Children of Lir and other such swan songs

Now that fall is finally here, I mean summer was quite the slog for me (yes, yes…I keep banging on about my sensitivity to heat) and there were definitely great moments and all that, but I’m relieved the seasons have changed.  That I get to see seasonal change in Ireland.  But let’s be honest, I came for the rain, the dark skies, the stories, the craic, the sense of new place…I came to be closer to Europe (someone told me a few weeks ago, “well Ireland is only sort of in Europe”) and to write.  

I fell into a fitful sleep at eleven pm only to wake at five to a drip drip drip.  I had left my backdoor open because the night was too warm to sleep in without the cool air.  Trains were coming to life but there was also rain.  A thrill ran through me.  Rain means better writing!

I got up and sauntered into the dark living room, got my Barry’s tea and immediately my mind went to that Gordon Lightfoot song “In The Early Morning Rain”.  Sure, why not?  So on it went softly on the speaker.  Usually it’s jazz or some radio from WFMU or WWOZ, but today we are going soft 70s classics.

The other day I had to go to IKEA to look for cheap shelves that could get my art supplies out of clutter mode.  As I walked the labyrinth of the place I marveled how it looked just like every single other IKEA I’ve provisioned myself from (I’ve moved a lot in America).  It almost felt like I was back in America except I rode a double decker bus to get there listening to Irish Folk Tales read out loud on my headphones.

There was one that I enjoyed whilst the bus went speeding past the big graveyard and botanical gardens (Glasnevin cemetery is worth an afternoon) and it was a parable on jealousy.  And hot days.  A mad step wife takes the four children of the king, her husband, swimming on a hot day and turns them into swans for 900 years so she can have the king all to herself.  Time goes by, but the swans still had their beautiful children’s singing voices and the sound of them became legend.  The spell more or less broke at the end of the 900 years when they heard the bells announcing St. Patrick bringing Christianity to Ireland.

My takeaway from this was beware of hot days on this island.  Otherwise, bad things happen.  Indeed, a friend of mine (I am making friends here slowly) went back to Inishbofin to do another 2 week writing retreat there (this is where she and I met) only to wake up one morning to find the islanders dropping large bottles of water in front of the cottage doors.  Apparently, Inishbofin ran out of water thanks to the lack of rain all summer.  The reservoir itself seemed large enough to me, was quite nice to look at, and supplied everyone with captured rain water well enough until the last part of this summer.  The same one that saw half of France on fire and the rivers all running dry thereby cancelling Viking River Cruises for posh, rich, white retirees from America.  

Anyway, I cruised through IKEA ignoring screaming children and stressed families.  Found my shelves which I will likely sand and paint to erase the distasteful IKEA look from them and drop my paints and brushes in there.  And my photo mounting kits, for I am decorating the apartment now with the photography I’ve been doing…it’s expensive to have photos mounted, so I’m teaching myself to do not only that, but a bit of mixed media art as well.  Keeps the mind sound.  And it mixes in with the writing.

Yesterday, my Croatian roommate got up and came into the kitchen, as she does each morning at 7:50am, to look outside at the blue skies.  “Oh, grand!” She exclaimed in her thick Croatian accent (when she does this there’s only one way to read her employment of this oft used Irish phrase, grand, as in it’s being used as sarcastic) “It’s going to be a beautiful day.  Nice and sunny!” And on this note she left knowing how much I dislike the sun.  Ha ha.  Two can play at this.

Much to my unbridled joy, I can return the grand observations of the weather back to her in about twenty minutes, “Ah look!  Grand! It’ll be raining all day!  What weather that is for working and writing and sipping the tea!”  

In other news…it looks like Cork is hosting Ireland’s largest jazz festival on the Halloween weekend.  I’m kicking myself that I probably won’t be able to afford it, but maybe…if I can find a room for rent.  Ah but it’s Cork.  Small and probably everything is booked.  Might be interesting to see what happens when Samhain (Irish for Halloween and pronounced SOW in) and jazz combine in late fall.  If I’d known ahead of time, I would have budgeted.

Regardless, time to go to work.  Speaking of…