The third Month 

I'm so vain

Carly Simon sings "You’re so vain" - forever. I had not even listened to the words when her song played on the stereo in Frieda’s car driving to Beara Penisula the other day. But now I suddenly remembered the song, including the main lines. And it’s true, I am one of these guys who feels often personally spoken to when listening to a song, as if it was a message directed only to me. Yes, I'm vain, full of myself. I'm tempted to say: we are all so vain. But that’s not the point.

I was about to write a first text for my upcoming travel report “The third month”, figuring that I might as well start early this time. But it's already middle of the month by now because I had to finish the second month, and I'm afraid I'll get all stressed out again at the end of the month, trying to come up with a report that would not bore everybody to death. A stress bigger than Covid-19!

I wanted to focus this time on the topic “Kindergarten”. I’d still love the world to be a big Kindergarten, playing all kinds of foolishly serious games, but Sinead said, what a mess, without adults and an orderly setting. Remember the movie "Lord of the Flies”. No, I don’t, not really.

But it looks as if I'd already be there in this big Kindergarten, surrounded by adults, who want to pick up their kids at the end of the day, to give them a safe ride home. Quite a nuisance, and even more so because the other kids get that comfortable service, and it looks as if I wouldn't - so I want it too. But nobody is waiting for me out there, so I continue trotting with unclear aim. Sometimes I feel like everybody is part of a stream and only I got stuck on the shore, clinging frightenedly to a rotten root still strong enough to hold onto. But then I think, what would the river be without its bed, that gives it shape and form, a sense of purpose?

Book: I happily dived into the “Hot Milk", written by Deborah Levy

The title song by Carly Simon: "You’re so vain"

Wednesday, 16. September 2020, written on a sunny day - almost too sunny for a comfortably depressed half-Irish.

The Gordian knot

The Gordian knot kept coming to mind yesterday. My soul always returned to the place where it was impossible to free myself from "tomorrow". Actually I have everything I need at the moment, I could simply enjoy it, but I also need to see the whole movement of yesterday and tomorrow, and to resonate with it. Just being there, I cannot do that. Best of all, when I work "physically". Work that makes sense. But I often despair of this desire for meaning. How do you cut this Gordian knot that is tied, also when others insist on truth and what is real and I'm ready to draw the sword of mine? Or when resist the pain, afraid of being touched?

"Egocentricity" accompanies me as so often, also in these days. So Sinead once talked about something and said saucily, I'm not talking about you now!   I had to laugh - somewhat tormented. When I read Hot Milk, I thought I wanted to be able to write like that. But I can't show my naked truth in virtual characters, for lack of a good memory and the fear I might assign something to someone who doesn't want me to. If I could simply love the characters that are created, regardless of whether they are true or not. Maybe that is why I insist on my egocentricity, because I don't think anything else is possible. Every form seems to me to be egocentric, necessarily a point of view, even if movable, and only the game itself probably has no centre.

Song: Leonard Cohen in an unusually thin, insecure voice: "Like a Bird on a Wire"

Book: I almost choked on this one, as if it was my Last Judgement: "BINA", Anakana Schofield

18 September 2020, Tullow, another sunny day in Ireland

Nature and the like

Attempt to leave human traces in the wild "garden"

Yesterday I sat outside in the "garden" early in the morning and looked at this place that has become so familiar to me. This mixture of derelict industrial wasteland and garbage collection point, but also full of plants, which come to light through cracks in old and brittle concrete slabs or spread everywhere else. The house had once been built by a local builder who parked his construction machinery in his "garden". It always reminds me of the "Obstgarten" where I lived for 23 years. All sorts of small entrepreneurs were working there in different spaces, a comings and goings, and in the past, pigs had crowded together in a small space there when the grandfather was still alive. Now and then it stank horribly. I didn't like that, but I thought to myself, He is a farmer. I am just a consumer. When we live close together, such clear boundaries disappear, and I know I have left a very enriching time behind me. It was time to move on.

Laundry rack

Like birds on a wire

I have always liked construction sites, where you could move around freely and explore mysteries in the evenings and at weekends. Often it was a bit dangerous, and interesting. You could also work there, you were tired and had done something. And drink a beer, well deserved. But whenever these construction sites were finished, you were deprived of space. A few more hedges and bans, more private things. This feeling has remained with me to this day. I am afraid of the finished, the defined. This is how it is now, this is how we wanted it to be. And we live with it now. It is very confining.

