was repealed on 25 May 2018.

I was always pro-choice.

I was born in the middle of the Welsh vallies at the start of the 70s in Michael Foot, Neil Kinnock and Nye Bevan’s constituencies.  I remember the miners’ strikes and living in working class Thatcher’s 80’s Britain vividly, so it’s hardly a surprise that my political views are a little left of centre.  Most left-wingers are pro-choice, so I held that belief too.

So far, so easy.

I have always believed in “equality” and I have spent my working life involved in education, or in development-based organisations that try to fight inequality.  And my first “action” to support the repeal the 8^th movement was on International Women’s Day, 2017, when I posted something fairly vague and vacuous on Facebook.  I said that it was unjust that some women and girls could travel to the UK for terminations but those without financial security had to take the unsupervised abortion pills in Ireland.  Those with money could be medically cared for, and those without money were essentially breaking the law and risking 14 years in prison.  The issue was so clearly about equality for me that I didn’t even do a spell check before I posted the paragraph.  And posting this on Facebook came with absolutely no risk to myself.

A year later on International Women’s Day 2018, I posted more!

I talked about equality of access again, and I started mentioning women and girls who had refugee status and asylum seeker status who could not travel to Britain.  So the legislation was discriminatory and affected the most vulnerable women in our society the most.  But I was talking about “those women over there” and not me.

Not me.  Those. Over. There.

The Together For Yes campaign kicked-off and I started doing the odd bit.  I donated money.  I bought a badge.  I signed up to a fun-run, and yet I was still taking no personal risk to support this campaign at all.  I had a sympathetic opinion, which was almost academically removed and charitable rather than felt with a passion, because I still did not relate the issue or the fight to me.

Then something happened.

It became very clear, after an almost Kafkaesque conversation with someone from the department of Justice, that my application for citizenship would not be ready in time to register to vote.  Then I realised that I had to do more than tweet.  I actually had to get out into the streets and start talking to strangers.  My logic here was that if I could “convince” someone to change their mind and vote YES, then this was my YES vote by proxy.

So I did a bit of canvassing and leafleting.

I was terrified at first, because I genuinely thought that I would be asked on all matters fertility related and possibly quizzed on other areas of the Constitution.  I soon discovered that most people actually just wanted to say what was on their minds, and discuss any sticky points that they had.  It was generally quite interesting and quite engaging and I like to think I helped one or two people come to their own decision to vote YES.

But here’s the thing.

In less than 15 hours’ worth of volunteering on the campaign, I experienced quite a high number of uncomfortable moments.  Up until this point, I was still talking about “those women over there”, but when you are told, by strangers in the street, that you ought to be ashamed of yourself, that you are Satan, that you’re a slut who needs cleansing and that you are a lost cause who is going to hell, you start getting angry.  Not sad or blue, or sympathetic to the cause.

But really fucking angry.

It dawned on me then, that I was asking permission for the rights to my womb. How incredible it was that some people believed that they had the right to say NO to me.  How dare they think they could?  Then the pronouns changed, in the most exquisite of ways.  I stopped talking about women and girls and started saying “us”.  I stopped talking about women with refugee and asylum seeker status and started to say “we”.  I started to say “me”; I started to say “I”.

Two weeks on and I am still in shock and recovery.  Leafleting made me think that the amendment would be retained, and I’m still struggling to be kind to those who voted NO.  Their right to have a clear conscience and sleep well at night, because they think abortion is morally wrong, would have affected my right to choose what is best for my womb, in the most profound of ways.  I am trying to remember Nietzsche’s warning that when fighting monsters we must be careful that we ourselves do not turn into monsters and the Dalai Lama’s advice that life without love and compassion is not really a life.  With this in mind, I will try and make more of an effort to be kinder to those who voted NO next week.

Maybe next week I will be kinder to them.

My final social media post related to the criticism that the YES supporters were celebrating the result of the referendum, and I wrote this:

“I’ve heard these awful and malicious lies that some people were out drinking champagne on Saturday afternoon, and into the early evening. I assure you I was drinking Pinot and Prosecco. When will these lies ever stop? Fake News!”

Finally, I was using personal pronouns.  I was putting my hat, my passion and my womb into the discourse and I was taking a bit of a risk.  Finally, I realised that to stand by the women and girls of Ireland, I had to be counted as one of them.

And I am so very proud that I did.  I am just sorry I was so late.