Category Archives: Musings on my time on this planet …

Fear versus Courage

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I first discovered fear when I was about eleven years ago. Don’t get me wrong, I’d had the usual childhood in which I was frightened by scary stories at bedtime, imagined monsters under the bed and once a particularly thrilling piece in Enid Blyton’s Five go to Finniston Farm. The scene which scared the pants off me was a mysterious face at the window at night. Truth be told, that idea can still give me the willies. And as a codicil, that particular expression, the give one the willies, comes from the Willow tree, often associated with sadness, graveyards and fear. There, I never knew that either until I wrote that line and had to go and google it, for it looked so strange on paper.

But true fear happened when my younger brother and I visited family friends one summer. The other family were holidaying about an hour outside of Dublin and my parents were invited to visit for the day. The other family had a boy who was a year or two older than me, and he had a number of covert magazines. These magazines, he had purchased with his own money, were hidden under his mattress but he allowed me to view them. Now before you begin to worry, they were not pornographic magazines, but scary ones. Magazines I had never seen the like of before. There were monsters, murders, dark lanes, bodies and all sorts of horrible tales. They were very life like, for all that the pages were inhabited by Frankenstein-like creatures. It was very believable and there was no woodcutter to save little Red Riding Hood.

Going home that night, as my father drove in the darkness, I remember being curled up in the back of the car. Normally, a late drive home, often a factor when we were in the country, was an occasion for sleeping, tired after our day’s activities. Normally I would have slept, as indeed my brother was doing beside me. But I had seen horrors in those pages, creatures that could not be beaten and evil that throbbed in the night. I remember looking through the two front seats and watching the arc of light from the headlights frame the trees growing either side of the road. A perfect circle of light as the car powered forward. Once, I would have been content and happy, but now I knew there might very well be a monster, a giant, just outside the catch of the headlights, perhaps standing twice as high as the trees and possessing hands and a maw that could snatch up the car and destroy us all. That was the first night that I knew my parents could not save me from that monster and my safe world pierced forever.

 

I discovered courage as I left childhood behind. The things we do as a child are based on inquisitiveness and curiosity and energy. There is little self-awareness to hold us back. If we want something we ask, if we see a dog we must stroke we do so, if we want to say hello to another child, we do. Gradually, we grow and that confidence fades. We have to gird up our loins to do the things we want. As our lack of inhibition falls away, so too does our ability to be brave and seek what we desire anyway. We still step up to the mark, sit exams, make new friends, attend new schools and learn new tasks, but it takes effort. When do we know we have courage? At what point can we call it that. Unless we go to war, life throws smaller hurdles at us and we typically don’t have that going over the top challenge. I remember once reading of a captain in World War One who brought a football to the trenches. He aim was to kick the ball over and follow when the whistles gave the command to attack. The poor fellow kicked the ball, followed on over the top and was killed moments later. How tragic his sum of courage.

I have a few moments to call my own, my football episodes but with happier outcomes, but the one I recall the most vividly happened on my honeymoon. No, it was not the courage to marry a man I would later divorce, or is that foolishness, but to go scuba diving. And it was not the scuba diving in itself but the manner. First let me explain that due to a normal Irish childhood for people of my generation I could not really swim. I could do the breaststoke but with my face out of the water – not to protect any makeup or hair – but to keep the water off my face. To this day, when I shower I hate my head to be directly under the water flow. In fact, there is, or perhaps was, a famous swimming instructor in France. He would take his non-swimming adults and for their first couple of lessons they practiced putting their heads into bowls of water placed on tables. Only when they could successfully submerge their faces on dry land, did he continue to the pool itself. Of course, maybe I should have spent more time bobbing apples at Halloween as a kid.

