Trip Down Memory Lane

I am currently sitting in Valdez, Alaska, attempting not to faint from jet lag and an over-consumption of french fries. This isn't actually the promised 'trip down memory lane' of the blog post title, but I thought I'd give you some context. Tomorrow the Last Frontier Theatre Conference starts in this far-flung post of the USA empire, at which my play, 'Fishtail' will be presented. I'm pretty excited. Not least because the last time I went to a theatre conference it turned out to be the absolute best thing I've ever done in my entire life where I met some of the best and brightest people I know. I'm looking forward to a theatre binge, not much sleep and various declarations of the adult equivalent of BFF's (whatever that might be). By next Sunday I intend to be intellectually, emotionally, creatively and lets face it, probably financially sucked dry.
But I've actually already had an emotional rollercoaster of two and a half days. On my great traverse across the wide American continent to Alaska, I thought I would take a break in Michigan. Not just for any old reason, but because we have family friends who live there, who I haven't seen in about 15 years. My Dad and Mum met this couple when we lived in Rochester, Minnesota, back when I was a tiny munchkin of not much more than 5 years old. I always remembered them as some of the kindest, funnest, smartest, best people I knew. Mum and Dad went and visited them in Michigan in 1992, then they visited us in Australia in 1994, Dad and us kids went over again in 1996, they came back in 1998 and then we lost touch for 15 years for a variety of unknown and inexplicable reasons. A few years ago, I looked them up using this miraculous invention of the internet but uncertain where to start after such a long amount of time, I didn't do anything about it. It was left to my brother Chris to send them a letter last year and re-spark the connection. I sent some emails afterwards, they sent me a Peter Brook book and we discussed vague plans about them coming to Europe with their young daughters (who I had never met) or us going to the USA.
Then, my brother got accepted into a composer's program in NY and headed out to see them last March. In the meantime, I got accepted into the Last Frontier conference and asked if I might be able to pop along for a short visit on the way there.
Last Wednesday, after an early start in Dublin and a long wait in NY, I was on a tiny plane (not much more than a tuna can with wings, really) bound for Detroit. I suddenly felt very anxious about the whole thing and wished that I could skip Detroit entirely and head straight for Alaska. It all seemed too scary and unknown. What if they didn't like the person I had become? What if we had nothing to talk about? What if... I don't know, I set the house on fire? What if I just couldn't find them at the airport (my new casual attitude towards most things meant I had left Dublin without an address or phone number in case anything went wrong. Of course it all worked out in the end, but still...)?
I don't know that I really want to go into details about the whole two and a half days. I still feel like I'm processing everything that happened and that I felt. Of course, it was absolutely wonderful, beyond wonderful to see them both again. It felt like opening up a link to another lifetime, back to when I was a child, living in Minnesota happily oblivious to how lucky I was to have my mummy who loved me with me every single day. A link back to a time I could barely remember and a woman I hardly knew.
Less emotionally, it was a link back to the wonderful 5 weeks me, my Dad and my brother spent in Michigan when I was 12 years old; a 5 week period that had made me so happy I constantly brought to mind and perfected every little detail over the years, afraid they might be lost, etching everything so forcibly into my mind that, walking through the city again, I managed to recognise open fields that had been covered in snow last time but were now swishing with high green grasses.
They took me out to yummy vegetarian restaurants and fed me delicious local cheeses. We went cycling and visited local delis and gorgeous artisan shops. We tried to get sangria, but I got ID'ed (seriously!) and when I realised I didn't have my passport with me, I was forbidden alcohol by the bartender. I saw the university's art gallery, filled with gorgeous colourful furnishings created by Tiffany (of Tiffany & Co.), the grad library with its airy roof and the law library that was built underground, but so light-filled and bright you'd never realise.
I was 'all grow-ed up' (as they kept saying), but there was something about being there, with them, that made the past feel all so brand-new and raw and only just out of reach. On one level, everything about Ann Arbor, its big, gorgeous wooden houses, the leafy suburbs and the green university campus, the buzzing downtown and not to mention our friends' house (which still had a hint of the same unique woody smell it had back in 1996) and our family friends, seemed so comforting, so peaceful, so exactly right. On some level, I felt so completely at home and safe and calm that I couldn't ever imagine leaving.
Of course, I did have to leave and far too soon. Worried about my internship and the performance for the Cork Midsummer Festival, I had left only the bare minimum of time in Detroit and just as I had begun to get to know our friends' two little girls, just as I was getting used to having the sun again, just as I was getting used to being around our friends again, I had to leave. They dropped me off at the airport at 6:30am for a 7:30am flight and as the car drove off, I could feel myself reeling. I cried getting my tickets. I cried at security. I cried waiting to board the plane. I cried as the plane took off. I cried at Chicago airport as I waited for my connecting flight for Alaska. I cried and I cried and I cried.

Glorious Minnesota Childhood

Because the fact of the matter was, that no matter how close all those years ago seemed whilst I stayed in Ann Arbor, they were still far too far away to go back to.

Transient Nights

A good friend once told me that the trick to living happily in a place is to always look at it through a haze of nostalgia, pretending that you're always on the brink of leaving. Its a neat trick and it certainly makes you aware of what parts of your life you are grateful for. The benefit of it is that you can have the all the good, grateful, happy feelings without the sadness that would be associated with the nostalgia if you were actually leaving.
However, over the last week I've been getting the full nostalgic experience because, of course, I don't have to pretend anymore. I am actually leaving Dublin tomorrow morning for Alaska. After two weeks in the USA, I'll be back in Cork for two weeks and then its on to London. I know a week or two ago I was saying I was disappointed to be back in Dublin, but, well, I'm just that ridiculously fickle and irrational. So, now, I'm on a totally different emotional roller-coaster and whilst I am excited about moving to London (wheee!) I have been feeling the impending loss of Ireland. Of course, when you get into that sort of headspace, you inevitably find yourself gravitating towards rainy windows so you can stare out of them significantly, making daft comments about flowers being so much more beautiful because they don't last and stroking your chin and murmuring wanky words like 'transient'.
So, at the risk of sounding like a wanker, I had a beautiful transient evening last Friday night in Dublin, which seemed like a remarkably wonderful way to send off Dublin.
A little bit of background. I've been signed up to a group called Sofar Sounds since sometime last year. I'm not even sure how I got into it in the end, but in it I am. Sofar Sounds was set up by music lovers who were sick of going to concerts and finding that many audiences at many concerts were highly disrespectful of the bands, particularly of support acts, who mainly happened to be emerging artists. So, they decided to create pop-up events in people's living rooms. They would be limited capacity, so only the people who really cared would be attending and the organisers would impose several rules in order to give the artists the best possible chance of performing. The rules are thus: 1) No talking or mobiles 2) If you come to the event, you stay for the whole thing, no ducking out if you decide you don't like one artist. The people from Sofar then set about finding the best and most interesting artists they could and putting on a hugely decent (free) gig for those dedicated music lovers. Its happening all over the world, New York, London, Paris, Australia and its great music. You can find out more about the group as well as sign up for the mailing list (which is the only way to get to the gigs) here: http://www.sofarsounds.com/
I've been trying to go to some of the gigs in London, but either the dates didn't work out, or I wasn't able to get to the gig because so many people wanted to go. But, last Thursday, I was given an invitation to the first Dublin gig. They emailed an address and off I trotted to Merrion Square on Friday evening searching for a yellow door. It was a beautiful evening, balmy, not too overcast and with a soft pastel sunset growing over the horizon. I found the address fairly easily, I just followed the very attractive, impossibly trendy people who were spilling out of the living room onto the street, drinking and getting to know each other before the music started. I chatted briefly to the woman whose apartment it was and then got myself a sofa seat and waited for the music. It was slightly awkward as I didn't know anyone and some people seemed to know each other at least a little bit. So, I nursed my cider and pretended to text, the last resort of the single, awkward person at an even where they know no-one. I'm certain everyone knew I wasn't actually texting, but it at least meant they didn't have me looking at them, smiling awkwardly and attempting to strike up conversation. And I got to pretend that I wasn't in anyway awkward or lonely. Win-win, really. Status-quo maintained.
Once the music got started, I relaxed completely and felt totally blessed that I had been given the opportunity to hear all these bands. We started with the folkie, accoustic sounds of Dublin band Slow Skies. The lead singer had a gorgeous, whimsical voice that reminded me of a mix of Lisa Mitchell and the Cranberries. The music, itself, however was more ethereal than the both of them. It was absolutely beautiful and from the first notes there was a magic feeling in the air. Everyone listened so attentively and the focus on the musicians only added to the magic that was being created by the musicians themselves.
Second up was a girl who happened to be from Adelaide but who had been living in Dublin for the past 4 years. She used a loop-machine to build and create songs all on her own. She played the violin, sang and used a variety of other instruments I don't know the name of to create really unique sounding music. Its not normally my style and I don't have the requisite language or labels to describe it, but her performance totally blew my mind. Unfortunately she doesn't really have anything online that you can check out, but her name is Margey Lewis and you should keep your eyes/ears peeled for her because I think she'll be going places. In a good, musical way.
We had a late addition to the line-up with a girl who played one song. It was a very sweet song about youth and summer and nostalgia so suited my mood.
The gig finished up with The Raglans, another Dublin band who were kind of a rockier Irish Mumford and Sons (I am wary of making comparisons between new favourite bands and old favourite bands after my comment to one singer that she sounded like Joan Baez and they didn't look too pleased. I had meant it as a compliment and I mean this comparison as a compliment as well, so I hope it would be taken as such). The energy and charisma these guys had was amazing and by the end of their fourth song, no-one was ready to go. They played us an encore, but I would have happily stayed and listened all evening. Of course, that wasn't an opportunity, so I satisfied myself with by going up to them and gushing along with one of the other audience members. Luckily, the Raglans were very appreciative of my gushing and didn't find it in anyway embarrassing. They even tweeted back at me when I gushed more over twitter late that evening. It was probably my most successful and satisfying musician/gushing fan interaction apart from say the weekend with the Unthanks back in January. Anyway, they are on iTunes and I, for one, will be investing in their EP, once I have gotten over the little heart attack I had over last month's credit card bill. I suggest you do the same:

The transience of the evening came from the pop-up nature of the venue, of course, but even more so from the people I met. Now, of course, when you're traveling, you meet people all the time who you are never going to see again. One need only look over my last two blog posts and we meet three unnamed men who I very much enjoyed talking to - the Georgian, the American kayaker and the singing Irish cab driver. But, I suppose you expect this when you are traveling. My obsession has always been living in a country and I collect 'countries-I've-lived-in' the same way other people collect stamps, or coins or, I don't know, antique sewing machines. Living in a country for a short period gives you a false feeling of permanence and you forget that you are still 'traveling' and that the existence you're creating in this new country is far more transient than one you may have lived previously (is it possible to be 'more transient'? 'I think you can in Europe?')
ANYWAY, the point I'm making, or heading towards making or trying to make is that the evening turned into this beautifully strange, bizarrely intimate and yet completely momentary occurrence. Because of the slightly odd and thrilling nature of the pop-up gig, because it was held in someone's house (that before that evening you had never met) and because there were only 20 - 25 people there, I ended up having very interesting and lovely conversations with everyone I chatted with. Of course, they were all very enthusiastic about music but they also all had very interesting lives that had led them to being in that room on that particular night at that particular time. One girl in particular happened to be gushing to the musicians around the same time as I was gushing to the musicians and we decided to form a gushing strike force, going up to everyone and telling them how wonderful they were. It then turned out that we were both walking in the same direction, so we walked together and talked together on that beautiful, balmy night. She told me about her Wwoofing experience in the French Pyrenees and I told her about my plans for London and then we bought gelato and tried out the different flavours that each of us had gotten and then after about 15 minutes of sharing stories, suddenly I was turning left and she was turning right and that was the end of the conversation and our fleeting relationship. I don't even remember her name.
There was something about that 15 minute walk and talk through the centre of early evening Dublin, the light from the sun still hanging around the horizon and all the party people falling about themselves as they went from pub to pub that so perfectly suited my nostalgic mood, my feeling of merely floating through a fleeting world that.... made me want to write bad poetry. No! Sorry, sometimes I find it hard to be serious in these philosophical or significant posts. My style always leans towards the self-deprecating. But, the point is, there was something about my whole experience in Ireland that seemed to be summed up in that 15 minute stroll. The loveliness of it, the randomness of it, the strange, sudden intimacy, the freedom and glory of it as well as the final interrupted and unfinished nature. Perhaps that's the best way for it to be in the end, instead of dragging on and on like a once-successful comedy sitcom, ending on a high note when all you can remember is the good times.

Cut Hair, Red Hair...

Something's been going wrong over the past two weeks. A lot of things seem to have conspired at once to produce within me a feeling of crisis.

1) I received an email about 3 weeks ago, at the height of my visa stress, that knocked me for six. I didn't deal with it straight away (couldn't deal with it straight away), due to impending 'being-chucked-out-of-the-country' issues, but as soon as that had died down, the email loomed large once again. This email, which I don't want to go into detail about, made me suddenly question various truths I have held about myself and my life over the past three years. And, when you think about it, three years is a pretty large chunk of time to have to suddenly start questioning.

2) I turned 28. That's a pretty freaking huge number, as far as I'm concerned. It may seem on the surface a seemingly innocuous and mundane number and you may well ask, 'what's so wrong about 28?' but we need only dig a little deeper to realise the inner sinister nature of the number 28. For starters, it's closer to 30 than 25. It is an even number, which is only a good thing for ages that are multiples of 10, because then at least you get the benefit of a huge party with which to drown your sorrows/mask your anxieties/make you feel worthwhile (you know its true). You don't even get the benefit of saying, as you do at 27: 'Oh, its my Saturn's Return! I will experience great power and magnificence this year, as a far-off planet returns to the point it was when I was born and I get to be more 'me' than I ever have been before. Oh, yes, I can already feel myself becoming more myself. Pass the guava juice.' The only proper way to deal with such a horrible birthday as 28 is to pretend it doesn't exist and only grudgingly eat banoffie pie and ice-cream until you feel uncomfortably full and then reluctantly agree to see a comic book movie with your housemate.

3) I returned to Dublin. Yes, yes, I know, I was freaking out something terrible about the thought of NOT being able to return to Dublin, but the fact is I had such a delightful time in the UK when I was forced to leave Ireland and I was so deliriously excited over my UK visa and the thought of moving to the UK, that when I landed back in Dublin it was a bit like 'Wooo.... oh. This place again?' Its like when you get really excited about the start of a big road trip and you get all the mixed tapes going and your friends are all excitedly discussing what you'll see and where you'll go and what you'll do and looking out the car window, when someone suddenly realises that they've left their bags at home and you have to turn around and go get them. So often the excitement is never so great the second time round, like the rhythm has been thrown off, the momentum has been wasted. I got myself all worked up about moving to London and then realised I wasn't moving there for another 5 weeks. Boo.

4) I'm finishing up with Fishamble. The position of Literary Intern with this company is one of the first jobs that I have truly loved, have felt I was capable of, have felt I was making a difference and contributing to something that I believed in wholeheartedly. I loved the people I worked with, enjoyed getting up each day to go to work, learnt and was inspired by my workplace and I could go on and on and on listing many other wonderful things it did for me. Most of all it gave me a sense of self-worth. I don't know if or when I will get another job that ticks so many necessary boxes and that also ticks the most important box of all (that not even Fishambe could tick): its paid. As much as I enjoyed the internship position, its obviously not something I could do in the long-term and I just can't be certain that a similar paid position will be coming along anytime soon.

5) Related to the above, I got very excited about two London jobs that happened to be advertised in the past two weeks, both of which I was qualified for and could do well. Both were in companies that I would sell my front teeth (and many of my back teeth too) to work with. When I suddenly (and unexpectedly) had my UK visa approved, I worked hard at writing excellent applications for the two positions and submitted them all full of innocent hope and optimism. Almost straight after I had hit the 'send' button on my email, my natural pessimism kicked in and the voice in my head (lets call it the Eeyore voice, as it speaks in a similarly downcast way) listed all the reasons why I probably had no chance of even getting an interview for these positions, let alone the job itself. The Eeyore voice won't even let me tell you what companies I've applied for, on the off-chance that you will turn out to be evil, gloating people and not my friends at all and will laugh in my face and cry, 'Ha! You think you could work for THAT company? Why, they would not employ one such as you to shine their boot caps!' (Eeyore thinks everyone vindictive is also Victorian. I think he gets the 'v's confused). Either that, or I'll jinx my already-slim-chances of an interview by telling you which companies I have applied for. Either way, I'm not writing them down, if only because I don't want to have the ability to read back over my foolish hopes and dreams in 3 -4 weeks time if I haven't gotten the jobs.

