Some nights when the garden was resting, he joined us at a prayer meeting in the chapel and there he gently eased us on to a higher level of connectedness between God, man and nature. Now that he is gone, his roses are moments of joy and a prayer of remembrance between those of us who knew and loved him.

  Uplift

  ‘Fruit of the earth

  And work of human hands’

  Today I heard

  And saw

  For the first time

  The earth

  The human

  The divine

  Battered Chalice

  It was a silent retreat. There is a lot to be said for a silent retreat, because we all talk too much – I certainly do. Silence is rare and golden. It gives the inner being recovery time and a rest from pouring forth judgemental opinions on all kinds of everything.

  The retreat was in the nearby monastery of St Patrick’s, Upton, which is a caring centre for adults who cannot cope with the challenges of the outside world. Here they have excellent care in a safe environment, where many of the carers are local and their community is darned into the larger parish community.

  One of the residents was Ned, who, due to an unfortunate accident as a child, was brain-damaged and, even though an adult now, still lived in the world of childhood. He had the endearing practice of picking flowers and presenting them smilingly to any adult who came his way.

  It was a warm, bright, sunny day in June and the group on retreat left the little chapel and scattered silently around the grounds. I made my way into a nearby field where I walked along by the ditch, enjoying the sunshine and relaxation. It was good to be alive.

  Some of the residents were gathered in a far corner listening to a match on the radio. Cork were playing in a hurling game and when they scored there were shouts of joy, and when groans of disgust came across the field you knew that we were in trouble. Their reaction to the scores reached me in waves of delight and despair, and somehow contributed to the joy of the moment. They were having a great time jumping and yelling and scoring imaginary goals.

  Quietly Ned left the group and came across the field picking flowers as he came, and then presented them to me in a little posy. It was a touching moment and I thought: this is an adult behaving like a child. How lovely.

  But that evening as we gathered in silence around the altar I perceived things differently. Maybe a day of silence and prayer listening to inspirational talks had opened a door into a more perceptive part of my mind and I saw that Ned, though maybe an adult behaving like a child, was also a host in a battered chalice. I brought the scene home in my head.

  Battered Chalice

  God’s day,

  The birds and sun

  Celebrate His creation.

  Your pick the flowers

  With such joy in your hands:

  Little child in the body of a man

  You are the host in a battered chalice.

  ‘Duine le Dia’ old people said,

  And how wise they were

  Because you live within

  The circle of God’s arm.

  Not for you

  The snare of this world

  You walk above man’s narrow vision.

  Never Suppress a Good Impulse

  A bright, cold frosty morning in February. The phone rang. It was Mary, who lives outside the village. ‘Alice, I just want to tell you that your window boxes are absolutely beautiful. We drove past just now they were shining in the sun. They did me good. I thought that I would ring and tell you.’

  What an absolutely lovely thing for her to do. It did my heart good that my window boxes brightened up her day, but more so that she took the time to tell me. It made me realise how often we do not bother to voice our appreciative thoughts. How often do we think something like this but do nothing about it? We are too busy to take the time or we think that other people will think it silly, and then all kinds of other thoughts come into our heads. And so we crush the generous impulse and do nothing. That is such a pity.

  One of the best pieces of advice that I ever got was: ‘Never suppress a good impulse.’ Mary had a good impulse and she went with it, and I benefited from her generosity of spirit. It may be only a little thing in the larger scheme of things, but little things mean a lot. So whenever we get a good impulse, we should go with it, not suppress or over-analyse it. Just do it. Do it now! Give somebody the joy of the moment.

  Generous impulses come from an unknown source into the creative side of the brain, but if we go into analysis mode the practical side of our brain clocks in and kills the goose that laid the golden egg. Generous people who go with their good impulses make the world a warmer place. You feel better after meeting such people. Others often have the opposite effect. Having met them you feel less well. They make the world a greyer place. And the strange thing is that they are not necessarily people to whom life has dealt a tough hand. They just enjoy spreading misery. These are the wet-day people of the world.

  So let’s be thankful for the Marys of the world who believe in spreading their joy around.

  A Touch of Spring

  Spring came today

  And walked with me

  Up the hill,

  Breathing softness in the air,

  Opening gates within my head.

  The birds felt his presence,

  Pouring forth symphonies

  Of unrestrained welcome.

  It was mid-January

  And he just came

  To have a peep,

  Trailing behind him

  Along the valley

  Wisps of purple veils.

  Let It Be

  It was an ugly experience. A tidal wave of raw rage had crashed in my door. The sanctity of my home had been desecrated and my sense of wellbeing breached.

  That night sleep evaded and as I watched the grey dawn creep in the window I realised that for this trauma there would be no quick fix. My inner sense of serenity had been eroded. How could I repair what had been damaged? I had no answer.

