Everyday we are faced with choices, some have a relatively minor affect, whereas others can be life changing. The job we choose, the partner we choose, the friends, the country and place we decide to live. So many choices and so many difficult decisions.
How things may have been different if we made a different choice and wandered a different direction. One choice leads to another, which further branches seeking out possibilities and alternatives to what we know now.
Someone once told me that there are no right answers. Whatever decision we make, we'll never know how the other choice would have affected us, where it would have led and who we would have met. Anything we say after this decision is pure speculation.
To make a choice and to stick with it for better or worse is perhaps the best course of action but also so very challenging. Indecision is a damnable beast that is sure to play havoc with your health and happiness. There are no right answers.
Perhaps things could have gone better, maybe they would have but there is no certainty or solace there. Only torment. Make a choice, live with it, learn from it. Wallowing is sure only to wither your health.
I think of Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken.
'Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, / and sorry I could not travel both.'
In the end Frost takes one route, he makes his choice and celebrates those good things that stemmed from that decision.
'I took the one less travelled by, / And that has made all the difference.'
Make a choice and follow it. Think of all the positive experiences your path brings, there isn't enough time to follow them all. But there is no sense in thinking over things that could have been.
Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery. It doesn't stand to reason to worry. Be glad your have choices, all too often there may be none, no alternative and we are compelled to act and to follow a single course of action. Helpless. When your hand is forced it can be a bitter experience, so too can consequence. No one ever said that the choices your made were easy, there were probably tears at some point, clenched fists and gritted teeth, broken hearts and furrowed brows, harsh words and sighs of frustration. You may be able to revisit past decisions, retracing your steps and starting over but whatever your choice, whatever happens, you'll handle it.
'Oh I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted If I should ever come back.'
Saturday, 28 June 2014
Tuesday, 24 June 2014
BLOCK
The stumbling block, or perhaps the path block. Sometimes it's hard to build up a momentum. The spark of imagination lives and dies before I can grab a pen and put it to paper. It's disheartening to be gripped and shaken alive with dire necessity and purpose one minute only to see it fade, and vanish like the finite life of a matchstick, the next.
I often carry a pen and notebook for those rare moments of lively absorption in that delicate bubble of inspiration but I have been caught unaware in times past. Without pen or without paper, I could scramble to get it down on my phone, fingers and thumbs stabbing the keypad furiously. I could use shorthand but that is often a bad idea as I find myself asking, What did I mean there?
Words end up scribbled on pieces of paper, scraps and receipts and loose pages. A thread that will hopefully lead back through the labyrinth to that illuminating thought. But what about those times when I can't scribe the idea. Lost usually. It floats to the ether.
The times of misspent or disused inspiration come back to haunt me during the quiet dull hours of stagnation. The dreaded writer's block. I crave the time to sit and scribe and yet when it comes round that I have an abundance of that coveted commodity, time, I cannot think of anything to write. What is more I find the drivel that I put to paper nauseating to read.
What can one do to regain their footing or to dislodge that boulder blocking their train of thought and the path to promising pastures? Friends have often times suggested relief and releases; jogging or some other form of physical activity, breaks away from the page to freshen the eyes and the mind, doodling, cups of coffee or tea, and of course, time heals all wounds and weathers the toughest rocks and blocks.
Monday, 16 June 2014
Reflections on a Summer evening
In no particular order, for what mind thinks chronologically.
Rescuing a spider in a Kindergarten before a child bursts through the circle of onlookers and stomps it to death in one swift, heavy thud. He then has the audacity to scream 'Böse Mann! Fang mich an!' And speeds off as fast as his legs can carry him.
Sitting with my dad in the tractor cab, eating jam sandwiches in a field partially yellow as it has been stripped of grass. Its coat of green shrinking to the middle. The grass will become silage. This is our tea but it's also a picnic. Sometimes there are biscuits.
My sister making me swear to 'cross my heart' with the threat of blindness and death. Breaking that promise and watching out in sheer terror for the justice I had sworn to accept for my transgressions.
The smell of cigarette smoke, the taste of fig-rolls washed down with tea while sitting with my grandmother, my father's mother. On Tuesdays when neighbours had dropped in after bingo night.
Squashed into the car, packed into this vehicle and for varying lengths of time. Perhaps we were simply driving to Mass, across the border to visit my grandmother (my mother's mother), or on our almost annual trip to Dublin Zoo. There was often punching, nipping, plenty of winding up and ultimately threats from our parents that if we didn't quieten down, they would turn the car right around.
Rolling bales of hay and drawing them from the fields to the shed.
The beach, Black rock, Clogher head and a faint recollection of Betty's town.
2p machines that swallowed lots of coppers and returned very few.
The aroma of Summer calls many memories back to mind, happy thoughts from the last few years. Oh to be a child in Summer, when it feels like there can be no end to the day and school is a long, long way off.
Rescuing a spider in a Kindergarten before a child bursts through the circle of onlookers and stomps it to death in one swift, heavy thud. He then has the audacity to scream 'Böse Mann! Fang mich an!' And speeds off as fast as his legs can carry him.
Sitting with my dad in the tractor cab, eating jam sandwiches in a field partially yellow as it has been stripped of grass. Its coat of green shrinking to the middle. The grass will become silage. This is our tea but it's also a picnic. Sometimes there are biscuits.
My sister making me swear to 'cross my heart' with the threat of blindness and death. Breaking that promise and watching out in sheer terror for the justice I had sworn to accept for my transgressions.
The smell of cigarette smoke, the taste of fig-rolls washed down with tea while sitting with my grandmother, my father's mother. On Tuesdays when neighbours had dropped in after bingo night.
