Car

Dateline: Monday May 8th, 2017, St, John's

It's like this. Everything happens at once. My car lease is up next month, my tourist season has started, word got out my forte is filing delinquent tax returns and some are dribbling in, and I'm busy minimalising and bagging and donating excess, and oh yeah, my domain went down and new owners of same could not be traced through multiple sales of the domain holding company so I lost my address book and my domain name and the website I've had for 20+ years. And it's like the Irish pension I tried to get, I just don't have the energy anymore to keep chasing down my rights. Whatever they are - do we still have any? Do exhausted elders?

Daughter came for dinner yesterday. Her main purpose, apart from dinner, was to get me up to the Tigeen to survey what I was taking from there and to tidy up after the winter. I was terrified of the climb up. But I took one of my sticks and paused many times, the pain can be mind-numbing, but I made it. It was very emotional as I love it so much up there and Ansa and I spent so much time in this wee paradise as did some very interesting artist guests. Ansa'd go off up back and explore the woods. I'd write or just soak in the entire bay and the birds down below. But I am always mindful of attachment and hope the next person to inhabit this space will take as much pleasure in it as I did.

Speaking of, I was approached by a local who is interested in purchasing my little estate and batted not an eye at the price I'm asking. He needs to convince his wife, as he's in love with the place.

Encouragement

-------------------------------------my mantra------------------------------------

I get encouragement from unexpected sources.

I'm not a person who's greatly disciplined.

I have routines that give me pleasure. The slog work I tend to avoid.

I envy others who can pack the slog and pleasure into a smooth run. I watch them wipe counters and brush up as they accomplish other tasks. Like a a ballet.

I'm a reactive housekeeper. I'll clean up like a mad thing if you're coming over. I've been known to pile up dishes because I don't have time to unload the dishwasher as I'm too busy binding a handcrafted afghan or immersed in an unputdownable book or writing a chapter or prepping a workshop.

I get private emails from those who read my blog. And sometimes it's a lash with a wet noodle.

One of them recently had me mulling - in a good way. (S)he questioned why I salivated over others' words in books when I should be working more on my own creative words.

Another, who lives in France, wrote me directly having lurked on my blog for years, and asked me why I'd never finished my thoughts on emigration from Ireland as she could relate. So yes, I need to concentrate more on writing.

I did write a piece on emigration but it was brutal, savage, blunt and harsh. And I hesitated with it, filed it away. But honesty can be brutal. Honesty can be harsh. But as Granny said: hesitation buys no tea.

Maybe I do need to back away for a while from distractions. And salt myself away in the Tigeen and write.

Encouragement.
It wakes me up.
I need that.

Blog Jam

Ansa's getting old. Really old. Bad incident last night with her bleeding from her mouth all over the downstairs. I think her cataracts cause her to bump into things. At first I thought it was another animal attack outside but there were no scratches on her face and I think she pierced her lip with a tooth when she ran into something in her 2 minutes out of my sight. I can't get near her jaw to check.

Tonight she got stuck on the floor. I'm not an engineer and she's a heavy dog + bad back here too. I tried a sling with a sheet and then as she licks my hand (gawd, it breaks your heart it does) I heave upwards with her back end and she lets me. We are both weepy from the indignity and the effort. Problem solved. For now. I've now banned her from the office as she won't walk on the rugs laid down all over it. Dog are like that, delicately stepping around all safety measures. She's on the back hall big rug now. I may have to fence her in a little more.

Meanwhile my PG* has fallen so deeply in love with Newfoundland he's bought a house here and is not going back to the U.S. but is outsourcing the sale and disposal of his properties in Massachusetts. Imagine. I don't think it's my delicate crepes for breakfast or my wee Tigeen doing the trick but how lovely. He is enchanted. As I was and am. The fairies got him too, as the saying goes.

We have our big community midday dinner tomorrow. Hot turkey meal, veggies, dessert, tea/coffee all for $12.00. I mean seriously. I couldn't cook it for that.

I made an old recipe from Ireland tonight. It was served in spring when there were more winter onions than they knew what to do with left over hanging from the rafters in the barns and sheds, so they'd be incorporated into a lovely whole wheat bread. Lashings of them. Usually served for breakfast with an egg or two. The carmelized onions sit on the bottom of the pan when you stick the loaf in the oven and then they swim their way through the bread, some breaking rhrough the top. Heav-en-lee.

*Paying guest

Reboot

A view from the Tigeen today. Gorgeous November weather.

Thanks for all the support, some private, some commenting on my last post.

