Brothers in Arms...

I've finally caught up with Bands of Brothers, well over a decade after i had first intended. The words of Churchill spring to mind- "Never was so much owed by so many to so few"

As you get older, you learn the value of life. You realise how devastating loss can be, how traumatic injuries, both physical and mental, can be for those who suffer them; and those who bear witness to them. Watching a series like Band of Brothers really reminds me just how lucky I am to live in (my) conflict free zone. I've had the misfortune to see someone being shot and while it was traumatic, it's something that i (hopefully!) don't expect to see ever again. I didn't know the guy who was shot, other than to know him as a face about town, and so, the loss of his life; whilst devastating for his family, meant very little in the grand scheme of my life. 

Yet i've known soldiers my age who have had to watch their "brothers", their friends, their colleagues, lose their lives or be wounded and still have to carry on each day. I know a man who lives with the memory of shooting a child suicide bomber. War has fewer rules nowadays, some enemies don't do uniforms, and it's innocents who suffer for it. The difference now is the lack of support for them when they're out of uniform, when they're on civvie street, either on leave, or permanently. It's not a life i could comprehend leading, ever.

Obviously, in WWII, young men didn't have much of a choice to go into action-some flourished, some faltered, muchlike mankind itself. And that to me, is what makes their sacrifice all the greater. To know that you have no choice but to go out and kill or be killed as a matter of war is something i (luckily) will never have to do. 

It's surreal to think that just a few countries away, war is waging....in the Ukraine, in Syria...and i'm ashamed to say that the news of the murders, the car bombings, and the suicide bombings in the Middle East are all things that only briefly catch my attention on the news, much in the same jaded way the bombings and punishment beatings in NI used to when i was younger. Yet now again, something hits home, and makes the concept of what others are going through that bit clearer. For me, it was the news that to date (31/01/14) almost 2000 people have been killed since the start of the Syrian peace talks on Jan 22nd. That's a regular attendance at The Showgrounds to me. The thoughts of the physical space required by that amount of people, the thoughts of looking around that stadium to see almost 2000 dead bodies did, and still does, bring such sadness on me....and that's only the death toll over a week. Over the last decade, thousands have died-all in the name of a "civil" war.

Later this year, the world will begin to commemorate WW I "The Great War".... a war to end all wars....how little we've learnt over a century...

...covered....

Sometimes in life, there are songs that can never be covered satisfactorily. There's always something about the newer version that lacks something of the original, be it the heart, the essence, the message of a piece....or something simpler, like a tambourine missing from a beat.

It's rare that I hear a cover that hits me almost as hard as the original did (Mr. Cash being one exception that proves that rule.) But tonight (this morning?!) I watched and heard this video for the first time. I'm currently listening to it for the fifth time in a row. It's amazing. It. Is. Amazing.






Singer-nails it. Musicians-nail it. Choir-nails it. And despite their obvious talent, at the same time, you can almost feel the reverence they feel for the song, for it's creators who are watching their every note....it's something else.


That's what I love about music. It has that ability to take you away, deep inside, to transport you somewhere special, to take you away from where-ever you are to somewhere else entirely. I have said many times over the years that without music, I'd be a very different person. My life, like many other people's has it's own soundtrack, it's own important (and unimportant!) moments scored by a melody, a lyric that, when I hear them, transports me back to a time in place. Lost in You will always remind me of a soulmate, The Lonesome Boatman of a teenage funeral, The Scientist will remind me of hearing my first niece use full sentences (singing along bless her!) and the song above was one I first heard in the wee small hours on a show called Maloney After Midnight over 15 years ago around the time that I realised insomnia was a friend that was here to stay.

