Category: Uncategorized

#50finethings:  26 – 30      

26 Dance

Sometimes I dance in the shops.

Only the shops that play music, but that’s where sometimes I dance. 

Not just a foot tapping type of dancing, but a shoulder swivelling, pelvis hip swinging, finger clicking form of dancing, and it’s even better when I sing along as I groove down the frozen food section.    

I don’t know when the public dancing habit started. 

Probably it started when we all still wore masks so that you couldn’t tell who was singing, or who was screaming. 

I like to do it.

Sometimes, I catch a glimpse of this 50-year-old woman, swaying to the music and enjoying herself, so I blow her a kiss, and I wish her well.

27 Consume Less

One of the best things for the earth, is to consume less.

It’s a simple objective, which makes all decisions much more straightforward:  should I buy X or Y? 

Neither. 

Just consume less.

Less of everything is better for the earth:  less fuel, water, unsustainably grown food, fashion, social media, earbuds, sun cream…just buy less.

“Ah but Ruth, you don’t understand the complexities of my unique situation and the importance of my desires!”

Oh, but I do.

Also, I’m not talking about YOU, I’m talking about ME.

I only have control over my thoughts, words, and actions.  I’m going to consume less; you do what you must do.  I’m not the boss of you.

Whenever I think about the fact that the human species might be extinct quite soon, I don’t feel anything.  Maybe I’m a sociopath, but I can’t generate real feelings for the future people.  Of course, I feel sad for the very last homo-sapiens, in the same way I felt sad for the last Neanderthals.  But it’s an academic, abstract sensation that I’m not going to make any changes for.

Rather, when I think of my family and friends, who are living now, then I want them to live with clean air and water, decent non-poisoning food, and be safe from fire and flood.  I honestly think the best way to start to do that is to try and consume, much, much less of it all. 

All of it, less of it, and then less of it again.

28 #addthe10th

I work for Dublin City PPN, which has recently joined a campaign to #addthe10th

The aim of this campaign is to add “socio-economic discrimination” to Irish equality and employment legislation, and I’m very excited to get involved.  Presently, there are nine grounds for discrimination under the law, and this campaign hopes to add the 10^th.

29 Enjoy midsummer

Planning for a whole year was absurd. 

Still, here we are midway through this one, and whether we like it or not, it’s midsummer.  Some people find the long days melancholy, and I know a few people who prefer the cosiness of the winter nights. 

Not me. 

I love the long, bright evenings, and the seemingly never-ending sunset hours.  I like the blue light, and the sounds of people doing daytime activities in the evening:  running in the park, swimming in the sea, having picnics on wooden benches.

Our ancestors celebrated midsummer, and so should we in ways that suit our days.  I like nod to the sun, and thank it quietly, and I wish it well with all its future endeavours.

30 Be Resilient

It’s easy for me to be resilient when I have food, shelter, and employment security, and it’s much easier to go for a swim in the sea, when I don’t have to worry about being evicted, paying bills, or facing unemployment. 

Swimming in the sea is not free:  I need a swimsuit, money for transport, the ability to swim, and time to go.  It’s easy for me to maintain resilience because I have the tools, at my disposal, to do so.

Many years ago, I was on a training course in Athens, with my colleague and friend, Áine Lynch.  We were doing a workshop on resilience and the trainer asked us to define the word.  I said that I thought resilience was the “ability to deal with shocks,” and I waited for the trainer to tell me how magnificent I was.

Áine nodded, the other participants agreed, and the trainer asked me to explain a little more.

I said that resilience was being able to deal with unexpected shocks, when they came knocking at your door, and having the agency to adapt, and to be flexible.

Áine nodded but also seemed to be frowning and so I wondered if she had a different definition. Later, I asked her if everything was OK.

Áine had misheard me, and thought my definition of resilience was the ability to deal with sharks!  Even though she knew that I didn’t have any qualifications, or experience with marine biology, she thought I was talking about sharks!  She thought I was saying that if sharks came knocking at my door, I would be flexible and adaptable!  All through the session, she thought I was talking about sharks.

Áine and I laughed so hard and uncontrollably, I thought we were going to be asked to leave the group.  We laughed like children, like bold, naughty children, like giddy, silly fools, and it was glorious and sublime.  We laughed in a way that you can only do in sacred places, educational spaces, and areas where you must not laugh. We laughed like babies, and we laughed all day.