6) I had a meeting with the Guest Artist we're working with for the Cork Midsummer Festival in which he managed some incredible insights into my character and life story for a man who I have only met 3 or 4 times. None of the things said were were critical or negative, if anything they were highly sensitive and understanding. However, that just seemed to make it all the worse. I wasn't upset, but I suddenly saw myself in a completely different light and I didn't like what I saw. This flash of a half-grown woman, a stunted person, someone who still seemed to be 15 years old, girly, verging on prissy, someone who, despite moving across the world innumerable times, seems still to give the impression of naivety, of innocence, someone who has never, will never be described as 'sexy' (why the sudden, particular obsession with this word? Possibly something to do with number one in this list, but possibly something completely unrelated).

All of which lead me to Sunday afternoon on the bus from Cork to Dublin, staring out the window and getting a sudden desire to just grow-up, stop being anxious, and bloody well GET OVER IT. All of it. At once. Right this minute.

Somewhere deep in my brain, probably somewhere on that creative, impulsive side, 'growing up' became translated into the physical action of cutting off my own hair. And then dying it red. Both of which, surprisingly enough, I did.

As a person who has always been painfully aware of her physical appearance (and its effect on the way others view me), the potential disaster of cutting my own hair and then dying it is actually a fairly big fuck you to the past 27 years of my life and could be seen as an apt representation of 'getting over it'. Honestly, if there had been a tattoo parlour open on Sunday, I would probably have gone inside and inquired about the prices for a little ankle decoration for the words 'get over it' in sanskrit or something equally naff. I'm not saying I would have gotten the tattoo (lets not go crazy here), but I would have felt no reluctance in approaching the big, gruff, tattooed men in the parlour and asked for a price.

Anyway, I now have a haircut that I quite like and a hair colour that I don't mind. I certainly look very different, and I would venture to say, 'more grown up'. But does that make me so? Certainly the way people treat me has a big impact on how I feel about myself. And the way people treat you is (unfortunately) related to how you look. The more people call me 'darling' or 'honey' or 'sweetie' the more my brain convinces itself that I'm still only a relative child in the world and shouldn't be expected to take on board difficult tasks or responsibilities or goals. Perhaps this will lessen with my new look. I have a feeling, though, that I still radiate naivety and I'm not really sure how to switch that off. Maybe I should stop biting my nails.

My hair: really not the worst thing in the world. You know, when compared to genocide or nuclear weapons or the breakdown of the Middle East peace process. 

But am I any different, in myself, deep down? I do actually feel a bit different. I'm apparently a person who will cut off her own hair with a cheap pair of 2 euro scissors with blue plastic handles and damn the consequences. I'm also a person who no longer cares about being a natural blonde (because, as if this actually MEANS something? Sure it saves me a few quid every month, but does being a natural blonde actually equate to being a superior human being? I think the history of Germany circa 1933 - 1945 might answer that question adequately). On some strange level, I do feel like I'm moving into another era of my life, but is this because of the hair, the move to London or the email (or, indeed, a fortuitous joining together of all three into one gigantic book-end of a life period)?

Have I, in any sense, 'gotten over it'?

The answer, I suspect you'll find, is a resounding 'no', hence why I'm still blogging at 3:30am, why I suddenly can't get up in the mornings and go for a swim, why I'm stumbling around Dublin in a kind of sleep-deprived, hunger-induced haze. It leaves me feeling a little daft for thinking that the solution to an identity crisis was at the bottom of a box of 5 Euro Clariol Nice 'N' Easy No. 93, but, hey, you've got to give me points for trying at least, right?

The Other Side of Panic

This afternoon, I panicked so much about my visa that I actually went through the panic barrier to the other side of panic, which is kind of like an insanely happy place where the grass is purple and the sky is green and I am totally insane.
As a teenager, did anyone else ever have those mammoth phone conversations which would go, like, SO late into the night (like, 11pm or MIDNIGHT) and you would get tired, but you still hadn't solved the problems of the universe (or finished talking about the guys you liked), so you would keep talking, and then, eventually, you would get so tired you actually didn't feel tired anymore, you actually felt perfectly normal except for the fact that absolutely everything was suddenly really, really, REALLY funny for no reason whatsoever? You'd look down and realise that you were no longer sitting in your chair, but lying on the ground with your legs up in the air and giggling at your bare toes. It was a strange, exhilarating feeling.
Well, that's what it got like today. I was finally called up and told there was no way I was getting an extension on my Irish visa (which I expected and was already starting to plan for), when suddenly someone threw in the possibility of getting a performer's visa for the Midsummer Festival, which, at first seemed the perfect solution, until I looked into it further and realised I was supposed to apply from my home country (yet AGAIN) and it took 6 - 8 weeks to process, oh, and, of course, they needed my passport to organise it. All of which was slightly impossible at this late stage of the game. Even though I had, before this, resigned myself to the idea that I would have to leave Ireland on Friday, I suddenly became majorly frantic attempting to fit myself into this performer's visa. I had to physically prevent myself from pulling out my hair. Eventually, we sent off a quick inquiry to see if the visa could be arranged urgently.
In the meantime, I decided that I should get a move on with packing and cleaning, in case Friday actually was the last day I would be in Ireland and that I would either need to take everything with me, or, at least, have it all packed up so that my housemate could send it on to me once I figured out exactly where I was going next.
And it was at that point that I went to the Other Side of Panic. There was something about throwing out all the junk that I have accumulated that suddenly put my in an amazing mood (is this what people feel like when they clean things? Is that what people do it for?) Maybe it was the feeling of moving on. Maybe it was the feeling of something finally being decided (even if it wasn't the outcome that I was hoping for). Maybe it was the feeling of adventure again - who knows what's around the corner (or, indeed, Pocahontas, what's around the river bend?)
Who knows. I started to feel better.
I had a fabulous indie music mix on thanks to 8 tracks (check them out - www.8tracks.com and for my exact, Other Side of Panic mix, check out - www.http://8tracks.com/bellh/adventure-time ) and was dancing around my room trying to decide whether or not I really needed to keep my Ireland Lonely Planet or if I could safely give it to the charity store around the corner (its going to the charity store). Then, attempting to sort through my clothes - to decide which ones were now too big (there were a couple - HOORAY), which ones fit me now, which ones may fit me in a few weeks and which ones I have always hated and will continue to hate for the rest of my/their existence and I can't understand why I bought them in the first place - I ended up trying on all of the clothes and having some sort of demented dancing, fashion parade from my room to where the mirror is located in the bathroom. Down the corridor, down the stairs, ooh, up the stairs, the bathroom mirror is upstairs, that's right, keep on dancing, don't slip or trip up and land yourself in hospital (though there's a potential way of staying in the country.... JOKES, JOKES... I'm not considering it, Irish visa official, I swear). All things considered, I was in a mad mood. I was having a great time.
There may have also been half-dressed dancing in socks.
You needn't picture that. 
The lesson here is that no situation is so stressful and awful that it cannot be distracted from by a little musical interlude a la Risky Business:

  

I even managed to get up and stay away from my computer for whole minutes at a time. I didn't manage this at all on Friday until it was close of business and I was absolutely certain that no email from the British Embassy could possibly be coming for me. I spent the entire hours of 9 - 5 in my pj's, in bed, watching 'Spooks' on Netflix and bawling my eyes out when Adam Carter died. (Was it because he died, or was it because of the visa situation? Who knows). Oddly enough, today the good mood was reversed. I stayed maniacally happy until 4:50pm, when I then closed the computer, went downstairs and made myself dinner, refusing to let myself look at the computer screen again until 6pm and hoping against hope that some kind British embassy official had sent me an email in the last 10 minutes of their day. 

Of course they hadn't. 

And then my mood crashed and all the panic came back.

I now have tomorrow, possibly Wednesday and maybe the morning of Thursday (depending on how brave I'm feeling) to wait for the visa outcome before I have to 'pull the plug', so to speak and get my passport back so I can leave the country on Friday and not get the red mark stamped inside it which says I overstayed my visa and I am therefore a terrible human being who should not be trusted with another visa and may not even be able to travel to places that I don't need a visa for in case I should get the 'overstaying' urge and just go on the run in Canada or something. 

To make things worse, a friend in the UK has sent me the details for the mot amazing job, I may go so far as to say my DREAM UK job and I don't think its a good idea to apply for it without my visa being approved (she has suggested getting the job and then getting a sponsored work visa, but I'm not sure if this would work... I have no proof of that of course, but the way my luck is going... I suspect it would be a case of... MORE BLOODY VISAS).