Even on my first listen, it blew me away. From it's soft stringed gentle opening, to the beauty of it's lyrics ("there's a feeling I get, when I look to the west....and my spirit is crying for leaving...") to it's pulsating rocked out ending, it captivated me. I have listened to it many many times now for over half my life, growing almost slightly jaded with it as the years pass by. Yet the version I'm listening to tonight has brought it back to life for me. Honestly, everytime it gets to 3.25 in the song, a giant grin starts to spread across my face, and by 3.45, my head starts nodding along to the solo, barely stopping short of headbanging along- bringing to life some of the latter lyrics of the song.."and if you listen very hard...the tune will come to you at last."
Music is something more powerful than any drug I've ever taken (including the ones I'm currently on for my knee!) and it's ability to change a mood, a situation, a memory, is one I constantly seem to under-estimate. Last week, I purchased an album from a new Irish group called The Gloaming. Ethereally beautifully brilliant doesn't come close to doing the album justice. There are several tracks on the album that I almost feel I shouldn't be breathing when I listen to them, such is their beauty. It's an album full of songs that, prior to last week, I didn't know. And yet, within a week, they feel like they've been in my life forever, bringing comfort to cold days, bringing back long-lost memories without any connection to those days when those memories were being created, and just being an example of how music has the ability to move feelings and emotions that had nothing to do with the music originally.

That, to me, is one of the most amazing things in life- the power and beauty of music. It's ability to gift you the impossible, to create a new emotion within you, the ability to feel like you're time-traveling just by closing your eyes and listening to a song, the ability to change a mood instantly, the ability to re-invent something you've heard a thousand times before, and, without changing it, re-create it for you so it feels like it did the first time you heard it.

I've lost track of the amount of conversations I've had about music, about songs, about covers, about new tracks, about old....just this evening I was getting more recomendations from a friend about new & old music that I had (prior to discovering that Zep cover!) been listening to and enjoying. It's surreal now that, despite all the music out there, I'm still hungry for more, be it old, be it new. What I find even more surreal is that sometimes, a melody that I may have heard many times before will speak to me strangely someday, and suddenly it becomes an important track, an important piece of music to have in my life.

This post may not make much sense to you...tbh, I'm finding it hard to put into (eloquent) words myself just how important it is to me. Suffice to say that, in all times of my life, good and bad, music is something that has helped me, and to finish on something that might make a little sense.... Music is something that I can never *ever* imagine my life without and to paraphrase a little...

Music is nothing without life, and life is nothing without music.

Randomness from a hospital bed...

So yet again in my life, i find myself wide awake in a hospital bed in the wee small hours, with a swollen, bruised and bloodied knee after my 7th bit of surgery. The new kneecap is behaving but, alas,the scar tissue and ligaments in the knee aren't. What was to be a day procedure has turned into an overnight stay.

But, this made me smile....a bunch of towels at the end of my bed. Douglas Adams would be pleased...

sibling bloggery...

....the great thing about being from a big(ish) family is the variety amongst us siblings. As within all family life, we each have an unofficial role to play....there's a joker, there's the adventurous one, there's the quiet one, the accident prone one and the one who makes everyone else think on a regular basis. Those of you who know my family well can try and and figure out who's who from the above : D

The funny thing is that over the last few years, 3/5's of us kids are blogging. I've been doing it since 2000/2001...I'm not quite sure when the other two siblings copied my idea ...started theirs!
My bro Fearg blogs weekly at Freedive Ireland (http://freediveireland.com/blog/) sometimes about freediving, sometimes about life. Tis always worth a read. Sometimes it's short and sweet, other times long and eloquent. But it nearly always leaves me with more thoughts than when I first started reading it, which I guess is a rather good thing!

My bro Sean blogs at seancallagy.com (http://www.seancallagy.com) His most recent blogs have been about his cancer, his chemo, his treatments. I still find it mad to think he has cancer. When it first hit, I found it almost too mental to comprehend that the healthiest one of us five kids, the one who consciously ate the freshest, healthiest and natural foods, the one who went out of his way to lead as healthy and chemical-free life as possible is the one who gets the shit deal. Life, as some of my friends and I like to say, can be a bollocks.

And I've started back blogging here. It's a bit mad sometimes, having been writing for so long over so many years, there's times I feel like I'm repeating myself. But life is nothing if not cyclical, and so, many of the things I've gone through before, I'll go through again. Which is where I find a blog to be of great use. Sometimes it reminds me of where I've been, other times it reminds me of people, of places, of stories, of songs, of situations that I've come through.
I had an interesting conversation via email with someone recently where I explained a few things that had happened throughout my life that had led me to behaving and thinking the way I do about things....his response was "I had no idea what you had been through". Not that I tell him everything in the world, but I had covered most things with him over the last few years, aside from that.

