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The sun had cast shimmering gold flakes of light onto the sands at Plum Island in Newburyport, MA. It was difficult to not stray from the boardwalk and plop down on the soft piles of warmth. My husband and I had skipped household chores to drive to the refuge for a walk. It was nearly 50 degrees and we were basking in a snow-less, mild winter. As we strolled on the boardwalk, buoyant and expectant, we came to a silent assembly of birdwatchers, swathed in outdoor gear and carrying impressive telescopes, spotting scopes, binoculars, and tripods. We stopped to watch, too, pulling out our pair of cheap binoculars and our good digital camera. Someone made room for us and whispered, “It’s a snowy white!”
I was in a silent sanctuary of worshipers who had come to view a holy sighting. The scent of the briny, vigorous sea breeze became the incense carrying unspoken prayers to the heavens, and the candles were represented by the dancing points of golden sunlight surrounding the snowy white owl. There was a sacred hush amongst us, and I wondered if this was how people felt when they went to see apparitions of the Virgin Mary at the Medjugorje shrine in Southern Bosnia.
I have seen the barred owl in the middle of the day, flying over my car. I have heard the barred owl outside my window and we have called to one another back and forth, the owl coming closer. Me, shutting the window quickly, fearing too much intimacy. Once, driving down the road at midnight while in a heated argument with a friend, a barred owl stood in the center of the road. I had to brake hard and she spread her wings. I got the message. But this was my first snowy white owl sighting. It wasn’t as close as my barred owl sightings, but it didn’t need to be. Through my scratched, inferior binoculars I saw enough of this snowy white female to make my head spin 270 degrees as her head does. When she put out her five foot-wide wing, it was only half-way, but it was enough. I felt it cover my heart and dissolve my doubts. I left church that day renewed, invigorated, and the vision of this snowy white mother was vivid in my memory for weeks. She is still with me.
It is an unprecedented year for snowy white owl visits to the United States, especially as far south as Texas. Scientists say it could be due to the harsh winter in Canada or because the snowy white owl food supply is limited, i.e. lemmings are on the decrease. Photographers who have searched for snowy whites for years are ecstatic and stunning photographs are everywhere on the web. The evening news reporting graphic stories of violence and tragedy are inserting cheerful vignettes of snowy white owl sightings. Grown men are nearly weeping and crying out, “You don’t find owls. They find you!” Warnings are being sent out to protect the snowy whites from too much human contact and intrusion.
Owls represent wisdom, mystery, death, and intuition. A snowy white owl hunts during the day and seeing one during the day could indicate you need to bring forth something in the light of day that y
I grew up in Watkins Glen, New York and there were so many Italian-Americans living there that the town was oftentimes derogatorily referred to as Wop Town. I was sometimes called Redheaded Wop because I had flaming red hair and my last name was Filippetti. And people can be prejudiced and ignorant, especially in small towns like Watkins Glen, New York. The Italian name was given to me by my step-father when he married my mother, but there wasn’t an ounce of Italian blood in me. There was some Irish blood in me, however, which was somewhat obvious. I prayed to the Blessed Mother, Holy Mother of God, and Virgin Mary and was a member of St. Mary’s of the Lake Church. Once when I was ten, I was kneeling with a statute of Mary and saw her wink at me. St Mary was on my side! However, I never prayed to St Brigid and it wasn’t until I was an adult that I came to know her.
I love what is said about St. Brigid – that she hung her cloak on a sunbeam. Brigid means “high one,” “bright one,” “Mary of the Gael, Queen of the Irish race.” It’s also believed that this same Brigid was once a goddess before she became a saint. Brigid, the goddess of water, fire, and transformation; healing and encouragement. I have no problem these days enriching my beliefs with this light green pagan feminine energy. I have danced with the goddess and shepherdess of Kildare through the wind in Ireland and felt her feminine energy.
On one trip to Ireland, I went to the Holy Well at Liscannor in County Clare near the Cliffs of Moher. There is a statute of St. Brigid (or St. Brigit or Brighid) next to the entrance of the grotto that contains the well. The statute is enclosed in a glass box that resembles a telephone booth. I knew then I could call upon her and so I did deiseal, which is an Irish word meaning to ambulate in a circle around a sacred center, moving in the direction of the sun’s passage. I prayed and laughed at the same time, for I was in an ancient place made holy by saturated prayers and the melding of the goddess and the saint. When I entered the grotto where the sound of water dripped in the well, I felt a presence so palpable that I had to kneel. The grotto was filled with yearnings, sorrow, and devotion in the form of rosaries, handwritten pleas for help, feathers, bits of yarn, a doll, and even a crutch. Ancient history, transformation, myths, and healing are associated with holy wells, but again, Ireland is full of sacred places whereby time and space grow thin and the Other world becomes real.
Later, there was a Mass and a ceili (Irish gathering with music and dance) at an American friend’s house near Ennis. It was a dedication, a sort of baptism, for against all odds she had bought an old cottage in Ireland on land of her ancestors. Today it is renovated and a lovely home for her to visit (and for me to visit, as well). It was a joyous celebration altogether. And it was there that I believe for the second time in my life, Mother Mary or maybe it was St. Brigid blinked at me. I looked up at the wall during the ceili and she was blinking to the beat of the music! It was a plaque of the saint with electric lights. Although it made me giggle, it was for joy and not for derision.
There is the Celtic year with seasons and festivals. I met Dolores Whelan at iBAM in Chicago in November and she is the author of, Ever Ancient, Ever New, Celtic Spirituality in the 21st Century. She quotes D.H. Lawrence, “Mankind has got to get back to the rhythm of the cosmos.&rd
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven (Ecclesiastes)
Although it behooves me to not further denigrate my gender, I look back into the past and see myself as a strutting Rhode Island Red hen clucking her head off. Rhode Island Reds are a hearty breed that lay eggs every day, even throughout winter in New England. And they cluck before they lay their eggs, cluck after they lay their eggs, and then they cluck over their food. They are very social and need other hens to talk to. I’m no breeder, but let’s just say that my egg laying is a metaphor for the projects, events, and baking craze I get into. And I love to cluck and tell the world as I do this egg laying. I have clucked so much that I forget what time it is. Once, it had only been 5:00 p.m. when I started clucking to a friend in a restaurant and then it was 10 p.m., and all the while, a major snowstorm was occurring that I never noticed. My husband called hospitals that night to try and find me (there were no cell phones then). I’ve clucked my selective life stories to strangers on the phone (it has helped to have automation), Fed Ex and pizza delivery people, cashiers, nurses, and anyone who is interested or is interesting. I’ve clucked until I could cluck no more.