I surprised myself by climbing back on the saddle almost immediately and I must say my output has been prodigious in the last while. Two short stories, one brand new and a play sent off for performance in February. Off. Did you hear that? Off.

I do apologise for not visiting all of you as frequently as I did. But amends will be made.

I have to put the head down and novelize in the next wee while as the creative juices have never been better. In quite a long while.

I wish I could bottle it when I feel this engaged with writing and over the hump of personal misery and/or writer's block you know? And give it away for free to all you toiling writers out there.

I decided to move the writer's domain out of the office and into what I call the family room (the old kitchen). I keyboard and edit in front of the fire with a rolling unit that holds printer and laptop and files and binders I can shove out of the way as needs be. It seems to really work quite well. I shut down the Tigeen today. The lowering sun does not charge up the panels in the winter and the outside rain barrel hosepipe to the sink freezes in the frost.

A friend and I are working on a small supplemental wind turbine to provide additional power.

And this, my friends, is what's happening next door. In its third month of digging. The camera can't quite capture the vastness of landscape destruction. I just about cry when I look over. So I won't.

Irony

It's odd this. But I have 3 places to stay in France. Free. And other distant places too, truth be known. And I can't afford the travel costs. Not just the airfare, though that would be a bit of a slice of money. But travelling around once I reach the destination. And food. And wee giftees. It all adds up. Until I have the bestseller. Ha.

Then another friend has decided to spend her fortune when she retires renting exotic places around the world for a month or two and then inviting her close friends to visit her and stay as long as they wanted. All they'd have to pay are their airfares and then head for Patagonia or Hong Kong or the Outer Hebrides where she'd be. Food and shelter provided. Again, I have to laugh. Airfares being a huge chunk of change for this pensioner.

A beloved niece sent me a lovely note about her upcoming wedding. Advance warning. A year in fact. To please be there. I'm going to try. I'd like to be there as I'm extremely fond of her. As I am of all my nieces.

The more I read of elders' writing (mainly solitary women, but some men) the more I realize how many of us are impoverished. Dreading expensive dental work or intensive house repairs or increases in rent or a new car. On the edge of financial catastrophe so to speak. Travel is in the class of bon-bon, a frippery.

I'm not complaining, in case you think I am. Not at all. I have my health, my writing and the odd wee fee for workshops, etc. And my knitting. And my photo-cards. And my books. And my darling Tigeen with a bonus of some rentals thrown my way.

And I buy the very best coffee beans. Always. One thing in my life is simply not negotiable.

Luxurious living is all in the mind.

And excellent coffee helps.

Jazz Writin'

Charlie Parker.

Diana Krall.

Ella Fitzgerald

Peggy Lee

Thelonius Monk.

Oscar Peterson.

Today I was up in the Tigeen writing some complicated dialogue that needed to read well and effortlessly.

Normally I just listen to the sound of the ocean, its distant soughing on the stones of the beach, trees sighing and rustling around me, birds flitting mindful of my privacy.

But today I tried a jazz soundtrack in the background. I created a playlist for the book I'm winding up. My protagonist is a jazz singer in the style of Peggy/Ella evolving towards Diana. And I wanted the rhythm of jazz in the talk. If that makes sense.

And I was surprised.

It worked.

Mind Control

I'm up at the Tigeen. Replete with deadlines. Replete. What a great word. Let me think about that for a minute or two.

I say to Leo a few hours ago as he shoots up and down the back 40 7+acres - please bring up a few logs to the Tigeen, it's a fire lighting day and I'm nearly fresh out. Leo nods, agrees and then ignores me. He does this a lot. I have to accept it. On his own time. And here he is now.....

As I pondered the shortfall of wood for the wee stove I thought: I have a lot of old wool there, I should knit a carrier for wood. Wool and wood. With a long wood handle. Open ended. Something to design and make up here when my muse, Scriobhnarin, flees. As she has done.

Knitting pushes the writing around, fills my head with fresh thoughts and approaches. I need to read, edit, add notes, descriptions, fill in the voids of symphonic phraseology(!). Attempt lyricism. Knitting plays the counterpoint to this.

And Sister gave me a brand new knitting bag when I was back home.

As if I don't have enough already.

Confluence

I'm applying for an arts grant. A few pennies to throw food on the table as I write WW1 scenes for this novel and edit it and wind it up. Yeah it's work, it's a struggle, but when it goes right, I'm in my bliss. And no, there's no daddywarbucks in my life. Just me on a fixed paltry income.

I've already assembled my team of First Readers, except for maybe one more. If you'd like to be on it, drop me a line, see email addie on the left side of the blog. October 15th is my deadline to release to the team.

There I've said it. October 15th.

