Sunday, August 10, 2014
What good is melody...
What good is music?
If it ain’t possessing something sweet
Now it ain’t the melody
And it ain’t the music
There’s something else that makes this tune complete.....
It don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that swing. That's what the Sligo Jazz Project week had, and then some. A week of music, of love, of laughter, of such incredible energy and vibes that I'm still not quite over it yet. Meeting new friends, reconnecting with old (and not so old!) friends and just generally living in the moment, it was a week I badly needed, a week to take myself out of this strange new world I've found myself in over the last two and half a months.
Music is one thing that helps. It helps distract, it helps soothe, it helps heal. The right notes, the right melody can hit at times when you least it expect it to, and that's what happened to me a lot last week. There were times when a memory would come to mind, something small and would leave me on the verge of tears. Then a groove would begin to emerge from a classroom, voices or notes would echo down the corridors and life suddenly seemed ok.
Watching returning students who've improved so much over the years, watching new students get their groove on, the kids group so fantastically led by Cathal and watching the reaction of the crowds as they fell into a music induced trance was fantastic. Catching up with returning tutors, chilling out with new ones, and some amazingly sweet moments mid-conversation, mid-drive, mid-gig, mid-jam....just fantastic.
There's so many happy moments that bring a smile to my face when I think of them, hearing & watching Jeanfrancois & Judy jamming together on the first night in 5th, driving a rather lovely gentleman round Sligo as he stuck his hands out of the sunroof was fun, as were the many mad moments during dinners, where Lieve and I would hit the wall of tired insanity and starting laughing at something completely nonsensical. The first sup of a glass of Guinness after a long day, Johnny's constant cheeriness and loveliness around the school, and a rather long and funny conversation about the correct way to pronounce indefatigable (in-de-fatigue-able or in-defat-ig-able) with 3 funny gents will always make me smile, as will the quietness of last evening just chilling in the Sligo Park with a glass of vino and some wonderful company before moving onto 5th to begin the goodbyes.
There were so many beautiful musical moments, not least Alan Broadbent's calm and moving sincerity as he talked about his arrangement of "Wayfaring Stranger" that Charlie Haden sang so hesitantly and yet so beautifully-he spoke of the subtle mood changes in the music, how during the line "I know dark clouds will gather round", the strings surround him like the dark clouds... and then those very same strings soothe us with the hope in the line "Golden fields lie out before me...." . Varying moments in gigs throughout the week, Steve's solo tribute which finished with the tutors all singing along at the end, or seeing all the tutors performing & enjoying themselves during the last show....all just such beautiful moments...
One wonderful personal moment for me was chatting with Alan over lunch one of the days and talking with him about the first time I heard and saw that piece. I felt utterly transfixed, that for those few minutes, all there was in the world, in the universe was Charlie Haden's voice, those strings and me. It's still hard to put into words just how beautiful, how heartbreaking and yet soul soothing a piece it was, and how hard it hit me that first time, but I tried to explain that reaction I'd had to him. And Alan said, "well, that's the whole purpose of music really, to take yourself outta life sometimes.."
Life is nothing without music, and music is nothing without life.
Something changes...
(mostly written yesterday, 08/08/14)
...irrevocably in you when you watch someone you love die. I've resisted somewhat writing about it, because I genuinely am unsure how to word it, how to encapsulate what a beautiful, yet heartbreaking, soul-affirming and yet soul-destroying moment it is.
I know I'll be thinking, feeling, reliving and remembering my Aunt's passing for a considerable length of time yet, and yet, this piece has been started, both mentally, and physically, so many times and stopped, on both the computer and on paper....so we'll see how far it gets today.
I honestly feel like I had no time to contemplate just how hard the loss of Anne would hit me. Out of all my Aunts, she was the one I was closest to, she was the one I would text now and again about something small, something silly. She knew about boyfriends, she knew about work, she knew about what i got up to in my free time, she knew about everything. That's not to say we were texting or talking 24/7, but over the last year, I had been down so much to Limerick for work and stayed with her & my Uncle so many times that I was really looking forward to doing it more often as the years passed. But alas....
It's the stupid things in grief that hit. Those "this time X weeks" ago moments that ambush you. Earlier today, the realisation that this date 8 weeks ago, I had been helping to carry her out to the hearse, despite the protestations of my Uncles and my gammy knee, I felt I had to lend to a hand, even if it was one guided by a limp, to even help to carry her was such an overwhelming emotion that I find it hard to describe. Even though Anne's soul, her spirit was technically gone, it was still her, it was still something I felt I could help her with.
As I said, something changes in you when you watch someone you love so deeply take their last breath. Everything in the world seems more raw, more fresh, more real. You can't understand why people scream at one another in traffic, why people insist on "things" being so important, newspapers and magazines and twitter and facebook tell you that you MUST download this app as it'll change/fix/improve your life, that you must visit this place or check out that band and it all seems so pointless, because at the end of the day, you'd trade everything, every possession, just to have those last few days back, because it would mean life would feel somewhat ok again.
The way the services went, the reposing in Limerick where her friends and colleagues were able to say their goodbyes, the funeral in Sligo, the cremation in Dublin went...they were perfect. Everyone took their own things from them. For me, the Cathedral will always be a place of mourning-i have buried too many friends and family from there to think of it in any other way. Yet I know merely being able to have Anne's funeral there, and especially having her neighbours as the celebrants brought a wonderful comfort to us all, and particularly,a special comfort to those in our family (and friends) of the Catholic faith.
Beautiful and all as the funeral was, the cremation was where I felt Anne's spirit, her essence, her soul and love shone through. From the moment Sean got up to speak, there was love, there was humour, there was heartbreak, there was kindness and compassion in every speaker, which echoed through the walls there. The music was perfect, and my only regret is that we didn't manage to squeeze in some T-Rex too!
There was even some smiles for me after the curtains closed as I realised that the next track on the CD was Pink Floyd's "Time", which, if you're not familiar with, starts off with bells ringing and blaring. As most of the crowd in the crematorium weren't used to cremations, and we'd been told the service should be no more than 30 mins, I had visions of the bells blaring and people thinking that crematoriums rang bells after the 30 minutes and they'd all get up and start leaving as Dave Gilmour blared "Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day..." I had to ask my niece to run down to the staff and ask them to turn it down before it started but the thoughts of the absurdity of the situation left me smiling through the tears.
Smiling through the tears, a good way to describe how I'll forever feel about Anne's passing. I still can't quite believe it's happened, and I know I'll be saying those words for many years to come. I find myself breaking down at the stupidest of times and having to walk back to the car, or to a bathroom just to let the tears out, as breaking down in the middle of a shopping centre is never fun. Seeing jewellery she'd like in a shop, someone who has the same perfume as her, and occasionally, from nowhere, the thought comes that my Aunt is gone from us and nothing can ever change that.
July 31st should've been her 54th birthday. In years gone by, inevitably I'd text either on the day or a day or few later and receive a thankful reply, one which usually referred to her as "the worst Godmother" on account of the fact that she would forget about mine. No matter how often I said it, I could never seem to persuade that she wasn't a bad Godmother, and besides-how could she judge that when technically, she'd never been called into play as both my parents were alive when I was 18?! I loved those moments in conversation, in text, in person, via her phonecalls with Mum, because somehow, they only served to emphasise her love for me.
