“I have seen pictures of time
The frames still in motion I find
A grand revolution outlined
Hate bound by fear will unwind
Your mind is a stream of colors
Extending beyond our sky
A land of infinite wonders
A billion lightyears from here now”
Wagner/ Kurstin / Kiszka/ Kiszka / Kiszka
Most Saturday mornings will find me out in Rossmore Park, setting up the course for Ireland’s friendliest, and most gorgeous Parkrun. For those who are unfamiliar, Parkrun is a very simple and wonderful weekly, free, 5k walk or run held in hundreds of venues across Ireland, the UK and in increasing numbers around Europe. You register for free and each week you can take part in any Parkrun anywhere. You just show up, run or walk, and at the end you get your barcode scanned and later that day, very much later if I’m doing it, you get an email letting you know your time, how that time compares to your previous time, how it compares with your age group across all the Parkruns, and then, most importantly says ‘Well done’.
There are regulars and visitors every week. It’s like a very loosely affiliated club where everyone just wishes each other well. There are regular and occasional volunteers too.
Our local Sanctuary Runners are regular volunteers. The Sanctuary Runners are similarly a loose group of locals and visitors getting to know each other through running and volunteering.
Last Saturday after I’d set up the course and had a brief chat with Dublin Dave, last Saturday’s Run Director, I went to the turn where the runners and walkers start their second lap, to take photos of them. When I’d finished that I decided to walk the last lap with Ernest, our Tail Walker, and help him collect the signs I’d put out earlier. Ernest is a fellow Sanctuary Runner.
We were marvelling at the efforts of two visitors to this weeks run , who were slightly ahead of ahead of us. One was in a wheelchair. They were a couple from Navan. I don’t recall us ever having anyone complete our Parkrun in a wheelchair before. Beautiful and magnificent as our Parkrun is, it’s still a forest trail with loose stones and leaves and twigs carpeting spots, and , being Monaghan, the odd hill or two. Ernest said that the guys partner hadn’t put her hand on the wheelchair the whole way around. She had walked behind on the steep inclines, just, it appeared , as a precaution, but that he’d powered his whole way around on his own. It was very, very cool.
Walking towards the last few signs I asked Ernest if he had any plans for the weekend. He said that he would play football with the kids in the Direct Provision centre in the afternoon and that he would go to church on Sunday. I asked him which one. I think at last count there are 11 churches/places of worship in town. He told me and then he asked if I was a Catholic.
“At Christmas.” I replied.
He laughed, and then asked , slightly concerned, “You don’t go to church ?”
I raised my arms and twirled around and said “Ernest, this is my church.”
He smiled at me and said “The spirit will find it’s own way.”
I thought that was a lovely sentiment. I knew what he meant, and that he had said it in a kind and lovely way.
I’m intermittently reading William Dalrymple’s ‘From The Holy Mountain’ and came across a snippet about Syrian Cosmonauts and Our Lady of Saidnaya’s Monastery. When he visited this monastery in Syria in the 90’s he was struck by the number of Muslim men and women worshipping in this ancient Greek Orthodox monastery. They were praying to Our Lady…or at least to an icon of her, believing that she would help them conceive a child. The nun accompanying Dalrymple said that the women would sleep over night in the sanctuary and that the men would come back , 9 months later with gifts of bread and olive oil for the nuns. In the refectory he noticed a framed picture of Muhammed Faris, the first Syrian in space, having taken part in the Interkosmos program and flown to the Mir space station in 1985 and spending 7 days in orbit.
Dalrymple asked why this photo was here, the only photo amid a wall full of icons and the nun said that all of the Syrian cosmonauts came to the monastery to pray for good luck before they left and that Faris had returned with gifts and to say thanks.
Again I thought that it was a nice story of faiths crossing and people just being nice people when given half a chance.
Last Saturday night I attended a surprise 80th birthday party for my Uncle Johnny in Dundalk. It was another lovely opportunity to meet up with cousins and friends that I haven’t seen in too long. My brothers and I sat at a table with the Laverty’s, our cousins’ cousins. Mary Laverty used to stay in our house in Monaghan with our cousin Geraldine when we were all kids. Mary told us she still had a small scar where Geraldine had hit her with a golf club in our back garden. When Geraldine joined us we reprimanded her about it and she quickly pointed the finger of blame at our John for encouraging her to swing harder. And then John blamed Mary for standing in the wrong place. The circle of life.
I met Brian , who had worked in Johnny’s shop on the corner of Chapel St. and Market St., and we both remarked that the other hadn’t changed a bit. We both had our first jobs in Uncle Johnny’s shop, Brian started when he was 16, but I had started when I was 4. We lived on Market St., 4 doors down from the shop and I was a frequent visitor because Aunty Anne always had fresh cream donuts in the kitchen. Uncle Johnny came over and the three of us had a photo taken together. I said to Brian that we both got our start there, but that he was the only one of us that actually got paid.