Happy new moon you.

May you maintain and increase your resilience, this midsummer, so that you can deal with all the sharks, that come your way.

  

16.  Do a menopause test

I raced into Boots, desperate for help. 

I didn’t know if I was in the middle of a panic attack, a high fever, or what some people refer to as “hot flashes;” but I knew that a pharmacist would help.

A young man, with a name tag that said “Barney,” came to the counter to help me. 

“Would you like a menopause testing kit?” he asked me, after I explained my symptoms to him.

He didn’t look like his name should be Barney, but that’s what the name tag said, so I had no reason to doubt him.

“I can buy a menopause testing kit?” I asked breathlessly, wiping away the salty sweat away from my lips, forehead, and elbows.

“Yes, I’ll show you”.

Barney took to me to the shelves where the menopause products were, and advised me to buy one for €11.99

“It seems so easy,” I said to Barney, and he nodded at me, sagely.

An hour later at home, I peed on a stick and the results were clear:  I was “in the process of the menopause”.

Some doctors and the Internet disagree with the veracity of these tests, but for me and my menopause, I felt a joyful sensation of relief.  It made sense of the sweating, the mild headaches, the slight irritability, and the occasional, irrational tears.

The variant of the menopause I have caught has annoying symptoms; but it’s come with something else.  I am increasingly able to call out bullshit and I can speak my mind in a new way.  Hopefully, I’m not being a dick about it either, but I believe my menopause has come with hidden strengths.

It’s like a super-power.

After 50 years of life on this planet, I feel like my opinions are valid and my experience matters. Like most people, I didn’t celebrate my first or my last period, but I will celebrate and be grateful for the fact, that I am in the process of menopause. 

Well done me.

17.  Adapt

Isn’t it funny how we cling to non-essential distractions and continuously claim that permanence is possible when we know that everything here is as intangible as a daydream?

Everything moves and alters with alluring speed and rapid force, and our bodies and minds adapt to meet the new features.  I was once an unfertilised egg in my mother’s body, and one day I’ll be ash, or nutrients for soil. 

Those are some changes, and it’s fine.

Adapt, change, alter, evolve.

Learn, get better, improve, and play the hand that’s dealt.

If it rains, take an umbrella and if it’s hot, put on a sun hat. 

18.  #pledgetoplant

The Irish Hospice Foundation launched a great campaign last week, called #Pledgetoplant.  The idea is that you grow some flowers or plants, and then sell them as a fundraiser for the Hospice later in June.  My seeds arrived this morning and I can’t wait to get cracking.  I live in a small apartment, with a communal, shaded back yard, but I look forward to my harvest. 

19.  Write a message to the future people

This year, the Irish census form came with a section called “the time capsule” for people to send messages to the residents of Ireland in a hundred years from now. 

I couldn’t think of something to write for the longest time, until it dawned on me that these people would be the grandchildren of some children I know now.  Then it felt easy to write to them and send them unconditional messages of love. 

I hope that they will enjoy it; the grandchildren of the children I know now.

20.  Swim

There’s another new moon tomorrow and we celebrate it with a sea swim! 

I’ll meet Julia and Teresa for our first dip of the season and I’ve no doubt that the water will be freezing.  Our last swim was 18 December, so it’s been a while and I can’t wait to get back in.  The benefits of sea-swimming are well documented, but for me the purest moment is when the dread and fear turn into giddiness and joy.  Even thinking of the water makes me feel better, I honestly can’t wait for the shock of it.

Therefore, I’ll leave you this month, with a quote from Shantaram about the water.

I wish you a very happy new moon, and I’ll see you again at the next new moon, next month.

Shantaram Gregory David Roberts (p. 374).

“Our life, it probably began inside of the ocean,” Johnny said quietly. “About four thousand million years before now.  Probably near hot places, like volcanoes, under the sea”.

I turned to look at him.

“And for almost all of that long time, all the living things were water things, living inside the sea.  Then, a few hundred million years ago, maybe a little more – just a little while, really, in the big history of the Earth – the living things began to be living on the land, as well”.