Anyways. I'm here today, with pictures and details of the Battle of the Somme, careful graphs of dates and ages. Ritz Hotel in Paris in 1970. Etc. It's intense. I saw the inside of the Ritz once. 1965. Close enough, right? unless they made changes without telling me.

And then, sweet Dog, the work starts on my house. Not simple work understand. Complicated banging, scraping and unfolding rotting foundations work. So much so that the dog crawls under my desk and whimpers, "Sorry I can't defend you against these ravening hordes. Sometimes it's just all too much for me. I'm old, see."

A simple scrape and slap on the paint job is just not happening. Rot. Old doors. Damp buildup. 11 window panes need replacing. Fresh new lumber trucked over from the lumberyard across the bay for part of the foundations. Banging, did I talk banging? And how do I afford this add-on horror to the original barely manageable financially job?

And I think as I write: this is nothing. Imagine those WW1 trenches.

And no, I can't go to my Tigeen. There's a 3 foot drop outside my back door. Into mud. I am moated with extreme sound effects while I summarize my 75% completed book begging for a measley arts grant.

And you think you've got problems.

Surreality

View from the Tigeen

I'm up over the trees and the birds and the ocean in my Tigeen. Where good stuff happens. Like writing. Like musing.

And then, a half an hour ago, I hear the sounds of the cemetery mass floating on the air towards me. Crystal clear. Something I'd never hear in my house below.

This is a combination of the placement of the Tigeen, the prevailing breeze and acoustics.

The sermon arrives at me intact. The bits of singing, the readings. The sounds of my childhood and some adult years. The pray-for-usses, the pleadings, the begging of Himself, the Invisible Cosmic Housekeeper, to do what he is requested but only if it is his will - a wonderful form of circular thinking. And a win-win for those requested to intercede to end the suffering, or grant the wishes. I used to wonder - even when practising these rituals - about that. As in why bother praying (and paying) if he's going to do what he damn well pleases anyway?

I am so detached from all of that mumbo-jumbo now, a bemused ear is thrown over to the graveyard. A reflection on all the money collected for these lamentations and laundry lists.

"Oh Lamb of God" I hear as I type this, "Fear not I will come for thee". Yelled very loudly by he who officiates, white biscuit held high above his head I would imagine.

And then I imagine ICH convulsed on a cloud, snorting uncontrollably, finally collapsing in helpless laughter.

Write? Right, She Said!

Yes, I'm up at the Tigeen where the writing flows non-stop in waves of literate and compelling paragraphs.

NOT!

See above.

See below.

Handcream I need handcream, I have to go back down to the house.
Those early notes I made in that notebook need to be up here, I have to go back down to the house again.
Chilly – a bit? - I need to light a fire.
Oh, not enough wood.
Oh, not enough kindling.
I need to go down to the barn and bring some up.
Where's the dog?
I should bring up her dog dish and fill it.
Did I bring up enough food for lunch?
Coffee. Not enough coffee.
Oh, let me write a few notes for the blog.
I think I should test-drive the loft bed, just for a few minutes.

Sharpening Life on the Whetstone of Mortality.

This is the view today as I write. The blue fog in the distance is rare.

A dear blog friend has been given the news we all dread and she is brave and honest as to how she is accepting this. I've known a few, far too few, like her. Most run for cover or under the covers. I honestly don't know how I would be in such circumstances. Frightened for sure. In massive denial? I don't know. Bargaining perhaps. Rageful. Grim. Dramatic. I just don't know.

All I know is I am grateful I have her in my life because she has given me this gift of putting my own life under the microscope and evaluating how I am treating it.

Not well this year, I'm afraid. Until now. My procrastination (deliberate chaos creation) has been particularly rampant. So today, thanks to my friend, I am changing one small thing. This is what one does, I've learned: Change one small thing for the better.

So I resolved to spend at least 4 hours a day in the Tigeen - when it's not rented out. Up there above the trees and the blue bay, above the birds and the boats and with the cleanest air, there is no internet, no phone. Well I could bring up my mobile, but I didn't, I'm disconnected.

I\m currently working on the several delightful writing commissions I've been fortunate to get. Taking this break to take a photograph and write a blog post.

My espresso latte is in a flask. My blue pencils are sharpened. I can read aloud, loudly aloud as if on stage (and this feels like a huge stage) to myself – and to the dog.

And I'm re-introduced to my bliss.

Thank you, my dear friend.

Birthing the Dream

Sunset from the Tigeen

If you're a regular reader you'll remember this recent post.