Suffice to say, I never once envisaged a future where they'd both still be here and she wouldn't be. She's over 20 years younger than Dad, and 14 years younger than Mum-why would I ever have imagined she'd be gone before them? And yet, she is.
Last year, on her birthday, I texted her very early in the morning, as I was in the hospital after my knee replacement, and she was due to pick me up when I was discharged. In her reply, she said she'd forgotten it was her birthday! It was long day, and we had to stop off to pick up my sick brother in Maynooth and bring him to Mullingar-without telling my Mum, who was at my brother Sean's bedside as he had just started his chemo that week.
When we finally got back to Sligo, we had a cuppa and a wee birthday cake whilst discussing my brother's chemo and my knee and the wee holiday that she & Uncle were about to embark on in their new camper van. It wasn't the perfect birthday for Anne by any means, but, looking back at that day, it epitomised her. She'd spent all the day with family, starting the day at her big brother's house and finishing the day at her big sister's house. She spent it looking after nieces and nephews, being full of wit and kindness, and loveliness throughout the long, long day-all that was missing was my Uncle, and how I wish he'd gotten to spend some of the day with her.
We never know how life is going to turn out, and those little things, which seem so small, so insignificant, suddenly take on new meaning when someone we love passes away. Now everything is heightened, everything is different, our world is changed, "changed utterly."
...irrevocably in you when you watch someone you love die. I've resisted somewhat writing about it, because I genuinely am unsure how to word it, how to encapsulate what a beautiful, yet heartbreaking, soul-affirming and yet soul-destroying moment it is.
I know I'll be thinking, feeling, reliving and remembering my Aunt's passing for a considerable length of time yet, and yet, this piece has been started, both mentally, and physically, so many times and stopped, on both the computer and on paper....so we'll see how far it gets today.
I honestly feel like I had no time to contemplate just how hard the loss of Anne would hit me. Out of all my Aunts, she was the one I was closest to, she was the one I would text now and again about something small, something silly. She knew about boyfriends, she knew about work, she knew about what i got up to in my free time, she knew about everything. That's not to say we were texting or talking 24/7, but over the last year, I had been down so much to Limerick for work and stayed with her & my Uncle so many times that I was really looking forward to doing it more often as the years passed. But alas....
It's the stupid things in grief that hit. Those "this time X weeks" ago moments that ambush you. Earlier today, the realisation that this date 8 weeks ago, I had been helping to carry her out to the hearse, despite the protestations of my Uncles and my gammy knee, I felt I had to lend to a hand, even if it was one guided by a limp, to even help to carry her was such an overwhelming emotion that I find it hard to describe. Even though Anne's soul, her spirit was technically gone, it was still her, it was still something I felt I could help her with.
As I said, something changes in you when you watch someone you love so deeply take their last breath. Everything in the world seems more raw, more fresh, more real. You can't understand why people scream at one another in traffic, why people insist on "things" being so important, newspapers and magazines and twitter and facebook tell you that you MUST download this app as it'll change/fix/improve your life, that you must visit this place or check out that band and it all seems so pointless, because at the end of the day, you'd trade everything, every possession, just to have those last few days back, because it would mean life would feel somewhat ok again.
The way the services went, the reposing in Limerick where her friends and colleagues were able to say their goodbyes, the funeral in Sligo, the cremation in Dublin went...they were perfect. Everyone took their own things from them. For me, the Cathedral will always be a place of mourning-i have buried too many friends and family from there to think of it in any other way. Yet I know merely being able to have Anne's funeral there, and especially having her neighbours as the celebrants brought a wonderful comfort to us all, and particularly,a special comfort to those in our family (and friends) of the Catholic faith.
Beautiful and all as the funeral was, the cremation was where I felt Anne's spirit, her essence, her soul and love shone through. From the moment Sean got up to speak, there was love, there was humour, there was heartbreak, there was kindness and compassion in every speaker, which echoed through the walls there. The music was perfect, and my only regret is that we didn't manage to squeeze in some T-Rex too!
There was even some smiles for me after the curtains closed as I realised that the next track on the CD was Pink Floyd's "Time", which, if you're not familiar with, starts off with bells ringing and blaring. As most of the crowd in the crematorium weren't used to cremations, and we'd been told the service should be no more than 30 mins, I had visions of the bells blaring and people thinking that crematoriums rang bells after the 30 minutes and they'd all get up and start leaving as Dave Gilmour blared "Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day..." I had to ask my niece to run down to the staff and ask them to turn it down before it started but the thoughts of the absurdity of the situation left me smiling through the tears.
Smiling through the tears, a good way to describe how I'll forever feel about Anne's passing. I still can't quite believe it's happened, and I know I'll be saying those words for many years to come. I find myself breaking down at the stupidest of times and having to walk back to the car, or to a bathroom just to let the tears out, as breaking down in the middle of a shopping centre is never fun. Seeing jewellery she'd like in a shop, someone who has the same perfume as her, and occasionally, from nowhere, the thought comes that my Aunt is gone from us and nothing can ever change that.
July 31st should've been her 54th birthday. In years gone by, inevitably I'd text either on the day or a day or few later and receive a thankful reply, one which usually referred to her as "the worst Godmother" on account of the fact that she would forget about mine. No matter how often I said it, I could never seem to persuade that she wasn't a bad Godmother, and besides-how could she judge that when technically, she'd never been called into play as both my parents were alive when I was 18?! I loved those moments in conversation, in text, in person, via her phonecalls with Mum, because somehow, they only served to emphasise her love for me.
Suffice to say, I never once envisaged a future where they'd both still be here and she wouldn't be. She's over 20 years younger than Dad, and 14 years younger than Mum-why would I ever have imagined she'd be gone before them? And yet, she is.
Last year, on her birthday, I texted her very early in the morning, as I was in the hospital after my knee replacement, and she was due to pick me up when I was discharged. In her reply, she said she'd forgotten it was her birthday! It was long day, and we had to stop off to pick up my sick brother in Maynooth and bring him to Mullingar-without telling my Mum, who was at my brother Sean's bedside as he had just started his chemo that week.
When we finally got back to Sligo, we had a cuppa and a wee birthday cake whilst discussing my brother's chemo and my knee and the wee holiday that she & Uncle were about to embark on in their new camper van. It wasn't the perfect birthday for Anne by any means, but, looking back at that day, it epitomised her. She'd spent all the day with family, starting the day at her big brother's house and finishing the day at her big sister's house. She spent it looking after nieces and nephews, being full of wit and kindness, and loveliness throughout the long, long day-all that was missing was my Uncle, and how I wish he'd gotten to spend some of the day with her.
We never know how life is going to turn out, and those little things, which seem so small, so insignificant, suddenly take on new meaning when someone we love passes away. Now everything is heightened, everything is different, our world is changed, "changed utterly."
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
Níl aon cois farraige mar do cois farraige féin
(I've become rather bad at actually posting these ramblings...I write them, then think I'll come back to double check them and then post, but no, I write them, and forget. So here's a few from the last month that I've decided to publish...I've included the original writing dates on them so hopefully that'll remind me in times to come of the times when they were written!)