I was frowning and smiling at the same time, surprised and bewildered.  I held my breath, afraid that any sounds might interrupt his musings.

“But in a way you can say that after leaving the sea, after all those millions of years of living inside the sea, we took the ocean with us.  When a woman makes a baby, she gives it water, inside her body, to grow in.  That water inside her body is almost exactly the same as the water of the sea.  It is salty, by just the same amount.  She makes a little ocean, in her body.  And not only this.  Our blood and our sweating, they are both salty, almost exactly like the water from the sea is salty.  We carry oceans inside of us, in our blood and our sweat.  And we are crying the oceans, in our tears”.

“It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.”

Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

11.  Watch Comedy

March was a month that needed comedy. 

March needed stand-up routines and repeats of Schitt’s Creek or VEEP.  March needed something to distract us from the end of pandemic restrictions coinciding with the start of a potential thermo-nuclear war with the former Soviet Union.

March needed comic relief.

The absurdity of life has once again provided evidence that if there is a creator, he/she/they are experimental performance artists, with an interest in the macabre.

March needed fun and one hour stand up shows on Netflix with people like Taylor Tomlinson and Whitney Cummings. 

If stand-up comedy doesn’t do it for you, might I suggest you watch a documentary about our cosmos.  This universe is hysterical.  If you don’t believe me then try watching something about Jupiter’s moon, Europa, which has a ten-mile ice shell and an ocean that is leaking out into wider space.

Leaking into wider space!  Now that’s hilarious.

12.  Stretch

When it comes to yoga, I’m ethically non-monogamous.

I’ve done Iyengar classes with my friend Teresa.  I spent a wonderful winter doing Bikram in a hot studio in Dublin, and I’ve flirted with Hatha all over town.

During the second year of the pandemic, I did Adriene’s 30-day online yoga challenge.  Then I got stuck on Day 30 and repeated it, day after day, for about nine months. 

Every day Adriene would say to me, “well done.  You made it.  It’s Day 30,” and every day, I nodded back at Adriene and said “Namaste”.

In March, I started stretching.

I lay on the floor and listened to where my body wanted to go and stretched out my back, arms, or legs.  Sometimes, I just dangled my feet high above in the air, and when I was finished, I stopped.

13.  support MASI

The Movement for Asylum Seekers in Ireland (MASI) was set up to advocate for the end of Direct Provision, which sadly still exists and is abhorrent.  I support MASI, as an ally, by sharing their information online, attending events, and wearing my “End Direct Provision” T-shirt when I run in Phoenix Park.

People often wave, stick up their thumbs, smile or beep their horns when I’m wearing my “End Direct Provision” T-shirt.  For the longest time, I thought they were just being encouraging of my running.  Now I accept that they too support the campaign.

You can’t be in favour of Direct Provision, so it’s a very easy campaign to get behind, and judging the reaction in the park, most people are against it.

14.  Play Wordle

When I guess the wordle in five or six guesses, I call it a game of chance. 

When I guess the wordle in two or three guesses, I claim it’s due to strategy, concentration and a high level of emotional intelligence.    

There’s no reason why it should be such a glorious game to play, or why sharing results with my friend Helen, every day, makes me laugh and snort.

 It’s the silliest and most ridiculous activity ever invented, and I want to play it forever.

15.  Accept Disappointments

Recently, I experienced a Great Disappointment when I didn’t get something that I wanted.

At first, I stamped my foot, and pouted and scowled at the sky, but within a couple of days my brain convinced me that I didn’t want it anyway.

Had the original desire been a mirage? 

Or was the new feeling a form of resilience to help me accept the disappointment? 

Either way, it made me realise that desires are very fickle creatures and not engaging with them too seriously, is possibly one of the keys to happiness.

Also, complaining about anything this March is absurd.  It’s like attending A&E with a stubbed toe when the patient in front of you doesn’t have a head.

“Ouch, my toe is hurting,” you cry to the nurse. 

But the nurse hardly hears you because the nurse is too busy with the patient in front of you, who doesn’t have a head!

What’s it all for?

What’s any of this for if not to try and improve and get better and be kind? 

I hope I’ll always be disappointed and shocked when things go wrong.  It means that even at 50 I have great expectations of how life should be.  I hope I’ll always be surprised when people tell lies or demonstrate selfish greed. 