For everything there is a season, and a time for every word under heaven is my New Year’s resolution for 2012.
The gift of gab for a writer is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, if people listen to me, I want to listen to them. And so I’ve listened and learned, gathering inspiration and tidbits for stories. I’ve also listened to my own clucking and learned so much about myself I never knew. And perhaps I didn’t want to really know. Friends throughout the years, especially women friends, listened so perfectly that they became my priests. Holy conversation that brought forgiveness and absolution. Friends, even strangers, have listened and become oracles that divinely directed my next steps in life. And I, too, have been a priestess and counselor to others through my words. And I have also had clucking taken to a higher form, perhaps a higher pitched form, in my life over the past few years. I’ve been a speaker at festivals, libraries, bookstores, and conferences, becoming the mouthpiece, a channeler of sorts, for stories I listened to from people of the past. All good. And then recently, I was driving down the street and saw an inflatable Santa Claus lawn ornament lying flat on his face, deflated. And I felt the same. No, not discouraged or depressed, but all the words I have been speaking (or clucking) have taken the air right out of me. I need time to breathe, deep cleansing breaths, deep quiet breaths, and time to breathe in new words (for speaking and writing).
I’ve also been feeling like the nursery rhyme song, “I’m a Little Teapot” and when I was five years old, I danced to this song in a recital and bowed the wrong way, my fanny facing the audience. Hmmm, maybe it set the tone for a gift of gab, the boiling me who gets all steamed up with words and has to pour them out!
I am also older and aware that the hour glass figure I once had has changed, and although the bottom half has expanded slightly, the sands of time haven’t increased. I need to save words like saving money in the bank. I need to save them and use them after I listen carefully to my characters for my next novel. I need to save words and listen to my friends and family more sincerely, pulling the words out of my bank for them. I need to save words to speak truth and speak for justice. And I also need to save words to circle within me like a quiet, peaceful prayer to my Creator.
Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you’ve got to say, and say it hot ~ D.H. Lawrence
1 Comments on Saving Words (My New Year’s Resolution), last added: 1/23/2012
I woke early and watched the show outside my kitchen window on this December morning. Silver frosting glistened on the lawn as the moon winked goodbye and the sun peeked at the day, one ray at a time. The sun was taking its time, pushing clouds from its eyes and stepping slowly upon the icy moon spell of the earth. And then it happened fast, this changing of the celestial guard. I sat with my first cup of coffee and not only saw the veil of night lift, but felt it. There is a certain moment, “Ta Da!” and the new day is gently and powerfully revealed. Of course, I feel as if I’m the only one in the audience. This display is just for me, I think, as I watch the morning dress for the day. Light combs through the bare birch, maple, and poplar trees, pastel pink blush sweeps over the now pale silver lawn, and a baby powder blue colors the sky. There is a choir of chickadees, nuthatches, and titmice singing and eating at the feeder, their tiny heads haloed with the dawn. And suddenly, there is a sprinkling of gold dust cast over all. It is the finale of the morning extravaganza and I want to capture it. “The sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold,” Edna St. Vincent Millay said in a poem. I quickly climb the stairs to find my camera, but when I return, it’s over, this morning show. The light has scattered to bless the day, in and out of clouds, climbing steep hills and mountains, and assuring the earth of renewal.
After this, I am both reluctant to take myself too seriously and not too seriously.
“Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place…” (Job 38:12); “What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside? Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings?” (Job 38:19-20)
I was traveling 80 to 85 miles per hour on the New York State Thruway a few days ago. Since March when my novel, Norah, was released, I’ve been speeding through the days in cars, planes, shuttles, buses, and trains. She has a story to tell and I am the vehicle. It’s been a long journey, and it continues. And there is another woman who also has a story to tell. And when the car stops, the plane lands, and I get off the train or bus, I will listen to her story.
But in the meantime, these morning shows are all mine. No voices, but the voice of morning taking me through the day into the night.
“I arise today through the strength of heaven, Light of sun, radiance of moon…” (Breastplate of St. Patrick)
1 Comments on The Morning Show, last added: 12/5/2011
I seek to organize my life and rely on datebooks, appointment books, calendars, timetables, planners, and lists. It even helps to purchase note pads with my name at the top found in card shops. Sort of like pinching myself to make sure I’m real. I like to view my name in flowery script and then write my list underneath it. I also prefer to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner at specific times and want to know what is going to happen tomorrow so I can prepare for it. I don’t want chaos. I want certain order. Order so I can live creatively. And here where I live on the East Coast, I expect autumn to perform with a dazzling dance of vibrant colors. I turn away in disappointment when her act is cancelled and trees shake their heads and the mere stain of brown, earth toned leaves crumple to the ground in death, or jaundiced-looking trees try to wave at me alongside a gray highway. It is worse for me when summer refuses to leave even when the song birds have packed up and left. She is like the last guest to leave my party and it is 3:00 a.m. Summer in this condition is green with envy and pushes autumn back stage, and then ole man winter is announced and thuds around in heavy boots for nearly six months. I like winter, but if autumn doesn’t perform well, I have to squint to see the sparkling silver lining in winter’s dark days.
After winter trudged on stage before being announced properly, I drove from my childhood hometown in the Finger Lakes region of New York back to my home in New Hampshire. My eighty-four year old mother was with me and we were relieved to have a sunny day and dry roads. At first, I refused to look right or left, and kept my eyes on the road. I had to get home before the next unseasonable storm! I didn’t like this early snow show and wished I could get my money back. I felt out of sorts and impatient, and had forgotten I just had two weeks of walking amongst a riot of glorious color in New York. It had only been the opening act before the real show, I mused.
And then at a rest stop, I noticed the backdrop of a lilac/lavender streaked sky, and when we got back on the thruway, my mother and I began to cheer and clap for the spectacular show. An unlikely wedding, the marriage of two very different seasons, had taken place in the night when no-one was looking. Autumn and winter had eloped and when they came on stage together, they harmonized and sang beautifully. The stunning and heart-felt splendor will be in my memory always.