And it got me thinking more about what we do and don't say to one another in our day to day lives. We are who we are because of our experiences throughout our everyday lives. We all have what I would liken to a 9/11 moment, something that has stopped us in our tracks, turned our world upside down and made everything seem incomprehensible. To someone outside our lives, it may not seem like a big deal, but to us, it can be the be all and end all. For me, one of the biggest moments of my life happened because I turned left one afternoon instead of right-it was as simple as that.

One thing that has always struck me in life is how seriously some people take things, and life in general. I count myself lucky to have always been a fairly laid-back kinda gal. It's rare I take offence, and I rarely disagree with folk....if anything, people whose opinions and beliefs differ greatly to mine intrigue me-I love to try and get inside their minds and fathom where they're coming from-they may see it as an argument, but a difference of opinion does not an argument make! It's funny, I've always had quite a slow temper, and it takes a lot to get me riled enough to fight. I'd much rather let someone rant away at me and then let them and their negativity wash away over me than react to it-and that's something I see in my siblings too.
To me, that's one of the wonderful things about my family. Us five kids are all so different, yet all so alike in some respects. We all have different beliefs, different priorities, yet we grew up under the same roof to the same wonderful caring parents. Despite growing up in the same house, we all have different issues in our daily lives.

When I write the word "issues", that makes it sound very serious. Everyone you meet in your life has issues, be they large ones relating to money and day to day living, or small ones relating to indecision over what to do next-make tea or coffee? The trick is to be able to deal with those issues on a day to day basis and still live a relatively normal life. One of my simpler issues is my new kneecap. It makes me grin when people sympathise with me about the fact it's not fully healed and settled in yet. Because all they're seeing is me with a limp and a swollen knee that they think should be fixed after a few months.

But what I'm feeling is almost 18 years of on and off swelling and pain coming to an end. It's not a big deal to me for my knee to cause me pain, for it to be too swollen for me to wear certain jeans, for it to not allow me to drive long distance, or run across a road. These might seem like frustrating things to others but to me, I've put up with them for so long, they're normal. That's an issue in my life, but it's not the worst thing I've had to deal with by a longshot.

And that's kinda what threw my friend a bit. Something traumatic had happened to me years ago-and while I had a lot of time to deal with it, it was something that completely took him by surprise., and explained a lot to him at the same time. Life will do that a lot-things we thought were black and white suddenly become full of light-grey/off-white/jet black/dark grey shades throughout, and that flummoxes folk very quickly.

But that's one of the great things about life-it's not simple, things don't always work out the way we think they should. As the wonderful line says
"Truth is stranger than fiction; fiction has to make sense."
 
If someone had written a script for my family, I doubt they'd have cast the characters we have. A stern father who mellowed into the kindest caring father and grandfather, a mother who emanates love from every inch of her being, one sibling who's been close to death so many times since she was born, a caring madcap mimic brother , another one who, despite the lack of sport, was the most accident prone teenager, and finally, one who inspired me spriitually, musically and emotionally over the years. And then there's me, who (hopefully) managed to take a little something from all my siblings throughout my life!


The more years that pass, the happier I am to have been born into such a mad loving diverse and funny family. My bro Fearg was here last night and we just sat at the kitchen table talking over a cuppa or two and generally having the craic. After I was heading to bed, my mind was full of funny family memories of the last three decades, and it hit me just how lucky I was to have been born into the family I was. We don't have to declare how much we love each other-we simply show it each time we meet, be it in the gentle slagging from one to another, or the simple act of just sitting in the same room together.

Last Sunday evening, I sat in the kitchen half-reading, half listening to the sounds of home... as my biggest brother dozed in the corner, I could hear my Dad practising his singing for the choir in the living, I could hear Babs dancing and singing along to some random Elvis song and I could hear Mum moving from room to room sorting things upstairs. It was such a simple, but such a lovely moment, it's one that will stay with me. And that's what my family life has meant to me over the years, lots of lovely little moments that combine to make for one rather happy life......

...reading and writing....

The great thing about the internet is it's ability to suddenly make you travel back in time.
As a kid, I didn't just read the Narnia books, I devoured them. Every old house I was in, I checked out the back of the wardrobe, hoping beyond hope that amongst the ordinary clothes of great-aunts and uncles, lay some furs, some furs that I could push through and past and into that snowy land, toward that lampost that somehow seemed to mark the boundary between the two worlds.

