No Time for Nerves

You know the way of it with something important coming up. The nerves take over a bit. Well maybe not for you. But certainly for me. Especially for public speaking. But only if given lead-time. Catch me by the seat of my pants and interview me on TV, so to speak, and off the cuff, I'm grand, just grand.

But I've been so busy over the last few weeks, there hasn't been a minute to fret and worry and construct and tear down the debut of the Seanchaí this weekend. Not to mention the thousands of "what ifs". I scheduled an hour for all that yesterday. I was in the city getting the car serviced and alloted the time between 6 and 7 pm for all that mulling while I rounded a "pond" (i.e. lake in any other corner of the world) on my daily constitutional. But it started to get mauzy, in that way of St. John's and there was a lot of business with the hood and and the zipper and keeping the socks dry and then I had to talk to the widower swan that everyone's paying attention to. He's an angry soul by the name of Oscar and attacks all who try to feed him and then there's his whining babies, the wee cygnets, swimming about. He is completely stressed out, what with the dayjob, the kids and the grief. So by the time I got back to the car, very damp, I realized I hadn't done any stressing myself. Ripped off by selfish Oscar.

And then the work, and a few calls and emails and today is just about shot as I have to be out of here by 5.45 to do some pro-bono work up the road. I say up the road, which is a laugh here. 20km is up the road. So I'm going to allocate 15 minutes in the car to stress and to worry and to fuss about Saturday night.

I'll let you know how that works out. I'm way overdue a good fretting session.

Doors and Windows Open Wide

I'm a firm believer in that if you put something out there, hang a hypothetical sign "Open for New Business", then it will come. Manifestation. Yeah, too woo-ie for some to swallow, but seriously, it has always worked for me.

Today I got a message when I was out, training for the Tely 10.

"Hey----, someone referred you to our company. We're having our annual meeting at W----- Golf and Country Club and we understand you are a story-teller and we would like you to perform after our dinner on June----, if your fee is acceptable to us, are you interested?"

Am I interested?

Can you believe this?

Talk of the speed of a bullet?

Manifestation. I bow before you.

Blog Jam

Do you find that as the world spins more and more out of control males seem to fixate more and more on the world of sports? The gear, the beer, the cheer, the FB postings? I shouldn't say male. Some females of my acquaintance do too. I've always found it an odd pursuit, gaping at widescreen teevee sports, beer and wings and chips and popcorn at the ready, cheering for millionaire unknowns as if one knew them.

In extremis of the above paragraph: the superbowl had the most viewers, the most sexually charged performances, the most human traffic with pimps (an estimated 10,000), the raunchiest, most violent ads., etc., in history. And very few see anything wrong with that.

I'm thinking of starting a more cerebral type of dinner party circle here. A potluck and "bring something to read" event, drifting around to different houses once a month or so. I ran it by a friend today and she was really enthused. Elevating the level of discourse which tends to circle around the 3Ks here in my wee outport. If it doesn't start with me, where does it start. I instigated a really lovely one in Toronto years ago and most of us are still in touch.

I don't know why this story (true) popped into my head today, but it did. About 12 years ago I had a call from another accountant who had her own practice. She said she had to meet with me as she had a very sensitive matter to discuss. The long and the short of it was her son had died. He was a highly successful IT entrepreneur and hadn't filed his taxes in six years which was a total shock to her. A bachelor, he had left everything to her. She couldn't face the boxes and boxes of material he had left behind and engaged me to do the work. Which I did. But the oddest, weirdest thing was the way he died. The overhead fan in his bedroom had stopped working. He took a knife from his kitchen drawer and attempted to tighten one of the screws. The fan started up and the knife flew out of his hand and into his heart. Instant death. 34 years old.

I am preparing a story telling talk. I have so many stories. I really want to tell them. They float in and out of my head to bursting.

All of us should be telling more stories. I remember my granny's and even my great-granny's. And so many in between.

The Seanachaí*

* Irish for storyteller.

Funny this. I write stories. I love writing stories. I embroider or expand or elucidate or embellish. Take your pick. That is what storytellers such as myself do. Give us a sliver of a theme and we will give you a buffet. No headlines for us. It is all in the details of the dishes on the dresser or the fire crackling in the hearth and the sound of the rain tap dancing on the roof late at night.

I write them well, I think. As to actually reading them to an audience, I don't think I do that well, though I would love to. I would love to climb outside myself and pretend I too am in the audience enthralled with the spin of the words coming from the stage. I aspire to that. The loss of self in the telling. Eamon Kelly had such a gift, if you ever want to see one of the greatest Seanachaís of all time in action, have a look at this:



And because I am known a wee bit around these parts as a storyteller, I get sent to old people's houses so I can sit and listen to their tales.

What I don't tell anyone is that while giving all appearances of being raptly attentive to their stories, spruced up and laundered for me, The Seanachaí, I am listening fiercely to what is left unsaid.