(16.07.2014)
For those of you whose gaelige ain't so good, that roughly translates to, there's no seaside/beach like your own seaside/beach-it's a slight paraphrasing of "níl aon tinteán mar do thinteán fein" (in Dorothy-speak, there's no place like home)
I spent part of last weekend in Sligo, just seeing family and catching up on some SJP stuff. A colleague of mine had been away on a mini-surfing break last week, and seeing the photos of the sea and the waves and the shore made me desperately want to be back home, back beside the sea, back to the waves. So yesterday morning, I got up and went to the beach (with my booties. My new kneecap and I are brave enough to go into the water, just not stupid enough to go over rocks with no grips on my feet!)
It was around 10.30 and the sky was cloudy and grey. It seemed like rain was on the way, but, to steal a quote from Alfred E. Neuman, "What, me worry?!" I figured once I was in the water, I'd be wet anyway. So, swimsuit on, booties on, and off I waded.
I'd forgotten that, once you get over the chill, the sea feels so beautiful against skin-it's a strange sensation, one that can't be compared to the feeling of the treated water in swimming pools, or the tepid crap that flows in houses. The sea is something magical, something special. I will never forget that first look around after surfacing, Benbulben to my left, and the first beach, with Knocknarea peeking over the edge of the cliffs to my right.
Although after 10 mins, my knee (and eventually calf & quads!) were killing me, and yet, I couldn't bring myself to get out of the water. It was still such an amazing experience, to swim with the flow of the waves sometimes, to swim out against them, to dive through them other times, and occasionally, to just lie back, and let the wind and the waves take me along. Lying back, looking up at that sky was bliss. Grey clouds drifting, the sounds of waves breaking, birds flying and a feeling that I could've stayed in that moment forever.
I stayed in for almost half an hour, thinking about everything and nothing in between, my family, my friends, those who've gone before me, and how they enjoyed the sea and the scenes that I was drifting along in front of. It crossed my mind how lucky I am to be who I am, where I am; that I'm not a Palestinian, a Syrian, that I'm not living in suffering every day, that my brother is still here, that at least I was there with my Aunt when she passed, that Sligo is not just where I'm from, but it's something within my soul.
Were it not for growing up in Sligo, spending my teenage years beside the sea (albeit with the most bad grace possible, apologies to the parentals!), I don't know if my love of the sea, of those moments of listening to "water lapping, with low sounds by the shore"*, would have such an indelible effect on my soul as they do now. There is something uniquely spiritual about sitting listening to the sea, to ebb and flow of the water as it glides across sand, as it rushes in and out through the stones, and there is something amazingly awe-inspiring about the power and strength behind the Atlantic waves I've witnessed over the decades that have pounded the beaches and the rocks around my home county.
We humans are supposedly made up of 90% water, so I guess it makes sense to feel so at home in it. Yet there's a calmness, an "at homeness" that I feel in the Atlantic that I've never felt anywhere else, not the Mediterranean, not the Irish sea, not the North Sea....maybe the old phrase "Aithníonn ciaróg ciaróg eile" (Irish for one beetle recognises another beetle") holds true, maybe somewhere, something inside instinctively recognise this place called home.
Or maybe it's just wishful thinking. Who knows. All I know is that there is a soul soothing comfort in that sea that I have never felt anywhere else and that days like last Sunday are something rather special indeed.....and most certainly, níl aon tinteán mar do thinteán fein.
*p.s. I know Yeats was talking about lake water lapping, but the sea does it too..!
(16.07.2014)
For those of you whose gaelige ain't so good, that roughly translates to, there's no seaside/beach like your own seaside/beach-it's a slight paraphrasing of "níl aon tinteán mar do thinteán fein" (in Dorothy-speak, there's no place like home)
I spent part of last weekend in Sligo, just seeing family and catching up on some SJP stuff. A colleague of mine had been away on a mini-surfing break last week, and seeing the photos of the sea and the waves and the shore made me desperately want to be back home, back beside the sea, back to the waves. So yesterday morning, I got up and went to the beach (with my booties. My new kneecap and I are brave enough to go into the water, just not stupid enough to go over rocks with no grips on my feet!)
It was around 10.30 and the sky was cloudy and grey. It seemed like rain was on the way, but, to steal a quote from Alfred E. Neuman, "What, me worry?!" I figured once I was in the water, I'd be wet anyway. So, swimsuit on, booties on, and off I waded.
I'd forgotten that, once you get over the chill, the sea feels so beautiful against skin-it's a strange sensation, one that can't be compared to the feeling of the treated water in swimming pools, or the tepid crap that flows in houses. The sea is something magical, something special. I will never forget that first look around after surfacing, Benbulben to my left, and the first beach, with Knocknarea peeking over the edge of the cliffs to my right.
Although after 10 mins, my knee (and eventually calf & quads!) were killing me, and yet, I couldn't bring myself to get out of the water. It was still such an amazing experience, to swim with the flow of the waves sometimes, to swim out against them, to dive through them other times, and occasionally, to just lie back, and let the wind and the waves take me along. Lying back, looking up at that sky was bliss. Grey clouds drifting, the sounds of waves breaking, birds flying and a feeling that I could've stayed in that moment forever.
I stayed in for almost half an hour, thinking about everything and nothing in between, my family, my friends, those who've gone before me, and how they enjoyed the sea and the scenes that I was drifting along in front of. It crossed my mind how lucky I am to be who I am, where I am; that I'm not a Palestinian, a Syrian, that I'm not living in suffering every day, that my brother is still here, that at least I was there with my Aunt when she passed, that Sligo is not just where I'm from, but it's something within my soul.
Were it not for growing up in Sligo, spending my teenage years beside the sea (albeit with the most bad grace possible, apologies to the parentals!), I don't know if my love of the sea, of those moments of listening to "water lapping, with low sounds by the shore"*, would have such an indelible effect on my soul as they do now. There is something uniquely spiritual about sitting listening to the sea, to ebb and flow of the water as it glides across sand, as it rushes in and out through the stones, and there is something amazingly awe-inspiring about the power and strength behind the Atlantic waves I've witnessed over the decades that have pounded the beaches and the rocks around my home county.
We humans are supposedly made up of 90% water, so I guess it makes sense to feel so at home in it. Yet there's a calmness, an "at homeness" that I feel in the Atlantic that I've never felt anywhere else, not the Mediterranean, not the Irish sea, not the North Sea....maybe the old phrase "Aithníonn ciaróg ciaróg eile" (Irish for one beetle recognises another beetle") holds true, maybe somewhere, something inside instinctively recognise this place called home.
Or maybe it's just wishful thinking. Who knows. All I know is that there is a soul soothing comfort in that sea that I have never felt anywhere else and that days like last Sunday are something rather special indeed.....and most certainly, níl aon tinteán mar do thinteán fein.
*p.s. I know Yeats was talking about lake water lapping, but the sea does it too..!
Thursday, July 10, 2014
to everything, turn, turn, turn.....
They say there's a time for everything.... a time to live, a time to die, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to to mourn and a time to dance.