Squashed into the car, packed into this vehicle and for varying lengths of time. Perhaps we were simply driving to Mass, across the border to visit my grandmother (my mother's mother), or on our almost annual trip to Dublin Zoo. There was often punching, nipping, plenty of winding up and ultimately threats from our parents that if we didn't quieten down, they would turn the car right around.
Rolling bales of hay and drawing them from the fields to the shed.
The beach, Black rock, Clogher head and a faint recollection of Betty's town.
2p machines that swallowed lots of coppers and returned very few.
The aroma of Summer calls many memories back to mind, happy thoughts from the last few years. Oh to be a child in Summer, when it feels like there can be no end to the day and school is a long, long way off.
Thursday, 5 June 2014
The Gold Star
The coveted gold star.
The sometimes elusive gold star.
Once upon a time, our teacher tested our mettle with a spelling test. These tests were recorded in a small notebook distributed and subsequently collected after the test each Friday.
Sixteen words determined our reward.
We were given these words to memorise over seven days.
How I hungered for that 16/16 mark, excellent scribbled diagonally and the icing on the cake-a gold star stuck on with a piece of clear sticky tape.
Sometimes it didn't work out and instead of the praise I craved I got a banal v. good. The worst travesty being the silver star glinting upon the page. How I abhorred those scribed words. It was much worse when I received a plain good. Tricky words like 'buckle' cost me my star. I see my students now make similar mistakes.
I have often thought of that pentadactyl celestial body glowing in the white space with rays of parallel blue to guide our education. It was a simple thing but it exposed my competitive nature. My desire for praise and my aspirations to be top of the class in any field I could. Maths was never my forte so I compensated as best I could with other subjects. English spelling was an area that I felt I could easily master.
I remember presenting that gold star with pride to my parents. Sometimes my dad signed the page. I am not sure why this irregularity occurred. Sometimes I fancied a change I suppose. I wanted to include him. I rarely saw him write anything except his name. It may have fascinated me to watch him write even that. Or perhaps it was simply a time when my mother was in hospital having one of my siblings or maybe I just wanted some recognition from him too. These spelling tests lasted a year. When I changed class and teacher there were less colourful and aesthetic rewards.
I think I give rewards too freely. While correcting copy books or exercise books, I have beside me my assortment of stamps and stickers congratulating kids for doing only what they are supposed to; the bare minimum and sometimes delivered in a messy fashion. But maybe in this age of technology and destruction we have lowered the bar. Or maybe it is right to recognise every effort.
I bought a small packet of gold stars during the week. I couldn't walk by them. They have a sticky back now-there is no need for tape to keep them pressed against the page.
Nowadays there are fancy stickers of cars and monsters and all sorts. A far cry from the simple gold star.
But I like it.
And I think of it fondly still.
I am a sentimental fool.
The stars, our hopes, dreams, ambitions and our wishes are wrapped up in these burning celestial bodies. We often gaze and ponder what might have been and what might well be. Do the stars on the page guide us like the faithful North Star that offers orientation and direction.
That little sticker possessed so much meaning; burning light, burning hope, burning courage and the reassurance that hard work does bring rewards, however, small.
The sometimes elusive gold star.
Once upon a time, our teacher tested our mettle with a spelling test. These tests were recorded in a small notebook distributed and subsequently collected after the test each Friday.
Sixteen words determined our reward.
We were given these words to memorise over seven days.
How I hungered for that 16/16 mark, excellent scribbled diagonally and the icing on the cake-a gold star stuck on with a piece of clear sticky tape.
Sometimes it didn't work out and instead of the praise I craved I got a banal v. good. The worst travesty being the silver star glinting upon the page. How I abhorred those scribed words. It was much worse when I received a plain good. Tricky words like 'buckle' cost me my star. I see my students now make similar mistakes.
I have often thought of that pentadactyl celestial body glowing in the white space with rays of parallel blue to guide our education. It was a simple thing but it exposed my competitive nature. My desire for praise and my aspirations to be top of the class in any field I could. Maths was never my forte so I compensated as best I could with other subjects. English spelling was an area that I felt I could easily master.
I remember presenting that gold star with pride to my parents. Sometimes my dad signed the page. I am not sure why this irregularity occurred. Sometimes I fancied a change I suppose. I wanted to include him. I rarely saw him write anything except his name. It may have fascinated me to watch him write even that. Or perhaps it was simply a time when my mother was in hospital having one of my siblings or maybe I just wanted some recognition from him too. These spelling tests lasted a year. When I changed class and teacher there were less colourful and aesthetic rewards.
I think I give rewards too freely. While correcting copy books or exercise books, I have beside me my assortment of stamps and stickers congratulating kids for doing only what they are supposed to; the bare minimum and sometimes delivered in a messy fashion. But maybe in this age of technology and destruction we have lowered the bar. Or maybe it is right to recognise every effort.
I bought a small packet of gold stars during the week. I couldn't walk by them. They have a sticky back now-there is no need for tape to keep them pressed against the page.
Nowadays there are fancy stickers of cars and monsters and all sorts. A far cry from the simple gold star.
But I like it.
And I think of it fondly still.
I am a sentimental fool.
The stars, our hopes, dreams, ambitions and our wishes are wrapped up in these burning celestial bodies. We often gaze and ponder what might have been and what might well be. Do the stars on the page guide us like the faithful North Star that offers orientation and direction.
That little sticker possessed so much meaning; burning light, burning hope, burning courage and the reassurance that hard work does bring rewards, however, small.
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