Its just salt in the bloody wound of the visa application process, basically. One half of me (the stupid, optimistic half) says, 'Oh, the world wouldn't let that job be advertised without you getting the opportunity to apply for it. You'll definitely get the visa.' Tra-la-la-la-la, have a lollipop and the world is just unicorns and roses. The other half (the half that curls up scowling in the corner of my brain, hiding from the light, smelling bad and spitting at things) says, 'Well, of course that would happen. That's what life's like. You'll definitely NOT get the visa now, just to prove how stupid you were for not getting all the visas organised earlier.'

Anyway, I'm trying not to think about it much. Which is clearly not working, as this is only the third post I've written on the subject in a week and a half.

Week of Doom and Gloom

If you read my last post, you'll know that I have been suffering from a great deal of stress regarding flaming swords.
Well, either that or visa applications, I can't rightly remember anymore.
I was hoping that by today (well, actually, yesterday...), I would have been victoriously posting on FB, UK VISA = APPROVED or IRISH VISA A-OK or simply, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED in an appropriately obnoxious and enigmatic way.
Unfortunately, this is not to be and I have to start thinking (in, oh, the next week or so) of what I am going to be doing in the next few months and what country I will be in and what I will be able to do in said country, which is a rather daunting prospect. I do find it most... ironic (maybe? I'm never certain of the definition of that word anymore... thanks very much Alanis Morrisette) that it was always the UK and London that I wanted to go to, I got distracted and went to Ireland and maybe now I'll never get to go to the UK after all. That's needlessly pessimistic and melodramatic, but I keep envisioning these scenarios where I'm forced to go back to Australia because of visa issues and then I get totally distracted by things in Australia and never go to Europe again, or the UK abolishes working holiday visas because their economy is so bad, or we run out of oil and no one can fly anywhere ever again, meaning that I never actually get to live in London, the place I've been (inexplicably) dreaming about since I was 15 years old.
Of course, when big things seem to be going wrong, all the little things seem so much harder to deal with; as if the world is essentially spitting you in the eye as you wallow about in the stinking mud of the gutter that life has pushed you into ('oh, Jenny, don't you think you're being just a tad over-the-top and self-pitying?' 'why, no, what on earth gave you that impression? Being pushed into a stinking hole of gutter muck is a perfectly accurate depiction of my current existence'). There are many little things that have been made so much worse from the visa stress.
Number one, the weather has been righteously miserable for the last few days and for Ireland, that is saying something. Icy-cold gusts of wind, endless rain, hail, and then these strange 7 minute patches of sunshine that are essentially a tactic used by the weather to lure you out of your house in inappropriate clothing and without your umbrella so that the sky can dump more icy-cold water on you. I have not been dealing well with this treatment. I flip between being the scarily angry woman swearing at her umbrella as it flips inside out in the wind, scowling and rudely gesturing at cars that splash her or pedestrians that get in her way; and the mournful, 'weight-of-the-world-on-my-shoulders' woman who stares hopelessly down the street as her now-snapped-in-two umbrella flies away from her, secretly kind of satisfied by the pathetic, wet and bedraggled figure she cuts amongst the crowd. The only benefit with the terrible weather was that I was so cold and wet and miserable coming home yesterday I became so focused on getting into a warm bubble bath that I actually forgot to eat lunch. Now before you start likening me to pro-anorexia websites, I'm not advocating starvation here, I'm simply commenting that things have to be pretty momentous these days for me to actually forget about food. Which brings me to number 2 tiny-thing-that-has-ruined-my-week.
I know I spent a lot of time whingeing about this last year and I honestly don't want to start complaining about it again, but I jumped on the scales at the gym just recently (first time in a year) and... well, it wasn't a pretty number. I'm sort of stuck between two feelings, one that I'm very proud I didn't completely freak out when I saw this number (there have certainly been times when jumping on the scales and seeing the numbers flash by could bring on a panic attack) and another which is, 'really? that much? THAT BLOODY MUCH?' I haven't been totally obsessive about my diet for the past two months, but it has improved out of sight from last year and I have been exercising regularly. My clothes suggest my body is changing a little, very gradually, but its still rather depressing to think I have a fair ways to go before being back in a healthy weight range. The stress from the visas/swords is also inducing within me a strong desire to consume large amounts of sugar, possibly encased in great lumps of fat, which would obviously not assist with the weight loss goal (nor, in fact, if I'm honest, with stress relief), but it is attractive nonetheless.
What else? One of my housemate's friends who lives down the road from us got robbed the other night. The robbers were jumping from roof to roof (we think) and came in through an open bathroom window at 3am, whilst everyone was inside. The girl even saw the robber walking around downstairs (but thought it was her housemate....). This news has me needlessly paranoid at night at the moment, even though we have an alarm system. I keep waking up and thinking 'Is that someone downstairs? Is that someone on the roof? OH MY GOD, is that the alarm I can hear?' It should be pretty obvious, I would have thought, that if you have to ask yourself whether or not 'that is the alarm', and then stop and listen really hard and then consider it for a few moments, it is a safe bet that whatever it is is that you think you hear is NOT your security alarm, but just a beeping of the imagination. This would seem pretty obvious to most people, but I am the Queen of Convincing Myself of Anything (well, anything paranoid and bad, like the end of civilization as we know it brought about my the European Monetary Crisis or a robber hanging about my bed like some sort of creepy Spiderman). Nighttime paranoia, of course, translates to daytime tiredness, which only magnifies my feelings of stress and unhappiness.
Furthermore, I am struggling with Facebook at the moment. When in a good mood, Facebook can be delightfully diverting, when in a bad mood, Facebook fuels my paranoia, anxiety, sense of unworthiness and uselessness and many other horrible things that begin with un-. Its kind of like being back in high school, where you're constantly paranoid; feeling like you're being left out of all the exciting and popular things. 'Oh, that friend has a new job,' 'Oh, that friend is getting married,' 'Oh, that friend is pregnant,' 'Oh, that friend is incredibly beautiful,' 'Oh, that friend's status update is much funnier than mine...' One after the other they pop up in my Newsfeed, 'BAM! What are you doing with your life? BAM! What are you doing with your life, loser? BAM! You like that, hm? BAM!' I keep trying to remind myself that its not one friend who is achieving absolutely everything, that everyone has to pick and choose where to put their efforts and what is most important to them, but it sometimes does feel, staring at that Newsfeed, that there is one great big amazing, attractive, cool, smart friend that is DOING and ACHIEVING and WINNING EVERYTHING which must then be compared to your own daily activity of sitting on the couch, developing wrinkles from frowning at a computer screen and balancing various food stuffs on your protruding belly.

Facebook Friend is better than you at EVERYTHING. Found at: http://acidcow.com/famous/31881-peoples-2012-worlds-most-beautiful-woman-10-pics.html

Aside from the feeling of 'Facebook-Friend-is-better-than-me-at-pretty-much-everything', whilst in my current fragile and stressed state of mind, I become confusingly distressed by everyone else's behaviour on FB. 'Why didn't she/he message me?' 'Why didn't he/she comment on my status?' 'Doesn't he/she LIKE me???' 'Why did he/she say that about me/about that thing/about that person? What are they REALLY TRYING TO SAY?' Or, in another example, a friend of a friend reacted badly to an online comment I made and I instantly decided that I AM THE WORST HUMAN BEING IN THE HISTORY OF THE KNOWN UNIVERSE, and that this unknown stranger is UNQUESTIONABLY RIGHT AND MORAL AND GOOD and that I should spend the rest of the afternoon SELF-FLAGELLATING for my flippant remark as the ONLY DECENT PUNISHMENT.
*Sigh*
So, in other words, instead of compartmentalising my stress and anxiety and allow it to only affect the parts of my life to which it is relevant (actually the stress and anxiety already affect a fairly large chunk of my life as it is, really), I have allowed it to seep into all bits of my life and make everything, EVERYTHING, seem much worse than it is.
Brilliant. 