Time is marching on, and the world still seems a surreal place. Stupid things hit me, a turquoise coloured piece of jewellery in a shop, a funny thought, and, most often, nothing at all other than the stark, horrible fact that my amazing Aunt is dead.
There are times I sit down and I want to write, but nothing comes to mind, the words remain inside. Nothing comes to text, nothing except old memories, and instead of writing those, I sit and I remember the good times, the silly times, the sad times, and everything in between. In one way, the last few months of my Aunt's life seem to belong to another woman, to another Anne, and yet, they are so irrevocably her.
Her bravery, her humour, her love, everything she embodied was permanently on display over those four months. Her love in trying to shield us from the horrors of what she feared was truly happening, her humour in her varying ways of dealing with the repeated blows of the shit, shit news she was being dealt over the times, and her everything-my Uncle Sean-by her side, caring for her day and night. They were-and will always be-in my mind, the most solid, secure unit of love I can ever envisage.
Time is passing and it's still as devastating. I can't get her last few minutes out of my head, her eyes roaming around the room and her breathing, so quiet compared to how laboured it had been. The prayers that were emanating from my Uncle standing in one corner, to Leonard Cohen's singing in the other. Strangely, I still can't remember what was on when she passed, I just remember the first chorus of "Hallelujah" starting at some point later. The birds singing outside, the freshness of the air and the sunset that night, the strange calm amongst us before the grief truly hit, and the wish that we could have stayed in those moments before she passed forever, because up until then, she was still technically with us. To borrow some words from my Grandmother, written about the passing of her son, my Aunt's brother Gerry,
"Then I, who was part of him, cried for yesterday that we might live it all over again.
But sorrow is today and yesterday is but a dream, and now I understand, though each sorrow is it's own sorrow, it is also part of all the sorrows one has ever known.
Our yesterdays lie heavily on our todays and our todays lie heavily upon our tomorrows. And we remember the sad times when we should cherish the glad times, and sometimes we can forget those we have laughed with, but we never can forget those we cried with."
What good can these words do? They can't bring her back, they can't ever truly hope to capture the sound of her laugh, the magic way she would say "hell-low" to you on the phone, they can't do much except bring back the memories. Sometimes, bringing back the memories is just what's needed.
Time is marching on, and the world still seems a surreal place. Stupid things hit me, a turquoise coloured piece of jewellery in a shop, a funny thought, and, most often, nothing at all other than the stark, horrible fact that my amazing Aunt is dead.
There are times I sit down and I want to write, but nothing comes to mind, the words remain inside. Nothing comes to text, nothing except old memories, and instead of writing those, I sit and I remember the good times, the silly times, the sad times, and everything in between. In one way, the last few months of my Aunt's life seem to belong to another woman, to another Anne, and yet, they are so irrevocably her.
Her bravery, her humour, her love, everything she embodied was permanently on display over those four months. Her love in trying to shield us from the horrors of what she feared was truly happening, her humour in her varying ways of dealing with the repeated blows of the shit, shit news she was being dealt over the times, and her everything-my Uncle Sean-by her side, caring for her day and night. They were-and will always be-in my mind, the most solid, secure unit of love I can ever envisage.
Time is passing and it's still as devastating. I can't get her last few minutes out of my head, her eyes roaming around the room and her breathing, so quiet compared to how laboured it had been. The prayers that were emanating from my Uncle standing in one corner, to Leonard Cohen's singing in the other. Strangely, I still can't remember what was on when she passed, I just remember the first chorus of "Hallelujah" starting at some point later. The birds singing outside, the freshness of the air and the sunset that night, the strange calm amongst us before the grief truly hit, and the wish that we could have stayed in those moments before she passed forever, because up until then, she was still technically with us. To borrow some words from my Grandmother, written about the passing of her son, my Aunt's brother Gerry,
"Then I, who was part of him, cried for yesterday that we might live it all over again.
But sorrow is today and yesterday is but a dream, and now I understand, though each sorrow is it's own sorrow, it is also part of all the sorrows one has ever known.
Our yesterdays lie heavily on our todays and our todays lie heavily upon our tomorrows. And we remember the sad times when we should cherish the glad times, and sometimes we can forget those we have laughed with, but we never can forget those we cried with."
What good can these words do? They can't bring her back, they can't ever truly hope to capture the sound of her laugh, the magic way she would say "hell-low" to you on the phone, they can't do much except bring back the memories. Sometimes, bringing back the memories is just what's needed.
Friday, June 27, 2014
Musical things and all that jazz....
...someone asked me recently how I got
into liking jazz. While the conversation we had about it was short &
simple enough (Duke & Louis albums + getting older + living in a
huge apartment with no tv so lots of new music=jazz lover learning...!),
it left me thinking about not only jazz but music I love in general.
Music has been a huge part of my life. From my childhood years of "borrowing" my brothers tapes - Dead Can Dance, Tom Petty, War of the Worlds - sharing a room with Babs and her love of Michael Jackson, my teenage years of Metallica, Bell X1, Frank Sinatra, Faithless,(oh, and Scooter :D) to my Gran letting me have a key to her house for after school and being able to stick on whatever records I wanted (Hotel California nearly wore the needle out each week!) Then I got a guitar. Ocean Colour Scene, Oasis, U2, Manic Street Preachers were all butchered daily! My friends were all starting into music, either performing or listening and it was through them that I experienced some of my most favourite teenage moments, just sitting in McGarrigles watching bands play, week after week.
McGarrigles wasn't just a pub with live music. It was a home from home for us music lovers, a place to meet, chill, drink, smoke, talk, watch, listen and learn from everyone else. Many parents worry about their teenagers being out drinking every weekend-I was fortunate enough that mine understood I didn't want to go to the pub for pints, but for the bands. For Legacy, for Petronella, for Trial By Fire, for Indigo Fury, for Snow Patrol, for Turn, for whoever was gonna be setting up and playing that Friday or Saturday night. And on the rare occasions that there was no live music, the music that Mick/Ferghal or any of the gang behind the bar chose was just perfect. The Pixies, Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Stone Roses, Jeff Buckley, Led Zepplin....if it was in any way alternative, you'd probably hear it there.
When I write alternative, I do so for those of you who don't like "that kind of music". I don't mean that in a disdainful way, but to me, those were bands I loved and I just saw them as the norm, not as alternatives. As a teenager, I was once given the moniker "grunger with the wrong boots", and back then, with my sporadic pink hair, my "grungey" boots, my silly tshirts, my gigantically baggy trousers (Madness would've been proud) and the many chains I wore around my waist, I pretty much fitted the stereotype of "alternative".....yet I never felt I, nor the company I was in was alternative, neither in school nor out of it-it was just normal.
What brought all this back, was reading this fantastic piece about Sir Henrys of Cork. As I read it, I felt like I'd been there, that I'd lived through all those experiences, just in a different venue in a different time. That is both a credit to the author, and to the shared experience of music and performance. Sometimes, it doesn't matter whose playing, it's the actual piece of music that hits hardest. Damien Rice singing "You know when you've found it, there's something I've learned, cos you feel it when they take it away" left an imprint on my young soul that I knew I wouldn't understand until I was much more experienced in the heartbreak life can bring. Wayne O'Connor's "Better Man" still echoes through my head years later,as does Bob Kelly's beautiful rendition of Josh Ritter's "Come and Find Me".