And when you do a start-up, you never know, do you? Well I was beside myself today when I got my first booking for the Tigeen: An American writer-in-residence who wants to spend 2 days in my wee cabin and tour the Avalon before heading off to her summer position about 400K from here.

I am so chuffed at how my friends have gathered around with suggestions, promotions and downright support and accolades about the Tigeen to anyone who will listen to them. For instance, tonight the author sister of a good friend is promoting it in a broadcast to her connections.

Now, I'm holding my horses, this may be the only booking. But hell, isn't it so very lovely when this dream, after such a long incubation, has become so very much ALIVE?

A touch of the excitement.

View from the deck of the Tigeen* today.

I don't know how many businesses I've been involved in/owned-operated/partnered in but I could offer you a partial list:

Catering company
Accounting Tax Service/Bookkeeping company
Answering Service
Boarding House
Landlord

And today, with the phenomenal help of Daughter who cracks that whip (quite lovingly), I launched another. Yes, The Tigeen is finally ready for rent. Well, just about ready.

We cleaned up there. We lit the wood stove. We ran the vacuum cleaner off the solar panel electricity and also the wee fridge and the lights. And she held fast. And the power didn't run out. We hung out the quilts and pillows in the sun. She is gorgeous. She has no environmental footprint. Whatsoever. Rain water from the barrel. Composting toilet.

Loft bed with skylight - you should see the stars at night as you lie on this bed!

It will be of particular interest to writers and artists who crave solitude and beauty as it overlooks the entire bay and is nestled high above the trees. You can look down on eagles and grackles and blue jays flying around.

I absolutely adore this wee place, so compact and peaceful and just extraordinary.

It was a long held dream, this beautiful Tigeen, and I so loved designing every small component of it. It's like she lived in me for a very long time and finally was born.

Now I'll see if others appreciate it the way I do.

Woodstove in the Tigeen.

*little house in Irish.

A Candle and a Coffee and a Journal.

I took these three things in hand tonight and headed up to the Tigeen at the crest of the hill behind my house. I was feeling terribly sad. Loss does this.

We have smog from the awful Labrador and Quebec wildfires which has drifted downward from there, many kilometres. It makes of the bay a magical place. Headlands disappear and the sun does strange things, peeking outwards from the smog and hiding again. A golden glow washes the water followed by a pink bath. Nothing is clear. If I were a painter I would set up an easel right there on the wee deck of the Tigeen and get cracking. As it was, I lit the candle and wrote in my journal. Of grief and loss and what it does to the insides, how it bathes everything in uncertainty, much like the drifting smoke that travelled so far south with the winds and the breezes and the currents of the ocean. Who is to peek inside another's heart?

I came back down to the main house and shared a few bits on Facebook, about the awful fiery explosions in Quebec from the train wreck, loaded with fracked oil. So many dead or missing. Perspective.

And then an old friend from Ontario called. Late-ish. And in the way of dear old friends, soothed my spirit, patted me down, reassured me of my value to her. I so needed that. And I told her so.

Solitude can sometimes be a fearsome thing.

Running Away

No I haven't. But it sounds appealing. One of my acquaintances is off to northern Greenland. Now normally I wouldn't be envious. Not one bit. But today I am.

But I am ever mindful no matter where I go, there I am. Everything is an effort. Dressing, showering, cooking, working. Being civil is a huge stretch. I normally don't tolerate fools well but at the moment I am just about hissing when confronted with one. Odd that, how many hapless eejits can walk into your life when you have the message out there: Don't. Come. Near. Me.

My little Teachín - or Tigeen,which is easier to say - has had her fair share of trouble. Gordon-The-Gift is just back from Labrador and we discovered the lovely wood floor had heaved in the month and half he was away even though well insulated. He figures he didn't allow room for "breathing" and also used some fancy long staples when nails would have been better. I feel more badly for him than myself as he has to go back to Labrador tomorrow ("Big Money") and won't be back to fix the floor ("No problem - I'll take it all up and reinstall and not charge you")for another six weeks. He tells me he is poisoned at himself. Meanwhile the solar panel (imagine! no electricity bill!) works well and the rain barrel is installed.

The wee washroom is looking good apart from the fact I can't find a micro corner sink anywhere (6"-8") even in marine/nautical/RV suppliers. I saw a perfect one in my friends' washroom in Dublin but I lacked the tools to secretly pry it off their wall and into my luggage.

This too shall pass. One foot in front of the other. I am comforted to know that I am not alone. Your emails and comments are as a balm to my spirit and I thank you all. I find routine is a salvation. Doing the do things, suiting up and showing up. Sometimes mindlessly. But a far better choice than hiding, disengaged, under the covers hoping for the world to blow away.