Crushes

I've written (rather extensively, really) on my lack of love life in Ireland, and further, the apparent lack of any eligible men (at all) in this country. Or, at least, the lack of eligible men in the places I've been going in this country.
I don't intend to whinge about this anymore, however, I have become aware that this has had a further knock-on effect to my life and daily experience.
I have absolutely no crushes.
Not a one.
On anybody. 
You probably don't see the significance.
One might describe me as 'romantic'. Despite an erstwhile desire that I someday I might be called 'cynical' or 'witty' or 'ass-kicking', I have to admit, 'romantic' is probably accurate. I was a reasonably early developer in terms of my awareness of all things romantic. The stories I wrote as a young 'un usually revolved around girls getting into some sort of sticky situation and then being rescued by male woodcutters or the like. I never read romance books, and yet, somehow, as a 7 year old my creative writing pieces read as the latest Jackie Collins novel.
Not only did I write about romances between fictional characters, but I can remember spending a great deal of time developing fictional romances between myself and real boys. The first slight to my imagined romantic fantasies I can remember receiving was as a 5 year old, when I tried to talk to a boy in my class who I liked. He was sitting on a bean bag listening to a talking book on headphones and was ignoring me. After a good 10 minutes of attempted conversation, my teacher moved me away, pointing out that I was annoying him. I was devastated. In my mind, he was my one true love, if only he would take off his headphones and acknowledge me.
I continued to have crushes on and off for the boys in my primary school for the next few years until around the age of 10, when I developed a serious crush on one very lovely boy in my class. As luck would have it, he turned out to like me a little bit too and on a school excursion to the (romance) capital of Australia, Canberra, we had the audacity to dance together at a little 'disco' in front of the rest of Year 6. The problem with being so far 'advanced' in romantic feelings was that the rest of the children saw this is an opportunity to mock and tease. I was totally mortified and quickly started ignoring the poor boy instead, despite a very sweet attempt by him to make me feel better by giving me a gigantic packet of raspberries (the lollies, not the fruit). Going into adolescence I got the message loud and clear: your emotions and feelings are embarrassing and wrong and must be hidden at all costs.
So, during high school, instead of attempting to figure out how to get into relationships and maintain them, I spent all my time perfecting my crush technique. Crushes are much easier than relationships. They're low-risk and yet provide hours of amusement in terms of fantasies, schemes and plans, days of dealing with unrealistic hopes and, later, devastating disappointments. Particularly if you chose your crush carefully, someone, for example, that is completely unsuitable for you (a teacher, perhaps, or, the most popular boy in school who doesn't even know your name), and is in no ways a realistic prospect for a relationship. In this way, you can ensure that you never have to confront the possibility of an actual romantic entanglement: you make certain that the person you have a crush on will never reciprocate, but also that you are never going to be interested in anybody who might actually be interested in you.
Make sense?
I was very good at crushes. For all of high school, I was in a constant state of unrequited love with someone or other. Some boys I would love for a few weeks, others for months, and one or two for years at a time. My creative energies were caught up in creating imagined hideous deaths for girlfriends or rivals; in envisioning situations where me and my crush became the LAST SURVIVING PEOPLE IN NEWCASTLE or something else similarly ridiculously dramatic; finding ways of accidentally on purpose running into them at the shopping centre or something; analyzing and re-analyzing ad nauseum the actual interactions had by myself and my crush; and finally, creating long mental lists as to why me and my crush were perfectly suited to each other and were clearly DESTINED TO BE TOGETHER FOR ALL ETERNITY. The crush's seeming indifference to myself only added to the wonderful drama of the thing, making it somehow all the more real and true. Didn't Anna Karenina's great love have corresponding pain and devastation? Didn't Romeo and Juliet have to fight against all of their society just to spend a few days together? The fact that I had to love in silence only made it seem all the more obvious that my crush and I would eventually end up looking gorgeous together in a gorgeous house with our gorgeous family and talking gorgeously to some reporter about our gorgeous love for each other (my fantasies were also heavily influenced by my grandmother's Women's Day magazines).
I think many people eventually graduate from crushes. Either they're not as good at choosing and keeping crushes as I was, or the imagined drama was not as satisfying to them as an actual romance, so they move on. I was just so darn good at the crushes: the choosing, the keeping, and definitely the associated fantasies. My teenage self could have kept Mills and Boon in novels for the next hundred years. No lie. 
The other problem with my crushes, was that the scale of my love corresponded to an equivalent loss of social incompetence around said person. I would become like an animal caught in the headlights the minute my crush locked his eyes on me. I wouldn't be able to remember my own name, let alone formulate some kind of witty sentence with which to woo my beloved. Most of my fantasies revolved around the crush stating their undying love for me (and me graciously, and mostly mutely, accepting), so were of no use in actual human conversation. I seemed to think that said declarations of love would follow if I could just managed to put together the right outfit or hairstyle, which would, without words, inspire my crush into realising his true feelings for me. Forget flirting with the crush to get him to notice me, an interaction that lasted longer than 4 sentences would have been an achievement for my 15 year old self. So, even if I might have had a chance with the most popular boy in school, my complete inability to show any sort of interest (in an appealing way) pretty much wiped any chance I would have that a crush would develop into a relationship.
I did eventually manage to fall into some relationships (not without some serious self-sabotage however), and miraculously keep them together. But the last 3 years has just been another long period of dead-end, embarrassing and increasingly frustrating crushes. I realise how pathetic I must sound if you have read this far, but its the honest truth of the matter. Believe me, I ain't proud of it.
'Loving' in silence, or, at least, 'crushing' in silence has been so much a part of my person and my daily life as a 'singleton'. They take up time, energy, emotional strength and self-esteem. Unrequited love may have inspired eloquence from some of the world's greatest poets, but for me its been an endless loop of too much chocolate, 'retail therapy' and bursting into tears when Kristin Scott Thomas finally declares her love for Hugh Grant in 'Four Weddings and a Funeral':

So, its been kind of interesting for the past few months to have absolutely no-one that I am crushing on. Crushes need time, and at least the hope of continuity, or they just can't develop. So, if you meet a guy at a bar one night and you have a nice conversation, but you never see him again, you can't develop a crush on him. Even I'm not that good at crushes.
Its been kind of nice to not have to worry about all that romantic shit. Its nice to feel like my personal happiness doesn't hinge on a particular man turning around and declaring his love for me. Its nice to think that my personal happiness lies in something that I might create myself. I feel strangely stronger and more complete than I think I ever have as an individual before. I feel oddly free.
That's not to say that I don't like the idea of being in a relationship. Nor is it saying that I don't sometimes get lonely and wish I could meet someone nice, or that I don't still cry in Richard Curtis movies. But... I feel less emotional about it.
Less emotional about love.
Now, that is a joke.