Yet for each beautiful piece that left us captivated (and you knew it was good when the silence from the front row spread to all the way back the room to bar as a song progressed), there were pieces that blew us all wide open with their raw, uncontrollable energy. (Was it Eanna who left a dent in McG's roof when moshing once?!) When a piece of music affects so many, so rapidly, it's like uncontrollable wildfire. Some tunes would start with energetic toe-tapping and head-nodding in amongst us, culminating in mad pogo-ing about the place, arms around each others shouting and headbanging along with the sudden realisation that the previously quiet-looking older dude in the corner is moshing just as hard along with the teenagers.
Live music is a uniquely personal experience shared. To paraphrase Linley Hamilton from last year's Sligo Jazz, music is our religion, the stage is our church and the performance our communion. So many things make a performance special and what's so wonderful is that you and I may sit beside each other in a pub watching the same musician and take something completely different away from it. I have been brought to tears by different performers-on the street, in a pub, in the o2, and in a friends living room. Irrespective of the performer, the location, the performance, live music is usually something special-and it can become more so when it's shared.
It's that something special which keeps me coming back for more, looking for new notes, new beats, new lyrics to fall in love with. Music at times seems to have a soul all of it's own, which is I often say life is nothing without music, and music is nothing without life. This piece does something inexplicable to me, managing to simultaneously break my heart whilst soothing my soul....
Music has been a huge part of my life. From my childhood years of "borrowing" my brothers tapes - Dead Can Dance, Tom Petty, War of the Worlds - sharing a room with Babs and her love of Michael Jackson, my teenage years of Metallica, Bell X1, Frank Sinatra, Faithless,(oh, and Scooter :D) to my Gran letting me have a key to her house for after school and being able to stick on whatever records I wanted (Hotel California nearly wore the needle out each week!) Then I got a guitar. Ocean Colour Scene, Oasis, U2, Manic Street Preachers were all butchered daily! My friends were all starting into music, either performing or listening and it was through them that I experienced some of my most favourite teenage moments, just sitting in McGarrigles watching bands play, week after week.
McGarrigles wasn't just a pub with live music. It was a home from home for us music lovers, a place to meet, chill, drink, smoke, talk, watch, listen and learn from everyone else. Many parents worry about their teenagers being out drinking every weekend-I was fortunate enough that mine understood I didn't want to go to the pub for pints, but for the bands. For Legacy, for Petronella, for Trial By Fire, for Indigo Fury, for Snow Patrol, for Turn, for whoever was gonna be setting up and playing that Friday or Saturday night. And on the rare occasions that there was no live music, the music that Mick/Ferghal or any of the gang behind the bar chose was just perfect. The Pixies, Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Stone Roses, Jeff Buckley, Led Zepplin....if it was in any way alternative, you'd probably hear it there.
When I write alternative, I do so for those of you who don't like "that kind of music". I don't mean that in a disdainful way, but to me, those were bands I loved and I just saw them as the norm, not as alternatives. As a teenager, I was once given the moniker "grunger with the wrong boots", and back then, with my sporadic pink hair, my "grungey" boots, my silly tshirts, my gigantically baggy trousers (Madness would've been proud) and the many chains I wore around my waist, I pretty much fitted the stereotype of "alternative".....yet I never felt I, nor the company I was in was alternative, neither in school nor out of it-it was just normal.
What brought all this back, was reading this fantastic piece about Sir Henrys of Cork. As I read it, I felt like I'd been there, that I'd lived through all those experiences, just in a different venue in a different time. That is both a credit to the author, and to the shared experience of music and performance. Sometimes, it doesn't matter whose playing, it's the actual piece of music that hits hardest. Damien Rice singing "You know when you've found it, there's something I've learned, cos you feel it when they take it away" left an imprint on my young soul that I knew I wouldn't understand until I was much more experienced in the heartbreak life can bring. Wayne O'Connor's "Better Man" still echoes through my head years later,as does Bob Kelly's beautiful rendition of Josh Ritter's "Come and Find Me".
Yet for each beautiful piece that left us captivated (and you knew it was good when the silence from the front row spread to all the way back the room to bar as a song progressed), there were pieces that blew us all wide open with their raw, uncontrollable energy. (Was it Eanna who left a dent in McG's roof when moshing once?!) When a piece of music affects so many, so rapidly, it's like uncontrollable wildfire. Some tunes would start with energetic toe-tapping and head-nodding in amongst us, culminating in mad pogo-ing about the place, arms around each others shouting and headbanging along with the sudden realisation that the previously quiet-looking older dude in the corner is moshing just as hard along with the teenagers.
Live music is a uniquely personal experience shared. To paraphrase Linley Hamilton from last year's Sligo Jazz, music is our religion, the stage is our church and the performance our communion. So many things make a performance special and what's so wonderful is that you and I may sit beside each other in a pub watching the same musician and take something completely different away from it. I have been brought to tears by different performers-on the street, in a pub, in the o2, and in a friends living room. Irrespective of the performer, the location, the performance, live music is usually something special-and it can become more so when it's shared.
It's that something special which keeps me coming back for more, looking for new notes, new beats, new lyrics to fall in love with. Music at times seems to have a soul all of it's own, which is I often say life is nothing without music, and music is nothing without life. This piece does something inexplicable to me, managing to simultaneously break my heart whilst soothing my soul....
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
a knee by any other name...
(as always, this is a rather long, and oft emotional ramble...you have been warned!)
This made for interesting reading for me recently.
http://safepatientproject.org/posts/4984-guest-post-does-your-joint-replacement-have-a-warranty-by-brian-hatten-m-d
(For those of you too lazy to click the link, or read it all, it's basically an article wondering if replacement joints, i.e. knees/hips etc, should come with a warranty and, if so, how much of a one!)
Having had so much trouble with my knee/kneecap and it's replacement since last year, it set me wondering would it have made any difference to me had there been some form of a warranty with it. Probably not. The same problems would still have happened. The best thing I can say that's come of it all is that because I (and now 5 others) have had problems with it, the company have promised to revise the implant. Whether that's just an idle promise to placate my surgeon, I don't know. I'd like to hope it's not, because I wouldn't wish what this knee and I went through on anyone.
It's kinda hard to describe how this knee and now, new kneecap has affected me, because it's been going on so long. It's now two years since my knee started getting so bad that I figured I should get it checked out properly. Two years of consultants waiting rooms, their offices, x-rays, mri scans, hospital pre-op tests, arthroscopies (x2) minor operations (x2) and major operations (x2). My knee and leg had barely had time to recover from one operation before it was on to the next. Two years of almost daily pain, of popping painkillers, of constantly trying out new forms of "freeze sprays" and anti-inflammatory creams that promised to take away the pain for a little while. (2-5 minutes pain relief. Averaged about a euro a minute.) Two years of aching to kick a ball, aching to go for a run, aching to go for a long walk up a mountain, aching to go for a cycle, and occasionally, crying my eyes out in a peculiar mixture of jealousy and utter devastation at those folk I saw being able to do all of those simple things in the knowledge that I couldn't.
