The last ember of the year, fizzling and dying. Pauline writes so beautifully of twigs and birds. E writes of creating new memories.
I am inspired by such writings for many reasons. There's nothing wrong with a lonely old month. I do have choices. I force myself out the door to a large gathering of turkey eaters yesterday. I bring my camera to such events which gives me purpose and avoidance of small talk. I am so hopeless at small talk. I must have missed those lessons early on in life.
Small talk lessons:
# 1: The weather
# 2: Clothes, hair styles, makeup, nails, OMG shoes!
# 3: Vacations in the sun. Cruises.
# 4: Neighbours.
# 5: Christmas, shopping for, cooking for, baking for, preparing for.
I get tongue-tied or glazed over or both. I also have the challenge of being the only genuine Irish person on the whole peninsula who chose to live in Newfoundland so I am the resident expert on all things Irish and everyone here has visited Ireland at least once and wants to talk about the enchanted land forever and ever amen. (Um, I emigrated for many reasons, left fairyland behind me, I'm awful, I know, I should go back, yeah.)
Those particular convos can take hours as every tour, every castle, every city and town is stroked and fondled in memory. To me it's massive small talk. So I skedaddle early with my photos and put them up on FB for the town to savour when they get home after the dancing. And we're all happy.
Did I mention the dancing after the feed? (i.e. the scuff after the scoff - I love Newfoundland English). Lots of it. And the Irish music. The sentimental yankee kind, ah, Mother Macree, toorah, loorahs.
I know. I should shut up now.
With the assurance: I do play nicely. I do smileys and happies quite well. And. The big and: the huge, big hearts of Newfoundland people never fail to warm me and revive me and nurture me. They are a breed apart. I've never met the like.
In this lonely old month.
Too much fuss at this season, methinks and those small talk subjects bore me to tears as does most of Facebook, though I can do all that, too...How are things with Doctor P? what are you reading? Had a cat bite, so hard to type today...Hugs to you.
ReplyDeleteBe careful with that cat bite, I got sepsis once, years ago, frightening how infection can race. Facebook can be a life sucker. I limit myself. I see Doctor P again on Thursday. I just started reading "A Cure for Death by Lightening." Just finished "The House at Riverton" a huge tome nearly 500 pages. I think it could have been whittled. How about you?
DeleteThanks for the hugs, backatcha!
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Have a go at her other book "Forgotten Garden". A good read, I found. Ready for a bit of kick arse stuff now - Joe Pike and Elvis Cole.....love'em.
DeleteDo so relate to the circular small talk. Same here, different topics: prices of local Mr. Fix-its, grandchildren (endless), dogs being rescued, who's died, who's ill, who's returned to the UK. All very much what you would expect from an expat community. I try to limit being in such gatherings.
I read "Forgotten Garden" a few years back, loved it - more so than Riverton. Yeah, grandchildren, endless endless stories of. And mind-boggling descriptions of illnesses and medical appointments. Kill me now :)
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Here I sit, among my twigs and birds, delighting in your writing, in your turns of phrase and your ability to write about anything and make it interesting.
ReplyDeleteBut what twigs and birds, Pauline. Ne'er seen the like!
DeleteAnd thank you!
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I am puzzled by people who are nostalgic for the "old country." After all, most of our ancestors left the old sod because they were starving and being tyrannized. Besides, the weather there is terrible!
ReplyDeleteIndeed. .
DeleteThese are people who have never lived there but are enchanted by its spell, Tom. I view myself as a refugee so it becomes a deranged kind of skit. I sit there blankly nodding at their perception and holding my own thoughts tightly. LOL.
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Strange! I am ethnically a Tamil from Tamil Nadu and though born in Bombay, had gone to school in Chennai and have family and friends there. I however have lived most of my life in Maharashtra and here in Pune the last quarter of a century. I am the resident expert on Tamil Nadu and now that Chennai has been hammered by rains and floods, I am now asked about things I do not have a clue about but am expected to be informed!
ReplyDeleteWeird isn't it Ramana? I am so removed from Irish life Apart from the conversations I have w Irish friends who also no longer live there and media of course so it us be like they're talking to Google.
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*must
DeleteI'm no good at small talk, either, although I do better with the grandchildren talk than some do. Because I am visibly "challenged" these days, requiring a cane and sometimes losing weight so rapidly that I look fragile rather than fierce, I get questioned a lot about my health, and then, after brushing that off with a "that's just boring stuff," I have to ask politely about the other's health. Instead, I want to talk about the latest prickly thorn in the path of the novel I'm writing, whether the new movement toward theatrics a la 2Cellos in their performances will revive classical music and enhance its appeal to younger people, how we have civilized conversations about politics again, whether meditation makes anyone else's pulse rate go dangerously low . . . . And so, you see, I soon discover that I have my own brand of inane chit-chat circulating around in my brain all the time, too! It's just not someone else's chit-chat. Seriously, I often feel most alone when in crowds.
ReplyDeleteI also do well with young kids, they are fascinating.
ReplyDeleteYes I find it very lonely too. I just want to talk ideas or passions or Mozart or or or. I am less lonely alone if that makes sense.
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Books........that's my go-to for that malady. "Angle of Repose" by Wallace Stegner is a good'un for the long afternoons and dark evenings.
ReplyDeleteOr, you can do what I do sometimes, post things on my blog that hopefully will irritate the right wing.
I'm the itch on the right wing that never goes away Mike. Did you see that bag of maggots who shall remain nameless may be banned in England?
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He's not nameless in this household! He's called many names. By my Republican husband. And, therein lies my small surviving hope.
DeleteI know about forcing myself to be sociable. Lately,though, I've been feeling quite gregarious.
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