Art and Stuff

Not much to report over the last week. I've been hanging out in my house mainly, in my pj's, watching movies, reading a bit, cooking a bit, sometimes cleaning things, but not doing anything particularly useful, or that you might reasonably call work, or something in anyway related to work, or that might get me work in the future. You may think this would be depressing. I certainly would have agreed with you a few weeks ago. But, I've kind of gotten into the swing of it now. In fact, if anything, its a little too comfortable. And, I would get worried about that, except that I'm too darn relaxed. Things feel like they are on an even keel for once. I'm not particularly excited or hopeful about anything, but, then again, I'm not particularly stressed or anxious about anything. I'm just kind of going through my days and enjoying whatever it is I happen to get done on that particular day. Its nice.
But, once again, it leaves me with very little to report. I hardly left the house last Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I went into Cork last Thursday to get visa advice (my work visa expires in a week - can you believe I've been here a year??), and then headed off to a Creative Connections meeting. Things are starting to take shape with the book, but its still an intimidating amount of work that we need to have done by March. I'm not saying its not going to get done (it will), but its difficult to see exactly how its going to get done at this point.
Friday and Saturday I spent at the Theatre Development Centre in Cork. There were a series of talks on different topics around working in theatre, developing theatre, putting it on, getting paid for it etc. etc. All very interesting, and certainly addressed a lot of the issues that I'm struggling with at the moment. Like, in a world that defines you by your career, and defines your career by what you earn money from, how can someone like me justify calling myself an 'artist'? And, where does an 'emerging' or 'early-career' artist get their validity from? In other careers, that validity comes from training, or being paid for what you do, both of which are not particularly relevant in the arts. The first is irrelevant, as so many people can get trained these days through a variety of institutions (meaning the value of the training is diluted), and because so many successful artists haven't been trained in what they do. (As an example, I haven't given classes in acting since I did a diploma in it. I used to teach drama before I trained in it. I have, most recently, been teaching classes in writing, in which I have no formal qualification). The second is also a bit of a moot point, as there are plenty of high-profile artists who are not constantly being paid as an artist, and have to supplement their passion with teaching, or administration or however many other kinds of part-time jobs. Before you 'make it' (and even after, I imagine), you can get trapped in a cycle of looking for validation in other people. 'If I'm programmed by x festival, that means I'm doing well,' 'If I'm given a grant to do x project, that means I'm a real artist.' I think it comes from a combination of being in a hugely competitive industry, of not being able to follow a traditional career trajectory, and of constantly, constantly needing to apply, audition, beg, steal, borrow, from any number of people to get things you want to get done. You're constantly looking outside yourself for validation. Before I studied acting, people warned me to get used to hearing 'no'. They didn't explain, however, or, maybe I just couldn't imagine, how those constant rejections eat away, not only at your confidence, but at your sense of self. I went into 'theatre-making', because I thought that would solve the actor's problem of always having to rely on someone else to cast you in something, to decide that you were good enough to be in a show. Turns out though, that producing your own work is just as hard, involves just as many rejections, and possibly involves putting more your self, your soul and your confidence on the line than it ever does to go into an audition and read someone else's words out in front of a panel of people.
Anyway, the point of all this is not to be depressing or moan about how hard my life is (I mean, I have spent the last 4 weeks watching You Tube videos, whilst some people in the world have attempted to create peace in the Middle East, solve global warming, or find a cure for cancer). Its just things I'm trying to figure out how to deal with at the moment. What happened at the talks over the weekend, was that I (and many other artists) got to meet some of those people with the keys to validity - the festival curators, the arts council administrators etc. There were some heated debate around certain topics too, believe me. At points in the weekend, I felt totally brow-beaten (comments from curators such as, 'some of the applications are just crap'), and at other times was very inspired ('make the art you want to make, and it will find its place'). These sorts of events are also usually intended as a bit of a 'meet-and-greet', ie 'networking', ie 'the-most-hideous-thing-in-the-world-that-I-couldn't-do-even-if-you-paid-me-a-billion-gazillion-dollars'. On top of an already difficult weekend, filled with questions of validity and importance and significance and yada-yada-yada, what could be better than an opportunity to make a fool out of myself in front of the very people I am trying to impress (Bridget Jones once again, comes inexorably to mind)? I managed to talk to a few 'important' people, however, without spitting cheese at them or turning the colour of a beetroot, and I've at least figured out a way that makes networking work for me. I need to have a specific question for the person, preferably about what they were talking about, or what they do (therefore proving that you were paying attention and have a valid reason to talk to them), and this can be the start of a useful, interesting, and not-at-all-awkward exchange. There are people out there who can just go up to the artistic director of the Abbey Theatre, for example, and say, 'Oh, hey, I'm an actor and my name's Jenny, and I'm totally awesome, and why don't we talk about me coming and auditioning for you.' However, I am not one of those people.
Each night ended with a lovely, candle-lit dinner, with much wine, so that was certainly very lovely, and I made a few new friends, but I'm a bit piss-weak with staying up late at the moment (always have been, really), and my mood steadily deteriorated after about 10pm, which was not good, as by that time, the last bus home had left, and my only chance of getting back to my bed was waiting for a lift from a friend who was much happier staying up much later than me. New friends' final verdict on me then was that I was an overly grumpy/miserable/moody young lady. Oh well.
Today has been very lazy. More so than even I intended. I blame lack of sleep. I did go and see 'The Hypochondriac' at the Kinsale Ampitheatre, which was quite fun. The venue is rather open, and the seats are hard wood, so you need to bring pillows and blankets and, according to my friend Yvonne, a flask full of hot mulled wine, otherwise you spend the performance being cold and uncomfortable, so it was a whole experience even aside from the play. It was the Irish equivalent of Shakespeare by the Sea, I suppose. Not a bad way to spend the afternoon.
Tomorrow I'm back off to Dublin, and am staying in the same hostel I stayed in the first time I was there, which is pretty much exactly a year ago now (Good God, where does the time go...). And, yes, I booked it deliberately, because I'm into that sort of thing. I'm off to the capital to get my visa extended - hoping there won't be any trouble with it - and whilst I'm there, intend to do a good ol' theatre binge. Shows every night, and possibly an extra one on the Tuesday afternoon. Apart from that, I'm also hoping to go on a day tour to the Wicklow Mountains and see the place they filmed Gerard Butler meeting Hilary Swank in 'P.S. I Love You.'

from imdb.com

But... ah... not that I care about that sort of thing.
No, really....
I swear I never, ever, at any point, owned that film on DVD.
And if I did, I swear it was only in aid of researching Ireland before I moved.
IRONIC researching of Ireland.
Because, of course, its not at all realistic... and...
Yes...
Well, anyway....
I may as well just go on the Unofficial U2 tour and be done with it.
*Sigh*

All the Single Ladies: Or, What has Love Got to Do With It?