This gammy knee has become such an entity that even my four year old niece goes out of her way to make up games we can play that don't require me to chase her or kneel down whilst playing. When with her, there's nothing that evokes more disappointment in me than hearing her thinking out loud as to how we can make chasing slow and painless for me, instead of thinking about her own enjoyment. Don't get me wrong, it's awesome that she's so considerate, and so lovely. But I wish she didn't have to be considerate and lovely about me.
I know my way around my physio's machines blindfolded. I know the looks of "what-the-hell-is-going-on-here-now-why-isn't-this-treatment-working?!" that have flitted across both his, and my consultant's face over the last 2 years as varying things have gone wrong, an undissolved stitch, scar tissue, random pain in unpredictable places. What's more frustrating is a routines that can be fine one session and leave me thinking things are finally coming good, is the same one in the next session that leaves me hobbling in pain and using my physio's name as a swear word-which he doesn't quite deserve!
It's the constant dashing of hope that has frustrated me most. Each time I went under the knife, it was with the hope that *this* would fix things, that this one would be my last. And every time, something else has happened to ensure that it wasn't. The first arthroscopy in 2012 was almost a relief. It proved to me that the pain wasn't psychosomatic, there was damage in the joint, there was "bone debris floating around" from where the kneecap had been occasionally grinding off other bits of bone, a tear in the meniscus and the cartilage was fairly shot. Next stop was cortisone injections.
Having had one done by a consultant in Sligo, I didn't hold much faith in them. Sligo consultant's bedside manner consisted of "this might hurt....there you go....*very worried look on his face as a bump the size of my kneecap appeared at the injection site and I almost passed out with the pain*....umm....your knee shouldn't swell like that....just go home and rest it". The injection left me in utter agony and I had hop down the corridors of the General to the physio dept to get a set of crutches so I could feasibly make my way home.
Cortisone injection in 2012 proved a much more enjoyable experience, in only the way having areas of your body frozen and numbed can be. It gave me about 4 days of painfree movement (I could even do stairs!) before I had to ring the consultant, at which point, he tentatively mentioned replacements and recommended me onto another consultant. A few months later, early 2013, arthroscopy no 2 beckoned, and when I came round after it, he politely informed me that there was an awful lot more damage than he'd expected and that a replacement kneecap, a button at the back of the kneecap, resurfacing of the femur and two titanium screws should see it right. So, 2 months of physio to get over the arthroscopy and to build the muscles for their inevitable decay post-replacement op.
July 28th 2013, the replacement happened. My Aunt Anne was with me throughout, from 6am that Monday morning, looking after me, entertaining me daily and generally, just being the lovely caring Godmother that she was. She drove me home to Sligo on the day I was discharged-her birthday. The new kneecap felt weird, it felt painful, it felt strange, but it felt freer, in only the way that "good pain" can. I don't mind pain if I can rationalise it. Pain after physio = generally good pain, the muscles have been doing work and are tired. Pain whilst just bending my knee to sit down or when walking from one room to another = bad pain. Simples. And yet, there was another kind of pain going on my life at that point.
As the date for my replacement had approached, my brother was admitted into hospital. Sean didn't do hospitals. Sean didn't get sick. Sean was always healthy. Healthy diet, healthy lifestyle, healthy Sean. It was as simple as that. And yet, he was sick. Follicular Lymphoma, an incurable form of a blood cancer. Incurable, but manageable. But still, we came so close to losing him before they started his chemo that the memories of seeing his skeletal face and arms in the hospital bed, memories of seeing him having to be lifted by Mum & Dad from the car one evening he was allowed to come home, hearing all their cries and not being able to help because I was barely a week post-op broke my heart in ways that I've yet to come to terms with.
As the months passed, Sean got stronger. The chemo did it's trick, we felt would breathe easy a wee bit. My knee started to feel a bit....normal. Not a huge amount of pain, but there was a niggly bump at the top that I wasn't so keen on. Back to the hospital to be told it could be an undissolved stitch, but it should break down. Then the pain started back. A month later, an MRI scan showed it was just bigger and causing problems with my bending and movement. After another month, minor surgery to get it out. Problem solved. Kinda. Towards Christmas, it felt worse. More pain, more stiffness and more uncertainty. Easing back off physio, more consultants appointments, more questions and the diagnosis of scar tissue, with another op scheduled to get rid of it. January 2014 saw an unexpected overnight stay after the "minor" surgery because my body freaked out a wee bit about everything and ended up bleeding for a lot longer than they'd expected. A lot of scar tissue taken out, but a kneecap that could bend freely again....success!
Back to physio, back to home physio, back to work and, inevitably, back to knee pain. Back to the surgeon. Back to surgery. This time, a replacement for part of the replacement. Back to more post-surgery hope, more post-surgery physio, and back to more emotional pain too. My friend Dianne died suddenly at the age of 33, and despite seeing Brian and the girls at her funeral, and knowing she's gone, it still hasn't quite sank in that's gone. At the same time, my Godmother was been diagnosed with a form of cancer, which seemed to be spreading everywhere, including her lungs. That was February. It's now just over 6 weeks since the replacement surgery. It's now just over 5 weeks since I watched my Aunt take her last breath. That has devastated me far more than this knee shite ever could.
If you grew up with Atlantic on your doorstep,and you've surfed or swam in rough waters you might know the feeling of fighting the ocean, and it's waves. You'll know how hard it is to get back up when the pressure and the force of the water is keeping you down, whilst every instinct in you is trying to get you back up so you can breathe. In those moments, you don't know what way up even is anymore, because you've been spun upside down, or done a complete 360 and are completely disorientated.
If, like me, you can see underwater, you can occasionally differentiate between the lighter bluer atmosphere at the top where you need to be and the dull bluey greeny darkness of the sand you're being dragged down toward. It only lasts for a few seconds, but it feels an eternity...and when, just as you break the surface, another wave hits, and you're plunged back into that rushing churning world of breaking bubbles and that salty sea taste running through your nose into your mouth and you find yourself wondering if you can get back up only to be knocked down again, and again, and again..... that feeling of powerlessness, of the loss of hope is one that remains with you for your lifetime. And that's what these last two years have felt like.
I'm re-reading these words and I can't quite believe it's actually two years since it all kicked off. It feels like about 6-8 months. So many things have happened in that space of time that I barely feel I've had time to breathe and comprehend them all. For most of my life, I've been a fairly mellow person-no matter how bad things have been in life, they're survivable. It might not feel like it at the time, but that's where three hugely important aspects of my life coincide and help me through....music & friends & family.
There are so many bits of music I've found comfort in recently, from Fleetwood Mac to Michael Manring to Pink Floyd to Ludivico Eniaudi.....but this is a song I return to all the time. Musically, and lyrically, and visually, this song Tonight, Tonight (www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOG3eus4ZSo) is just one of many that have comforted me over the years, and it's as old as some of my friendships. The line "and our lives are forever changed, we will never be the same" is one that has resonated again and again with me over the last few years with the loss of friends and family.
