Cooking with Oisin

What a way to start the new year.

We had come home from my mom's and Oisin was restless. He paced up and down and i said to him, Oisin, why don't we cook dinner for everyone? Why don't we do New Year's dinner? So it was off to the Co-op and we got salmon and butter. We had potatoes and everything else we needed to make the dinner. When we got back we set up the music and proceeded to cook. It was the loveliest thing ever.

I showed Oisin how to open a bottle of wine using a corkscrew - for the mulled wine. We made mulled wine. We skinned the fish. The boiled the potatoes. We made salad dressing. Things which i had learnt over the years i was now able to share with Oisin.

When you fry anything, especially if it is meat (even if it is fish). you must sear it first. It seals the meat and it makes sure it cooks with heat, not steam. Let the teriyaki sauce caramelise by adding a bit at a time. Make sure the milk is hot when you put the potatoes in it so the mash is fluffy. Salad dressings should have salty, sweet and sour. Use toasted sesame oil to compliment the teriyaki.

The meal was a complete success and we toasted to the new year with champagne. It was so sweet and modest and delicious. Spontaneous. Simple and rewarding - cooking with my son. Unplanned - a surprise and because of that, just magical, taken out of the air. After that we watched the Hunger Games - Catching Fire in front of a peaceful fire... i took no pictures, they were written in the heart.

This holiday has been so good for me. The start of the school year was quite stressful with the inspection and all, but the holidays have been really therapeutic. I was thinking about 2015 and how in last two years i sort of began them knowing that there was this element of getting over something still. The pain was residual and in the meantime, i was trying to learn lessons, do things. 2015 was different. I have begun the year with a clean slate. It seems slightly irrational that a new day could signal a clean slate, but there is most certainly something about 2015.

It feels like many instinctual things have paid off from waaay back when. Things chosen from a long time ago. Also there has been enough of life which has been accumulated which i can now put together in a rich tapestry. I take a step back and see how it has been a bit of this and a bit of that. But together, all in all, the story is mind-boggling. There are people who spend their entire lives mastering a skill, i have not really mastered any skill, but perhaps what i have been doing is mastering me - trying to understand, come to grips with myself and how it fits into this life. Trying to master life itself.

We met this man who told us about pony trekking across Connemara - Oisin and i are really excited about this. We need to look into that. I am beginning to rearrange my ideas about going to different parts of Ireland and just concentrating on Connemara. I have more or less completely fallen in love with the place. There is an innocence about the landscape which is healing. I know that people who stay there don't have this romantic view of it at all, but i do NOT stay there, so that is where i go to recharge.

But anyway, i am completely rested and have left 2014 behind and my god, i am glad to see it go. It was like existing in some Dantesque world of half light when i look back. Don't get me wrong, i am delighted i have survived and grown, and i would not change it for anything for it has made me the person i am, but by god, as they say - do not bring us to the test.

I feel renewed for the school and for the year. I seem to feel like i have the measure of things. And i also feel like even if i do NOT have the measure of things, i feel like i will be able to handle it. What is really nice about exploring different things as well also has been how i have been able to bring different learnings in the past to the present moment. For instance, i bring what i know about wildlife to the teaching. I bring what i know about PR to help the school. I travel now with this connection of spirit to land. I know this connection is very very real - the unseen is as relevant as the unseen. I have understood this and tested this. For me travelling and connecting with the world around me in a spiritual way - at the level of the unseen - reading it in this manner is an integral part of the experience. It enlivens and enriches. To not have this is like having a limb or a sense removed.

To experience the new - this i have learnt naturally as i teach - but also in travelling. I have fallen in love with travelling again - and i am so glad that i have finally begun to see Ireland. It has only taken me 15 years, but at least i am seeing Ireland. Not only am i seeing Ireland, i am also connecting to it. Now when i travel, i understand the contexts much more - the names of towns and places, rivers and mountains mean so much more to me. The history, the landscape. It's people. Perhaps it was a good idea to wait.

The other great thing is that by and large, i am not afraid anymore, I really am not. Especially of people. I love people and i find that now i am able to read them much better. It is as if it is a skill which i have discovered i have developed overnight. Previously i was dreadful, now i am pretty good. I think it has something to do with boundaries - vaguely in a hazy way. My boundaries are much better now and as a result i am able to step back and see people better. It is a paradox.

And i am also not cynical. It would of course be impossible to be cynical and be a teacher. I have discovered that over the course of the last few years, if i have unconsciously done something, it is to lose my cynicism. I think it's ok to be cynical when you are young - but being cynical when you are old is fatal. It is like the arthritis of the soul. A canker on the spirit. Old people i think have a duty to not be cynical. It is like glysophate on future generations.

There is much to be done this year, but i know i will be able to do it. And if it is not done, it was not meant to be done. Whatever happens though i know this, that it was meant to be. And it is not resignation, it is working with the universe. It is not trying too hard, it is doing my best, and trusting in the dance.

For Oisin

To skin the salmon, you must
  have it on its back -
Insert the knife, here - and pull.
Cold pink flesh gives -
slides, slips and comes
away - cleanly - so in this way,
we have greeted the new year