Black and White and Denial All Over - Part 5

See Part 1 here
See Part 2 here
See Part 3 here
See Part 4 here


I'm now going to get personal on how the abusive nature of all this patriarchal priestarchy has affected me and my entire life.

BTW - Priestarchy is a term used in a book I'm just finishing up - House of Hate by Percy Janes. I truly can't believe how so much of this book resonated with me. But those reflections are for another time or post.

My father's eldest sister, here I'll call her Elizabeth, was a brilliant woman, a pianist of some local renown when her aspirations were smothered by her mother who had an all consuming belief, fostered by the RC church, that a life on the stage was akin to prostitution. E was thrust into service at the local manse which was headed by a widower, the protestant minister of their town. Encouraged by the reverend, Elizabeth resumed her piano playing and tutorials and the gods smiled and the minister and Elizabeth fell in love despite their age-gap of nearly 30 years.

In the Ireland of 1924 this whole affair had to be kept under wraps. Even for the week after they were secretly married in a little village protestant church many miles from their town, E continued going home every night just as before while the minister arranged a transfer to the North of Ireland. She never said goodbye to her family, she just left for work as usual on their day of departure and took the train from her town to Bangor in Co. Down with her beloved.

When the truth of what had happened hit the family, my grandmother immediately held a wake for her daughter and declared her dead to the family and forbade anyone to mention her name in the house again. An order that only ended on her death in 1958. 34 years of bitterness and estrangement. Her husband, my grandfather, never recovered from the loss of his favourite child, my aunt, and died "broken-hearted" seven years later in 1931.

But more was to come. As they sat in their customary 5th pew of the huge RC church of their town the following Sunday after E had fled with her husband, they were assaulted from the pulpit by the roars of the local parish priest who denounced the family for having "harboured a harlot", and my father, the head altar boy, was removed from his position forthwith. My grandfather, to his credit, marched the whole family out of the church before the mass was over and they did not attend services in that particular church ever again but walked 5 miles every Sunday to a small village church.

You can only imagine the ripple effect this had on my family of birth which continues on to this day.

See Part 6

Black and White and Denial all Over - Part 4

See Part 1 here
See Part 2 here
See Part 3 here

One of my greatest disappointments in life and in the human race is that so few men stand up for women. I've heard from two or three on this blog, private emails, mainly fathers of daughters or granddaughters, but you know what? I never hear from fathers of sons. And that says so much. Women need more men speaking out. Saying "I would never behave that way!" and moving on is just not enough. I have many "good" men in my life but they are silent. Where is the massive male outcry against these misogynistic paedophiles and sadists masquerading as the One True Church?

Maybe it's the old case of Irish people bowing to the masters and never standing up for what is right. The RC church has such an empowering grip on the male psyche enforcing the privilege of being male in this male-driven church. I ask myself: Why on earth would they want to change? Why on earth would they want to fight within this male bastion of droit du seigneur and subsequently be called "pussy-whipped" or worse by their male cohorts?

Another unfortunate case of "I'm alright, Jack - fight for your own justice and equality, woman. But don't ask me to give up anything."


Meanwhile, A recent article shows that men's biggest fear is being laughed at by women while women's biggest fear is being killed by men. Isn't there loads to think about in that one sentence?


The Brehon Laws,long before the arrival of the mythical Saint Patrick to Ireland declared women as fully equal and could inherit and lead. Needless to mention, this was all abolished under the mighty males of Rome. Power and endless propagation being the driver. Forget those stupid Brehon Laws where men and women were equal and Ireland had the most advanced justice system for its time. Where there were no prisons, no crime. And restorative justice prevailed. Yes, there were flaws, but early Christianity brainwashing must have felt severely threatened by such female freedoms. Men's rights to regulate our bodies and what we do with them still prevails.

And yeah, I caught that article in the Irish Times about Ireland being closer to Muslim teachings that anywhere else in the world.

I only have to think of the shame of Savita to realize that nothing has changed in the country of my birth.

To be continued.

Black and White and Denial All Over - Part 3

See Part 1 here
See Part 2 here

And why was my country of birth ripe for such abuses? The GreatPotato FamineHolocaust in Ireland in the 1840s where up to 4 million people were deliberately starved or forced to emigrate - often on so-called coffin ships which drowned them anyway - changing the very landscape of Ireland utterly and forever in many, many ways.