I want to replace the insatiable consumer child inside of me, with a wiser woman who wants to live, improve, and get better.

Maybe this whole thing is a silly April Fool’s joke that got out of hand.

Maybe that’s simply all there is to it.

Or maybe, some trillions of light years ago, when our own sun hatched, there was an expectation that things here could be fine.

Happy April Fool’s Day, and a happy new moon, and I’ll see you here for fine things next time.

“We spend January 1st walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched.

Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives…not looking for flaws, but for potential.”

― Ellen Goodman

6. Meditate with Sharon Salzberg

Since the last new moon, I have been doing a 28-day online mindfulness meditation challenge with Sharon Salzberg called, “Real Happiness”. It was number *6 * of my #50finethings, and I loved it very much.

I first heard about Sharon Salzberg through an online Coursera course that I did in the first year of the pandemic, called “Buddhism and Modern Psychology,” with Robert Wright.  During the course, Robert Wright mentioned Sharon Salzberg several times, and I like to think that if the three of us met, we would all be terrific friends.

I love the way that Robert and Sharon teach wildly abstract concepts effortlessly, with humour, and a lightness of touch.  They seem to enjoy their own failings and they’re very encouraging to all their students.  At the end of their classes, you conclude that it’s easy to wish all sentient beings happiness, wellness, and an end to their suffering:  why not?

Sharon’s 28-day course was broken into a short morning meditation practice, a piece of teaching and an answer to a previously posed question.  It was all wrapped up with two live zooms, and I really did enjoy it.

I was drawn to Sharon’s thoughts about “anger”.

Sometimes I experience anger.

Sometimes I deny the feeling and blame it on the menopause, the politicians, being 50, grief, or the pandemic.  At other times, I’m seduced by anger and want nothing more than to centre myself in it and I follow it into the waves.  I think Sharon was encouraging neither; try not to avoid it or make it the focal point of the day.  Simply notice it and move on.

I’m going to try to do that!

7. Submit writing to magazines and competitions

In her beautiful book, “Writing Down the Bones,” Natalie Goldberg describes a writer as being a person “who writes”.  Over the last two years I’ve posted around 100,000 words onto my blog, but this year I’m going to learn how to edit.

This year I’m going to try and rewrite more, and I think the best way to do that is to submit my writing to magazines and competitions, and to readers who don’t know me.

To that end, I sent out a piece of flash fiction called “Blanket Street”.  The lovely Daizi Rae and April Berry asked me to read “Blanket Street” on their Bare Books podcast. Then the very kind Byddie Lee asked me to read “Blanket Street” at the Armagh County Museum  and finally, it will be printed in the Flash Fiction magazine on 12 April. 

This was a good start to the year and a very exciting adventure for “Blanket Street”. I’m going to submit something every month in 2022, and I’ll let you know how I get on.

8.  support Amnesty Ireland

I support Amnesty Ireland through a monthly direct debit, by signing their petitions, and by sharing their online content.  I wish them a successful year in 2022.   They have a specific Ukraine campaign out now, because of course they do, and they’re the experts in this field.

9. Learn Spanish

When I was 18, I went to Warwick University to study history. 

Part of the course required students to learn a European language, so I signed up to do Spanish.  I failed the course and my first year spectacularly, but I often thought I would like to try Spanish again.

32 years later, and here I am learning Spanish, but this time with the DuoLingo app!

No teacher, no classroom, no homework, no course book; just a short lesson every day on my Smartphone, and plenty of practice. 

They’ve gamified the App, so I spend a lot of time collecting virtual hearts, gems and crowns.  I move around league tables with millions of other learners, and it makes me laugh and chuckle.  It’s a completely new way of learning and I’m really enjoying it.

Maybe this is part of what being 50 is about? 

Having the confident modesty to attempt new things for no other reason than it might be fun.  I don’t really care about the outcome of this Spanish thing.  Maybe I’ll reach intermediate level before December or maybe I’ll be stuck at Level One forever.   Maybe I’ll become fluent and move to south America, or maybe I’ll give up and start learning French. 

It really doesn’t matter, and maybe it’s OK not to worry.

#50cosasbuenas!