  During the following days the lines of the old Beatles song kept drifting into my mind, and I hoped there would be an answer, and I could perhaps let it be? So I tried to let it be. That was easier said than done! But I had no choice, as I had no solution. So I had to let it be.

  But would there be an answer? I had always loved that old song, but had not listened to it for years. Now I found myself listening to it on YouTube and found it strangely comforting. As I listened, I wondered would there be an answer?

  Then the answer came. Unexpectedly, out of the blue. It was a phone call from a friend whom I had not seen for several years. He rang to say that he was planning to give a special course and would I be interested. I was!

  Years previously this enlightened man had attempted to introduce me to the stillness and the treasury of inner being, but he was casting pearls before swine. At the time I was too immature and self-opinionated to appreciate the richness of his gift. Now I was ready. The mills of God grind slowly but they grind exceedingly well. Maybe the Beatles were right!

  So began a healing and enriching journey. This amazing course was food for the mind, soul and body. It revealed truths that gave meaning to much that had been beyond my understanding. I was on an enlightening inner journey where a whole new landscape was revealed. Windows of revelation were gently eased open and into my mind poured healing light. My whole being was cleansed and renewed.

  One day, in the middle of the course, I suddenly realised that I was being healed. The ugliness was being eroded, slowly flushed out of my system. The wisdom of ages absorbed during this amazing course was repairing the damage. This was the answer!

  And so now, in hindsight, I realise that the experience, like so many other ugly happenings in life, though highly undesirable and traumatising at the time, was part of a learning curve. I am now much more appreciative of the wonderful people and the beauty that usually surround me. The joy of now has returned.

  A Passing Kindness

  A tsunami of exhaustion engulfed me. I had failed to observe the stop sign on the road to overdoing things and was paying the price. I was talked out and peopled out! In a desperate effort to recover, I was having a late, late breakfast to give time for my soul to catch up. But my mind was too jaded to respond to these belated efforts. My mind was as flat and burnt out as my body. Would I ever rise again? The lines of a Shelley poem swam into my muddled head:

  I could lie down like a tired child,

  And weep away the life of care

  Which I have borne, and yet must bear,—

  Till death like sleep might steal on me

  And I might feel in the warm air

  My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea

  Breathe o’er my dying brain its last monotony.

  Amazing that no matter where you find yourself, a poet has been there before you! Shelley and I were walking in the same shoes, or should I say swimming in the same waters.

  Then into this morass of self-pity came a knock on the door. Oh dear God! Could I answer it? Could I face another human being? The world was already too much with me. But then another inner voice instructed: ‘Alice, will you for God’s sake give yourself a good kick in the arse and get up and open that door.’

  Outside was a total stranger, a woman with a gentle, smiling face, who thrust a paper bag into my hands and said quietly: ‘Just passing by on my way from Dublin to West Cork. I want to say thank you for your books. They have enriched my life. Just a little gift in appreciation.’

  ‘Will you come in?’ I gasped in amazement. ‘No, no,’ she said firmly, ‘the family are in the car.’

  Then she was gone, swallowed up into the passing traffic.

  I closed the door and stood in the hallway holding the little bag in awe. What a lovely thing to happen. I brought the bag into the seomra ciúin and placed it on a table by the window. I sensed that my caller was a woman who did not do things lightly. Her kindness and thoughtfulness washed away my mental fatigue. My exhaustion evaporated. I sat by the table and opened the bag. Inside, wrapped in soft white tissue paper, was something solid and with it was a card. The card said: ‘Your last book Tea and Talk had cups on the cover and this jug matches them. It belonged to my mother who died a few months ago and it was the only piece of that special set left in her house. She would have loved you to have it to be part of your set.’

  I unwrapped the jug and gasped in delight to find that the tall, elegant jug was a perfect match for my much-treasured set which up to then had only had a small cream jug.

  As I ran my fingers over the jug, I thought about the woman who had once used it. What was her story? She had obviously reared a daughter who did not suppress a good impulse. That good impulse changed my day.

  Part 5

  Then and Now

  I would have missed it all but for the necessity of having to take a rest.

  The Agony and the Ecstasy

  Pregnancy is judged to be a natural process in the evolution of the human species. But for me the naturalness was at times questionable. The pregnant state and I were not entirely compatible. And that is an understatement! As a start-off, my mornings crashed in with a demand from my stomach to be rid of its contents. But after a breakneck dash to the bathroom and a futile puking session, my stomach would have a change of plan. This unfortunate state, mistakenly termed ‘morning sickness’, extended itself into an all-day test of endurance. Supposedly confined to the early weeks of pregnancy, it went on and on and on. Not a happy state-of-the-nation situation. My darling GP happily informed me that the least notice taken of these conditions the better. God bless him! He had not walked in these shoes.