All of the Irish born people I know and have known, including my own large indirect and direct relatives can't tell you how their families survived this "famine". There is a huge sense of shame some historians have it, and also PTSD. The survivors of this "famine" were ripe for further traumatization by the RC church and strict moral guidelines were laid down. Much of this was based on Jansenism a rigid form of Catholicism with firm rules on sexual behaviour. I remember one of my more open-minded teachers interpreting (scoffingly) the procedure for marital sexual intercourse: no removal of clothing, thou shalt not see the naked body of thy spouse and encouraging the denigration of the products of unsacramented coitus as the "spawn of the devil" to be shunned and despised.

There were 250,000 women and children over a 40 year period processed through the Magdalene Laundries, Industrial Schools, Mother & Baby Homes and “orphanages” and "reformatories" - a total of 72 RC church run institutions across the country.

And as of now, all of this shameful history is not taught in the schools. These girls/women/children/babies are deleted and forgotten. Revisionism at its most extreme. Why? Because the RC church still controls the curricula in schools. And embraces the notion that the Irish should remain ignorant of the horrific crimes committed by those who offer them salvation in the hereafter. The twisted mindsets around these shameful betrayals remain and are continually encouraged. Many of my friends and relatives still participate and donate to this abusive cult. Much like victims of the Stockholm syndrome.

Compare this to the school curricula in Germany where students there learn about Hitler and the shame and degradation of the extermination camps and the propaganda of Hitler. So that it doesn't happen again.

In Ireland the swelling of Catholic coffers continues and very little restitution has been paid to the many, many victims of its crimes against humanity - and absolutely no one is addressing the multi-generational effect of the original crimes: the secret sales of children with no official records maintained, the life-long slavery and near starvation of "unwed" mothers and the traumatization of babies and mothers torn apart, along with the deceitful and self-justifying lies told to both the sold babies and the devastated mothers. It was all about the selling price of the children and the capitation grants given to these institutions by the government, subsequently funnelled to the Vatican, one of the wealthiest entities in the world.

To be continued.

Black and White and Denial All Over - Part 2.

Women at their wedding to the greatest polygamist of all time.

Read Part 1 here.

And there are some that come out and talk about the mothers of these "wayward" 14 year old pregnant girls. Why didn't the mother protect them from the incesting father/brother/uncle. You must be joking, would be my response.

The grip of the RC church was so huge that no Irish mother, in the fear of being consigned to hell, for all eternity:

(1) Took birth control
(2) Refused her husband
(3) Worked outside the home, as if she could anyway with endless children to care for.
(4) Even considered divorce - it was illegal.
(5) Separation was the women's fault. She made her bed, why couldn't she lie in it, the slut?
(6) If she did separate from him, her life, poor before, was now abysmal beyond belief with no financial support from state or church and the complete shunning of her neighbours and family. I will write more of the power of shunning later. And she'd heard of women who had to resort to prostitution to make ends meet.

So leaving her husband was out of the question and reprimanding him for molesting her daughters, would result in violence towards herself and the child who told her. Police turned a blind eye, as did the church who would advise her neighbours and family to shun her. Husbands controlled the purse strings and what was donated to the church every Sunday was his and the church's business. He was the cash cow and deserved protection. At all costs.

The RC church was and is a huge business. In Ireland, it controlled the schools and the hospitals, orphanages, reformatories (yeah, right) and homes for the worst sinners of all time: "unwed" mothers, often as young as 12.

Have you read about the conditions in these homes of the "unwed"? As punishment for their sins, they had to give birth:

(1) without medication or pain relief.
(2) when ripped in the process of birthing, as so many of them were, they were forbidden stitching so the subsequent infections added to their pain and often resulted in sterility and lifelong incontinence.
(3) they were forced to wet nurse the babies of mothers who died birthing.
(4) their babies were sold as further punishment to Americans for the highest price donation.
(5) they had to pay to be released from the hell-holes of these institutions or endured years of slavery. Their families viewed them as "damaged goods" so they were unmarriagable and a life long financial burden so were left to rot in these places.

I could go on.

Follow the money has been my mantra for a very long time. The RC church made untold billions from the "simple" Irish people. It paid to keep them breeding like rabbits in and out of wedlock, it all paid off handsomely no matter which way you sliced the product. A per capita amount was paid by the Irish government to the penal institutions for feeding and clothing the "illegitimate" products of rape.

