#4

Picture by Ghin at Inch Abbey
Ireland's eternal spring

Here I am cyberspace. Blinking into the new year. Yesterday the running and writing and cleaning continued. I cleaned the kitchen and we were supposed to go to Derry, but Ghin got sick. So instead we went to see Kelly at hers, light a fire and then we went out to get pizza. On the way there, we were waylaid at a charity shop and found a gorgeous John Rocha damask long coat. And we got these gorgeous purple boots, knee high for £9. The last time I saw these in Holywood they were £160 - but of a different make. Honestly, I hade never wanted anything so much in my life, but £160 was a fair old stretch. So they were sold and I never made them... and as for the damask coat, I had been wanted one for YEARS but never saw the right one. I once saw one in Singapore in some shop in Marina Bay and it was looking for £2,000 which was not happening... and then THIS coat materialises out of nowhere - together with the boots. I think it is the universe's way of saying happy new year. I felt like Dr Who. A whole new wardrobe after I regenerated.

We headed back to Ma's cos Ghin needed the cough medicine which was there, and we just stayed to watch Inside Out - which I had taped. I cried when Bing Bong gave himself up in the Memory Dump, and thought that it is really such a clever film. Then we ate lots of jamon while we watched it and decided we would just stay at Ma's house for the night. So we did. It was very comforting to sleep there. It was as if, if I listened a little harder I could hear Ma and Pa walking about downstairs. It is always very very special being in Ma's house - there is something so safe about it.

So, #4 post of the year. I hope I am able to keep this up. Reentry to school begins about now. It is incredibly interesting this term and we go back to more complicated perspective drawing and history again. Beginning with Margaret of Acquitaine and the last bit of the Crusades. So much has already happened in the year.

I also need to reconnect with friends I haven't seen for ages.

This is the year it is happening.

Sitting by the fire, we chatted about anger - letting go of anger, and I shared with Kelly my own understanding about anger - anger is a secondary emotion - it is a response to pain - when we feel hurt, we feel pain and anger is a way to protect our boundaries from that pain. I forgot to say that the other response we have is not no response, but grace. The answer to anger is grace. It is acceptance and transformation of the pain into something else. And using grace as the alchemical process to do this.

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These are strange cold days upon which the fulcrum of the season spins. No rain, just a broad low sky and an almost mechanical chill. It never gets too cold or warms up - it is as if Ireland has forgotten its unpredictable nature. Mislaid its winds, and many kinds of rains, the dappling, silvery sunlight that shifts through the clouds... even snow - Ireland has had no snow this year.

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This deficit of snow is always -
disappointing.
Nothing for our centrally heated souls
to contend against. No
whetting of blades,
sharpened out swords.
None of the slipping
and sliding that comes
with the ice congealing
from the falling - the
crunch, crunch of
biting boots on cement.

As the days pass and the days narrow
and possibilities diminish
there is nothing we can do
but wait, behind closed doors and
double glazing, gazing to the skies
for the coming of starry ice.
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Well two piece of writing - the poem emerged from the first one.

Almost 12

Portaferry - Ferry ride back