Yesterday we visited the Altamont Gardens, an old villa with beautiful extensive gardens, with ponds, exotic plants and trees, and woods where you can take a walk. The gardens are very well tended, and I admired the curves of the precisely trimmed bushes, and the hand of the gardener who carefully cut a rose. Work there, yes, why not? But just visit? I quickly feel uncomfortable, and I am happy to get to more disorderly terrain where I can breathe again.

River Slaney bordering the forrest of Altamont Gardens

And of course these breathing spaces are becoming less and less. More and more people are crowding into life and looking for their place. And the less space, the more the private sphere grows, a safe place to dream of a better world. A place where you can decide for yourself. But to decide for oneself always means to decide for others. Where I decide for myself, the place is occupied for others. We insist on old rights, which were created in times when there was still enough space to open up new lands. But which land do we still want to conquer today? The inner land?

Raised bed, ready for vegetables in spring

Here at Sineads I am still finding work at the moment, but it is also somehow difficult. Our views are necessarily different. Sinead lives here, takes things as they come, has given up big plans. These are always shifting, displaced by daily urgencies. But she also suffers somewhat from the fact that unfinished business is piling up. And I see an opportunity to "help" her in "such things". But I am a man for the rough - as a friend rightly says. When I do something, I think strategically. It takes space to make room. And in order to create order, it needs more disorder for a short time, and space for the bigger picture. That disrupts things temporarily, and old things can get lost in the process.

A big question is for example, when I'm pruning or weeding, where do I put the weeds and cuttings? Compost, a place to store, or burn? Burning is forbidden, but everyone does it. Sometimes she doesn't let me do what I want, and I feel constricted, paralysed. We fight for objectives and means. Certainties get mixed up. My gaze is painfully redirected.

Passable part of the "Wicklow Way" hiking trail (main roads can look almost the same!)

Tons of ivy can be found here in Ireland. It seems like it was the national plant. Just like Canada's maple leaf, Ireland should use ivy as its national flag emblem :-) Almost every tree in Ireland is infested with ivy. It's nice when they climb up the walls and make the ground evergreen, protect the soil from weeds, but when they penetrate and suffocate everything, you sometimes have to set limits to them. Sinead agrees. So I start to pull on ivy and see where the strands come from. Once you start, there seems to be no end to it. But if I follow one strand down into the depths, then I can see where they all come from. The nest. The roots of evil!

It's almost as if I was a surgeon working on an open heart to remove an ulcer. I can also see the briars, and the nettles that, like ivy, spread secretly from dark shadows of unkempt things. All this must go. I smell blood. The weasel comes to my mind, which - once in the chicken coop - rages until silence falls. A bloodbath. Am I a murderer? I calm down, and continue with certainty. My hands seem to know what they are doing. And I know that perhaps one day a hand will remove me in this way. I see the sense. But please not yet!

Sineads dream catcher

Nightmares are my constant companions. Things are confused, and frozen, because there is no movement. So this movement takes place in the dreams. Sinead has made a beautiful dream catcher that is supposed to keep nightmares at bay. She seemed to know exactly what she was doing. That reassured me. She found everything she needed - in the "junk" that has been piling up somewhere. Things obviously want to stay with her because she always finds a use for them. No wonder that she often disagrees with me, who - probably due to a lack of imagination and sense of responsibility - keeps my luggage small. I have apparently outsourced the fantasy. I am grateful if I can borrow it!

You don't matter, give up

It is still dark. Again this night I was haunted by nightmares and frightened by fear, but again and again I dived and twirled along in the whirl. At 5.30 I woke up, I was cold and my bladder was pressing, the cold was contracting everything. I got up, and slipped right back into bed again. And I looked at the dream catcher hanging at the dark window and the crystals that were supposed to sparkle in the light, and had to laugh. No, the dream catcher did not stop the nightmares and dreams, but invited them, bundled them. That is ok. Even Sinead had to admit that she wasn't sure what this dream catcher really does. A witch.