And those "evil bitches" those sisters, married to the Great Son of the Invisible Cosmic Housekeeper? Yes, married. They would wear a veil and don a wedding ring 'n everything for the polygamous wedding ceremony. And, I nearly forgot, had all their hair shaved off, it was a symptom of vanity, they couldn't have anything around that reminded them of their femininity, their very womanhood.

And their husband (Great Son of ICH) spoke to them only through their priest or if they really got rebellious, ICH's henchman, the bishop.

And how were they instructed?

See Part 3.

Black and White and Denial all Over

Part 1 of _____

Another of my lobes has exploded, so enough of my blog-fluff for now:

Tuam. Dead children being tossed in unmarked disused septic tanks in Galway up to 1961. The stark horror of it all. But nothing is black and white is it? The debate can rage on if it was or wasn't a septic tank. Distraction from the huge black elephant lounging about in the living room shoving everything else out of sight. I read vituperative blasts of prose condemning the "bitches", the "evil bitches" who ran these horrific homes for "wayward girls" who had the temerity to get themselves pregnant, all by themselves. The bases were covered in these places - if they were younger than the age of consent, still children themselves: well then the devil himself had a hand in it, making them tempting seductresses of innocent adult males, be they their fathers, uncles, brothers or the local priests. Those fathers of these casual sperm implantations were never made accountable. Or answerable to the law of the land. Oh, sorry, the land where the word "rape" was never countenanced. And paedophilia I didn't know about apart from a difficult to spell word in crossword puzzles.

She must have been "asking for it" was the phrase I heard around my house.

There was a girl in my class in national school. We were 12. Just past our confirmation where we pledged our purity, our bodies, ourselves to the Invisible Cosmic Housekeeper. By the age of 12 I'd been touched inappropriately by men a few times which I've written about on this blog - no little girls are safe in a patriarchal culture such as Ireland was in my time. This little girl's mother was a casual church acquaintance of my mother. They were poor. I remember that. Kathleen was her name. Kathleen got very fat very quickly and then one day never showed up at school again.

I kept pestering my mother as to what happened to Kathleen. Finally my mother broke down and told me Kathleen's mother was expecting another child (her fourteenth) and was older (mid forties) and Kathleen had to stay home and help her.

Later, much later, I was in high school and had seen Kathleen around, wheeling an obviously mentally challenged toddler in a stroller, my mother told me Kathleen was one of the "lucky ones" and didn't have to go to a "home for bad girls."

And that's when I heard another phrase, common in use in Ireland then: Kathleen had "allowed" someone to "interfere" with her.

Later again, my mother told me it was Kathleen's father who had "interfered" with several of his daughters, thus the massive "retardation" in the younger "siblings" and an aging mother covering it up, to protect her daughters from the hellish "homes" run by the sisters.

He was a good man, a pillar of the church, said my mother, with only the one "weakness".

A good man? I asked her in disbelief, a good man?

Ah, said my mother, sure he didn't drink at all.

See Part 2 Here

Blog Jam

My first PG (Paying Guest) at The Tigeen has just left. Yeah, things went well. Very well. Yesterday and today are foggy, mauzy really, and I caught myself. You know when you have guests and the weather doesn't behave itself. "I'm so sorry about the weather. If you'd been here earlier...." as if you (and I) had omnipotent powers and the weather was all our fault. Apologizing for our personal magic wand misbehaving.

It's been a busy few days and I'm backing away from today to regather myself. I've scheduled a long overdue nap in the afternoon before heading out this evening with friends.

And tomorrow, well tomorrow is the first meeting of a running/walking/hiking/shuffling race participating club I inadvertently founded nearly a year ago. I'm way excited about this. The challenges faced by the back of a pack in these events are too numerous to list here. Not least of which are the shutting down of the course before the time is up: water stations evaporated, roads reverting to the hazards of traffic (and traffic lights) and even the drinks and food packed up at the finish line when guarantees are made at the outset the course will be open for the entire duration of the race. Older/more challenged participants pay the same money and deserve equal treatment. And often are the real heroes of such events. So there must be power in numbers to change the status quo, ya think?

For Sale

Years past, I'd drive around North America with various companions, my former husband, then we added the girls, then my dad, then various friends. I loved being a roadie. Still do.