Alas, it was never that wardobe. There was no Narnia, no Edmund, no Lucy, no Susan, no Peter. There was no Mr. Tumnus, no Evil White Witch, and no Aslan. But there was something about the power of the writing, that even though I knew the stories couldn't be anything but fantasy, another part of me thought it was so beautifully written, so true to life, that it could just be true.

That's the power and beauty of a good author, no matter how unfeasible something may be, if it's written powerfully or eloquently enough, it can leave an impression on you that drifts into your everyday world. I was a bookworm as a kid-when I wasn't outside playing, I was tucked up in some corner of the house, reading. From the simplistic and surreal Famous Five and Secret Seven series, to the slightly more thoughtprovoking Narnia, and Lord of The Rings, I absolutely ate up the words in front of me. I could picture every nook and cranny of the wilds of Narnia and Mordor. I felt I had been in Smeagol's cave trying to fathom his riddles as his slithery voice echoed around the dank walls (What has it gotssssss in it'sssss pockets my precioussssss....?) and every time I was in Slish Wood traisping round, I felt I might stumble into a mythical world, with faeries and demons hiding behind each tree. Such was the power of the words I read, and the imagination those words endowed me with.

It's only recently that I've come back to reading (curse you adult life with your busy-ness and distractions!) and I've really began to appreciate the power of a well written eloquent piece. What inspired all this ramblement this evening was spotting this picture on twitter.

I read those words as an adult with virtually no regrets in my life thus far. Part of me would love to be able to remember what I made of them as a kid. Although as I write these words, I'm thinking I was probably too busy grieving for those about to be lost in the battle than thinking about my own short life!

As an adult, the writings of C.S. Lewis still enthrall and fascinate me, particularly his writings on faith, both his opinion, and his fictional presentation of faith through The Screwtape Letters. He has such a beauty, such an eloquence that even just a simple sentence like the one above, stops me in my tracks and makes me think. Some people think a short story is the perfect vessel for a message. Others think it takes a novel to get a message across, while others percieve that poetry is the only way to impart something important.

One of my most favourite pieces of poetry is "Instructions" by Neil Gaiman. It appeals to all aspects of my nature-adventure, curiousity, fear, caring, nature, fantasy, reality, and comfort. The idea behind it is a list of instructions of what to do if you find yourself in a faerytale. The beauty of poetry is that everyone takes something different from the same words. I don't just see it as that-I see it almost as a journey through life. Sometimes things that should help will hinder, sometimes unexpected things will cross your path and bear your crosses for you. Those you love may vanish but are never truly gone, and while things change along your life path, some time, you will make it to your final home.

Or y'know, you could just take it as a what-to-do-if-you-get-stuck-in-a-faerytale-list. Your call tbh....

The first time I heard this piece of poetry was a few hours ago and I cannot, literally, can not get it out of my head. It just blew me away. I genuinely felt like I'd been punched in the stomach whilst listening to it....the tears came the second time I watched, the first time I was genuinely too stunned. Just....unreal. The power behind his words, they felt like weapons....the visceral brutal reality of life and the simplicity behind the opening lines.....people say all kinds of things to one another without thinking of how they'll impact on those around them. Take a watch and a listen to it.....

...old friends....

"Old friends, old friends sat on their parkbench like bookends..." "Old friends, memory brushes the same years, silently sharing the same fears..."

"Time it was, and what a time it was, it was
A time of innocence, a time of confidences
Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph
Preserve your memories, they're all that's left you"

This song was running through my head today, reflecting on some short but quality time spent with one of my oldest friends. We've been friends since we were 12, and we have literally gone through the best of times and the worst of times together.

We haven't really seen each other properly in a long long time. I was over to herself and himself earlier on this year, but it was a rushed visit, less than 24hours, in the middle of house renovations and while it was lovely to see them, it didn't feel like we'd spent any proper time together.

The short time we spent together was lovely.....chilling out together over food-a nice breakfast in BonBon in the village, then over to the campus to show them round the old buildings. I'd wanted to show them The Gunn Chapel, as it's a beautiful chapel, hidden behind the dull grey exterior is this stunning ornate interior. As we entered, I met one of the staff who told me there was something on, and it should be over in ten minutes.

So we wandered off to the graveyard (ghost stories were told...and disproved!) and meandered back to discover that "something" was graduates from St. Patrick's! All the fancy robes and fancy certificates were on show, as was the chapel, which remained open with lights on for all it's carved and hand-worked splendour to be shown.