10.  Learn a poem by heart

On her website, “The Marginalian,” Maria Popova recently posted a poem called “Achieving Perspective,” by Pattian Rogers, which was read aloud by David Byrne.

The poem was so beautiful I decided to learn it by heart. 

I haven’t learned a poem by heart since school, and it’s much harder now. 

First, I looked up all the new vocabulary and then I repeated every word and line until I could recite it.  There’s something a little bit magical and mystical about knowing a poem in this way, and especially this poem.

If you can, have a listen to David Byrne reading it here. 

Or if you prefer to read it, it’s written below. 

A big happy new moon to you.  I hope you are well and that you’re enjoying #50finethings.  I hope we can meet again like this, at the next new moon. 

See you next time. 

ACHIEVING PERSPECTIVE
by Pattiann Rogers

Straight up away from this road,
Away from the fitted particles of frost
Coating the hull of each chick pea,
And the stiff archer bug making its way
In the morning dark, toe hair by toe hair,
Up the stem of the trillium,
Straight up through the sky above this road right now,
The galaxies of the Cygnus A cluster
Are colliding with each other in a massive swarm
Of interpenetrating and exploding catastrophes.
I try to remember that.

And even in the gold and purple pretense
Of evening, I make myself remember
That it would take 40,000 years full of gathering
Into leaf and dropping, full of pulp splitting
And the hard wrinkling of seed, of the rising up
Of wood fibers and the disintegration of forests,
Of this lake disappearing completely in the bodies
Of toad slush and duckweed rock,

40,000 years and the fastest thing we own,
To reach the one star nearest to us.

And when you speak to me like this,
I try to remember that the wood and cement walls
Of this room are being swept away now,
Molecule by molecule, in a slow and steady wind,
And nothing at all separates our bodies
From the vast emptiness expanding, and I know
We are sitting in our chairs
Discoursing in the middle of the blackness of space.
And when you look at me
I try to recall that at this moment
Somewhere millions of miles beyond the dimness
Of the sun, the comet Biela, speeding
In its rocks and ices, is just beginning to enter
The widest arc of its elliptical turn.

When it did finally come, the end of the pandemic arrived at 6.00am on Saturday 22 January, without much warning.  That is to say, the restrictions were lifted as the government lost control of the containment plan and gave permission for the virus to wade freely through the population, at will.

“We beat the virus!” said the Humans.

“OK,” said the Virus.

Two years’ worth of celebrations was a lot to ask of one Saturday night, which is why many stayed at home.  In the end, the city was busy but not overrun, and most were home before dawn.

Maybe it’s all over, but apprehension is understandable. 

For two years we’ve been conditioned to think we’re complicit in murder every time we leave home, so an adjustment period may take some time.  Maybe it’s scary going back to normal, because normal wasn’t that terrific for many people, in the first place.

I’m about to do a stock check.

It seems like the right time to look at the things that fill up my life and to decide what I’m happy with, less happy with, and fed up with.  I’m going to reflect on the segments of my life, with love, and have a bit of a clear out.  #50finethings is an honest evaluation of life in my 50^th year:  with its resolutions, evolutions, and mezarooshans.

On Saturday, driving back from the climbing wall, I asked Julia how often she would like me to write an update on my #50finethings project.  I suggested once a month, or just once at the end of December.  She said she would prefer weekly updates and a final evaluation in December.   Obviously, that’s not going to happen, and with that in mind:  every new moon I will write a short update about how I’m getting on. 

I don’t really know what this project is, where it will go, or what will emerge. 

We’ll have to wait and see. 

I’m also aware that all the things I do with my days, are reliant on the fact that we live in an immorally, unequal world.  Today is the first of February, which is St Brigit’s day in Ireland and, New Year’s Day in Mongolia.  Today is an excellent new moon on which to give my first updates.

These are my #50finethings, so far:

1. Read

I love to read.  I wonder if there’s anything I enjoy as much as getting absorbed in a new book, story, and the characters I learn to know.  I’ve read so little over the past two years, and I would like that to change in 2022.  Following an idea by Jackie Lynam, I’ve decided to read 50 of the 100 short stories in The Art of the Glimpse edited by Sinéad Gleeson.  So far, I’ve read Under, Two in One, Sometimes on Tuesdays, Antarctica, and Women are the Scourge of the Earth.

