“True love will find you in the end
You’ll find out just who was your friend
Don’t be sad, I know you will
But don’t give up until
True love will find you in the end
This is a promise with a catch
Only if you’re looking can it find you
‘Cause true love is searching too
But how can it recognize you
If you don’t step out into the light, the light
Don’t be sad I know you will
Don’t give up until
True love will find you in the end”
Daniel Dale Johnston
While having a chat with some wonderful people a few days ago someone said that my blogs can sometimes just be a diary of my week, and that they can tell when I’m in a rush when I’m writing it because it’s late and full of otherwise disconnected ephemera. I didn’t let on, but I loved that description. I remember years ago when I was on the board of management for St.Macartan’s College, a local school, and being introduced to a history teacher. I told her that I love history and that my favourite teacher when I attended school was Mr.McGeough who has given me a life long love for the subject. I also told her about the Alan Bennet film ‘History Boys’ and that one of the students in it when asked in a college interview to define history , replied :
“How do I define history? It’s just one fucking thing after another”
That popped into my head when it was suggested that my blog too was “ … just one fucking thing after another.” I think I might get it printed as a tee shirt.
But don’t worry this week’s blog will go out on time, and it’s not a diary of my week, or a list of things…it’s more of an inventory of wonder.
On Monday afternoon I headed up to Dublin to finally see The Flaming Lips. I’ve bought tickets to see them twice before and was overtaken by circumstances. I stayed in my friend Micky’s house. He was away on holidays so I picked up the keys from his elderly neighbour , Joan. Joan has two front doors. A double glazed one which is in front of the original one, creating a little porch. I’m never quite sure if I should knock on the first one, or open it and knock on the original one. I knocked on the first one. I knocked again after a few moments, only harder this time. Then I opened that one and knocked on the original one, and then knocked again, harder. Joan opened the door.
“I heard you the first time ! I came as fast as I could !” she said this while brandishing a walking stick. “I bet you’re from Monaghan. Impatient, the lot of ye !”
I was mortified. ”I’m so sorry, I didn’t know if you heard me.”
“Me husband’s dead 20 years and he heard ye !”
I must have looked devastated, because she smiled and said “Only pulling your leg. I was expecting you. You’re Micky’s friend ?” I nodded yes.
“Before I give you the keys, tell me, who do you support ?”
I twigged that she was talking about the English Premiership, which Liverpool had won the day before. “I don’t really follow football, but I was brought up a United supporter.”
“Same as my husband, God rest him. He hated Liverpool. So I turned his picture to face the television and watch the match with me yesterday and gave him a shake every time Liverpool scored. Great day.”
“It was great for them to win it at home in front of a brilliant crowd.”
This seemed to satisfy her enough , so she gave me the keys. It then took me five minutes to walk backwards slowly towards the gate as she said “Well goodbye now” , “Enjoy yourself”, and “Take care now”, all of the usual covers for “Go away”, but interspersing them with questions about the weather, the gig, and the weather. It was a lovely day, so she mentioned the weather twice.
I threw my stuff into Micky’s house and then went out and in between walking and deciding whether I’d get the Luas or a taxi into town looked at my phone and saw that it was just 2k away and opted to walk. Before I cut through the grounds of Grangegorman I realised that I was on the North Circular and saw the old Spiritan House. This would have been my home in the Holy Ghosts if I hadn’t realised after the Novitiate that I missed my Soulmate too much. I stood across the road for a moment thinking of how different ….and then I stopped…I felt a little heartbroken for the version of me that might have taken that other path.
I also realised that I was going to be late to meet Baz and Karl for a pint before the gig. I checked my map app on my phone to see how far away I was and realised that the time estimate I’d been working on from the beginning was set to travel by car. I hurried.
The boys were finishing their drinks when I got there. I got hugs. Baz said Karl had been getting worried about me , but that he’d told him “You only start worrying if Paul’s more than an hour late.” We had a pint.
After we’d had a bite to eat and put the world to rights we went to the gig.
It was epic.
There were giant inflatable pink robots, confetti, streamers, giant balloons, inflatable rainbows, zorbs, costume changes, dancing aliens, dancing eyes, cool tunes and an audience that loved them.
It. Was. A. Show.
They played all of my favourites, and some that are now new favourites. I’d liked ‘She Don’t Use Jelly’ before, but hearing the crowd roar along that night, when I listen to it now I think of the crowd in Dublin, the atmosphere of love, and being with Baz and Karl. Music can be magic like that.
But the song that had the most impact, was a new one to me. When they came back on for their encore, they played Daniel Johnston’s ‘True Love Will Find You In The End’. It was truly magic. Karl said that he and Grainne played it at their wedding.