Today, my mother and I went to the salon for major pampering (we must be ready for more shows). We were there quite awhile and met a woman who was getting a pedicure. She had been given a gift certificate and it was her first time in this particular salon. She was cheerful, friendly, and very talkative. She was telling my mother how glamorous she looked and I proudly stated that Mom had been a jazz and blues singer. The woman asked my mother to sing and although Mom still plays the piano and sings, she doesn’t like to be put on the spot. To my surprise, however, she started singing, Stormy Weather, beautifully. Afterwards, the woman began to weep uncontrollably. She told us that her special friend had suddenly died two weeks ago and my mother’s singing had unlocked her grief. I watched as my mother hugged this woman, touch her hand, and say to her, “Terrible loss and grief feels so wrong and out of place, but you’ll have a new season in your life and there will be other seasons.” My mother knows this well, too.
What of chaos and out of order life? Do grief and beauty become compatible? I’ve experienced suffering in my own life that warmed in my heart because I clutched it so tightly there, as if I held a precious stone in my sweaty hand. It was mine and only mine, no other person’s. For that, it became bearable, even sweet. Sweet suffering? Is this an oxymoron? I can’t tell you what it is for you. But I saw it in the hills and mountains when nature wasn’t acting norm
Massabesic Audubon Center
“Yep, that’s my red hair in the blue bird box!”
The hummingbirds have left our backyard and I sadly miss them. I stand at my kitchen window staring at the feeder remembering being thrilled each time, nearly daily, viewing these tiny ruby necklaced birds with hearts beating up to 1260 beats per minute. Suddenly my heart quickens because I think I spy my ruby-throated male diving from the lilac bush to protect his feeder. But I’m wrong. It’s only a few leaves fleeing summer’s end just as the hummingbirds have done. Will I recognize this hummingbird next spring? Will I be standing at this window next spring? I turn away from the window, put on a sweater, and go to the woods. It’s a banner year for mushrooms and when I walk in the woods, I marvel over their texture, patterns, and colors. I have never seen a purple or blue mushroom and wish I had a child with me to share this magic. Large glowing, milk white, tea-cupped ones surrounding silver birch trees in the gloaming causes me to pause and wonder. As chipmunks, squirrels, and birds skitter in the leaves and in the birch tree, it reminds me of the flurry of activity at a restaurant just before it opens for dinner. And so I imagine that as soon as the sun sets, there will be a wild animal dinner party.
Alas, I wish I had my camera, but I know that when I glimpse these other worlds in the woods, I hardly ever capture them in a photograph the way I see them. The air is honey crisp and there is a scent of apples, wood-stoves, pine, and pungent decay. Oh my, I check my watch. I have spent so much time at the kitchen window and in the woods and although I have stepped away from the hectic pace of my speaking engagements, caring for an antique house, volunteering in my neighborhood, researching for my next novel, and a myriad of other necessities, my mind has not been quiet. Sometimes, I go to the woods and my mind and body relaxes as if I’ve taken off my uncomfortable go-to-meeting business clothes and donned my pajamas. But mostly, although I am easily entertained and delighted to be in the woods, my mind doesn’t relax, thus my body doesn’t do so, either. My mind creates conversations between birds and animals amidst the background of my Gossip Mongers, the voices that come out of the closets in my mind. When I was a bluebird monitor for our local Audubon Center, I heard two bluebirds chatting one day, along with the Gossip Mongers:
How’s your nest? (Gossip Monger: You haven’t mopped the floors in a month!)
Fine…how’s yours? (GM: No-one will ever buy this old house and we’ll be falling apart together)
Shabby…too many babies spoiled my feathers and straw…and now the mites have taken over. (GM: My cat has so much matted hair and I know it’s going to cost me $200 to get him sedated and groomed!)
Well, to be honest…I threw out two chickadee eggs and felt like a murderer (GM: The authors on the panel had 10 minutes to speak and I was the last one. The author who spoke before me took 20 minutes and I didn’t have any time. I gave him hell afterwards!)
I had a fight with a tree swallow as soon as my chicks were born. I had lovely bluejay feathers and lots of gorgeous red hair from the woman who monitors our nests. This sassy low-life swallow dove right in, grabbed a few feathers, and nearly took all the red hair out of my nest
I don’t want to be Irish for a long time. I don’t want to see another sparkling green shamrock stamped on the fat cheeks of five year old kids. No more “Kiss Me, I’m Irish” pins, Irish dudes playing orange and green striped guitars singing “The Wild Rover,” or “Tied up With a Black Velvet Band.” At a recent festival, I heard one fellow telling crude jokes and making fart and burping noises. Not funny. And I especially don’t want to see young girls with florescent pink and green $500.00 Irish dancing dresses bobbing up and down with curly doll wigs, wearing loads of make-up resembling JonBenet Ramsey, and performing to Techno Irish dance music. God Save the Irish in America!
At most Irish festivals, there is a corner designated specifically for authors and lectures, but at some festivals there is not enough space and the authors have to hawk their books with the other vendors in one big tent. At the end of Irish festival season, I feel like a Carney running my joint at the amusement park. Yes, I sell loads of books and try to speak to each person with genuine interest. However, after two or three days of talking about historical fiction and being drowned out by Irish drinking and rebel songs, techno Irish music, and bagpipes, I swear I will never sell at a festival again! Nevertheless, I must, because outside of libraries and writing groups, Irish festivals are the best venue to sell my books because of their Irish themes. I do meet interesting people and make important connections. There’s really no time to dance or listen to the music that I do like, but if I have a fellow author friend to sit and sell with, there can be good craic watching the parade of people and commenting on the human condition, Irish-American style, like. Eoighan Hamilton, author of A Celtic Darkness, and I laughed so hard that I nearly didn’t make it to the port-a-potty (another festival experience, especially after the beer drinkers have visited a few times). He is Irish-born and has that vitriolic and non-stop wit. And then once, I exited a port-a-potty and had only taken a few steps when a woman stopped to tell me my sun dress was stuck inside my under pants. If I had walked all the way from the port-a-potty with my dress tucked in my old lady underpants, right by the bagpipers on stage and all the people sitting in the audience and back to my booth, I would have left right then and definitely would never have sold at a festival again.
All criticism aside, there is something for everyone at these festivals, and it is a festival, by golly, a carnival, an amusement, and not necessarily a purist, cultural, traditional Irish experience. One can find amidst the glaring green – lectures, trad music, brown bread, Guinness, and good books. And at my last festival, I listened to The Screaming Orphans, chatted with them, and exchanged wares (two CDs for one soft copy of Norah is a good deal). Yes, even the authors are entertainers! We have all winter been secluded with our over-sized imaginations (and egos) and then come out of hiding in summer to strut our characters on our festival booth stages. We create our own schpeel and jingles, and after two days, we nearly hate our characters as much as we hate Irish festivals. Eoighan turned to me and said, “Do ye know how many fecking times I’ve said that I grew up next to a castle in Ireland?” And what about the beer splashing on the books and the large cigar set down on Norah! And then there was the wolfhound, the size of a pony, standing in front of our booth getting all the attention.