This is my new Saturday morning pleasure, and it will be one of my #50finethings, and it makes me smile to think so.

2. Run

I love to run outside.  I run slowly and not very far, but sometimes there’s a moment when the breathing, landscape and thoughts all evaporate and it’s just the shadow of the run, moving with itself.  I run a 5 or a 10 km route a couple of times a week, and I never regret going outside.  When I’m not running, I feel the slow irritation burn within, and the clouds start to gather. 

This year I’d like to run a total of 1000 km, which is the distance between Dublin and Paris.  Maybe I’ll get stuck halfway and need a hip replacement just outside of virtual Dover.  Maybe I’ll arrive in Paris, ahead of plan, and do a lap of honour around the Champs-Élysées.  We won’t know until I’ve tried.

Either way, I did 120 km in January, and it’s one of my #50finethings.

3. Write

In her wonderful book, The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron talks about the benefits of a daily writing practice.  She suggests that everyone should write a few pages every morning before the day begins.  These pages are streams of consciousnesses rather than edited stories, or pieces to return to.  

Just writing, that’s all, simply writing.

I did it years ago, and then I forgot how much I liked it, so I’ve started doing it again.

It’s one of my #50finethings and it’s going quite well.

4. Pick up litter

I realise that picking up the litter from my street, for an hour every second Sunday, isn’t going to prevent the impacts of climate change.  I am also aware that personal responsibility can never compete with much needed corporate and political systemic change.  That said, picking up rubbish is good exercise, shows my neighbours I love our street, prevents me from complaining about said litter, and allows random strangers the opportunity to tell me how marvellous I am. 

Also, I get to wear a HiVis vest. 

Ideally, I’d love a clipboard and a walkie talkie too, but for now the HiVis vest will suffice.

In 2022, I will collect 50 bags of rubbish for the An Taisce’s National Spring Clean 2022 campaign, and it will make me happy to do so.

5. Only apologise for things we are to blame for

Welsh people, women, migrants, and the working-class apologise too often, for things we are not to blame for.  We apologise to people on the street who bump into us, to people who are late for meetings, to colleague who don’t return our emails.  We start sentences with the words, “I’m really sorry to bother you,” and we apologise for the rain.

This year I am going to be a polite, courteous, and respectful human being and I am also going to stop apologising for things I am not to blame for.  

I feel excited and unsure.

I don’t know what all this is about, but let’s find out together.

You can join me if you like, and do your own 50 fine things, or you can sit back and relax, and watch me do mine.

That’s also fine.

Let’s see how we get on.

I’ll see you on the next new moon with my updates.

#50finethings is a distinctly complicated, but fun way through resolutions for a person’s 50^th year on the planet. 

A mix of resolutions, evolutions, mezarooshans, and fine things to do.

I divided my 2022 resolutions into 8 main categories with five sub-headings (or zones) under each category.  I added another 10 bonus zones under a main category I called “SURPRISE”.  This provides me with #50finethings to usher in my 50^th year. 

Some are new, some are old, some are being given new life.

Every new moon, I will report back on some of the zones, and let you know how I’m getting on.  However, it would be so much more fun if you joined in too.

How to get involved:  simply begin.

For me, January will be about reading, writing, collecting litter, and running.  These are the four zones I’m going to concentrate on first.  Meet me back here at the next next new moon (Tuesday 02 Feb,) to share your updates and experiences.

I look forward to hearing about them. 

Go on you fine thing! 

#50finethings

Her father named her Carol because she was born on 12 December.  Her favourite Christmas song was the Little Drummer Boy, which she liked to remind people was originally called the Carol of the Drum, and which she would sing at every opportunity.  She loved to sing, even though she couldn’t carry a note, and she would belt out the little drummer boy all through December.

Our finest gifts we bring (pa-rum pum pum pum)

To lay before the King (pa-rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum).

She was a hopeless singer, and couldn’t carry a tune for a penny, but she enjoyed singing along to all the Christmas melodies.  I remember the year we got a record player for Christmas, and she sang along to Elvis’s Blue Christmas for most of the evening.  Dad tried to get his new Christmas album on the play list, but my mother insisted we had Elvis on repeat.

We remember the dead at Christmas and on their birthdays, don’t we?