I looked it up later and read about Daniel Johnston. It was a lovely day when I watched the short film ‘Hi , How Are You Daniel Johnston ?’ , which I thoroughly recommend. But because it was such a lovely day, there must have been excess pollen, and I snuffled a little. In the film he listens to old cassette tapes he’d made where he asks his future self questions, and as an older man he answers them. He fell in love with a girl, Lori. He loved her his whole life. He says she inspired him to write over a thousand times. She was in love with someone else.
I saw another video where he met her many years later and she knows he’s written about her, and she’s being lovely and polite and he gives her a hug and holds onto her for dear life and says quietly “I’ve loved you my whole life”.
I was devastated by a pollen attack at that exact moment.
I thought of myself, alone. I thought of my lottery ticket life with my Soulmate. I thought of Micky’s neighbour, Joan, dancing with the photo of her husband in her sitting room as Liverpool scored against Spurs. I thought about Karl and Grainne dancing at their wedding.
And then I went for a run with my aforementioned Soulmate and my therapist/friend/reluctant runner, Ray. It was a beautiful evening and we chatted about everything and nothing, and then Ray stupidly mentioned , out loud, that he and I seemed to be putting on more weight the more we trained. My Soulmate kindly interjected with helpful advice that unless I was going to run like a racehorse, perhaps I shouldn’t eat like one…or words to that effect. Ray suggested a weight loss challenge, 90 days, and whichever of us hasn’t lost the most weight has to forfeit something. Knowing how much he adores Lucozade I said that if he loses he had to give up Lucozade until Christmas.
“And you have to give up Rioja when you lose.”
I agreed.
“Hold on !” My ever loving Soulmate interjected. “He’d just start drinking Malbec then.”
“OK, OK. If I lose, I’ll give up red wine until Christmas.”
“You should give up white wine too.” My ever loving Soulmate added.
“I don’t even drink white wine !”
“You will when you’re not allowed drink red wine !”
So, a bargain has been made. Ray and I have both agreed that Eileen is never allowed to run with us again.
Toodles,
Paul
P.S. This week’s song is ‘True Love Will Find You In The End’. This performance was by The Flaming Lips in Sydney , shortly after they’d hear that Daniel Johnston had passed away. Wayne Coyne, lead singer of The Lips introduced the song that evening “This next song is a really beautiful song that the songwriter Daniel Johnston wrote. He unexpectedly died of a heart attack, I guess it’s been a couple of weeks now. He himself struggled with manic depression and schizophrenia and yet in his music, he was hoping you could do it, that you could overcome the things that were troubling you – the faults you see in yourself. Sometimes loneliest people in the world, the people that need the most help in the world, they’re the last people to ask for it. And even if you offer it to them, I think sometimes they’re the last people that will fucking take it. It can be very frustrating, but I think this gentle song is our key – I think that’s what Daniel is saying.”
P.P.S When I left the keys back to Joan on Tuesday morning it was shaping up to be another glorious day. I told her that I’d been speaking to Micky and that it was overcast in Malta. She looked up at the clear blue sky and said “I’m delighted !”. I love Joan !
P.P.P.S this is an old story I wrote after we went to mass in Roslea one evening and a visiting priest was reading out the death notices and obviously recognised an old friend’s name among them.
I Knew Her As Katy
The vigil mass was almost over and Fr. Stephen, home for the first time in 15 years from Brazil, stared at the folded note beside the microphone. Before the final blessing there were just the parish announcements and any breaking news that hadn’t made it in time for the printed bulletin to be read. He’d only had a few minutes before the mass started and the short duration of the mass to steel himself for the one line in the announcements that had shaken him to his core when he’d been handed it that evening by Pat, the sacristan.
He took a deep breath.
“Next Sunday’s eleven o’clock mass will be a special one for this year’s First Holy Communion class. It will be just two weeks since they made it.”
Many smiling faces greeted him as he looked up.
Deep breath.
“Your prayers are asked for Mrs. McGuinness of Glaslough Street who passed away this morning after a long illness. Removal on Monday evening at seven pm followed by the funeral at eleven a.m on Tuesday.”
He took another deep breath. Hold fast.
“Your prayers are also asked for Katherine Lyle, formerly of Park Street, who passed away in Dublin today. Many of you would have known……….” he stared at the note. He could see her face, her smile. He smiled. The congregation shuffled it’s feet, someone coughed. He began again.
“Your prayers are asked for Katherine Lyle, formerly of Park Street, who passed away in Dublin today. I would have known her as Katy Cunningham.”