So, on honeymoon in Fiji, we had lessons in the pool. Two in total lasting about twenty minutes each. The Fijians are a very relaxed race. Then on the third day we rose at dawn and were driven to the beach. We boarded a motor boat no longer than ten feet long with our two guides. We suited up.  We motored out to the reef. It was a grey morning, early enough for the sky to be still white and the sea a shimmering grey. There were very little waves but as we chugged out there were more, indicating the presence of the reef below, far below. It was then that our guide said we had to fall backwards into the water off the edge of the boat. The horrors that came on me. I could not and still cannot jump into water when I can see what I am doing, We were far out on a grey sea, that was choppy now over the reef. I could not see the shoreline. I just knew we were on the ocean. My ex went first and exploded into the water. I was left. I had minutes to think. If I did not do something soon, then it was over. I pulled the courage from the bottom of my very sick stomach, took a breath through the awkward breathing apparatus and fell backwards into the water.  For a moment it was all water and noise and my turning over in the water. Then I steadied myself and I was fine. We went to forty foot deep that day and I will never forget it. Darned if I can remember what we saw, just what I felt. When we returned to our hotel, still early about nine in the morning, we both had steak for breakfast. It seemed fitting. I’d already lived three lives, four days and ten mini heart attacks in that short dive!

 

So, I am not sure what means but I would like to finish with the immortal words of my favourite writer Spike Milligan:

Things that go bump in the night

Should not really give one a fright

It’s the hole in the ear that let’s in the fear

That and the absence of light!

 

Be brave my friends!

Happy 2013 – Please may we have some more kindness …

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I always think the first week back in January is the toughest. The Christmas decorations are still lying about, there are leftover mince pies in the canteen if anyone could stomach them and we travel to and from work in darkness. We spent the weeks leading up to Christmas and the New Year in a mad panic to see all our friends, spend time with our family and text the world and his wife broadcast New Year wishes.

Then suddenly it stops. No more crazy shopping, gluttonous eating and seasonal drinking. And our wallets are considerably diminished. Before the darkness was lit by crazy lighting of every kind, now these are dismantled and all we have is car lights and windscreen wipers sweeping rain and oncoming beams out of our eyes.

And someone says, Can you see the stretch in the evenings?

Just before Christmas I was interviewed by the Wicklow People to ask about my New Year’s Resolutions and I attach the copy here. I have five resolutions in total. As I stand on the far side of Christmas and firmly in the New Year, I think my last one is the most important – Kindness; having the grace to receive it and the energy to pass it forward. I think 2013 will be a very tough year for many people. I believe it will be harder than 2012 as we face into the real impacts of the budget. I implore everyone to look to the right of them and to the left of them. There will be people – family, friends and colleagues – who are suffering real privations and enormous stresses and crippling hardships. They may not be able to share their suffering but if we can be kind, perhaps we can help.

Now abideth Faith, Hope and Charity (Love). These three; but the greatest of all is Love.

1. Fitness

2012 was a fun year for fitness. I was active in the local gym in Tinahely, joined a steps class and kicks cardio classes which were a lot of fun. I also took up tag rugby which was a hoot! In 2013 I want to keep up these sports and definitely join another summer league for Tag. I had forgotten how much fun team sports are and really enjoyed my time in Gorey Rugby club.

2. Singing

2012 was a fun year with my choir, the Wolseley Singers in Tullow. We practiced most Monday nights, sang in the National Concert Hall with Paddy Cole and had a lot of fun. I know things were bad when I sang guide songs at our after concert party! Singing is better than sex and chocolate according to Maria Doyle Kennedy and what can I say – I’m going to be doing lots more singing in 2013

3. Writing

Every writer battles for time to write and can make excuses why they don’t just write. In 2012 I drafted two books, one fiction and one non-fiction and I hope to do a whole lot more in 2013. I am also blogging a lot more on jilliangodsil.com. I think I have found another thing to rival the enjoyment of singing – writing!

4. Activism

I became a reluctant activist in 2012. I found myself ‘soapboxing’ whenever I got a chance. I don’t know what the future holds for me, my kids or this country, but I feel passionately it is my obligation to speak out about injustice. My main concern is the rising number of suicides over financial distress. As this subject is very close to home for me, I want to keep talking and trying to help others. Financial failure is not a shameful thing. Stuff happens. As I argue for better and more humane debt laws in this country, I also believe in living even as we survive. I have been helped by many kind people and I encourage people to look to their neighbours  – maybe they need help too.

5. Kindness

I was very lucky in being the recipient of many acts of kindness in 2012. I hope to be able to pay it forward in 2013.