In the meantime we were thinking aloud about a rent for the first time. I will pay rent. It feels right, but smells like solidification, motion stopped in mid-air. For a long time I thought that the corona (crown) virus couldn't harm me, it was already part of me. But I kept resisting the orchestrated Covid-19 restrictions for great fear of its side effects. But the more I resist, the more it sticks. I can't escape it. Again and again I have pondered "man" as the crowning glory of creation. Hopelessly. But there is certainly no lack of ceremonies and masterly capers.

Mouse grey mother cat with her last year's tomcat young

Since a few days I also feed the cats. Before I thought I didn't want to take this task away from Sinead. When I leave again, I should not leave a gap. But in the meantime it has become obvious that I should and want to do that too. The semi-wild cats have always been a bit scared of me. Especially the little mother cat, the mother of the kitten that had died a few weeks ago. As she obviously has a nerve weakness - Sinead suspects she was once poisoned - she always stumbles over herself when she runs away in fear. She is handicapped, her hind legs always break away when running. It looks terrifying, but when I watch her more atentively I see a dignity, the lightness of how her body parts fall apart and re-group. Wonderful, admirable. So now when I fetch the bowls, fill them and bring them back, she creeps around my legs, she is not afraid. Sometimes she sits relaxed close to me. But at the slightest unexpected movement she still runs away, stumbles over her own feet in seemingly wild panic, and does rolls as if she were a circus artist, comes to a firm halt. And looks at me. It's as if she's making capers. Perfectly formed. I have to smile.

I keep thinking about Guatemala. The people there, whom I have got to know and appreciate, including Doña Isabel, the "cleaning lady" of the language school Celas Maya. Again and again the thought came to my mind that she rather cleans the hearts of the people than really mopping the floors and paths. While the teachers and and students were teaching and learning, and preparing for some next important step, a journey, a job, a deeper understanding of language and culture, she was always somewhere sweeping, and she was often smiling - somehow mischievously. I don't know if she is working at school at the moment or what she is doing. The school is probably largely empty. There are none or few who can or want to do face-to-face classes. Many are afraid. Also the pupils are missing.

It is hard for me to imagine Guatemala without all these different and dedicated teachers, eager students from different countries, Lesly, the omnipresent receptionist and "chief secretary", or Domingo, the certainly precise accountant, or the always warm-hearted Araceli. What are they all doing now? Or María, the always somewhat practised lamenting indigenous woman, who now and then presents her traditional weaving in the passageway in front of the barred entrance gate of the school. I once promised her that I would buy something from her, but I never did. Will I still keep my promise - what will I buy, and for whom? And will I see Doña Isabel again?

I certainly can't complain about a lack of face-to-face teaching here at Sinead at the moment. So I continue to practise here eagerly and enthusiastically - very Protestant.

Now it is 7.37am. Soon it will be time to make coffee for Sinead, empty the dishwasher and tidy up the kitchen a bit. I always wipe the floor in the morning and slide around on the tiles, removing stains and overlooked dust with a damp cloth. It is my morning meditation and I don't want to miss it. The floor must be almost shiny, and ready to get dirty again. Sometimes I also mop the floor when Sinead is cooking. And then I remember Maria, my sister-in-law, driving a broom between my brother's legs while he is cooking with passion and leaves a chaos. Oh God, life is really funny, somehow interesting.

Do I not play a role, don't I matter? That can't be! Mathematically - according to set theory - "I matter" is contained in "I don't matter".  That makes me feel somehow safe. Mathematicians may forgive a possible blurring of this thought. (See picture at the bottom)

PS: "The Elegance of the Hedgehog", by Muriel Barbery. I liked the title immediately, and the book is a sometimes exhausting but fitting companion: Renée, a concierge who has to play her part. She observes carefully, reads a lot and thinks philosophically, but this does not fit the stereotype of a concierge. Her views in "dialogue" with the observations of Paloma, a highly intelligent and isolated girl who lives in this luxurious apartment building in Paris and is planning her suicide (stage exit). A vivid picture of life emerges. The game of hide and seek takes its course. Cutting and loving.