He started to say the final blessing, realised that there was a tremor in his voice, coughed loudly and started again, determined.
“In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost…..sorry, old habits…….Holy Spirt, Amen. You are free to go, to love and serve the Lord.”
The congregation got to their feet as the choir, in wonderfully Irish Catholic fashion, gave a half-hearted and slightly embarrassed rendition of Ave Maria. He waited in front of the altar flanked by the two servers with his back to the congregation until they’d finished the first verse, genuflected and made his way to the sacristy.
Pat, the sacristan, was waiting and looking anxious for his old friend.
“Jesus Stephen, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realise. My God, I feel so stupid.” He looked for some sign from his friend.
“It’s OK Pat, I didn’t realise myself until…….” he broke down. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t carry on as if everything was normal. A wave of grief overcame him now and he collapsed into Pat’s arms and wept. Pat back heeled the door of the sacristy firmly shut. There would be a small queue of parishioners forming to make arrangements for future month’s minds, anniversaries or simply to ask for a special intention. It couldn’t be avoided. He knew his old friend needed a moment.
It only took ten minutes to hear everyone’s requests and then it was just the two of them. Pat was busy tidying things away and getting everything ready for the morning mass.
“I’m just going to take a minute to myself” Stephen called over his shoulder as he went back into the empty church. He sat in the middle and started to pray for Katy. As he prayed, memories flooded back. They were seventeen and walking through Rossmore Park , hand in hand, the air bristling with energy, electricity, expectation and excitement. She had always known, even before they had started going out together that he had planned to join the priesthood, but still, he remembered with sadness another day, the day he told her that he was still committed to it. Neither of them had realised just how deeply in love they were, they readily accepted the opinions of others that it was infatuation, puppy love and that it would pass. It was the only thing that got them through that first year apart, but they were wrong, it never passed, certainly not for him. He hoped it had for her.
In his first year in the Holy Ghost Fathers they had written to each other, as friends, but there was more said in what was not written in each one. He looked forward to them but always felt sad when he’d finished reading them. His mother’s letters sometimes filled in some of the blanks. Katy had dropped out of school and started working. Mum said that she had got the impression that it made Katy sad if she stopped to talk to her, that maybe it reminded her of him somehow.
By the second year the letters became monthly and in his third year he went on the missions for eighteen months and the letters stopped. When he came home from his first stint on the missions as a student priest he asked his Mum if there was any news of Katy. She told him that she was in London and apparently doing well. Through his friend Pat he managed to find that she worked as a hairdresser in Knightsbridge. He was only home for three weeks but he managed to make an excuse to visit a friend in the Holy Ghost Fathers in Bromley and he went to Knightsbridge. He stood across the street looking at the shop, she walked up to the reception at the front and he almost burst with joy. All of the feeling came rushing back. It was nearly closing time and he rushed down the street to a florists he’d passed on his way there and bought a single red rose. He rushed back up the street and saw her leaving the shop, his heart was pounding in his chest, he was about to call out when……….when he saw that another was waiting to meet her. They jumped into each other’s’ arms and kissed. He turned away and walked back down the street, he was devastated and empty.
He sat in a nearby church that day too and resolved to let her be happy, he had no right to interfere, to risk her happiness on a whim of his. He would not ask after her again. But he would say a prayer for her and her partner every day.
“Stephen! Stephen!” Pat roused him from his thoughts and prayers. “What is it Pat?” he answered grumpily.
“There’s someone on the phone for you” he answered. “Take a message, please Pat.”
“It’s John Lyle, Katy’s husband, he rang asking if we would know how to get in touch with you, he couldn’t believe it when I said that you were here.”
Stephen took the call. “Mr. Lyle I am truly sorry for your loss, Katy was a dear, dear friend of mine when we were young.”
“I know Father, Katy spoke of you often, she never forgot you. I can’t believe I’ve reached you on the first call, I was dreading having to track you down somewhere in South America. Please call me John.”
“And you, please call me Stephen. How can I help you, John?”
“I know it’s a huge imposition but Katy was ill for a while and we all got to make peace with her passing before she died. She wanted her funeral to be a celebration and her last wish was that you would conduct the funeral”.
Stephen was taken aback, a tear rolled down his cheek as he said “I’d be honoured John, I’ll get directions and I’ll be there tonight.
Pat drove him to Dublin immediately. He walked up the driveway, John Lyle opened the door and gave him a warm hug then he stood to one side as a fine young man approached from the kitchen.
“Father, this is my eldest son. Katy and I called him Stephen.”