  Aligned with this strange condition came a light-headiness, which caused certain objects that should be stationary to take to the air. This happened one sunny Sunday morning at Mass when the priest was transformed into the Ascension and rose from the altar, ascending upwards towards the church steeple. A hasty exit to fresh air was desirable, but not possible, because a queasy feeling that an earthquake was about to take place beneath the church clung me to the seat. Thankfully, the floor decided to stay put and the priest came back down onto the altar as the earthquake subsided.

  Fast on the heels of these alarming experiences came a total aversion to foods that had hitherto been quite palatable. Certain smells sent my stomach into somersault spins, and I slowly turned from being master of my own destiny into a cauldron of unplanned volcanic reactions to everyday situations. Then, just as that phase slowly eased itself out of my life, in came swollen ankles, high blood pressure and exhaustion.

  But the daddy of them all was the ‘pregnancy itch’! This could turn a perfectly sane woman into a shedevil. And it did. My GP, who was a bit of a Gaelgeóir, told me that there was an old Irish curse: ‘Go mbeidh tochas gan ionga ort chun an tochas a scríobhadh’, which means ‘May you have the itch without a nail to scratch it.’ Apparently in ancient times it was the most awful curse that you could inflict on your worst enemy. I could concur!

  Heat exacerbates itch. So, warmth was out! out! out! Everybody around me had to acclimatise to subzero temperatures. Not a situation conducive to happy home conditions. This itch, for reasons best known to itself, pitched its camp on the soles of my feet, and drove me demented. The only solution was cold feet, cold bed, cold house – cold everything. I turned into the Ice Woman. Car journeys were made with my feet sticking out the window. Sometimes I feared that my long-suffering husband would be held up by the police and suspected of carrying a corpse to be buried during the dead of night in the wooded corner of a remote field.

  Eventually I finished up in the labour ward, which in pre-epidural days was not exactly like a therapeutic visit to a massage spa. Later, when I asked my sister, who was a midwife, why the labour ward was such a torture chamber, she cast a speculative eye over my physique and informed me: ‘You do not have child-bearing hips. Better for you if you were broader across the bum. You have the lean and hungry build of the Taylors. Not good for baby bearing.’ No answer to that sisterly observation!

  My last – fifth – pregnancy followed the usual pattern, so I concluded that another boy was on the cards. But that didn’t matter, as by then I had become aware of the miracle of the perfect baby. My only concern was that all would be well. So when, at the conclusion of a shorter-than-usual labour, I heard the cry of life, I quickly demanded of the midwife, ‘Is he all right?’ ‘She is perfect,’ I was told. ‘She?’ I questioned in amazement. ‘Yes, a perfect baby girl.’

  The labour ward lit up.

  Thank Heaven for Little Girls!

  On the first day

  Of the new year

  You were born.

  Perfect and beautiful,

  Ahead of schedule

  But complete.

  The agony

  Of labour pains

  Climaxing

  In the joy

  Of perfection achieved.

  A little girl

  The crowning glory

  Tears unrestrained

  Poured on your

  Downy head.

  You were baptised

  In streams of joy.

  A Time to Write

  Walking in the main door of Eason’s in O’Connell Street, Dublin, I came to a standstill. Right there in front of me was a large stand stacked high with copies of just one book: my book. There were hundreds of copies of To School Through The Fields, my very first book. It was a magic moment. I felt the thrill from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. I was delighted for me. But also for Steve MacDonagh of Brandon Books. Steve had started and nurtured his small publishing company, facing many challenges over the years, and this successful publication was a great boost to Brandon Books.

  But this was about more than Steve and me. This book was about the lives of other people, ordinary people who in their own estimation had done nothing extraordinary. But they had. They had worked the land and kept the soul of rural Ireland alive during hard times. Many of them had been forced to emigrate, but had sent back financial help to their struggling families. And now To School Through The Fields would eventually find its way to them, retelling their own story. This book was a celebration of their lives. I felt like climbing on top of the pile of books and dancing a jig for all of us. At long last I had achieved what had been at the back of my mind for years.

  I have always loved writing. From my early years I had felt the need to transfer happenings onto paper. It was as if once written down and recorded, things were safe and would not disappear. I had no big plan, but somehow felt that when the time was right things would evolve. Eventually the time came to write more extensively.

  Steve, with his publisher’s nose for an untold story, sensed the potential and when he rang me with the news that he wanted to publish my manuscript I danced around the kitchen. The day the first copy arrived was also a cause for dancing! Gay Byrne gave me the ear of the nation and of all the people who had lived the same life as mine in rural Ireland. Those listeners recognised To School Through The Fields as their story. Soon afterwards Steve called to my home and told me, ‘Our book is top of the bestsellers’ list’, and I had to ask him what exactly did that mean?

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8