And I'd see them on the sides of the road we drove through on these long road trips.

Signs:

For sale: Quilts.
For Sale: Birdhouses
For Sale: Socks.

And mitts. And scarves. And pottery. And watercolours.

The Da was the only one with patience enough to accompany me in my poking around these road stands or inside sellers' houses. Others were too destination fixated. Or disinterested. Or would sit in the car and sulk and waggle their watches.

At one of these places my scrabble turntable was acquired. Still used and twirling silently. A beautiful polished piece of wood. At another I picked up some lovely aboriginal prints. I still have those too.

I would envy the roadside purveyors of such artifacts, their creations. And chat to them. You see, I too wanted to put out a sign on my lawn. Offer my wee creations for sale. An impossible dream?

Well, today I did.

The Spike

This railroad spike I picked up is my souvenir of the great adventure.

I was at a mini-conference yesterday. About 16 of us. Discussions, a couple of meals, I don't know about you but I just love breaking bread with a crowd around a table. The host's house was big enough to seat all of us together at a huge table. I love when people you don't know very well shine the light on themselves and share their passions.

There was a mid-afternoon break and an older friend and I decided to go for a walk together. Others did the same, little mini-groups breaking up into conversational units and toddling off. The day was glorious and we had about 45 minutes to kill before the next discussion.

Friend and I explored an old railway bed trail and hit one of those moments - does this trail go round in a circle and then, like a fool, immediately answer the question for yourself - of course it does!

The trail went on and on and on. No turnoff, no circling. One continuous long straight line. My chief concern was Ansa, the wonder-dog, who is aging and arthritic. My next concern was we did not bring our cellphones or money or water or even phone numbers of people who were at the event or the host herself. On and on we trudged.

Finally we hit a side-road off the trail, a steep winding hill. By that point we were knackered. Yes, we're each of us training for the Tely 10 but did NOT expect to be plunged into Iron Women status in week 1 of training with 8 more weeks to go.

At long last we hit the main road, puffing after the long climb. I calculated we were about 5 miles from the house. Ansa had slowed dramatically. Admiring something off in the distance, Friend tripped and fell. Planked herself on the shoulder of the road would be more like it. We've no sidewalks in Newfoundland - did I tell you that already? Tough people don't need 'em. NOT!

So I pick her up, dust her off, give her my sweaty bandana as a bandage for her bleeding hand and we stumble on. Finally we see a man checking underneath his jeep on the shoulder ahead of us. We explain the situation and he immediately herds us into his vehicle, all consideration for elder-dog, he even offers to lift her in.

Turns out he's an engineer in from Calgary for a short term contract and between all of us we find the house where a search party had just been formed and were all lined up on the driveway, ready to scatter in several directions. Some started to cry when they saw us, they were so upset and figured we'd had a dreadful catastrophe befall us. They had called our mobiles and noticed our purses, left on the floor of the hall, ringing back at them in merriment. Panic then ensued. We were missing nearly 3 hours and husband of Friend calculated we had covered 10 miles of rough, rugged terrain.

All of us agreed it was one mighty story for the grandchildren.

I was the after dinner speaker and I spoke on the metaphorical nature of our walk - no side-roads, no twists and turns. The ocean on one side of us, brush and forest on the other. To leave the trail would have been rushing into unknown madness.

We had to persist. Right to the end. Much like when we nurture a dream, a vision, a goal.

And the spike?

It symbolises the strength and survival residing in all of us.

The Shambling Underclass.

I did some banking for another entity today. Not at my bank but at another. One of those dismal places. You know. I was struck by how much it resembled a shipping container. Everything looked slapped together, as if every item in it could be moved in 30 minutes flat and not a trace left of what had gone before (good luck future archaeologists!). I has hustled by an employee as I stepped in, caught in mid-groan at the long line up. She had Tim Horton's coffee and donuts at the entrance with a huge sign that proclaimed "OUR CUSTOMERS ARE IMPORTANT!" or some such oxymoronic drivel and she offered me one.

As I viewed the snaking queue of grumpiness around me I bit my lip. Tight. I so wanted to say : "If we're that important would you stop serving coffee and open another teller window for feck's sake?" Well, "teller window" is a huge exaggeration, everything being mobile and plastic, including the tellers who were all dressed up in sparkly dresses and sweaters. Frivolous I thought, being grumpy. Sparkling bankers. And these were the men.(Kidding!)