You might be sick of the topic of my single-dom and (lack of) love life, but, unfortunately, things seem to keep happening that gets me thinking about it all over again. The other possibility, of course, is that I'm thinking about it so obsessively at the moment, that completely unrelated things somehow seem related to the topic of my singledom, and I then spend hours making blog posts out of these random incidents and ideas.
Today, however, it was not me forcing anything on the world, it was the world that was forcing the topic on to me.
In the supermarket today, wandering about, not sure if I was hungry, not sure if I wanted to buy food and drink and take it home, or go out to a pub and have a meal there, I happened to spy the front cover of 'The Observer'. In the corner, highlighted in yellow, with an intriguing looking women beside it, was printed an article title seemingly very related to my last blog post: 'Why Millions of Women Like Me Will Never Marry' by Katie Bolick. I was wary, as I must confess my virtual ignorance of 'The Observer' as a paper, and wasn't sure if this was a terrifying UK tabloid, and that the article itself would be a highly offensive polemic about how the feminist liberation movement had turned all women into spoiled brats who didn't want to have kids and do the housework, and were therefore refusing to settle for all the hugely decent, hard-working men out there, leading, ultimately, to the destruction of life and society as we know it.
But, with nothing else to do or buy, and intrigued enough to want to know more, I caved and paid my 2.50 Euro to see what this Katie Bolick had to say for herself. I sat myself down with a pot of tea in a local Kinsale restaurant, and opened the paper. Within the first paragraph, I was hooked. It opened with Katie Bolick describing the ending of a long-term relationship in her late twenties and the reasons behind it. The whole situation was scarily familiar to me, for a great many reasons, not least of all the question of whether or not this was the worst mistake of her life. I devoured her words voraciously: here was a woman who had gone through what I had gone through, but who was now 13 years down the track and living out my 'worst fears' (I've put them in inverted commas, because I'm still not sure if they are my worst fears or not). That is, to say, she is 40, has never been married and coming to the conclusion that she may never be.
To read the full article (and I suggest you do read the article, its completely fascinating, thought-provoking and compelling), go to The Atlantic Magazine: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/all-the-single-ladies/8654/?single_page=true Its apparently caused a huge stir over in the USA, and there are talks of TV series and movies and all sorts of other ridiculousness, which clearly means its hit a nerve.
For those of you who won't read it (and I'm sure there'll be a few, as its quite long), the basic argument is that marriage as an institution is breaking down, and, further, there are a whole heap of women out there who ain't ever going to get married, for a whole heap of different reasons. However, where Katie differs from the hysterical right-wing, often Christian, conservatives, is that she doesn't see this as a terrible thing that needs to be stopped, but as a function of our ever-changing idea of what marriage is, and what it means to be married. Our idea of marriage as being a reflection and celebration of ever-lasting love has really only being current for 100 years or so at the most. Before that, it was, as I'm sure you've heard, about the consolidation and protection of property. The article talks about how various other issues, such as the increasing rates of female education, the loss of construction and manufacturing jobs in the USA, gender-ratio imbalances and the rise of the 'hook-up' culture are also making it difficult, or undesirable, for women to settle down with the men that are available to them. It looks at ways other cultures and societies have organised the raising of children, have expressed love and dealt with sexuality or sexual desire and suggests that our hugely rigid way of thinking around these topics (and insistence of bundling them up together) is detrimental to the ever-increasing group of long-term singles, as well as people in 'non-traditional relationships', that are currently getting by, and doing fine in the Western world.
The article goes into a lot of other interesting side topics, but I can't really summarise it all here (read it, read it, seriously, read it, its worth the time). What it made me want to think about, basically, was what are we, in our Western society, left with, if we don't have marriage?
I don't mean that to sound pathetically over-romantic and Charlotte-like. Its a genuine question, that perhaps other people in my group of friends, or in this generation, have already come to terms with, made peace with or got an answer for (I'm all ears, by the way). Because, well, look, here's the thing: even if I say I'm 'ok' with the idea of not getting married, even if I am not particularly fussed on the institution of marriage, per se, I am interested, and quite fussed, on the idea of passionate, soul-crushing, world-changing, romantic love. I'm totally caught up in the idea of a soul mate. Its probably the influence of all those 19th-century novels I read as a kid. I blame Austen! I blame the Brontes! But, whom-so-ever's fault it is, I do associate that sort of love with marriage, although, obviously, the two don't go hand in hand: many of my beloved classic novels - 'Anna Karenina', 'Wuthering Heights', 'Madame Bovary' - were about people who found that love outside of their marriage. Now, this may seem like a stretch, and it is actually seeming more ridiculous now that I sit down and try to write it out, but if society as a whole 'gives up' on marriage, which, to me, is still about the hope, the search, for that perfect embodiment of everlasting love (even if it sometimes fails, or people sometimes make mistakes), then, where does that leave the rom-com film industry, the chick-lit industry (all of which only have endings because societal conventions dictate that once you've found the love of your life, the story ends: they may not state outright, 'and they lived happily ever after', but we've all heard enough fairy tales by that point in our lives to know that that is what is meant when the credits roll, the book ends)? But, most importantly, where does that leave the idea of the soul mate? That is to say, if we all acknowledge, that, actually, ever-lasting love is probably *not* something that is likely, possible or desirable for the majority of people, what is the point of all this dating, all these relationships, these hook-ups, this anxiety to get together, stay together, make it work?
The rational side of me, the part that is highly influenced by my father, makes jokes about a marriage partner simply being, 'the most suitable person at the most suitable time'. The rational, cynical side of me likes to come out at a swish, university parties, whilst wearing black and waving a glass of red around. This cynical, rational side is fully down with the idea of ever-lasting, passionate, soul-crushing love being something that we trick ourselves into believing exists so that we can get through those marriage vows, start a family and, get ourselves a companion to (hopefully) last us til our hair turns grey. But, there is also the romantic side of me that still believes, or still desperately wants to believe, that, out there, somewhere, is a person like Aristophanes described, a person who is the other half of my whole, cut apart from me by the Gods, and when that person is found, finally, everything will fall into place. The interesting thing here is that, even the cynical side doesn't actively attack the idea of marriage itself. Sure, it doubts the existence of romantic, ever-lasting love, but it still feels like, well, marriage is something that, usually, most respectable people do, even if there reasons for doing it aren't as clear as they think they are.
In short, there is a very strong idea within me that feels like that everyone's ultimate goal in life is to find their other half, of whatever sex, to then potentially have children. The creation of your own little couple or family unit is the ultimate achievement, whether or not you believe this is based on the finding of your soul mate, a need for ongoing companionship, the need for a stable family unit to raise children etc. Whatever the reason, and whether or not it is eventually made official through marriage, the creation of this little unit of people, which is never meant to be torn asunder is presented to us as the only thing that will ever bring you real happiness in life. The idea is constantly repeated to us, through films, through books, through TV, through interviews with famous people (Tom Cruise on Oprah's couch, anyone?), and through the hounding, questioning, mocking, ignorance and distrust of those people who choose to live their lives differently. And, I for one, have been well and truly brainwashed.
Katie Bolick's article points out that, with people getting married later and later, not getting married at all, or having multiple long-term, short-term and other forms of relationships, the idea of the couple, of the two separate halves of a whole is becoming obsolete. Its not just marriage that is becoming outdated, but its the idea of the couple itself as our dominant, expected and most constant state of being that is becoming problematic. You're probably going to end up spending a lot of your life, if not most of it, as a single: as an uno, rather than as a duo. And through all this chopping and changing, the constant switch from single to couple, to single again, it follows that the most important relationship you're going to have throughout your life will be with yourself.
That's maybe not much of a revelation, nor is it actually a physical change in the way we live our lives. Of course, you always had to live within your own body. But, it is a huge change in perception. Instead of viewing yourself as a half who is searching for the other half to make them complete, you view yourself as complete, happy, finished, whatever, just as you are. I'm aware that these is a whole movement out there that would say, you can't find a partner without feeling complete in yourself anyway, but I find it distinctly ironic that this sort of advice is still given in the context of trying to find that long-term partner.  There's that horrible old cliche that people often parrot at you as a single, 'How do you expect people to love you if you don't love yourself,' once again, making the goals of loving oneself and feeling complete in oneself only desirable in relation to how they will help you to eventually find a partner.
But, as partners come and go more easily these days, as the relationships we find ourselves in are less definable and stable (one-night stand? affair? friend with benefits? summer fling? boyfriend? partner?), liable to change at any point, and based on the different needs, wants and expectations of the people within the relationships, then, it seems that the relationship with yourself as an individual becomes not a temporary state of being, not as a stepping stone towards the coveted state of 'couple', as it once was seen, but as our primary way of existing in the world. Partners become optional extras, like chiropractors or acupuncture on your health cover: nice to have, if you're into that sort of thing, but, by no means necessary to your overall health, wealth and happiness.
So, what's my problem then? What's my problem with letting go of this idea of the soul mate? Of ever-lasting, perfect love? What's my problem with all these new relationship-types? What's my problem with looking at myself and what I do, individually, with my life, as the only place to find contentment, peace, happiness and security in the world? In some ways its very liberating, it allows people to create relationships with other people that are unique and special to the individuals within them, it also potentially saves people from making vows of 'til death do us part' and then cheating, or divorcing and all the pain and existential angst that comes from these abrupt changes in ideals and promises. Over the course of your life, you may have a series of fulfilling long-term relationships, meaning that you get to know intimately, a whole group of people, instead of just the one. I'm not saying its necessarily better, but why do I consider it to be inherently worse?
Well, I think there's an element of the negative brainwashing. I worry that I'll be, above all, lonely. Potentially crazy and eccentric (and not in a good way, but in a crazy cat lady, empty jam jar and coupon collecting way). But, I think the negative stereotypes wouldn't be nearly so persuasive if there were positive examples or role models out there to 'follow', so to speak. To look up to, and to show us the way. Of course, there have always been single people in the world. But most of them (not all), are portrayed, or portray themselves, as being single, not through choice, but through a series of unfortunate events and poor life decisions. That ending your life single is a mistake, something to be avoided at all costs, the greatest regret of their lives. These are people that live on the outside, who were never good at relationships, who were alcoholics, players, slightly too weird, unattractive, and so have ended up alone and sad. Their singledom is something to be pitied. What if it were something to be rejoiced in? Is it possible to find happiness and contentment as a single person? And if so, what would that look like? What sort of relationships (romantic or sexual, but also platonic or familial) would that pave the way for? Because, I'm not saying that we need to give up on intimate or sexual relationships - I still think they are important, necessary, but what form would they take, how would they be shaped, constructed or justified without this idea of the search for 'The One'? Certainly, as a single, as a free agent, you have the opportunity to be more open, more giving with your time, your love, your energy, because its not directed inwards at your personal relationship and family unit. It gives you the opportunity to be more dedicated to your friends, your community, your world.
Once again, I'm not trying to tear apart marriage, or the long-lasting, romantically involved couple. I'm just curious about this idea that has taken over Western society that this is the ultimate in emotional and spiritual fulfillment: the obtaining of a single, everlasting 'soul mate'. I'm curious that it never occurred to me before that this desire was most likely culturally, rather than biologically determined, and I'm curious about what emotional fulfillment you aim for in life if you give up on the idea of that never-changing soul mate, of 'The One'. Happiness and contentment, is surely what you aim for. But what does that happiness and contentment look like? For so long, for me, the short-hand has been the image of a loving couple, married or otherwise. Other goals may have come and gone, but that was a constant desire, expectation and comfort. What happens when I actively give up on that image? What is it replaced with?
At this point, I honestly don't know.
A room of one's own?