But I came home, played my new Orphans’ CD, and made plans for the next festival. It didn’t last long, this not wanting to be Irish.
I have just returned from an idyllic and peaceful kayaking vacation in the Finger Lakes. During this time, I didn’t watch, read, or listen to the news, but now I’m home, back to work, and watching, reading, and listening. And there is much to wail over (as usual, it seems), but when I read about Somalia, all that vacation rest went out the door. I read that the World Food Program was sending 800 tons of high energy biscuits to East Africa to help fight the famine and nine airlifts would be enough to feed l.6 million people for a day. I read that more than 12 million people are suffering from the effects of drought and famine in East Africa. And then the U.S. announced an additional $105 million in aid. Hundreds of thousands of Somali children will die in this famine if there is not a strong aid response. It’s complicated with drought, warlords, high food prices, and even climate change. Delivering food is a short-term response, a mere band-aid to the problem, but as Mary Robinson, president of Oxfam said, “We cannot let children die; it is the 21st century!” Mary Robinson is a former president of Ireland and one who remembers Ireland’s own famine, what is known as the potato famine, that was also a political famine. There is a way, she said, for the aid agencies to circumvent the warlords and provide relief. There is a way…
And then I read responses to this news piece about Somalia online. It seems that many of my fellow Americans have lost their souls and when they speak of the warlords, they speak of themselves, for they have the same hatred and heartlessness. I couldn’t stop thinking of these responses, for they hearkened back to another time in history – An Gorta Mor, the Irish Hunger that occurred from 1845-1850. Different times, different people, and Somalia is not a colony of America as Ireland was a colony of Great Britain. And yet it is this racist, hateful, and ignorant part of humanity that continues to rage throughout the world. And it is not only in the warlords and terrorists of the world, but lurking silently behind internet screen names. Because I studied Ireland’s Great Hunger from 1845 to 1850 and wrote a young adult book about it, I recognized the same responses of hate that were printed during the Hunger. Let’s painfully read these words written a few days ago and then painfully read the words written during The Great Hunger.
August 2011:
“Yay, I love it when we send food and money to terrorist countries. Makes me feel all warm and fckin fuzzy inside”
“The only aid these people require are sterilization clinics and birth control.”
“Someone yesterday said it perfectly cant feed em, dont breed em. Don’t we have enough monkeys here on welfare to feed, now we have to feed those morons too”?
“A few tons of birth control products in the food would seem wise to me. They breed like flies and with the help of the corrupt government, they starve.”
“800 tons of food going to parasites”
“If they would stop breeding there wouldn’t be 10 million starving people…”
“Condoms and Birth control for these leeches and parasites. They are the same Black animals burning London as we speak. CONDOMS yes Food, NO!”
1845-1850
“The great evil with which we have to contend… is not the physical evil of the famine, but the moral evil of the selfish perverse, and turbulent character of the people” (qtd. in Woodham-Smith by Treasurer in charge of all Famine relief)
“…that he feared the famine…in Ireland would not kill more than a million people, and that would scarcely be enough to do any good” (quoted by an Oxford man that Thomas Gallagher, author of Paddy’s Lament, read)
“Punch, for instance, published cartoons week after week, depicting the Irishman as
Many readers are commenting about Norah, the heroine/protagonist in my novel, Norah: The Making of an Irish-American Woman in 19th-Century New York. “Norah is one strong and brave woman,” they say. And some add, “Just like you.” I don’t feel like I’m strong and brave like Norah! Au Contraire! I’m a bit of a wimp who can easily hyperventilate getting on a plane (even prior to 9/11). Sure, I’ve learned how to do deep breathing and think beautiful thoughts so I don’t give in to my fears, but I’m unlike my character, Norah, in that regard. I don’t think as a child I would have been able to climb into a dresser and travel across the sea in the hold of a ship, nor do I think I could travel with my man on a ship to fight for a rebel cause (as Norah did in my novel). So I’ve been pondering what makes a woman strong and brave. I came to the conclusion that most, if not all, women have certain strength and have had to be brave sometime in their lives (even birthing and raising a child or facing an illness such as cancer). And perhaps not giving into my fear of flying is a sort of strength and bravery I exhibit each time I board a plane. One woman’s strength and bravery might seem miniscule compared to another woman’s strength and bravery. And until we’re faced with what we deem an unfathomable situation, we don’t know how we’ll respond. But surprisingly, grace can arrive and attach wings to us so we become brave and strong enough to fly through, over, under, and within.
This is a vast subject and I can only comment briefly about strength and bravery in specific women. Women whom I am intimate with who have lost children, especially one woman who lost three children even before she was middle-aged. This woman long ago removed her garments of grieving, and although there is a sacred room within her for her sorrow and loss, her life is lived with joy, peace, and empathy. This indeed is bravery and strength. And my friend, diagnosed as a quadrapalegic after being a successful flamenco dancer, is full of strength and bravery. And women made public by their bravery and strength, such as Aung San Suu Kyi, who fights for democracy in Myanmar and has suffered house arrest and imprisonment for numerous years. And Lara Logan, a journalist, who was sexually attacked in Egypt. Brave enough to have this career and brave enough to tell, knowing what was at risk. I, as a woman, know this well.
Off the top of my head, I think of women who lived long ago, such as Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman, former slaves who were part of the Anti-Slavery Movement in this country. And the women I’ve recently been introduced to in The Tin Ticket, who were exiled from the British Isles and forced into slavery in Australia (written by Deborah J. Swiss). And Anne Hutchinson, a Puritan woman who defied the male-dominated Massachusetts Bay Colony and after banishment helped settle Rhode Island and New York. The list is endless!
As a writer of historical fiction, I think of women such as my Norah, who is a composite of Irish women who left Ireland for America during The Great Hunger in the mid-1800s (and who haunted me so much with her story, I actually believe she could have lived; and later I indeed learned there was a Norah McCabe who left Ireland in 1847 and traveled to New York City). Women, such as Queen Catharine, an Iroquois with French blood, who led her people to safety and away from the town she loved to flee General John Sullivan’s troops in 1779. Her land was the body of the Great Spirit and it was as if she was being torn from a lover to have to leave it. There are scant historical records, but it is said she returned and lived out her days (and I have reason to believe this is so). Two very different women, one fictional (or perhaps not) and the other real, but little known because as an Indian woman with a culture of oral history, not much has been recorded.