This will be my third Christmas without my late mother, but the funny thing about grief, is how much it changes.  Sometimes my grief is painful, sometimes it brings kind memories, sometimes I’m indifferent to it.  I think of the colours of grief as varied as a rainbow, with unimaginable textures, and indescribable variants.  Sometimes her death still feels incomprehensible, and at other times, like she was almost never a living person.

Some people light candles.

I think of mam when I run in Pheonix Park, or when I swim in the sea, or when I go up a mountain. There’s one tree in Pheonix Park that I nod at, when I jog past.  She seems to be there.

She was born on 12 December and her father named her Carol.

Shall I play for you (pa-rum pum pum pum)

On my drum.

I thought of all the Covid grievers this week, as another Tory resigned over lying.

One shouldn’t anthropomorphise Tories, but when you see them cry for the cameras it’s very hard not to laugh.  Of course, they’re not actually crying, as you or I would cry.  They are performing in public, to keep whatever power and privileges they have.  That said, this new leaked video was different because I think that’s the first time we’ve watched them practising their lies. 

That was new.

Maybe this is the end of Johnson? 

Maybe the mourners and the grievers of all the Covid victims feel like his lies and condescending lack of action is tantamount to complicity in their deaths.  That’s an awful lot of grievers, and an awful lot of voters.  Wouldn’t that be a fine gift for Christmas?

Remember in June 2020, when the daily case numbers and deaths from Covid were in single figures and sometimes 0?  Eight more weeks of restrictions then, might have eradicated the virus from the planet, forever.  Sadly, we decided to open the shops and restaurants instead.  People sometimes say, “we just have to get on with living with covid”. 

Well…

This is what living with Covid feels like. 

Masks, hand hygiene, social distancing, annual boosters, vaccine passports, sporadic new measurements as variants emerge, postponed and cancelled plans.  This is what we chose.

This is my last blog for 2021.

Thank you for reading, for encouraging me, for saying nice things about how my writing is improving, and for commenting that my writing sometimes makes you smile.

What I’ve learned about living in a pandemic is what I knew all along.

Nothing happens in a vacuum, and we’re all connected.  Many people are selfish to their core, and only value money and power.  Others are as beautiful as ancient trees, and it’s those I shelter close to.  My grief for my mother is invariably connected to Christmas, her birthday, and I am invisibly connected to all other grievers; even those I do not know. 

Love, forgiveness, and kindness. That’s it, really, isn’t it? 

So, for this Christmas, I wish you radical gifts. 

I wish that you are forgiven and that you can forgive others.  I wish that you can give and receive kindness and love.  May this Christmas bring you real peace, ease, and rest. 

If you grieve, may you grieve well. 

Hibernate this season and cover yourself in the memories of brightness and the warmth of love.  May you have peace not only in your heart, but in your gut. May you have a pure quietness of the mind.

I love you. 

Thank you. 

Stay safe. 

Then he smiled at me (pa-rum pum pum pum)

Me and my drum.

A strange thing happened.

I was jogging up to Phibsborough when I heard a woman call, “excuse me, excuse me” from the doorway of her home.  At first, I thought she was calling someone else, but I quickly realised it was my assistance she was after, so I crossed over the road to help her.

I didn’t want to help her.

I wanted to do my 5 km jog and return home to a hot shower, warm tea and toast with butter and marmalade.  The moon was still sitting perfectly in a blue sky, and I wanted to enjoy the run without interruptions or disturbances.

When she saw me jogging towards her, she said, “ah, there you are now,” as if this were a pre-arranged appointment that I was late for.  She was having difficulty pulling her shopping trolley out of the doorway and onto the pavement, so I tried to help her manoeuvre it, while she wandered back inside her home.

The shopping trolley was made of grey and black plaid material.  The leather pouch on top was battered and torn, and the handle worn down from years of use.  I stood next to the trolley, waiting for her to come back outside, and I noticed that I was quite cold in just my shorts and T-shirt so I said, “I don’t think I can stay very long, you see I’m in the middle of a jog!” 

She came back outside and locked her door, pushed the trolley into the main section of the street, and held onto my arm for balance.

“You can help me up to the shops for my messages” she told me and so I nodded and said, “OK then”.