In my life, I've been amazingly lucky to have found the friends I did over the years. Friends who've gone through their own losses in life, friends who I've witnessed extreme happiness and love with. Friends who know to that it's best to randomly text me because know I'm crap at talking, but will write uber long replies or posts about how i feel. Friends who go outta their way with little things, funny photos, funny texts, lovely pieces of music that they know will make me smile, friends who are just there, even if there is physically a few or hundreds of miles away. Friends who remain the same, despite the passing of the years (and decades in several cases!) They say your friends are the family you choose for yourself, and I consider myself hugely lucky to have such a wonderful family of friends.
My own family are pretty damn awesome too. From the wit and love from my aunts and uncles to the craic from my cousins, from the often maniacal but adorable laughs of my younger nieces to the love and empathy from my oldest niece, from the gentle hugs from my brothers and the constant nose-pulling that my sister insists on doing. (this is why my nose is so long!) From Mum's indecipherable txtspk style texts and her long phonecalls whilst waiting for something to finish in the oven, to Dad's smiley-filled texts and his gentle but evident love in his insistence on trying to help in any situation in any way he can. I cannot emphasise enough just how lucky I was to get the family (and friends!) I got, and how appreciative I am to have so many of them still with me. All of them have known "Ita and her gammy knee" for years....these problems have been around for almost 20 years. I'm still known as Hopalong Callagy to some friends who've known me since due to my recurring bouts on crutches.
So right now, and for the last two years, it's been a headwreck, and I don't believe that bullshitter Lance Armstong's "pain is temporary, quitting lasts forever" crap. Pain is horrible, it's hellish... it's demoralising, it's agonising and it's inadvertently impacted most of my life decisions over the last few years. The only part of that I'll give him credit for is that, in the grand scheme of life, pain is temporary. The longer you live, the shorter that painful time will seem. Weeks, months, years pass, and sometimes, that pain recedes to a dull ache that you almost forget is there. And in some cases, sometimes you discover that somewhere over those years, the pain has gone. My knee isn't there yet, but the hope has finally come back that it's getting there. And sometimes, that hope is all that's needed to keep on going.
This made for interesting reading for me recently.
http://safepatientproject.org/posts/4984-guest-post-does-your-joint-replacement-have-a-warranty-by-brian-hatten-m-d
(For those of you too lazy to click the link, or read it all, it's basically an article wondering if replacement joints, i.e. knees/hips etc, should come with a warranty and, if so, how much of a one!)
Having had so much trouble with my knee/kneecap and it's replacement since last year, it set me wondering would it have made any difference to me had there been some form of a warranty with it. Probably not. The same problems would still have happened. The best thing I can say that's come of it all is that because I (and now 5 others) have had problems with it, the company have promised to revise the implant. Whether that's just an idle promise to placate my surgeon, I don't know. I'd like to hope it's not, because I wouldn't wish what this knee and I went through on anyone.
It's kinda hard to describe how this knee and now, new kneecap has affected me, because it's been going on so long. It's now two years since my knee started getting so bad that I figured I should get it checked out properly. Two years of consultants waiting rooms, their offices, x-rays, mri scans, hospital pre-op tests, arthroscopies (x2) minor operations (x2) and major operations (x2). My knee and leg had barely had time to recover from one operation before it was on to the next. Two years of almost daily pain, of popping painkillers, of constantly trying out new forms of "freeze sprays" and anti-inflammatory creams that promised to take away the pain for a little while. (2-5 minutes pain relief. Averaged about a euro a minute.) Two years of aching to kick a ball, aching to go for a run, aching to go for a long walk up a mountain, aching to go for a cycle, and occasionally, crying my eyes out in a peculiar mixture of jealousy and utter devastation at those folk I saw being able to do all of those simple things in the knowledge that I couldn't.
This gammy knee has become such an entity that even my four year old niece goes out of her way to make up games we can play that don't require me to chase her or kneel down whilst playing. When with her, there's nothing that evokes more disappointment in me than hearing her thinking out loud as to how we can make chasing slow and painless for me, instead of thinking about her own enjoyment. Don't get me wrong, it's awesome that she's so considerate, and so lovely. But I wish she didn't have to be considerate and lovely about me.
I know my way around my physio's machines blindfolded. I know the looks of "what-the-hell-is-going-on-here-now-why-isn't-this-treatment-working?!" that have flitted across both his, and my consultant's face over the last 2 years as varying things have gone wrong, an undissolved stitch, scar tissue, random pain in unpredictable places. What's more frustrating is a routines that can be fine one session and leave me thinking things are finally coming good, is the same one in the next session that leaves me hobbling in pain and using my physio's name as a swear word-which he doesn't quite deserve!
It's the constant dashing of hope that has frustrated me most. Each time I went under the knife, it was with the hope that *this* would fix things, that this one would be my last. And every time, something else has happened to ensure that it wasn't. The first arthroscopy in 2012 was almost a relief. It proved to me that the pain wasn't psychosomatic, there was damage in the joint, there was "bone debris floating around" from where the kneecap had been occasionally grinding off other bits of bone, a tear in the meniscus and the cartilage was fairly shot. Next stop was cortisone injections.
Having had one done by a consultant in Sligo, I didn't hold much faith in them. Sligo consultant's bedside manner consisted of "this might hurt....there you go....*very worried look on his face as a bump the size of my kneecap appeared at the injection site and I almost passed out with the pain*....umm....your knee shouldn't swell like that....just go home and rest it". The injection left me in utter agony and I had hop down the corridors of the General to the physio dept to get a set of crutches so I could feasibly make my way home.
Cortisone injection in 2012 proved a much more enjoyable experience, in only the way having areas of your body frozen and numbed can be. It gave me about 4 days of painfree movement (I could even do stairs!) before I had to ring the consultant, at which point, he tentatively mentioned replacements and recommended me onto another consultant. A few months later, early 2013, arthroscopy no 2 beckoned, and when I came round after it, he politely informed me that there was an awful lot more damage than he'd expected and that a replacement kneecap, a button at the back of the kneecap, resurfacing of the femur and two titanium screws should see it right. So, 2 months of physio to get over the arthroscopy and to build the muscles for their inevitable decay post-replacement op.
July 28th 2013, the replacement happened. My Aunt Anne was with me throughout, from 6am that Monday morning, looking after me, entertaining me daily and generally, just being the lovely caring Godmother that she was. She drove me home to Sligo on the day I was discharged-her birthday. The new kneecap felt weird, it felt painful, it felt strange, but it felt freer, in only the way that "good pain" can. I don't mind pain if I can rationalise it. Pain after physio = generally good pain, the muscles have been doing work and are tired. Pain whilst just bending my knee to sit down or when walking from one room to another = bad pain. Simples. And yet, there was another kind of pain going on my life at that point.
As the date for my replacement had approached, my brother was admitted into hospital. Sean didn't do hospitals. Sean didn't get sick. Sean was always healthy. Healthy diet, healthy lifestyle, healthy Sean. It was as simple as that. And yet, he was sick. Follicular Lymphoma, an incurable form of a blood cancer. Incurable, but manageable. But still, we came so close to losing him before they started his chemo that the memories of seeing his skeletal face and arms in the hospital bed, memories of seeing him having to be lifted by Mum & Dad from the car one evening he was allowed to come home, hearing all their cries and not being able to help because I was barely a week post-op broke my heart in ways that I've yet to come to terms with.