 

 

 

My Sister was Singing for Hiliary Clinton

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My sister was singing for Hillary Clinton.  I was attending a reading In Trinity College. Late of course, I crawled my way through the rain-inspired traffic that choked the Dublin streets.  Hillary’s convey passed us with a full police escort. We pulled over by Lesson Street as the forerunner guards on high-powered bikes cleared a path through the steamed up, bumper-to-bumper cars. We drummed impatient fingers on steering wheels as official saloons, corporate buses and defence force coaches forged a path like geese through the built up crush of vehicles. As they passed, we swarmed back into the road and carried on with a grim determination as if sheer dint of will would force the car in front to move faster, or to move at all.

My sister was singing for Hillary Clinton. I was hoping to reach Trinity College by 7pm but the traffic and the rain and the convoy were all stealing my precious time away. As I rounded onto Dawson Street, I saw more yellow flashing lights and guards and cars and yellow tape tied across the road. The traffic was corralled down Molesworth Street, which suited me as my destination carpark lay this way, but even as I stretched my rubber neck I could not see the cause of this new and significant disturbance.

The Arts Block door was closed, abutted as it did up against the taped-off junction. I hurried around to the front entrance for Trinity and heard a man ask a guard. “Was anyone hurt,” he said. The guard replied,” Yes,” but refused to give any further information. I hurried on, for I was very late. My sister was signing for Hiliary Clinton.

Racing across the cobble stones, I made the Arts Block at 7:15pm and gained the Edmund Burke Lecture Theatre at 7:20pm. The object of my attention, Sam Shepard, was just being announced. I sat down, warm and flustered, happy not to have missed anything, upset for the accident outside.

I was listening to readings by Sam Shepard. His voice was low and quiet and sometimes I strained to hear. He ran his hand through his hair a lot. He wore glasses and looked up at us, the audience, as he read. He eyes raked first one side of the auditorium, then the other, sharing the largesse of his view.

He made us laugh in places and we saw, rather than heard, the insides of American diners, wood clad houses and porches overlooking lawns. Sometimes his voice rose a little as he launched into the tune of his prose – when you die he repeated. When you die, everything is gone, you see angels, you meet your maker, it’s the end of your life.

My sister was singing for Hilliary Clinton and I was listening to Sam Shepard. I wondered if his car had passed her journey into town.

The cold of a grey, wet, Irish Winter night had gone into Mr Shepard. He sniffed as he read: audible and interruptive.  Towards the end of the hour a harsh female voice from the middle of the theatre told him there was a tissue on the desk. We collectively held our breaths. From her tone, it was hard to hear if she was being considerate or accusatory. Either way, it smacked of rudeness, and we only let go our collective breath when he swatted her comment away as if a fly. He carried on, but sniffed less.

Then he invited his long-time friend and musical legend Patti Smith onto stage with him. She read a piece they had written together, fully clothed and in bed one night. Then they sang a ballad. His creaky voice strangely attractive and her fluid tone melding well in harmony. I wondered if she should be singing for Hilliary Clinton in Dublin that night, instead of my sister.

Afterwards, I shook his hand and told him I had no idea he was so droll. Sam said, “Droll?” “Yes, droll,” I replied and imagined I detected a dislike of the word.  But I shook his hand firmly to tell him how much I enjoyed his droll prose.

The Arts Block entrance was open again and I crossed out beside the tape. It was like a scene from a film set. Two buses, a tent and police cars stacked across the empty street.

I was now to attend an Art House in Dalkey. A friend of a friend, Gerard Byrne, had opened his home to showcase his paintings. A self-taught artistic genius, his paintings were vibrant and colourful. His charcoals were intense and detailed.  I was greeted by his mother who did not know my friend. “Is he handsome?” she asked. Startled, I replied in the affirmative.  Regardless, she fetched me a glass of wine and I wandered through the rooms. The paintings covered every stretch of wall, downstairs and upstairs. I found the charcoal art the most haunting. There was a sketch of a house that I wanted to buy, had I but the funds.

The Babylon sisters sang, their voices melting together like the finest chocolate surprise, all dark and gooey and rich. We joked about the wine. Had Gerry purchased it prior to the budget? We spoke of the country and it floundering under a sea of debt. I mentioned I had shaken Mr Shepard’s hand, had complimented Patti Smith on her singing and had witnessed some form of accident bad enough to cordon off one of the busiest streets in Dublin. I forgot to mention that my sister was singing for Hilliary Clinton.

I reached home at one, tired but quiet. I stacked the children’s dishes into the dishwasher. I put on a kettle for my hot water bottle.  I let the dog out for a run. I turned on my PC and checked my mail. I learnt then a man had fallen under a bus on Dawson Street and had been decapitated.  Foul play was suspected. I had seen the bus and the tent that covered his remains.

