Of Tides and Jupiter

I note the tide getting higher, during leap tides, than it has been previously in front of my window. It jumps over my small bridge to the shore and lies there, smugly, annoyingly, blocking my access to the beach for a couple of hours. Twice a day. Twice a year.

Two times a year, spring tides, or leap tides, are exceptionally high, close to forty percent higher. This is due to a change in the moon's distance from us. The moon is actually 30,000 miles closer than usual, and as we've stated, the closer you are, the greater the gravitational force.

Rising tides, global warming. Will one eventually swamp my house, set it free, floating, bobbing gently as it sweeps out into the broad Atlantic. Ireland will be underwater by then and so will England and who knows how many other countries. So where will we wind up, my house and I? On top of some mountain no doubt. Like Noah's ark.

I watch Jupiter nightly, it is so bright. Our nights here are star-studded, I imagine I can touch them.

I think how dare we, us paltry planet earth types, name these galaxies, these other planets, these stars. Ownership. As if. Who knows what these planets call themselves. And how can we say they are 'uninhabited'? Because our poor little eyes cannot see or our dismal ears hear or our limited intelligence understand?

Perhaps we are the lowliest species in space. Humanoids that are pitied for our inability to get along, to co-habit with each other in peace and harmony. Held up as the bad example of how awful the destruction of one tiny planet can be when rampant over-population and greed take over.

I know. Inside my mind is a dangerous neighbourhood and I should never go in there alone.

A Man Called Willy Dineen

The tide is turning as I write, doing that brief wrastling little dance it does, it's magical. I do so hope we don't find creatures on the moon and blow them into democracy too for I would so miss the tides. Along with my inner tide. Apart from female lunar cycles, I often wonder about its powerful bearing on everyone else. We understand so little about the moon.

No, let me call Luna 'her'. The goddess. She who controls so much of the doings on earth. Silently, quietly. I had an ancestor who would get in his wee currach on a night of a full moon and go out into the middle of the harbour and anchor there. He would then proceed to lean on his oars, throw his head back and sing away to her. All through her slow cruise along the navy blue sky. When she dipped below the horizon he would row to shore and go home. Probably to his mammy. For I wondered who would have married him. I think I would have. For what's wrong with a man who sings to the moon?

The odd thing about this relative (I could be wrong but I think his name was Willy Dineen) my father's second cousin, twice removed or something, was that he was shared with my ex-husband's family. So we figured out we were sorta third cousins sharing Singing Willy. A bit of shame attached to Willy and the full moon, for they all thought he was cracked. I didn't. And he only came to light when both our families were sitting down around the table one night untangling the long knitted strings of Irish relationships which spreads like a blanket over the entire 32 counties. And beyond, if you're inclined. A hobby which is fully present and accounted for in Newfoundland also. I could listen for hours to this kind of talk while it uncovers long forgotten marriages, dead babies and cursed families and people buried outside the churchyard in the dead of night. For Willy paid no attention to the church at all and was buried in 'unsanctified' as befitted his pagan leanings.

Ah, there should be a Willy Dineen in everyone's family. To give it a bit of spice. To tell us all we're not as green as we're cabbage-looking. Another fine turn of an Irish phrase you may not have heard before.

If I had stronger arms and could get at a currach, you'd find me out in the bay here of a full moon night, listening to the echo of my voice all around the bay while above me Luna grins her Mona Lisa.

MOMENTS

Did you ever see the tide turning?

It hardly lasts a few breaths.

The birds sense it in their very bones and clear the way for it. Some flying off to watch from nearby trees. Others, like the loons, too unwieldy to march to shore, diving beneath the warring waves until the battle is over.

More of a skirmish, really. With a foregone conclusion.

Sometimes the moon comes out and gazes upon the havoc that she creates. You can catch her unwavering smile if you can tear your eyes away from the water.

And then it’s all over. Order is restored to the tussling waves. The moon goes back behind a cloud, all shy and innocent.

You’d never know it happened.

The Moon and I

It's all in my head, some may tell me. But the phases of the moon affect me. Maybe that's because I'm part-lunatic. Certain stray branches in the old family tree point that way. A great-great uncle would paddle out in his currach and sing to the moon most weeknights. "Appeasing her" my grandmother would tell me in all seriousness. Maybe I don't do enough of it. Appeasing that is. It not being in my nature 'n all. Being a part-lunatic, you see.

I'm still a mad fan of Gilbert & Sullivan. I sang those operettas for a few years in Cork under the able direction of James N. Healy, himself a true eccentric. Hang on, this is going somewhere.

I often sing this to myself when the moon calls me:

Observe his flame,
That placid dame,
The moon's Celestial Highness;
There's not a trace
Upon her face
Of diffidence or shyness:
She borrows light
That, through the night,
Mankind may all acclaim her!
And, truth to tell,
She lights up well,
So I, for one, don't blame her!

Ah, pray make no mistake,
We are not shy;
We're very wide awake,
The moon and I!
Ah, pray make no mistake,
We are not shy;
We're very wide awake,
The moon and I!

It's from the Mikado

I think it a very good thing to be slightly mad. I'm getting better at it as I age.