So I get my coffee served up to me. Now I'm overloaded: I've got my purse, a grocery bag, my book in its own wee bag, my deposit bag and a coffee with a napkin and stir-stick to manoeuver. It shuts me up. I'm busy.

See? I never do physical banks. I'm all on line now so I don't have to fret and muse inside such 20th century aberrations. But some organizations. Don't. Want. To. Change. And at my age I choose my battles very carefully. So I do the shipping container shamble.

As a geezer, I remember banks as being solid. Pillared. Marble. Hushed. Vaulted ceilings. Polished brass. Obsequious dark-suited tellers. Manager cruising around. Keeping an eye. This place? I've seen better Walmarts.

I don't remember waiting back then. Certainly not in a queue of 20 on a snaking carpet with arrows. As if we're all halfwits and could turn in the wrong direction towards the doors if not guided by our betters.

So a half hour of my life goes by that I'll never get back. In a shipping container. Delicately balancing a Tim Horton's coffee. Watching myself on a video above me. As all of us queuers are.

Oh, did I say half-wits?

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?

Momma in the Kitchen

Did you ever feel you were going insane? Well maybe not "going" maybe arrived would be a better qualifier. (What, no party?)

Here I was making my weekly yogurt, filling my wee jars and next thing, milk is squirting all over the kitchen, my best tee-shirt (wear an apron, you idiot, an apron), the floor, the counters, the yogurt maker, even a squirt into the sink. You'd never think milk could go this far, a wee jar. But oh yes, down the sides of the cabinet doors and on to my slippers. I just love the way Ansa skulks away when this happens. With an eye-roll: Humans? Mine can't even manage a small jar of milk without a catastrophic tsunami.

Before I wound up gibbering on the floor I spotted it, one of those perfect little holes (in the side of the glass jar towards the bottom, how did that happen? Note to self: check the jars before you pour your weekly yogurt mix into them.

So then I make the weekly gluten free bread. I would think in the old days: what an awful nuisance GF bread must be to make, acres of product, where do you get the ingredients, etc. etc.

And then I adapted my granny's bastable recipe for GF Daughter and was stunned at how simple it is. Today I made a banana-zucchini version of the old bastable, currently baking in the oven. Sugar-free, fat-free. The aroma makes up for all that lashings of milk sprayed all over the place.

And yeah, in case you ask, I did clean up. 5 dishrags later.

Little Tickles

Baltimore, West Cork by Grandgirl.

There have been a few of them lately. You know, the stuff that brings a smile to your face for a few minutes and then something else happens, and you smile again and think: boy this is adding up to a bouquet of a day when I count all the little flowers in it.

A gratitude list as some call it. Lists. I'm addicted to lists. I'd rather leave this particular list unmade and call it a bouquet that sustains me through some challenges at the moment.

I had a call from a dear blog friend today, one I've met in the flesh as well. A lovely catch-up on each other's lives.

I posted a pic-link on FB of Baltimore and their upcoming festival and felt lonely for my West Cork. And Grandgirl responds from Dublin with the exact same picture she had taken a few days ago in Baltimore.

Two more have joined my barely-jogging-walking group for this year's Tely 10..

An article I wrote on the way an elder was treated in reports over two days in our provincial newspaper is being published in the weekend edition of the very same newspaper. I am quite chuffed about this as I'd thought it would be trash-heaped by them but felt angry enough to write it. My respect for the paper has gone up several notches.

I had hoped to have an "in" with an editor at a large publishing empire through a new friend but it has fizzled out as he no longer works for them. The tickle is that this friend feels so badly now that she is moving heaven and hell to promote my novel to others in time for 2016. I have three novels ready - this one takes place over 100 years of Irish history.

Daughter has painstakingly stripped multiple layers of paint from the woodwork in one of my bedrooms, literally many hours of work. But to see the grain of the wood come to life again after many generations is so incredible.

So that's it from the Land of Tickles for the moment.

Uncertainty

I test the waters sometimes. With trusted friends. You know, reveal a bit of the inner. One has to be careful because trust is bathed in fragility for some of us.