My sister had sung for Hilliary Clinton, I had shook Sam Shepard’s hand, complimented Patti Smith on her singing and had seen a charcoal painting I wanted but could not afford. And a man had lost his head and life under the 145 bus on Dawson Street.

 

 

 

 

 

Three things I learnt at Trailblazers

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The first is that I am not afraid. I wanted to rise up from my seat in the upper Special Criminal Court house and call it out. Colm O’Gorman was speaking. It felt a bit like the eponymous Jeffers’ book: Feel the fear but do it anyway. My heart pounded and I wanted to stand up and call it out but it wasn’t my time and maybe I had confused my emotion with a film from Hollywood. But I felt it very strongly.

The second is the level of propaganda promulgated by the status quo. When Ross Maguire spoke he talked of giving ordinary home owners a break, a time out. He wanted a dignified mechanism that could be implemented without the mortgage holder having to beg for help or worse not been listened to at all. Terms such as debt forgiveness and moral hazard are used by …bankers. How dare they? The purveyors of Usury should not be allowed to dictate the ethics of our society. For that is at the very nub of this problem. We are a society of individuals who have come together to create our world. Service providers, such as finance houses, are there to fit into our cultural, moral and ethical rules. Bankers should not dictate what is right in our society. Politicians are there to regulate how various different service providers in our society behave. We, the people, elect the politicians to make the laws, not the banks.  So we have to stop listening to banking propaganda and believing it to be true, especially when they use terms laden with emotive meanings. If the financial processes in our society are broken, then we need to fix them.  We have been brain washed to believe the rapacious banker who evicts a family from their home is right. We didn’t believe that when the English did it, so why do we believe it when our own do it?

The third thing I learnt is that people are caring. I sat next to a couple who were both self-employed and have a large mortgage. They were doing okay. Thankfully they were able to meet repayments but it wasn’t easy. These are the very people we are told who will not have ‘debt forgiveness’ or ‘debt breaks’ or any leniency for families in financial trouble. We are told that we cannot look afresh at debt for those in trouble on account of this couple and their elk. Bankers and politicians tell us that the people paying their mortgages will not countenance that sort of help for people in default. Well, guess what? That is not true. The couple I met were very concerned. They expressed great worry for home owners in debt. They wanted those people to be helped, to be given a time out, a break. There but for the grace of God was their view. If their neighbour was in danger of losing their home, then they wanted to see that family helped, not thrown to the wolves. “Why should we wish to penalise families who are in danger of losing their homes?” they asked wide eyed. “We would want to see them helped.”

I literally sat there with my mouth open. This couple were not unique. They do not want to see people’s lives ruined and their homes taken from them. I believe there are more caring and compassionate people like this in Ireland than those mythical vindictive people we are told about. It is a propaganda of the most damning to stop us as a society questioning the rights of the banks over the people. This couple are the future of Ireland; kind, compassionate, hard-working and caring. And do you know, they are not unique. They are quintessentially Irish. What is not Irish is this culture of hitting the vulnerable and making us all afraid to question how we run our country and how we live our lives. We are no longer under the yolk and we need to take back our autonomy from those who would protect their ivory towers and hide behind banking rhetoric and lies.

This budget is yet another example of the polarisation of our society. This blog is not about the budget – but there is no doubt that the rich are protected and the poor are affected. There were no cuts to the politicians’ salaries and pensions and indeed their expenses will rise with the vouched route. Turkeys voting for Christmas comes to mind.

Finally, (and a sneaky fourthly) I learnt from Maria Doyle Kennedy that singing is better than sex and chocolate. If you don’t believe me, watch it here

 

Bright Lights Big City

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It was a cold and frosty night but the American Lifeguard, dressed only in shorts, tee shirt and flipflops, stood aloft in his high chair and called constantly through his megaphone. “Do not go into the water,” he repeated. The crowd, Irish and wrapped up in scarves and coats, laughed and stamped their collective feet against the cold.  A number of women wore very high heels combined with belt-short skirts and their bare legs shivered in sympathy with the lifeguard’s. No one was in any danger of going into the water, not that there was any in the city centre location.