As the months passed, Sean got stronger. The chemo did it's trick, we felt would breathe easy a wee bit. My knee started to feel a bit....normal. Not a huge amount of pain, but there was a niggly bump at the top that I wasn't so keen on. Back to the hospital to be told it could be an undissolved stitch, but it should break down. Then the pain started back. A month later, an MRI scan showed it was just bigger and causing problems with my bending and movement. After another month, minor surgery to get it out. Problem solved. Kinda. Towards Christmas, it felt worse. More pain, more stiffness and more uncertainty. Easing back off physio, more consultants appointments, more questions and the diagnosis of scar tissue, with another op scheduled to get rid of it. January 2014 saw an unexpected overnight stay after the "minor" surgery because my body freaked out a wee bit about everything and ended up bleeding for a lot longer than they'd expected. A lot of scar tissue taken out, but a kneecap that could bend freely again....success!
Back to physio, back to home physio, back to work and, inevitably, back to knee pain. Back to the surgeon. Back to surgery. This time, a replacement for part of the replacement. Back to more post-surgery hope, more post-surgery physio, and back to more emotional pain too. My friend Dianne died suddenly at the age of 33, and despite seeing Brian and the girls at her funeral, and knowing she's gone, it still hasn't quite sank in that's gone. At the same time, my Godmother was been diagnosed with a form of cancer, which seemed to be spreading everywhere, including her lungs. That was February. It's now just over 6 weeks since the replacement surgery. It's now just over 5 weeks since I watched my Aunt take her last breath. That has devastated me far more than this knee shite ever could.
If you grew up with Atlantic on your doorstep,and you've surfed or swam in rough waters you might know the feeling of fighting the ocean, and it's waves. You'll know how hard it is to get back up when the pressure and the force of the water is keeping you down, whilst every instinct in you is trying to get you back up so you can breathe. In those moments, you don't know what way up even is anymore, because you've been spun upside down, or done a complete 360 and are completely disorientated.
If, like me, you can see underwater, you can occasionally differentiate between the lighter bluer atmosphere at the top where you need to be and the dull bluey greeny darkness of the sand you're being dragged down toward. It only lasts for a few seconds, but it feels an eternity...and when, just as you break the surface, another wave hits, and you're plunged back into that rushing churning world of breaking bubbles and that salty sea taste running through your nose into your mouth and you find yourself wondering if you can get back up only to be knocked down again, and again, and again..... that feeling of powerlessness, of the loss of hope is one that remains with you for your lifetime. And that's what these last two years have felt like.
I'm re-reading these words and I can't quite believe it's actually two years since it all kicked off. It feels like about 6-8 months. So many things have happened in that space of time that I barely feel I've had time to breathe and comprehend them all. For most of my life, I've been a fairly mellow person-no matter how bad things have been in life, they're survivable. It might not feel like it at the time, but that's where three hugely important aspects of my life coincide and help me through....music & friends & family.
There are so many bits of music I've found comfort in recently, from Fleetwood Mac to Michael Manring to Pink Floyd to Ludivico Eniaudi.....but this is a song I return to all the time. Musically, and lyrically, and visually, this song Tonight, Tonight (www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOG3eus4ZSo) is just one of many that have comforted me over the years, and it's as old as some of my friendships. The line "and our lives are forever changed, we will never be the same" is one that has resonated again and again with me over the last few years with the loss of friends and family.
In my life, I've been amazingly lucky to have found the friends I did over the years. Friends who've gone through their own losses in life, friends who I've witnessed extreme happiness and love with. Friends who know to that it's best to randomly text me because know I'm crap at talking, but will write uber long replies or posts about how i feel. Friends who go outta their way with little things, funny photos, funny texts, lovely pieces of music that they know will make me smile, friends who are just there, even if there is physically a few or hundreds of miles away. Friends who remain the same, despite the passing of the years (and decades in several cases!) They say your friends are the family you choose for yourself, and I consider myself hugely lucky to have such a wonderful family of friends.
My own family are pretty damn awesome too. From the wit and love from my aunts and uncles to the craic from my cousins, from the often maniacal but adorable laughs of my younger nieces to the love and empathy from my oldest niece, from the gentle hugs from my brothers and the constant nose-pulling that my sister insists on doing. (this is why my nose is so long!) From Mum's indecipherable txtspk style texts and her long phonecalls whilst waiting for something to finish in the oven, to Dad's smiley-filled texts and his gentle but evident love in his insistence on trying to help in any situation in any way he can. I cannot emphasise enough just how lucky I was to get the family (and friends!) I got, and how appreciative I am to have so many of them still with me. All of them have known "Ita and her gammy knee" for years....these problems have been around for almost 20 years. I'm still known as Hopalong Callagy to some friends who've known me since due to my recurring bouts on crutches.
So right now, and for the last two years, it's been a headwreck, and I don't believe that bullshitter Lance Armstong's "pain is temporary, quitting lasts forever" crap. Pain is horrible, it's hellish... it's demoralising, it's agonising and it's inadvertently impacted most of my life decisions over the last few years. The only part of that I'll give him credit for is that, in the grand scheme of life, pain is temporary. The longer you live, the shorter that painful time will seem. Weeks, months, years pass, and sometimes, that pain recedes to a dull ache that you almost forget is there. And in some cases, sometimes you discover that somewhere over those years, the pain has gone. My knee isn't there yet, but the hope has finally come back that it's getting there. And sometimes, that hope is all that's needed to keep on going.
Monday, May 26, 2014
Sunsets and smiles...
This was technically the last sunset of my Aunt's life, around this time three weeks ago. By the time the sun went down the next evening, she was no longer with us.
The last few weeks have been a bit of a blur, and grief is doing that wonderful ninja like action, just catching me out when i least expect it. There's days when i think i'm doing ok and i genuinely feel it and then there's days like today which i've spent pretty much curled up watching old episodes of scrubs doing nothing but having that stomach churning horrible feeling in the knowledge that my Aunt is gone and remembering moments shared with her throughout the years. Every day is different, different emotions, different moods, different memories...and i'm still not sure how i should be dealing with it...
This last week has been pretty different too, having spent it sorting out and packing up the last six years of my life into varying bags and boxes. It'll be strange leaving this house, my lovely landlord and this room. So many memories that made me smile, notes from my nieces, cards & love letters from the man who stole my heart, old funny photos, cds, tapes, tshirts.... all with memories attached, mostly ones that made me smile.
When i first moved here, i thought i might be here for a year or two...and then time passed, and all of a sudden, almost six years have passed. In a way, i'm glad to be going as the last few years here have not been kind-sudden deaths of family & friends, expected deaths of family and friends and it just feels like it's been a stream of bad news here for the last ages...so even if i'm to be getting bad news somewhere else, at least it's a fresh start of sorts!
For some reason, earlier when I started this post, I felt like writing tonight, but now that i've started, the words aren't quite flowing the way they should, which is probably a sign that I should stop writing!
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