I have some bravery
I keep saying to everyone who will listen, “I could write a book about all my author events over the years.” I then tell humorous tales (they weren’t so funny at the time) about the foibles of participating in local author events and everyone laughs. I laugh, too, but honestly, most writers are prickly sensitive, as I sincerely try not to be. The occasional bashing by another author reminds me of minor dental work. No, not horrific pain, but it’s akin to the uncomfortable drilling, digging, pushing, and the dull ache that ensues afterwards.
One event at a Barnes & Noble store, I was sitting at a long table with local New England authors. I had arrived late and was asked to share a table with another author. I started to sit down and she pulled the chair out from behind me. I caught myself before falling to the floor, while she uttered, “You’re younger than I am and can stand.” Throughout the event, she called out loudly across my space to customers to come see her books. They bypassed me, not knowing how to ignore her. At another event, I was selling books like sweet hot cakes dripping with syrup. I was strategically (accidentally) located and my homemade scones helped, too. Oh, of course…the books themselves were, and are, appealing! But you know…this business is tough, especially at an event with lots of authors. Later, a high profile author stopped by my table and asked how I was doing. I proudly stated that I was selling so many books that I was running out. And then I asked how she was doing and she responded, “Well, not so well. You know, my books are priced in a different category than yours and it makes a difference.” Norah hadn’t been released yet and I was only selling my two children’s books.
At the ICC Boston Irish Festival last weekend, I sat at a table in the Library Tent with four other authors. We set up at 10:00 a.m. and sat until 7:00 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. We were also scheduled to speak at various scheduled times in the Author’s Tent throughout each day. No desperate groveling or hard selling snake-oil tactic was needed amongst the five of us. We all did well. And there was no shouting over one another, either. Kyle Darcy, author of Under Current Conditions, would comment to his buyers that my books were worthy of a look, as well. He didn’t really know whether my books were worthy or otherwise! But we had been conversing and there was a good spirit amongst all of us. When an author left to speak, one of us would step in to make sales and talk to customers for him or her. We got drinks and cupcakes for one another, as well as encouraged one another to persevere in this crazy and passionate work of writing. At the end of the festival, we exchanged addresses and books. It really was one of the best events I’ve attended with other authors. Although I was fatigued from talking, answering questions, performing in the author tent, I was euphoric because I had sold many books, but also because these authors had become fast friends. We probably won’t have time to do a lot of socializing, but I’m sure we’ll be at other events together in the future. And I do believe we will speak well of each other as we go about this writing business of ours. And so I will start right here in this blog and introduce you to them.
Kyle Darcy is the author of Under Current Conditions which is receiving rave reviews. The protagonist, Martin Quinn, is an engineer originally from Northern Ireland. He has his own company that possesses much financial potential. However, his work is constantly sabotaged by an unscrupulous competitor. Quinn becomes stressed, stops sleeping, suffers from PTSD, and eventually lands in a mental hospital. The side story, running parallel to Quinn’s personal account, is about the principal of his child’s school who is brutally murdered by her husband. Likewise, a lawyer whom Quinn had trusted turns out to be asso
I mostly ignored the fairy tale wedding of Kate Middleton and Prince William. It’s not because I don’t like grand celebrations, romance, and rolling out the red carpet, to be sure. But there was drooling obsession by Americans (mostly women) who wanted to vicariously partake of this union. There was a glut of photos of Kate Middleton’s dress, bikini, hair, make up…I don’t get it, but I don’t get a lot of things. I like Carey Grant, George Eliot, Norman Cousins, Catherine Cookson, Jane Austen, other British novelists, and many things British. However, I feel the royalty is a trite laughable, archaic, and their history mostly shameful. Yes, Queen Elizabeth is a special, unique woman; and one of my favorite movies last year was The King’s Speech. Both Queen Elizabeth and King George were born into a very public life of service, in spite of grandiose lifestyles. There was and is much sacrifice. I like learning real history and realizing that in spite of the foibles, ridiculous posturing, and egotistical ways of humankind that often leads to heartache and bloodshed, there can be found an elevation of the human spirit and golden stories threaded throughout the past. I like looking for these vibrant tales as a writer. But when I see the Irish people obsequiously proclaiming that they had their doubts but are now believers, believers in what? That now their history of oppression is given dignity because of a little bow by England? Certainly, Queen Elizabeth had nothing to do with An Gorta Mor (The Great Hunger, 1845-1850), but the visit can’t really wipe out the past with one gesture, the pomp of ceremonies, and the 10,000 police and military operation to protect her while in Ireland. I agree with what I read in one article in Irish news, “no amount of grovelling, abject apologies and self-flagellation could ever atone for the injustices meted out by the evil English/British Crown.” Well, I sort of agree. I don’t believe that the royalty today is necessarily evil, but Good God Almighty, they certainly have blood on their historical hands. And so does our American government and all the governments of nations. So what do we do? When I learned that in 1598, Sir Edmond Spenser advised a different Queen Elizabeth, “Until Ireland is famished, it cannot be subdued,” and that in 1845 to 1850, over a million people perished in Ireland when there was food shipped out before their starving eyes, and how the Hunger Strikers suffered, and so forth…one bow is not enough for me to be a believer. But I’m not an Irish citizen. I claim to be an Irish-American and I am, but I have English blood flowing through my veins, too. Likewise, when I learned that the Sun newspaper in 1857 New York City printed, “America would be a great nation if every Irishman killed a Negro and was hung for it,” I realized I would never be a flag waving American. I am not a believer in the status quo and never will be. I am a lover of my country and would only become an ex-patriot if certain ones (I will not name them) became president, but would only abandon my country until they were out of office! I would return to this land I love.
So for this historic gesture, it certainly is not wrong. It is a beginning. It rings with some hope, but like so much, it is made too much of. That’s my take on it. And don’t I have a right, especially as an American, to say what I want to say and believe and feel how I want to? Do I not have this freedom to do so? Even if the rest of ye are becoming right Anglophiles and salivating to learn that annoying British accent (oh, alright, I love that accent), I can like and dislike their ways if I want to.