 

The queue was lined up for the Jameson Cult film night in the Tivoli Theatre on Frances Street. Previous screenings in the Cult series had included Snatch, Alien and Reservoir of Dogs. Attendance was by invitation only and we, my friend and I, had gained our entrance through a competition run by WorldIrish. We joined the queue and soon spotted another actor roaming alongside, dressed in cutoffs and oversized glasses. Chief Brody was on hand to keep an eye on things. This caused more laughter and talk and we made some temporary friends in the people in the queue next to us.

 

Soon the line moved and we entered into a different world. The theatre had been totally dressed in Jameson Cult Film bunting and decorated to resemble the famous American seaside town.

 

 

The iconic poster welcoming the 4th of July tourists was plastered across one wall. Cocktails of all kinds, whiskey-based of course, were proffered once we got inside.

 

 

The DJ played some tracks and there was a palpable air of excitement. We were all keen to see the big white.There was a regular queue of well-known faces posing for photographs on the Jameson Wall of Fame. Rugby players Tom Sexton, Tom Denton and Devin Toner lined up along with other celebrities including actor David Coffey and TV presenters Liam McCormack and Lottie Ryan. My friend and I bunched in and we did the same. We’ll be famous one day too!

 

 

By nine the atmosphere was electric and we made our way into the auditorium. Given the dense nature of the crowd I had to sit in the row ahead of my friend. I spotted Darragh Doyle @DarraghDoyle of WorldIrish seated to the right of me and I waved my thanks. As the lights went down and the film began I soon discovered why people go to scary films with friends, as jumping or involuntarily screaming at different points is very embarrassing when sitting alone.

The film was supplemented by actors and they seamlessly integrated into the onscreen drama, using the whole theatre as their stage. I had forgotten just how powerful the film Jaws had been and how deeply it was etched on my psyche. I remember the Get out of the water bits and the music of course. I remember the We’ve got to get a bigger boat lines but I had totally forgotten the scene where Quint tells the story of the sinking of The Indianapolis after it delivered the bomb. His story took up when the boat had been sunk. So secret was its mission that no distress message was sent. The men floated in the water in circles fighting off the sharks. Sometimes they won, sometimes the sharks won. Actually, the sharks were always winning and picked off the men at will. Finally, after a number of days, a plane spotted the wreckage and so began an agonising slow rescue. It was then, said Quint, as he waited for his turn for rescue, that he felt true fear. Eleven hundred men went into the water but only 316 came out.

What shocked me was that I have been telling that story for years. I use it to illustrate how the re-injection of hope, into a situation where everything seems lost, can trigger a deeper sense of fear. The replacement of apathy and loss with hope, but not certain hope, is very scary. There is so much more to lose when we dare to believe. I have told this story when talking about debt, love, ambitions, belief – so many things as fear is only real when hope is present. I thought I had read the story is a yellowed Readers’ Digest in my aunt’s house but had totally forgotten its actual origin. It was a strange sense of reverse déjà vu.

At the end of the film where Chief Brody, now alone on the boat, aims at the shark hoping to blow up the compressed air tanks, the young actor in cutoffs climbed onto projected scaffolding in front of the screen. As Ray Scheider fired onscreen, so too the actor on stage fired and special effects saw water splashing up in response. With the final successful shot, the shark exploded and we, the audience, were drenched in a cascade of water. The laughter was loud and the audience was wet. I automatically assumed the crash position – much good it did me as my reaction was slower than the shower. My friend jerked backwards but suffered the same drenching. Only one had a wet front, the other a wet back!

We travelled home then, although the DJ was only getting warmed up, for we had miles to go. Still laughing we drove through the bright lights of Stephens Green and as we waited at one set of lights, my friend spotted a car full of men trying to get our attention beside us. Roll down the window they gestured and I did. However, rather than the admiring glances of potential suitors or messing from stag party males, we were faced by plain clothes guards good naturedly informing me that I had forgotten to turn on my headlights. I thanked them and explained I hailed from the country now and was no longer used to the bright lights of the city. Except when the cameras were rolling!

Lights, Camera, Action!

Horse Sense

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Arriving at Camp

Some years ago I went on a cattle drive in Montana. Wow, that’s some sentence in itself. When I am old and grey I shall surprise my (as yet unformed) grandchildren that the doddery old woman in front of them once cantered across US plains rounding up cattle with cowboys – just like in the movies. I wonder will they believe me or think it merely the ramblings of a senile old woman.