In between the photos and the scenery, the three of us talked about so many different things, life, our experiences thus far, hopes for the future, friends, family, funny moments we'd shared, sad moments we'd shared. And we realised just how lucky we were to make it this far (yes, as teenagers we were all that cynical!) and how much experience we'd crammed into our short lives.

This time a decade ago, both she and I were manageresses of two established places in Carlisle, both in what we viewed as steady relationships with amazing guys, seeing each other almost every second day for drinks and catchups-and we thought we were fairly sorted...neither of us were considering leaving the border city for a long time. Fast forward a decade, we're both in totally different careers in totally different places and only physically see each other to catch up once, maybe twice a year .....and yet, just as close as we were a decade ago, despite the many horrible things that have happened us both since those days.

I can indeed, as the song says, "imagine us years from today, sharing a parkbench quietly ....How terribly strange to be seventy...." Old friends usually make the best friends, and I'm very, very lucky to be able to count herself (and himself through her!) as one of mine.

Life moves so fast, and it's very easy to lose touch with people, especially if you're someone like me who misses calls or texts and keeps meaning to return them but forgets. Weeks turn into months which turn into years and you suddenly realise it's actually years since you last spoke or sat with someone you used to see daily. But if the friendship was strong enough, time makes no odds, those bonds reconnect instantly.

I consider myself very lucky not only to have one, but several friends with whom I've shared over two decades worth of friendship. Friendship is an amazing gift to have in life. Your friends are the family you choose for yourself, and in that respect, I'm lucky to have accidentally chosen the most amazing sisters and brothers over the decades, and luckier still to have had them choose me. Life can be pretty damn amazing sometimes!

...the inevitable look back...

I spent today trying to keep busy. Trying to pretend it was any normal day off, I bought the paper, I did some shopping, I played guitar, I sketched and doodled, I fed and coaxed our new (and still slightly wild) cat into the house for a while. Yet still, when I'd note the time, my mind would wander back to where I was this day three years ago. Today, I've been awake since just before 6am. 3 years ago at that time, I was just after leaving his room to make a cuppa with my friends. We sat and talked on the couches in the hospice, took turns sleeping in armchairs and on the bedcouch in there, and listened to the world coming alive outside our window as our friend greeted his final morning.

Some moments spoke louder than others, his parents insisting we all get to spend a few minutes alone with him throughout the day....a drizzly dreary Thursday around the town....Stephen & I having a meal in the garavogue just to get out of the hospice for a little while and being amazed at the normality of the world around us....being in the room with him less than 1/2hr before he passed, as the Foo Fighters played quietly on his ipod....his raspy gasping stuttered breathing....Cathy's slow headshaking walk towards us as the Cathedral bells tolled the Angelus and we knew he was gone...and his amazing Uncle Tommy coming out to us a few minutes later to tell us everything about his final moments.
It's tough. And even though I've told myself it's getting easier as the years pass, it's not. I still miss him. I miss the way life used to be for all of us, especially Ger. I miss the knowledge that someone could crack the sickest joke, and McGarry would manage to top it off with something worse. I miss the random sincerity and beauty that would suddenly fly into rage and then back to quietly beautiful in his songs, I miss the effortless quips he'd make, and I miss him.

This night three years ago, I was sitting in Fureys, sipping a mug of tea whilst my friends sipped their pints. We could barely speak, all we could do was catch each other's eyes as Aoife Grennan sang every fucking sad song it was possible to sing. And yet, the one song that ran through my mind, from the moment I'd reached the hospice the night before was one that had comforted me when another friend passed away 12 years before that.

"time...is never time at all, you can never ever leave, without leaving a piece of youth....
and our lives are forever changed, we will never be the same...."

and the final verse...

"We'll find a way to offer up the night tonight...The indescribable moments of your life tonight...The impossible is possible tonight....
Believe in me as I believe in you, tonight "

We all believed he'd somehow beat the odds once he was diagnosed, and even in those final few hours, we hoped for the impossible. He was 6 hours short of his 30th birthday when he took his last breaths, and so tonight, I raise a cuppa in honour of him, his anniversary, his birthday and his general awesomeness. I miss my buddy.

 

I