I was flipping through More magazine and it’s a bit ironic to me to have come across a page of children with cleft palates in a magazine mostly focused on older women having it all. The eyes of these children nearly drilled holes in my heart. What I think this world should obsess over
Now and then I climb up on a day like I have done a few times at a water park in the summer. Up the steps I go to sit on the top to slide down into the water, hoping for a thrill and some refreshment. Instead, the water is too warm with piss and sun and I get tangled in the legs of others already there. Today, I fell into the human cesspool and I’m still swimming around trying to find the way out.
I saw a golden eagle and a bluebird over the weekend and floated on serene river water in a kayak. I thought this would be enough to begin the week with, especially since winter has loosened its grip on April and flowers are emerging with a shy smile of yellow and green. Nothing bold and sure yet. It all seems so fragile. Like the news of human beings caught in the cross-fire of war and Japan undergoing a sort of Shaken Baby Syndrome.
I started the day with good coffee, fair trade, of course. And with a little reading from the writings of John O’Donohue. He is always inspiring. And then I read from Thoreau and the Art of Life.
“The words of some men are thrown forcibly against you and adhere like burrs.”
“Wherever a man goes men will pursue and paw him with their dirty institutions.”
“My heart leaps into my mouth at the sound of the wind in the woods.”
And so forth. I read enough to have dressed my soul and mind to go out into the day. To climb up on a day for some thrill and refreshment. I didn’t have to go too far, for I work at home in my office, on my bed, and around the house. I started with sending out a media kit to some venues I am speaking at in the next month. And then I was going to work on some interview questions for a radio interview I have later in April.
I opened my windows, for the cardinals and mourning doves were singing their hearts out, as well as that Carolina wren with two notes. And then the motorcycles started driving by and I wondered whether there’s a muffler law in New Hampshire. I don’t think so. I used to get stopped and warned by a police officer in New York State when I was young and driving an old car with a bad muffler. Not only is there no helmet law, there must be no muffler law. It’s spring in New Hampshire and the dudes and babes come out on their Harleys like the insects suddenly flying in the air. But the insects are not as loud. Behind our house is a trail that leads to wetlands, a place we relished going to when we first moved here. An old railroad track, now a Fish and Game multi-use trail. There used to be horses and hikers who walked on it, and we would go for fishing and picnics. There’s not many on hoof or foot anymore because the all terrain vehicles have taken it over and New Hampshire really doesn’t care about their wetlands as you would think they would.
I gave up working and went to the health club with my Ipad. I’ve downloaded a Trollope novel and I’ve been enjoying reading it while I’m on the treadmill. I can usually forego the ear buds and listen to the music they have in the club. Today, however, they had a talk radio program on and I listened to the most inane and empty conversation. I had to go look for my ear buds. Before I found them, I heard a man say on the program, “What do ya mean, I have a fuckin’ kid now!” Well, that’s not anything unusual, really…not really…not in today’s society. But as I thought about it, I was angry. Why should I have to be out in public and constantly be bombarded with the crude talk, news of countries coming to an end, and sex change operations? And I pay for this? And since when should a kid ever be thought of as a ‘fuckin’ kid?’
I came home to work, with mixed blessings. Antique houses are usually on main streets that used to be dirt roads. You want the antique house and so you suffer these noisy consequences. Winter is a good time to work here. I opened up e-mails and one read, “As much as we would enjoy having you here at our store for an author event, we are unable to host a book signing event for you.”
Now and then I climb up on a day like I have done a few times at a water park slide in the summer. Up the steps I go to sit on the top to slide down into the water, hoping for a thrill and some refreshment. Instead, the water is too warm with piss and sun and I get tangled in the legs of others already there. Today, I fell into the human cesspool and I’m still swimming around trying to find the way out.
I saw a golden eagle and a bluebird over the weekend and floated on serene river water in a kayak. I thought this would be enough to begin the week with, especially since winter has loosened its grip on April and flowers are emerging with a shy smile of yellow and green. Nothing bold and sure yet. It all seems so fragile. Like the news of human beings caught in the cross-fire of war and Japan undergoing a sort of Shaken Baby Syndrome.
I started the day with good coffee, fair trade, of course. And with a little reading from the writings of John O’Donohue. His words are always inspiring. And then I read from Thoreau and the Art of Life.
“The words of some men are thrown forcibly against you and adhere like burrs.”
“Wherever a man goes men will pursue and paw him with their dirty institutions.”
“My heart leaps into my mouth at the sound of the wind in the woods.”
And so forth. I read enough to have dressed my soul and mind to go out into the day. To climb up on a day for some thrill and refreshment. I didn’t have to go too far, for I work at home in my office and around the house. I started with sending out a media kit to some venues I am speaking at in the next month. And then I was going to work on some interview questions for a radio interview I have later in April.
I opened my windows, for the cardinals and mourning doves were singing their hearts out, as well as that Carolina wren with two notes. And then the motorcycles started driving by and I wondered whether there’s a muffler law in New Hampshire. I don’t think so. I used to get stopped and warned by police officers in New York State when I was young and driving an old car with a bad muffler. Not only is there no helmet law, there must be no muffler law. It’s spring in New Hampshire and the dudes and babes come out on their Harleys like the insects suddenly flying in the air. But the insects are not as loud. Behind our house is a trail that leads to wetlands, a place we relished going to when we first moved here. An old railroad track, now a Fish and Game multi-use trail. There used to be horses and hikers who walked on it, and we would go for fishing and picnics. There’s not many on hoof or foot anymore because the all terrain vehicles have taken it over and New Hampshire really doesn’t care about their wetlands as you would think they would. The all terrain vehicles are buzzing loudly, too, right along with the motorcycles.
I gave up working and went to the health club with my Ipad. I’ve downloaded a Trollope novel and I’ve been enjoying reading it while I’m on the treadmill. I can usually listen to the music they have in the club. Today, however, they had a talk radio program on and I heard the most inane and empty conversation that prompted me to look for my ear buds. Before I found them, I heard a man say on the program, “What do ya mean, I have a fuckin’ kid now!” Well, that’s not anything unusual, really…not really…not in today’s society. But as I thought about it, I was angry. Why should I have to be out in public and constantly be bombarded with crude talk, news of countries coming to an end, and sex change operations? And I pay for this? And since when should a kid ever be thought of as a ‘fuckin’ kid?’