My world was uncertain as a child. I could never trust my footing. And yes, I can trace the beginning of it to here.. In untangling my life with the aid of a good therapist, years ago, I got to understand the whys of my personal quirks but corrective measures? They ebb and flow, with the moods, with the atmosphere, with the health.

I never quite trust. And I question did I ever? I hold back. Waiting for a chasm of indifference to yawn up in front of me. Nothing is forever. Those good feelings of today can vanish with the crack of dawn tomorrow. Ones I love so desperately and completely can vanish, can shun, can evaporate without a wave of farewell or a wisp of explanation for their frigidity.

And I confess to surprise and shock when people around me show me a measure of love and respect I feel unearned. I want to push them, to test them, to prove to myself I was never worth the fine feelings they exhibited towards me to begin with.

It is said a life unexamined is not worth living. I concur. Even though the answers can be ephemeral. How do we know what goes on inside another's head? Are they uncertain too? Not that they'd ever admit it. Not that I would. Unless clothed in anonymity.

But some days, some days, I would give anything to feel my footsteps ring firm on solid ground.

Are we all barking mad?

I'd say we are. Truly.

My town's annual cleanup day was today. A couple of miles of coast and both sides of the main road and a few side roads.

The turn out was great. About 30 of us from a town of about 150+. Those who were gone away for the weekend cleaned up stretches of the road during the past week. The town is fortunate in that the people who care, really care.

But you guys! The garbage collected! We lost count. Picture above is of about 30% of what we collected. We figured close to 100 bags, 3 truckloads to the dump.

I myself collected 3 full bags.

About 90% of it plastic: Tubs, bags, bottles, floats, fishing net pieces, wrappers.

Surely it's about time we stopped using plastic? And only used recyclable or cloth grocery bags (I do) and drank water from the tap (I do)and filled our own bottles (I do) if we insist on walking around like big babies with a bottle to our lips all the time. (Gee, our ancestors worked hard in the fields or on the water or in mines and didn't suck off bottles all day long, think about it.)

We need serious anti-disposable plastic laws in place. I'm writing an article for next weekend's paper on this.

I live on an island.

We are drowning in plastic. I can't bear thinking about the birds, fish and animals who choke on this stuff every day from the plastic we don't even see.

Stop it already.

And on the 8th Day...

This is a photo that Daughter took up at the Tigeen the other day, the bay reflected on the French doors. I love it.

This is the 8th day of a cold I suspected was sourced somewhere in Ontario and gifted to me by Daughter who returned from there.

I was doing fine with it, relieved it hadn't turned into a bronchial nightmare like times past. I had poor lungs as a child, double pneumonia and pleurisy by the age of 10 and heat treatments in the hospital for about a year afterwards. I can still smell that machine, odd that, and I can't find any information on it on a Google search. It was a night out for my mother and me. Every Wednesday night. And we would walk from the hospital to a distant bus-stop afterwards as the fare was cheaper. Today, I can't imagine my father coping alone with the children at home, the youngest about a year old.

It's funny how one can think of something far off in the past and it opens up a floodgate of memories. My mother would always buy me a chocolate bar afterwards - I would take forever to choose it in the newsagent's across from the hospital - for being a "good girl" and lying so still on my stomach under the lamps. I imagine my lungs were being dried. I must have been a wheezy child but I have no recollection of that.

And here I am today, 8 days into this nasty bug and feeling worse than the last 7 days. I slept most of the day, coughed and hacked so much I got a rare headache and yes, I'm cranky. I have too much to do to be this sidetracked by my body.

What was that again? Oh yeah, it's telling me to slow down.

Aye, aye, ma'am.

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.

Etiquette - Blog and Otherwise.

I stopped responding to comments. Is this good blog etiquette? I don't know. Some of the blogs I love don't ever respond to their commenters. Some respond directly via personal emails while others are meticulous about responding to each and every comment. I was. But I find that mentally I've moved on from those past posts lately. I don't want to put my head back there, you know? Do you think that's rude?

A former fiancé died. I think I mentioned him before. A question about that too. I found his daughter had posted pics of him in the few months before his death. (I don't know her). Memory-shaking photos in showing his deterioration. And in my decluttering here I found some nice photos of him. His daughter, I would imagine, has no inkling of who I am. Would it be alright, d'you think, to send her on pics of her dad in the peak of his youth, his joie, his handsomeness from a former "friend". I don't know how else to classify myself.

