“Come and spread your arms if you really need a hug
Afrocentric living is a big shrug
A life filled with fun, that’s what I love
A lower plateau is what we’re above
If you diss us, we won’t even think of
Will Nipper the doggy give a big shove?
This rhythm really fits like a snug glove
Like a box of positives is a plus, love
As the Tribe flies high like a dove”
Don Blackman
This was the week that I had set aside to rewrite, edit and finish 12 short stories about our Drumlin Giants and start organising an art competition to pick 12 kids to illustrate a story each and…
On Monday I did write something, but it was a worky blog for our John that spent more time talking about how Sylvester Stallone had wanted to use Queen’s ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ for Rocky III, but they wouldn’t let him and a friend, who knew that Survivor were about to lose their recording contract and were desperate, suggested them and that’s how we ended up with ‘Eye Of The Tiger’, than it did about the boots that John had asked me to write about. After ‘work’ I ran 10k in the dark through Rossmore Park with my Soulmate. If she was ever going to murder me and pass it off as an accident , Monday night running around Rossmore in the dark on the eve of storm Chandra and with only one working head torch , hers, was her opportunity. She let it pass.
On Tuesday I finished a worky thing for someone who didn’t turn up, as they were stuck in a flood in Ballybay. I voted in a poll about a design for a sweatshirt for an event I’m not taking part in …and got very upset when my Soulmate and other Philistines voted for the other one. I went down a wee rabbit hole while researching, again, instead of writing , Ms. Anne Kearns, proprietor of The Manchester Bar on Barrack St in Dundalk in 1898. Apparently I was also nominated for an award, but I’ve given up awards for Lent. At home we watched episodes 3-6 of ‘Steal’ on Amazon Prime, which I would heartily recommend to anyone. I heard someone describe Hozier as ‘a man written by a woman’, and I remembered years ago writing about picking up a hitchhiker in the rain and how I’d passed him the first time , then felt guilty and circled back, and a lady I didn’t know very well arguing with me that I hadn’t written it, that it had to have been written by a woman, as it was too gentle a story to have been written by a man. So I now feel a kinship with Hozier.
Yesterday, ( which is your Wednesday, as I’m writing this on Thursday), I had a great chat with a man who had escaped the floods in Ballybay, and after trying to save someone from themselves got sent a wee video of a brand new wee human , called Barney Og. I met Ray for a run and we met friends and exchanged hugs, then we met our arch nemesis , Pete, and exchanged hugs, then we ran along the river Muireann, said hello to Rocky, saw that Thoth is close to being re-installed, and then checked to see if Marc had removed the piano yet. Nope. I discovered that the Japanese phrase ‘Wabi-Sabi’. The acceptance that nothing is perfect, nothing is permanent, and nothing is complete, and that finding quiet beauty in that reality , instead of railing against it is Wabi-Sabi. I love that. My Soulmate shared with me a picture of the route of this weekend’s Dundalk Half marathon… I do not love that. I discovered a gorgeous singer Marlon Williams, and got very excited to see that he was playing in the Button Factory in Dublin in April and had 6 tickets in my Ticketmaster basket when the date nagged at me and I was saddened to learn that I’ll be running another half marathon that day. My last run adventure in Arosa also clashed with the Biffy Clyro gig I had tickets for…I’ll have to start writing these things down… In the hugely enjoyable, and equally frustrating Music League I’m in with our Robyn, Dundalk John, Aoife, Poreo, and Jude, the current round is ‘Sampler Platter’ and you have to nominate a song that makes best use of a sample from another song. I submitted ‘Can I Kick It/’ by A Tribe Called Quest which features the opening bass from Lou Reed’s ‘Walk On The Wild Side’. I may have told you before, but I was introduced to Lou Reed’s music by a chap called John O’Connell when we were both Novitiates in the Holy Ghosts. I had a red Aiwa twin deck tape recorder and he had bootleg tapes of Lou Reed and Neil Young and we would sit in the long grass in the field beside Kilshane House which was our Holy Ghost home, but is now a wedding hotel. Later in life I found out that the bass intro to the song was contributed by a session musician , Herbie Flowers, who also suggested playing bass guitar and overdubbing it with a double bass, which he also played. Lou thought this was genius, and Herbie , who was paid a daily rate of £30, got double pay, as he played two different instruments. I think Lou had a real cheek in suing A Tribe Called Quest for all their song royalties for using that bass intro, when he hadn’t even written it. I didn’t go to a meeting about this year’s St.Patrick’s Day parade in Monaghan, because I wanted to do some writing. I did not do any writing. I did commit to entering a float in the parade.
And today ( which is now your yesterday…do keep up ) my Soulmate and I escaped from work to visit with Aunty Maureen , who was visiting Jimmy and Gretta for a few days. We had a good old natter and I had a delicious homemade scone with jam, and a very passable cup of proper tea. Later when I was back at my desk my brother John came in and said that I looked very deep in thought, and I was. I was thinking had it been strawberry or raspberry jam that I’d just had back in Gretta’s on my scone. I was pretty sure that it was strawberry, but in that moment of deep thought, I could swear I could smell raspberries. My grand uncle Jim had owned the farm, known as the Beef Hills, where David has the Rally School now, and every summer he had crops of raspberries, and if we were visiting from Dundalk, we’d be ‘encouraged’ to go out and help all of the kids from Scotstown that Jim was paying to pick the crop. I remembered that we just collected them in buckets and heaved them into barrels which Jim would sell to a jam factory. Its so bizarre to see 17 raspberries in a little tray in Flemings now for €2.99 , when we were getting 10p for a bucket containing hundreds of them. I remember that there were twin girls picking raspberries who were much friendlier to myself and our John and Stephen, ‘Townies’ from Dundalk. We would all have been 8 or 10 years of age. About six or seven years ago Ray and I started running with a group of ladies, Brenda, Margaret , Stephanie, and Geraldine. The moment I met Geraldine and she smiled at me and was shaking her hand I asked ,”Have you a twin ?” and she said yes, and then I asked “Did you pick raspberries on Jim Murrays farm ?” and she laughed and said yes. She remains one of my favourite people. After spending the afternoon not writing , Eileen and I went for another 5k run around Rossmore Park. It was a more leisurely run , we were able to talk while running. Well Eileen was able to talk, and my breathing wasn’t loud enough that I could hear her , and nod or shake my head, or cock my head in surprise, as was appropriate as a response to what she was saying.
Now I am at home, content and wondering what to write for tomorrow’s blog.
Our local running community was shaken these past few days as we lost Colm, a constant feature of the local scene. We attended his funeral on Monday and I bumped into his friends Declan and Cathy on Wednesday. They said that he had always been so easy going that he would have been taken aback to have seen so many people sharing what he meant to them and to see how many turned out to pay their respects. Declan said that he’d wished that Colm had known how important he was and how much he was admired and I said, but then he wouldn’t have been Colm. We smiled sad smiles and hugged.
This has been a wabi-sabi week for me, imperfect, transient, incomplete, and yet beautiful. I hope yours has been too.
Toodles,
Paul
P.S. This is gorgeous, and so are you .