Anyway, it is true. Some years ago I went on a cattle drive in Montana. I have the pictures to prove it, even if the memories fade in time. Before I went my main worry was the lack of sanitation. We were to camp in tents and while porta-loos were provided, or porta-potties as the cowboys called them which creases me up to this day, there were no showers for the first three days. As I habitually shower first thing every morning I was freaking out about this privation. I know – first world problems.  Advised by people who had undertaken this trip previously I stocked up on baby wipes, enough to clean the bottoms of an entire nursery if truth be told.

The first evening we ranged in a big circle and met our cowboy guides. I was in a party of three other Irish girls and we were given the hunk of the cowboys as our guide, much to our delight. A perfect gentleman he flirted gently with us all across the week, earning a large gratuity from each at the end.  We are still friends on Facebook and he is now married and a father. Although he did fall just a little bit on love with one of group: a cowboy romance that fizzled out through geographical distance.

Anyway, back to the privations. We slept in large tents with foam mats to cushion our sleeping bags. Sleep was not a problem, aided as it was by copious amounts of beer the night before.  I woke at six but already the chuck wagon was in preparation mode. I had hoped to get up early and wash thoroughly at the water station. No chance unless I wanted to emulate the bathing beauties on the Celebrity Jungle Television programme. Instead the baby wipes were taken into the porta-potties and desperate attempts made to clean as much flesh as possible.

I found after a day or two, it didn’t matter so much. The weather was warm and we were in the open. I am sure if I had to walk into a crowded lift back in civilisation I might have emptied it at the first floor, but it wasn’t noticeable in camp. And on day four we arrived at a farm that had showers, only two for about thirty slightly smelly cowboy tourists, but the tiny trickle of lukewarm water was heaven.

Montana is called God’s country and with good reason. Some days we herded cattle on what seemed like moonscapes such was their vast size. And of course we had no mobile coverage which induced a calm, trance-like state of consciousness. We rose, ate, herded cattle until lunch, ate, herded again until dinner and ate yet more great nosh. We had no responsibility except to feed and water our horses and even then our cowboy guide did most of that. I remember one night talking to an old cowboy. He had escaped plane crashes, car accidents, train crashes and even horse wrecks. At that time I was learning to deal with teenage tantrums at home. I asked this sagacious cowboy why did kids have hormones – it was so unfair on them and on us! He answered that it was so they could leave home. It was their way of leaving the parents and becoming adults. It made utter sense and felt like a light bulb moment. Of course, that made sense.

Last week, I was speaking with my friend Barbara Scully whose blog, From My Kitchen Table, is well worth a visit. I told her my story and what I had learnt in Montana.  Barbara agreed and said exactly the same, and pointed out it was a similar case when parents get old and crotchety, that too was part of the leaving process. I laughed so hard. I needn’t have gone to Montana to learn this truth; a trip to Cabinteely would have done the trick!

 

 

I don’t need my toilet rolls any more…

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No, I haven’t dispensed with my bottom, given up eating for good or undergone radical colonic surgery – it’s the empty ones I don’t need. I looked at the collection of empty toilet rolls loitering sadly beside the bin in my bathroom and waiting patiently to be moved into the recycling bin, when it suddenly hit me. I don’t need them any more.

Time was I collected them faithfully for activities which involved my children. I don’t believe there was ever a ‘make-and-do’ slot on Blue Peter that did not call for the obligatory brown cardboard roll, never a crafty evening in Girls Friendly Society that did not insist on empty toilet rolls, or a school’s art day that didn’t need the cylinders, especially for making doll people in the naivety scenes or fat sausage dogs on leads.

Over the years I got used to hoarding the empty rolls, sometimes adding an elongated tube or two from kitchen-film or tin-foil dispensers, and they travelled into school or were used in playtime at home. We never had stick-thin people; no our cardboard people were always lovely and fat, chubby as Santa Claus himself, even baby Jesus was a roly-poly in the crib.

So, when I looked at the tired old soldiers lined up in the bathroom, some at attention and others listing to starboard, I had a sudden ache of sadness that they were going straight into the recycling bin and their useful lives were over, in my home at any rate.

I’m sure there are many more striking milestones to signal your offsprings’ departure from childhood, but the obsolescence of those honest brown cardboard rolls was a poignant and powerful marker to me.