I came home to work, with mixed blessings. Antique houses are usually on main streets that used to be dirt roads. You want the antique house and so you suffer these noisy consequences. Winter is a good time to work here, but not in the summer. I closed the windows and read e-mails and found out that having a small press publisher is mo
By:
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on 4/2/2011
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My fairy tale book launch for Norah: The Making of an Irish-American Woman in 19th-Century New York was two weeks ago. Held in a castle built in 1905 that contains a fireplace from The Tuileries Palace, it was a magical venue to introduce a historical novel. A musician friend, Julia Forbes, played period music that included, Norah, the Pride of Kildare, By the Sad Sea Waves, and Home Again. She also composed Norah’s Dream Waltz. There were Irish musicians and Irish dancing, along with delectable amuse-bouches. Approximately 100 guests celebrated the release of my third historical novel, my first novel for adult readers. It was one of the most enchanting and special days of my life. People I love and enjoy surrounded me, as well as new friends I met that day. I felt a sense of completion. After four years of research, grueling and laborious editing, and receiving more than fifty rejections, this was my Queen for the Day celebration. Norah McCabe had hounded me for years to tell her story of famine, survival, hope, loss, and love. While querying publishers and agents, I learned that there was a real Norah McCabe who left Ireland in 1847 to travel to New York City. OMG! Was I writing about a real person of the past? It felt like it. I felt her ghostly, and sometimes ghastly, presence while I struggled to be rid of her at times. I started researching for my next novel, a story of a Native American woman who lived long ago, but Norah wouldn’t have it. To be honest, there were times I hated her. But because a protagonist becomes so entangled in the heartstrings of an author, I couldn’t leave her!
And then she waltzed and jigged into a beautiful and real hard cover book! And people have been dancing with her since they met her at the castle. They’ve called to tell me that they love this girl. And I want to step aside and give Norah all the glory. I am so damn idealistic and romantic (no, I do not have visions of grandeur) that I want Norah to tell a story of suffering that isn’t in vain. To inspire people of today who have endured horrific sorrow to not give up and to commit themselves to dreams of beauty.
The Carolina wren out my window has a two note chirp and it sounds to me like, “Give up…give up…give up!” This is why I don’t have a gun in my house. I would be tempted to shoot that bird right now, as well as the all terrain vehicles going down the trail behind my house. No, I would be very careful to not shoot the rednecks riding them, because I would aim for the tires. But, it wouldn’t work. Gosh, I’d have to be a redneck, too, and have as much practice shooting at beer cans in order to shoot the tires out and not kill one of the drivers. And if that was so, I wouldn’t care about shooting their tires because I’d be out there on the trail with them. Yeah, they were with me while I worked in my lab with the dead body parts of the past (Great Hunger, Irish Need Not Apply, gang violence, poverty) and created a novel that became something other than what I had originally intended for it to become. It started coming alive in ways I never expected. But I was pleasantly surprised, not frightened in thinking I had created a monster. The following quote describes how Dr. Frankenstein in the famous novel felt about his creation when it came to life:
After giving the monster life, Frankenstein is repulsed by his work: “I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.”[3] Frankenstein flees, hoping to forget what he has created and attempts to live a normal life.
I am not going to relay in this blog what I’ve come up against that makes me feel this way only two weeks after Norah was at her ball. The publishing industry is rapidly changing and many people can’t tell the difference between a poorly written vanity press novel or a small press novel (at least on the shelf, if the books are lucky eno
I hated my red hair in the sixties. One St. Patrick’s Day, I sneaked green food color out of the house and poured it on my head in the school bathroom. It rained at recess and green flowed onto my freckled face and I looked like a moldy piece of white bread. I was already an anomaly in the small town I lived in – flaming redhead living with four dark-skinned Italian-American brothers with our single mother. I was the only redhead in town. When I was older, I searched for the puzzle piece to my appearance and learned that I had Irish ancestry and wasn’t a “redheaded whop” as I was derogatorily coined. Honestly, it took years for me to become comfortable with the color of my hair, my pale, freckled skin, and humble beginnings.
Eventually, I became more than just comfortable with myself. That puzzle piece locked into place and I liked the picture so much, I framed it. Sure, it took a few years and we all know that placing puzzles in a frame is a bit tacky, but so what? My life, my picture. I visited Ireland, learned to dance, and as a writer began to hear the haunting refrains of my ancestors who wanted their stories told. So many years have passed now and I am celebrating the release of my third Irish-American novel, Norah: The Making of an Irish-American Woman in 19th-Century New York.
But in regards to St. Paddy’s Day (ugh, I do not like the word, paddy), I never really celebrated it as a young person, except for the food coloring year that caused me humiliation. In upstate New York, I had been raised amongst the garlic-eaters and not the potato-eaters, thus, the bawdy celebrations on St. Patrick’s Day were never really a part of my life. I never looked good in Kelly green, anyway. But later in my life, how I loved to dance! It is said that a good Irish dancer can dance in a small space, “minding the dresser,” and so there were times I would just have to go out on St. Patrick’s Day to try and dance in small spaces. However, dancing in a pub on this day can be lethal for body and soul. You can’t walk through a crowded pub on St. Patrick’s Day without being bumped and groped, with whiskey-whispers and beer blasted breathing down your neck, let alone dance. And because we host ceilis at our house in New Hampshire, I decided one year we would host a St. Patrick’s Day ceili. Wrong! Many un-Irish people (what a snob I am) came wearing fluorescent green and orange, draped in the Irish flag (how disrespectful), asking for green beer and corned beef, slurring speech and ignorant of their history. And they didn’t know how to dance! Ever since that time, St. Patrick’s Day ceilis have been banned at our house. Bad spirit altogether. Hard to believe that St. Patrick cast out the snakes, fairies, paganism, and all the magic for the sake of Christianity and we ended up like this? And was he not English, this Patrick slave? It’s as if the English conquered way back in A.D. 432, way before the Norman-Anglo invasion. Alas, the fairies still thrive in Ireland (and thank St. Patrick, the snakes do not), the magic is still there, and Celtic Christianity has its wisdom, truth, and beauty. But I’m talking there and here. There, St. Patrick’s Day is a holy day and has been a different sort of thing. Here, long ago in New York City, the parades were important. It gave the down-trodden and despised paddies unity, strength, and respect, especially when the Orange parades reminded them that even in America, they had to watch their backs. But watch their backs and fronts now, people! With pride and wonder. Oh sure, there’s still the tacky, throw-up green, element to the day, but more than anything, there’s a celebration of a people who have taught humankind how to tenaciously survive, overcome prejudice, dance, laugh, and lift a pint or two in spite of troubles.