We walked at glacial speed towards the shopping centre, and I felt more disagreeable, irritable, and grumpy with every slow step.  If only I’d ignored her calls, if only I’d kept on running, if only I’d started my run a few minutes earlier.  I didn’t want to be the human walking stick for this elderly woman, and I felt put upon, annoyed and cross.

We started to talk and soon discovered that we shared an interest in the litter problems of the north inner city.  I told her that I regularly do a two-minute-street clean as a volunteer and she told me that was a “total waste of time”.  Her solution to the problem was more incarceration, a specific type of military service, and the highest fines that could be issued.

Oh, I don’t like this miserable old woman, I said to myself several times as we walked, I don’t like her at all.

Finally, we reached the shops. 

I asked her which shop she wanted to be deposited in, and she told me the Off Licence.  This surprised me, and stopped the trajectory of my thinking.  She was no longer a miserable, elderly person, but perhaps an eccentric, funny, lively old thing!  This transition made me want to be her friend.  I wanted to be a benevolent, helpful, and kind person in her life, who might visit regularly to hear all her anecdotes over tea.  If only I knew what type of alcohol she was going to buy, as this information was needed for the conclusion.  If she bought four cans of cheap cider, then that would be a lonesome ending.  However, if she were to buy gin, vodka, or champagne, she could indeed be a funny old character whom everyone would love. 

The choice of booze would confirm it.

When we reached the doorway of the Off Licence, she dismissed me without fuss.  She said, “one of the girls will take me back” and I looked over to the member of staff at the cash register, who smiled warmly and said, “morning Rita, what can I get for you, the usual is it?”

I was superfluous to her tale.

I said, “bye Rita, it was lovely talking to you,” trying to cement our friendship, but she didn’t look back.  I jogged off into the distance and Rita carried on with her adventure.

The next day, in another part of Dublin, another woman called, Gabrielle Ní Challaráin, was on the radio talking about Omicron.  The emotion of this exhausted health worker stormed through the sound waves with terrific strength.  Gabrielle said Omicron was the direct result of our refusal to vaccinate the world.  She said that we all deserved everything the climate was going to throw at us if we were this morally bankrupt. She sounded fed up and angry and she wondered how much longer she and her colleagues could continue.

She started to cry on air. 

I was surprised, because we don’t usually see or hear people cry on air.  Sometimes we notice the tears of the bereaved, the mourners and the grievers, but hardly ever from the commentators, leaders, governors or those who give us the news.

It sounded unusual and out of place, but comforting. 

As if she were giving us all permission to weep.

Crying in a time of a pandemic is appropriate for us. 

We should all cry, frequently and with gusto! 

Cry for pain and sadness, anger, and worry.  Cry at how surreal it still is, week after week, month after month, (and later this month), year after year.

Let’s all cry and howl at the new moon together. 

Let’s comfort one another and see for ourselves how heavy is the wind.  Let’s grieve and be sad, sleep and be quiet.  Rest in this dark mid-winter, rest, recuperate, rest and be well.

How heavy indeed is the wind.

The water droplets that are trapped inside a glass, that is draining on the kitchen counter, make a sound.

As the water transforms magically from H2O into plain old O, the sound of the transition travels.

What a journey!

Like jars clanking and rattling on a tray, or a creek from a water pipe somewhere in the building, or a submarine sinking, or a nuclear reactor echoing.

Drip, drip, drip, and transform!

The shower dribbles, and the water on the inside of the window slides, and this movement goes unseen, while the spider plants dance to the piano music from next door. 

Bed bugs bite, but tell me, do they snore? 

There is more microbial life on an eyelash than these eyes of ours will ever see.  At least, not in this universe.

If I designed a universe, I would keep water.

I would offer classes for tender heartedness to the autumn leaves; wet muggy leaves and dry, crispy, flying ones. 

I would invent biscuits, tea, photographs, and cats. 

In the end, love is all there is, and the rest is distraction. 

You know that! 

Or you knew it once, but you have forgotten. 

Laughter with a friend, a picnic near a river, skating, and a song you can’t stop singing.  Nothing you can buy or own, but you keep them safe, for reviewing. 

A dream of a memory remains a dream.

Remember them back, they’re yours.

Is that physics or magic, or must it decide?

Listen to the leaves, they might know.