 

 

Credit Cards have a way with Words

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Credit cards have a way with words. Some of the best lines have centred round their use. From the ‘No charge’ slogan in the 80s, to the Not the Nine O’clock News sketch with Pamela Stephenson where she invited her credit card customer to stroke her boob (ok, it was a location joke, a vintage location joke playing on the fact that America Express took an exalted view of its own brand of commerce) to the most recent Mastercard line, There are some things money can’t buy, for everything else there’s Mastercard.

Of course, the ultimate irony with credit cards is that while they are selling you a way of life, in reality they are just helping you spend money more easily and costing everyone a percentage into the bargain. Credit cards take their cut, like Shylock’s pound of flesh, and usury is a dirty business after all.

Being a credit card is a bit like being a parent. Or is that being a parent is just like being a credit card. It’s all spend, spend, spend on one’s progeny. Unlike credit cards, however, there is not a fixed expiry date. It just keeps bobbing along until the parent expires.

Of course parents can extract their revenge on their children in two ways. One to live long enough to see them have teenage children. Sweet! And secondly is to live long enough to have to reside in a very expensive nursing home claiming back some of the investment made at the early years of their children’s lives.

Either way, a child is not just for Christmas but for life.

In my travels in this world I thought I had finalised the expenditure of my parents at a range of points, and in each case proved myself wholly wrong. While in Trinity College, Dublin I worked in the States during the summers and paid my own tuition fees. I thought at that stage I’d finished asking my parents for final handouts. Not!

I bought a flat in London at the height of the property market and borrowed the deposit off my parents. It was a sure thing, Not!

I sold my flat at the bottom of the London property crash to move to Australia and borrowed money from my parents to sell it in negative equity. End of financial dependency? Not!

I returned to Ireland and set up home in Dublin. When my husband wanted to move career and we bought a ruined manor house down the country to renovate it, we moved to my parent’s home for a year. To be sure no money changed hands: we did not actually ask them for money but neither did we pay rent. My abiding memory was my husband and I being given free rein in the TV room (a converted bedroom) while my father watched television on a small mobile in the bedroom, and my mother read down in the living room. They never complained. Their currency was love and support.

Fast forward ten years on and the marriage failed. My father had also died in the intervening years. My aged mother (gosh, she would kill me for that description, she is lively as a hare in March) who was then in her late seventies travelled down to mind our youngest every second week. Since we bought Raheengraney House in 1996, I had become the sole breadwinner in the family. By 2008, and now beginning our separation, our eldest was in weekly boarding and my newly ex husband minded our youngest week about. He had been a house husband since moving down to Raheengraney House, a career of guestkeeping not really suiting him.

At the start of separation I had money and thought nothing of it. As my divorce progressed along with the recession in Ireland and the failure of my business, twice, I began to rely on my mother’s largesse again. Is there no end to which a child may rely on a parent, I wonder.

I am still so far from being out of the woods it is a shocker. I wrote a blog last year when the bailiffs came and I said I’d hit rock bottom. Not so, this autumn to my great sadness I have to let go my long term friend and colleague and retreat my business back to my house.

I have to confess. I have hit more bottoms than Mr Grey and without the same level of enjoyment it must be said.

What is it to be parent? To be a child? To be bound in an endless series of engagements, some happy, some sad and many financial. I am so endlessly grateful to my parents and to my mother who is second to none.

September 2012

This blog was written as my eldest daughter having done her leaving and at 18 is taking a gap year, doing courses and seeking out the love of her life, working with horses. And her now gainfully employed father, who has paid her child maintenance for the past eighteen months  declares himself no longer responsible for her financial upkeep. She must look to herself to support herself.  Am I to follow suit? Am I fuck! My child is my child whether she is 18 or 47. She is still my child. She is a hard worker who has chosen a tough career. She is my joy, my burden, my love and I would have it no other way. Thank you Mum (and Dad!) xx

 

 

 

Death By Sex?

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The irish Book of the Dead by Jillian Godsil

What is it about the Irish and their fascination with death? From wakes to accidents, to death by sex, by misadventure, by time, this new collection of short stories traces a personal approach to death in all its froms. At times funny, stark and poignant, the nine stories will leave the reader wanting more.