“What ???” Uncle Johnny started. “Let me tell you about this little fecker, Brian.” He continued jabbing me in the shoulder with his finger. “Paul, would come into the shop, go into the kitchen, ask Anne for tea and a bun, and then he’d go out the back and pick up three returned bottles and come back into the shop with them looking for me to give him the deposit money on them !”
“Maybe he had the right idea !” Brian said.
All of the stories we remember are slightly, sometimes wildy, different to others who were there. But that’s a good thing. We all get to be the heroes in our own play.
Many years from now I will remember the time, last Sunday , when my Soulmate, her brother Gareth, sister Ger, and my evil Goddottir conspired to kill me on the Mournes. They will no doubt recall that we simply had a nice day out , hiking around Meelbeag, Meelmor and Bearnagh, and that I moaned a lot and was the last one up each peak. But I’ll think I was acting in my Tail Walker capacity , making sure that no one got left behind.
I will also remember that I was incredibly funny, telling passing strangers on our way down “ If anyone told you that there’s a kangaroo sanctuary at the top, they’re lying to you ! And there’s no ice cream parlour either !”.
My Soulmate, her brother Gareth, sister Ger, and my evil Goddottir will remember that those passing strangers were Spanish, hadn’t understood a word, and after I went off down the hill, laughing away to myself, asked them if I’d bumped my head.
We would all agree though, that the toilet in Olive Bizarre, the coffee shop we went to after our hike, and the girls’ swim at Bloody Bridge, was the coolest we’d ever seen. Walls of grass, half a dozen gnomes and several toadstools. It looked lovely, but it was hard to ‘go’ with all those gnomes staring at you.
Or is that just me ?
Toodles,
Paul
P.S. This is Greta van Fleet’s ‘Light My Love’ which I quoted from at the start.
P.P.S. This is the beginning of a first chapter on a 4 part trilogy , don’t be too judgy. And yes , I did know that the Waterboys have a song called ‘ A Girl called Johnny’ which may lead to complications when negotiating the inevitable film rights…but that’s for another day…
A Girl Called Jonni
Up until yesterday Jonni had been wonderfully unremarkable. She got on well enough with everyone in her class in school to never be teased or bullied, but not well enough to be picked first for anything. This delightful mediocrity extended to her teachers who rarely asked her anything as they couldn’t really remember who she was, and when they did ask her anything it was by mistake and they didn’t appear to listen to her answer, whether it was right or wrong. Jonni was quite content with her status. She saw how cruel her classmates could be to other boys and girls, and how much stress the cool kids seemed to be under to be someone else’s version of cool, and therefore themselves. Anytime she intervened in the teasing or bullying of others she was ignored by both the perpetrators and the victim.
She had a friend who lived next door, Mr. Turley. He was an elderly gentleman who Jonni had been afraid of when she was younger, not because of anything he did or said, but simply because he didn’t appear to her to do or say anything. Her Mother said that he was just a sad , lonely man. She had hinted at some tragedy, but Jonni hadn’t taken it in, or didn’t really care at that age. Her Father had tidied up Mr.Turley’s garden and yard after a storm and he said that he felt Mr.Turley had been appreciative without him actually saying so. Having moved from a bigger city they were happy not knowing their neighbours. Two years ago there had been a power cut and Mr.Turley had let them know that he had a small gas stove that they could use to cook on. When the power came back on Jonni had been tasked with leaving it back. When she’d entered his kitchen he was sitting at the table reading a book and listening to Radiohead.
“Is that the radio you’re listening to ?” Jonni had asked , breaking the silence and subtly, she thought, letting him know that she was there.
“Record player.” He answered matter of factly.
“You like Radiohead ??” she asked with more slightly more sarcasm than she’d meant to.
“No.”
“No ?”
“I adore Radiohead !”
They were firm and devoted friends after that.
Jonni’s Mother and Father had sometimes hinted that they’d prefer if she had a friend her own age, but she had successfully argued back that all of the kids at school were into a hybrid mix of country music, and Irish music, which she just couldn’t relate to. Her father had said “I hate Cowshite music too.” And the subject never came up again.
She got on well with both her parents, or at least she assumed she did. She had very little frame of reference. She was an only child, her parents had never had photographs of their own parents or siblings, so she’d never met a cousin, or even knew if she had any. She knew she had to have grandparents, but from a very early age that discussion was shut down with a simple “Not nice people.” from her Mother and a furtive glance from her Father to her Mother and then back to whatever he’d been pretending to be engaged in. And as she didn’t have friends houses to go to , other than Mr.Turley’s, she didn’t see how other teenagers interacted with their parents, so as she argued rarely with hers, and they mostly left her to her own devices, if asked, which she was once by a teacher at school, who didn’t listen to he answer, “How is everything at home ?”, she replied, but probably wouldn’t again, “Compared to what ?”.
But all of this was before 4.34 pm yesterday.
