Rough Cuts
What a Christmas this has been!!
Listening to a friend's recommendation of Frightened Rabbits, saying that they are really really good. I met A in the Coffee Yard and we swapped stories, mostly talking less and less about the Raspberries and more and more about life in general. Like his photography and how his writing is coming along. Like about what we'd be doing over the Christmas break and exchanging news about children. He has two grown up ones and i have two very ungrown up ones. It was good though, really really good being able to move on from the horribleness of last year. It almost step into something normal again.
Then after a bit of cleaning up at home, i went to Marie's where she has her usual Christmas party. Everything always looks so amazing at hers and she always has to remind me that i have two small children. Oisin's not small anymore though, is he? And how not small will be demonstrated later on.
Christmas Eve was mostly a hodge podge of films. And gingerbread making. After putting the two houses together, I lay watching, at the end of it, Beowulf and was astonished to discover that there was so much of culture in Northern England. And it got me thinking about post colonialsim, as i delved into the origins of Anglo Saxon words, thinking that's really fascinating, but that isn't my culture, thinking how it is now my culture, how English is mine, but it will always be a second skin, and i will always be a foreigner, even in my own country, as if i had a country, which i don't.
Jarrow Slake, he said. Slake means to fill up, as in to slake your thirst. And he read from Beowulf and was amazed at how much like Norwegian it sounded. I began to then fall asleep, fall asleep as he rattled on and the train took journeys through Northumbria and up to Scotland. I woke again when there was this high cross, thinking that is nowhere near the complexity and the bo lieowness of the crosses that we have here in Ireland. And then i had this strange sensation, which i do from time to time, as to how old the land i am on is, and how old we all are. That there is nothing new and shiny at all...
I finally did my Santa duty at 1 am, and the went to bed, having upset the fire irons and made a mess, as Santa does every year.
The morning of Christmas is always an orgy of wrapping paper and cardboard. Santa didn't bring very much this year - well he brought enough, we we brought a bit more and Oisin spent the morning putting together his spyrobot.
I have had two days worth of entirely disturbing dreams. The night before last i dreamt one of my best friends in Singapore had the tips of his left fingers cut off. It was torture which the Singaporean government had inflicted on him and i kept on saying to him that he had to tell people about this. Then i felt so frightened. I felt terrified that i knew this man and that i might be next. It was awful.
Then last night i dreamt that another person whom i hadn't thought about for AGES was at a PR conference with me. We ended up in this hotel, the whole lot of us and that the room was adjacent to the sea. I went in and it was really rough. And a couple of people went n as well. When we got out, the sea retreated right out, far back, and we knew that a tsunami would be approaching. And as i write this, this is of course the anniversary of the Boxing Day tsunami. That was probably why i dreamt about it.
But it was terrifying, watching the valley fill up with water. And being in water that rough.
Listening to a friend's recommendation of Frightened Rabbits, saying that they are really really good. I met A in the Coffee Yard and we swapped stories, mostly talking less and less about the Raspberries and more and more about life in general. Like his photography and how his writing is coming along. Like about what we'd be doing over the Christmas break and exchanging news about children. He has two grown up ones and i have two very ungrown up ones. It was good though, really really good being able to move on from the horribleness of last year. It almost step into something normal again.
Then after a bit of cleaning up at home, i went to Marie's where she has her usual Christmas party. Everything always looks so amazing at hers and she always has to remind me that i have two small children. Oisin's not small anymore though, is he? And how not small will be demonstrated later on.
Christmas Eve was mostly a hodge podge of films. And gingerbread making. After putting the two houses together, I lay watching, at the end of it, Beowulf and was astonished to discover that there was so much of culture in Northern England. And it got me thinking about post colonialsim, as i delved into the origins of Anglo Saxon words, thinking that's really fascinating, but that isn't my culture, thinking how it is now my culture, how English is mine, but it will always be a second skin, and i will always be a foreigner, even in my own country, as if i had a country, which i don't.
Jarrow Slake, he said. Slake means to fill up, as in to slake your thirst. And he read from Beowulf and was amazed at how much like Norwegian it sounded. I began to then fall asleep, fall asleep as he rattled on and the train took journeys through Northumbria and up to Scotland. I woke again when there was this high cross, thinking that is nowhere near the complexity and the bo lieowness of the crosses that we have here in Ireland. And then i had this strange sensation, which i do from time to time, as to how old the land i am on is, and how old we all are. That there is nothing new and shiny at all...
I finally did my Santa duty at 1 am, and the went to bed, having upset the fire irons and made a mess, as Santa does every year.
The morning of Christmas is always an orgy of wrapping paper and cardboard. Santa didn't bring very much this year - well he brought enough, we we brought a bit more and Oisin spent the morning putting together his spyrobot.
I have had two days worth of entirely disturbing dreams. The night before last i dreamt one of my best friends in Singapore had the tips of his left fingers cut off. It was torture which the Singaporean government had inflicted on him and i kept on saying to him that he had to tell people about this. Then i felt so frightened. I felt terrified that i knew this man and that i might be next. It was awful.
Then last night i dreamt that another person whom i hadn't thought about for AGES was at a PR conference with me. We ended up in this hotel, the whole lot of us and that the room was adjacent to the sea. I went in and it was really rough. And a couple of people went n as well. When we got out, the sea retreated right out, far back, and we knew that a tsunami would be approaching. And as i write this, this is of course the anniversary of the Boxing Day tsunami. That was probably why i dreamt about it.
But it was terrifying, watching the valley fill up with water. And being in water that rough.
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