Buy this book now on Amazon

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
 Illuminating July 10, 2012
From a woman who knows how to make a word pack 20 punches this is surely a knock out blow. I think any short story gets its greatest compliment when its read twice just to make sure you missed nothing first time round.

The day I lost my Bosoms!

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The day I lost my bosoms

To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune: to lose both looks like carelessness, so intoned Lady Bracknell in Wildes’ Importance of being Earnest. So, too it was that I lost both my bosoms to a severe allergic reaction while on a brief break in the sun last week.

Well, to be strictly honest, I did not lose my bosoms so much as I could no longer see them without the assistance of a mirror. My eyes had so swollen up as to render me half blind, fully oriental and scared silly my face would never return to my normal occidental self.

 

Under a hot sun, misfortunes may sometimes look harsher than under a cloudy Irish sky, with all its 50 shades of grey. In the searing heat my skin puckered and grew angry. First a tell tale itchy rash across the top of my arms and then my face began to creak and redden. On day two of a short five day break I knew I was in trouble. That evening, my right eye was puffy as if I had overslept. I kept on touching the skin under my eye, conscious of its straining to expand.

I went to sleep that night an Irishwoman with bosoms and I woke up the next morning looking like a very unattractive Asian woman and unable to see clearly in any direction, especially below. It is like those stories of overweight men who sigh of the lost sight of their manhood. With the swelling across my face, especially around my cheekbones and eyes, I could see nothing south of my nose. I spilled a little yogurt while having breakfast and had to go the mirror to find out where the drop had landed – ironically bang in the middle of my bosoms.

When I awoke that morning I could feel the strangeness in my face. My eyes felt as though someone had injected a saline solution all around them in a bizarre cosmetic procedure. They were bloated like arm bands and wobbled in a terrifying fashion.

Fortunately I was on a family break and surrounded by siblings who took care of me, but there was no change to my face for the next three days despite latherings of aloe vera, fistfuls of antihistamines and the regular application of cold compress cloths cooled in the freezer (on one occasion the cloth was frozen hard and I feared then for ice burn on my poor face as the cardboard textured cloth pivoted coldly before starting to defrost and ease across my cheeks).

I genuinely worried would my face stay like that. Had the wind changed? Was this to be the next ignominious chapter in my life – telling what is was like to endure a terrible facial disfigurement? I know, how shallow is the view of one’s face, but it is an intrinsic part of who we are. When we look in the mirror we just expect to see the same familiar face there.  Once, many years ago as a teenager I had a serious bike accident with the main injuries on my face. Then as now it swelled up in a grotesque caricature of normal myself. Indeed, I had a visit from my first boyfriend to the hospital to see me. When I was discharged a week later, I no longer had a boyfriend. God love him!

Flying home was also a peril as I had to leave the safety of my air conditioned holiday bedroom and mingle with strangers. I tried the celebrity approach of wearing sunglasses indoors, nabbing my daughter’s for this purpose. However, they made me feel claustrophobic and unsteady. And then there were the deep indents from the frames in my puffy cheeks when I took them off. ‘No one knows you in the airport,’ said my family kindly, but when the server in Burger King wished me a good day with a big smile, I really found it very hard to return the gesture; not least because it hurt to squeeze my puffy cheeks upwards for a smile. He must have thought me a most rude, grumpy and frankly ugly woman!

And then I was terrified I might explode on the flight while at high altitude, like cheap breast implants and splat all in my vicinity. Fortunately my worst fears were not realised, although how I went through passport control without a caution or at least a double look I have no idea.

When I retuned home I visited my family doctor. She walked past me in the waiting room while calling my name: she did not recognise me. There was no need to ask for drugs, these were liberally granted to me – more antihistamines, steroids and antibiotics as well as cooling creams and painkillers. I needed them all.

Today, a week after a first went down I am so much better.  My face is again recognisable and normal. My rash is gone, almost. And I have finally been able to get a full night’s sleep.

Three important lessons have come to me as a result of this little hiccup in wellness. The first is to always be sick in the company of your family: there is no one to mind you so well. The second is to love your face, wrinkles and all (apparently when puffy I had no wrinkles so my kid brother kindly told me!) as there is nothing so dear as that which is so familiar – the same goes for favourite teddies, worn slippers and well thumbed books.  And finally, don’t worry about losing your bosoms, they will still be there once the swelling goes down!

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