My mother was a stickler for etiquette. She said it was all about respect. Everybody was more at ease when they knew the proper social rules. That way there would be no nasty surprises or ugly sounds or smells. One of her rules was you never arrived as a guest in a place with your arms the same length, even if it was just an apple or a facecloth or a bun to honour the host. I've passed this on to my daughters. I think of her this weekend as it is Canadian Mother's Day. I think of her every day of course but more so on anniversaries and days of significance.

Picture above is of me at 11 months, dying to launch myself off her lap and on to bigger things. She encouraged me in that and was so supportive of all my endeavours.

Thank you dearest Mum, your voice often echoes in my head.

Out With the Old

A few of us bloggers are comparing notes on tossing out, cleaning up, zenning our spaces. Must be something to do with the configuration of the stars at the moment you'd think.

I've downsized quite a few times now so apart from books and movies I try not to clutter up too much.

I'm going through boxes of photos and documents and postcards and love notes and thank you letters and am becoming quite ruthless.

It's not an easy job. And quite sad too looking at now-dead faces or the once convivial lineups of family members now shunning me. Where once there was love, etc. And the portraits I took of them - should I toss in the recycling bin? I can barely stand to look at them as it is, for it's like a dagger piercing my heart. Why torture myself? Toss. Move on. They have.

I'm a tough old elder. I can do this.

Now that feels better...or does it?

Sustaining Friendships.

I left quite a few friends behind me in Ontario when I moved here. And yesterday was some sort of record day in my life because three of them called and thanks to my Bluetooth, I can wander around and talk for hours.

These particular friends never demand anything of me so it is simply warmth and love and connection in our conversations.

I am often surprised at the friends I do have who always seem to want something and only call when this agenda is on their minds. I find my barriers go up, I keep waiting for the axe to fall in the conversation. They need a reason to call perhaps and can't seem to make a call of care, concern or compassion without lurking behind a request for me to do something for them.

Apart from business calls, I don't think I've ever requested anything of a friend apart from the pleasure of their company and the art of their conversation. I may be wrong in this but I do hope not.

And the reaching out of these three yesterday? I hadn't realized how very much they mean to me.

It was lovely knitting our stories together yet again, and completing another piece of the tapestry together. And not losing the rhythm of each others' years. As that can happen. And it is so sad.

And making plans of meeting in the realz before too long.

And yes, I do tell them I love them.

Thank you my darlings - Pad, Linda, Dianne (and not forgetting Claire from last weekend).

Suitable

I'm amazed I'm not more effed up than I am. Or maybe I am and nobody's telling me.

I'll tell you one reason why. Someone used the word "suitable" the other day about a wood floor and its suitability for a large space.

And as such light word droppings can sometimes do to me to me, it set me to drifting off. On such occasions, I'm sure my vacant look can be bothersome. My mind takes off and I vanish for a while. The lights are on and nobody's home in today's parlance.

For the word "suitable" took me right back. It was one of my father's favourite words. But not in a good way. Oh no.

It was his way of terminating my friendships, desires or intentions.

"Oh, she's not suitable," he would say to me irritably, upon meeting a friend of mine,"You're forbidden to see her again".

I should mention here that my family were barely middle class with no great aspirations of grandeur at all.

"But why dad?" I was always in terror of making him mad. His rages were legendary and the man hated to be challenged.

"Just not suitable, that's all."

One could never be saucy and ask suitable for what. The backdoor to my mother, his translator, was inevitably used when Dad was not around.

It would usually be a flimsy reason for the unsuitability. Like the following:

1. The father drank
2. She/he ran with a rough crowd.
3. The family were "blackguards" - one of his favourite words.
4. They voted Fine Gael
5. They were protestant.
6. They were Jewish and didn't care about the One True God. Or Jesus and his Mother.
7. They didn't believe in education.
8. The father committed suicide.
8. An aunt was an actress.

Doesn't it all sound so 18th century-ish?

I am still best friends with an unsuitable since First Class (aged 6) in the national school I attended.

Why was she not suitable?

Her father owned and raced greyhounds and would take his daughter and myself to the pub on a Sunday afternoon and feed us Tanoras and Taytos.

We had to sneak around behind Dad's back for years and years and was he pissed off - she was a bridesmaid at my wedding!

Oh, the stories I could tell you about my Irish Cacklick childhood!