In the convent

Another night full of fears, recurring ones that I have known for a long time: failure, feeling lost, loss and again and again guilt and shame. Christian stories of hell or limbo, knocking on doors try to find peace in Buddhist perspective. Strangely enough, yoga saves me now and then in the night. After a long time of not being able to sleep and despairing, I sit up cross-legged, sometimes thinking immediately, yes, I could do that forever now. Hang on a little longer, feel the stretching in my abdomen. And immediately my legs unthread and stretch again - eternity may wait - and I arrange my pillows, maybe leave the light on a bit, and often I doze off. Or I despair of guilt and eternal hell, and then I feel myself rising from this dust and find rest for a while in the rod that holds me. Even then I often fall asleep again.

I am used to living with such things, but it is exhausting, even for Sinead. Because sometimes I am exhausted after such nights. My nerves have holes in them and I carry the desperation and hopelessness through the day. Yesterday she told me with a somewhat tortured smile that in future she might send me to my room in such situations - as if I were a child.

I am a temporary guest. Movement is my life. At the moment movement takes place mainly at night. I am in lockdown. A few months ago - in the middle of the "first" Covid-19 lockdown - I exchanged written information with Alan for a short and intensive time. He is something like a passionate eternal student of metaphysics, especially eschatology, and in my opinion a kind of representative of vertical knowledge, of pure thinking. But I lack this talent, indeed in this discussion I came across this painful insight again. I keep looking for this conflict again and again, it is also the conflict with my father. I would probably have to throw off some ballast. But I have been doing this for a long time, on the material plane, but perhaps it is now the spiritual plane that is next, the one I will never get hold of. Perhaps that is why I have now landed in this "convent", so that I can clean out my inner stable.

It seems that there is now also the possibility to live this out in useful work. It is strange. One reason why I knew I would return to Sinead was because of this mysterious garage, full of secrets, full of old things, furniture, doors, unused objects and rubbish expressing themselves. Until now Sinead has always been stubborn, perhaps because she did not understand why this was so important to me (I understand perfectly!) and also because she resisted this pressure. But I don't want to do anything that is of no use to her, because then it is of no use to me either. I am selfish. She does not understand why I am so passionate about "helping" others to clean up and purify. But it seems to be my only possibility to purify my inner being.

The migratory birds gather daily, and the garage door seems to open

A few days ago Sinead said that water has been on this earth since "the beginning", it is always the same. Yes, maybe water is our memory, a lively vital memory. Including the rocks, the trees, the plants and animals, everything that keeps passing the rod on.

This morning I woke up fresh and full of energy. Again many dreams and the one I suffer from again and again. It is always about boundaries, between ideal and reality, between you and me, and this fine membrane that separates us and at the same time unites. Covid-19 is now setting me boundaries and I accept them, of course I am persistent, looking for loopholes and discovering the secrets of these boundaries.

I think about Covid-19 and how we deal with it. And I remember Chris de Burgh's song (The Getaway), which talks about locking governors in a room so that they can finally work it out among themselves. And now I am almost happy that Covid-19 exists. Because that way we are - more or less - all locked up in one room. It seems to me that it is no coincidence that the Covid-19 pandemic program and science vs. faith are now taking place, and at the same time - as the tip of the iceberg - an almost unbelievable American presidential campaign battle is in the global spotlight. Never before has it been so clear that we are sitting in a global arena and we are all looking spellbound at thumbs down or thumbs up, just as we do in the social media. A few days ago on Irish television they reported - it seemed almost enthusiastic to me - a surprising emotional outburst of Jo Biden's in plain language, and I too had given my psychic thumbs up with hopeful enthusiasm. Even though I usually stay away because I often fear and avoid crowds of people, I know I am right in the middle of it. In my nightmares and in my dreams.

PS: Tomorrow I will seriously start to clear the garage. Sunny weather is promised, a good sign :-). "Space problems" and how to deal with them will keep me busy in the coming weeks. After all, they are not only of a spatial nature, but include the world of thoughts and emotions.

Song, spontaneously found in the garage of Sinead's chaotic head: "Your mother should know", Beatles

Book: I'm still reading - anxiously - about how the story "Elegance of the Hedgehog" with the both passionate and desperate concierge Renee and the "suicidal" girl Paloma will continue.

19 - 30 September 2020, at the one-nun-convent of the headstrong Sister Sinead, in Tullow