A few years ago, I lowered my standards and donned some green (Hunter green, not Kelly green) and went out with friends to eat corned beef and cabbage. I had been thinking about what Yeats wrote, “I must lie down where all
Yesterday, the books I ordered for my launch on March 19th arrived, Norah went on Amazon for sale, and Grace Farrell, a thirty-five year old woman originally from Ireland, froze to death on the steps of St. Brighid’s Church in New York City. It was a mixed blessing day. I read about Grace and felt an immediate connection to her. One would have to be a cold-hearted zombie to not feel some emotion to this story. Grace had immigrant dreams, young women dreams, and artist dreams. She left County Cork at seventeen to go to New York, the city of dreams, but plummeted into despair and death. She slept in Tompkins Square Park, died in the arms of St. Brighid, and had blue eyes that changed to green. She was homeless, but not nameless. My character, Norah McCabe, came from Cork in the midst of the Irish Hunger (referred to as the Famine), took a buggy to Tompkins Square Park, and also had blue eyes that changed to green. Many years after writing stories about Norah McCabe, I learned there was a real Norah McCabe who left Ireland in 1847 to move to New York City. I have felt this woman with me as I have traveled the arduous road to publishing her stories. I like happy endings. Who doesn’t? I’m not saying that Norah McCabe has a happy ending. Who decides what is a happy ending?My kind of happy ending might not be yours. The cynics always mock, but I choose to find happy endings everyday in my life, even in death. These endings might not be glitzy, banner waving, award-winning, Oprah sanctioned, and multi-million dollar happy. They can be light-emitting truths that point to forgiveness, beauty, and eternity. Most would say Grace Farrell did not have a happy ending. I say that she had more than one ending. And the Grace from her story will unfold with compassion and empathy. Norah McCabe was also desperate and at one point in her life, she sat in her cramped, impoverished tenement apartment and uttered a prayer to St. Brighid:
“A light and fairy-like prayer for the hearth, words silk-like and worn smooth in the Irish language came humming into her mind and upon her lips. It was a prayer invoking St. Brighid that poured out of her in one powerful exhalation:
Brighid of the Mantle encompass us, Lady of the Lambs protect us…Beneath your mantle, gather us and restore us to memory…”
May Grace Farrell be restored in the arms of eternity and may Norah McCabe’s story ignite grace for the dreams of immigrants, women, and all.
Cynthia GRACE Neale
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Remembering-Grace-A-personal-accou…
htty://www.cynthianeale.com
0 Comments on NORAH AND GRACE as of 2/24/2011 8:19:00 AM
A halcyon sunny 60 degree day at a New England beach in February is a rare
gift. Especially after voluminous mounds of snow have increased weight to our lives,
in particular, to our roofs, just like comfort foods have done to our bodies. This winter, there’s been almost five feet of snow and we’re living in giant igloos fortress-ed with dazzling crystal spears dangling from ledges. Snow has its own allure, sparkling with
sunlight, moonlight, and starlight, soft and cleansing for the earth and for our slowed down times. And yet I agree that snow is also what Phil James’ satirical Eskimo word says it is: chachat: swirling snow that drives you nuts! But this particular day, we bask in balmy weather and the heaps of snow that are gray and thinning are combed to the sides of our lives.
I walk the beach with my husband as we celebrate twenty-seven years of marriage. The February of our wedding vows was unseasonably warm, too,and thus we felt the smile of heaven. I have relative peace, but there is something frozen within me tucked way in the back of my life. Like winter lingering there. It’s not just bad memories that have been crushed, compacted, and dumped into the landfill of my mind. And it isn’t my marriage, for we are still in love. What is it? I think it’s that perennial human question mark that folds up into a ball and rolls through the days. It becomes large with gathering the whys of life. From time to time, I unfold this heavy question mark and it becomes a labyrinth that I walk through and find my way to the center, to the dot at the end of the question. I walk it alone and back out again, carrying hope with me…that center, that dot.
It’s so warm on the beach that we take off our heavy coats and hang them on tall driftwood. We walk a mile or so and keep turning to see if our coats are still there. We laugh because they look like two shabby people. We have shed our old winter selves and suddenly feel free and unencumbered. Alas, we know we’ll have to return to those old coats and to more of ole man winter. But for now, we become children again and play on the beach. The lavender gray sea gently caresses the shore and massages our winter places. And I begin to treasure hunt for whole sand dollars. My daughter and I would often go to this same beach and collect them, unbroken with an imprint of a gleaming star. But they’re hard to find now. I imagine the winter storms have really caused the exoskeletons
to break apart. I decide to pick up all the broken ones to make a whole one out of them when I get home. I lose myself in gathering a pocketful of pieces of sand dollars, but I’m still looking for that perfect, unbroken one. I quietly ask the Sea-King Poseidon and his queen Amphitrite to please let me find a whole sand dollar on this special anniversary day. Time goes by and we have to leave, but I linger, determined. And then I see a small, magical, whole sand dollar and call out with excitement that I found one! I take this treasure, the hardy and intact sand dollar, and all the broken pieces home. I arrange them on construction paper and place the whole sand dollar in the center, for it is only
natural to do so.
The center, locus, heart, pith, essence…my question mark dot that is my
sanctuary of hope. There it is, star-lit and strong, having survived the
winter storms, imperishable and complete. All around it are the sandy broken
pieces, my icy, winter memories, my flaws, and all my whys. Call me sappy…these fragments make for a harmonious picture of my life.
0 Comments on Call Me Sappy! as of 2/21/2011 5:06:00 PM
Later, there was a Mass and a ceili (Irish gathering with music and dance) at an American friend’s house near Ennis. It was a dedication, a sort of baptism, for against all odds she had bought an old cottage in Ireland on land of her ancestors. Today it is renovated and a lovely home for her to visit (and for me to visit, as well). It was a joyous celebration altogether. And it was there that I believe for the second time in my life, Mother Mary or maybe it was St. Brigid blinked at me. I looked up at the wall during the ceili and she was blinking to the beat of the music! It was a plaque of the saint with electric lights. Although it made me giggle, it was for joy and not for derision.
0 Comments on Call Me Sappy! as of 2/21/2011 5:06:00 PM
What a beautiful piece of writing, Cynthia. It strikes me how often you put youself in the natural world, keenly observing, and in so doing, make connections for the rest of us, like me, who remain indoors and unaware, not partaking of the renewal that is available to those open enough to discover it. Like you.