Image from http://www.panoramio.com/photo/11985124

All My Friends Got Married When I Wasn't Looking

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, 'But, wait, Jenny, I thought this was a blog complaining about children, not marriage! You just got me going into one groove, and now you've U-turned and started on a whole over topic. I'm not sure I'm fully prepared for this change in pace!'
Well, ok, maybe that's not what you're thinking. Maybe you're actually thinking, 'Oh God, don't let this be like another crappy rom-com inspired blog post, or a cheap imitation of a Bridget Jones-type book' (to which I reply, its free! You can't get mad at me when you're not paying anything for it!) Or, maybe you're actually thinking, 'Hope she gets on with it soon, I'm really sick of these loopy detour things she does, in fact, I might just go improve my land holding on Farmville instead of reading this,' or just, 'I wonder if there's any birthday cake left in the fridge, and whether chocolate cake lasts for upwards of 3 weeks if it doesn't have a cream centre?' (I'd say, go for it, by the way, as long as it doesn't smell bad and there's nothing growing on it - I think the sugar would pretty much keep away any bad boy germs)
Anyway, whatever you're thinking, (I honestly don't know what you're thinking), the topic of today's discussion is marriage.
Marriage is what brings us here today.
Why is today's topic marriage? Well, the easy answer is that, whilst meditating yesterday evening, when I should have been chanting Buddhist mantras to myself, or concentrating on the nothingness, or attempting to achieve nirvana, or approach or nirvana or acknowledge nirvana, or whatever, my brain was instead contemplating all the people in my life who have recently gotten hitched, or decided to get hitched at some point in the near future (and exchanged great big rocks to seal the deal). And, once it started down that path, my brain started realising that, lately, when men start to talk to me, within the first 2-3 minutes of meeting them (if they're an attractive, personable sort), I have inevitably glanced down to check their ring finger. More distressingly, most of the time, these days, that finger has a nice, manly gold band wrapped around it. My brain started to wonder when it was exactly that I had started looking for this mother-of-all 'back off' signals, because it certainly wasn't a conscious or deliberate decision. It thought back nostalgically to lovely teenage days when most any boy you met could be a potential boyfriend, even ones that had girlfriends (because, let's face it, they'd usually only been going out for a few weeks) or ones you met in musical theatre (because, even if they eventually turned out to be gay, they hadn't actually worked this out yet, or, at least, hadn't told anyone yet, so there was still reason to hope). My brain then jumped back to somewhere near the end of last year, when I had taken to wearing a fairly cheap, thin, silver band, that I had picked up somewhere along the line, on my wedding ring finger as the other ring finger is always occupied by a very sentimental silver ring that I never take it off (actually, these days, I CAN'T take it off without some serious hand cream action - that's how much weight I've put on...). I wore this ring, confident that people would realise it couldn't possibly be a wedding ring, as it was thin, and silver, and, well, CHEAP. However, after 3 or 4 men asking (in the same week) if I was married, I decided to stop wearing it (or only wear it around men who I was keen to avoid romantic overtures from). My 'meditating' brain very slowly started to piece all these things together (it might have been the incense in the room that was keeping it moving at such a slow and nostalgic pace), and gradually came to a conclusion.
I'm getting old.
I must be. Because only old people get married, right?  That's what I always thought as a kid. I can remember asking my Dad (inspired by the movie, 'Father of the Bride') what he would do if I told him I was engaged at the age of 21. His reaction was rather far removed from the description, 'happy'. It got less icy as the conversation moved on, and I asked how he would react if I got engaged at 23, 24, 25, 26 and he visibly relaxed from the age of 30 onwards, and, ever since then, I've kept that number (both consciously and unconsciously) in my mind as the only appropriate age at which to get hitched (as a side note, Dad was probably around 30 - 31 when he and Mum got married, so he was only preaching what he practiced).
But, back to being old. I must be old if my friends are getting married, the men I'm interested in are married, and even other people are assuming I'm married. And it all seems to have happened all of a sudden. One minute, I was in my mid-twenties, newly single, with a few friends in long-term relationships. And then, without me even realising it, I was in my late twenties, 'not-even-close-to-newly-single' with a whole bunch of married or engaged friends. Every few weeks I look through another friend's wedding photos on Facebook, 'liking' pictures of the bride and groom, judging the dresses, the marquees, the photos, the 'event'. Now, I hope I'm not giving the impression of a desperately sad singleton here (I certainly can do one of those impressions, but its not the point of this post...yet...), I'm merely commenting that life seems to have (suddenly) stepped up a level. People are making commitments that are, to all intents and purposes (unless you are Kim Kardashian or a similar C-grade celebrity), meant to last the rest of their lives.
Meanwhile, I'm still struggling to commit, from one day to the next, whether or not I am a dog person or a cat person (see, the problem is, that I love how friendly and happy dogs are, but I don't like their barking - big, barking dogs are scary, and little, barking dogs are annoying. I always loved cats, they're so cuddly and conveniently sized, but they're kind of snooty, really, and they eat little birdies and things... and, oh, I don't know, maybe I'm more of a dog/cat person... or a cat/dog person...). So, anyway, to have friends that, whatever their views on divorce may be, are, at this point in their life, able to state, absolutely, unequivocally, 'I think I can spend the rest of my life with this person,' and, further, 'I want to spend the rest of my life with this person,' is, to me, a pretty amazing thing. It's a pretty astoundingly wonderful and exceedingly terrifying, mortality-confronting thing, they've got going on there.
And the strange thing is, that with all of these 'til death do us part' vows going up and out into the atmosphere, I guess it starts you thinking, 'And what do I have to look forward to til death does me part from this world?' That is to say... it seems to me, that... (and here comes the desperate, sad singleton side of me coming out), the more of my friends that get engaged, the more lovely men I meet who wave their gold band in my face; the more I become aware of a slightly uncomfortable feeling, encouraged by a tiny, but determined voice (which will presumably grow louder and more desperate as the years pass me by), that 'all the good ones are getting snapped up! If you don't get someone now, you'll never get married!'
When I'm not listening to it emotionally, when I'm not allowing its pathetic pleas to make me ever-so-slightly anxious, I find this desperate little voice very interesting. Firstly, I don't know when or where or who I got the idea from that I 'had' to get married. That marriage was something that I 'had' to 'achieve' or my life would be worthless, pointless, incomplete. This voice makes marriage seem like another box to tick, another thing to cross off the white, middle-class life 'To-Do' list: 'Tertiary Education: Tick. Mortgage: Tick. Marriage: Tick.' Certainly no-one ever said this to me outright (maybe it was all those years spent playing, 'The Game of Life' where it wasn't possible to move through the game without getting a qualification, a partner and a house?). I mean, I consider myself a feminist, whatever that means - a romantic, sure, but still, also, a feminist - and it disturbs me that, even with my belief that I don't need a man to complete me, even with my belief that I'm perfectly capable of living happily on my own and being an eccentric grand aunt in the style of Jane Austen or Miss Marple, that I should still be hounded by this determined little voice, yelling, 'You're not getting any younger, you know! If you don't find someone, chop, chop, you're NEVER going to find someone! Tick, tock, tick, tock!' In fact, so determined is this little voice, that I have, recently, under its influence, begun to get the determined feeling that I 'won't ever get married', and that I should just 'give up now.' When I caught up with another (single) friend recently, we commented that we were both 'coming to terms' with the fact that we may never get married, we may never have kids, and that we're 'ok with that'. There's plenty of other things that we could do. Become Prime Minister of Australia, for one.
But this brings me to the second thing that I find really intriguing about this voice, and this feeling, which is that, in all honesty, I don't actually feel that old. When I think about it rationally, 27 seems to be an awfully young age to be giving up on love, companionship (maybe marriage) as a lost cause. I mean, sure, at 27, Anne Elliot in 'Persuasion' was considered by Austen to be completely over the hill. But, its now the 21st century! I thought women weren't supposed to feel that way at 27 anymore! Isn't that what 'Sex and the City' was supposed to give us? The freedom to be 'single and fabulous(?)' well into our 30's and 40's if we so desired? Isn't that why we clung so desperately to the series, forgave the appalling movies, ignored the women's slavish idolatry of wealth and fashion, because, underneath it all, at its heart, this was a series that told us women we were now allowed to do what we want? Get married if want, not get married if we want, live with a partner, have sex with many people? That it captured some sort of changing social mores, some Zeitgeist? But, here I am, talking sadly with my other 27 year old friend about what other possibilities there potentially might be ahead for us, if we don't get married, commenting that we're 'ok with that', that we can 'deal with it'.
Maybe the fact that we are 'ok with that' is a step in the right direction. I certainly don't feel like I would be bringing shame or unnecessary financial burden onto my family by remaining a spinster aunt for the rest of my life, as so many Austen heroines were threatened with however many years ago. Of course, the fact that I can name other possibilities in life that would fulfill me aside from getting married is also a right that Austen's heroines wouldn't have enjoyed. So, you have to admit those are improvements. And, in all honesty, I often look at all the destructive things that happen between two people within a marriage, and think, 'is it really worth it? Is it really all its cracked up to be?' So many divorces, affairs, separations, estrangements, lies, abuses: does anyone actually end up staying together happily for the rest of their lives? Is it in anyway possible to predict at the age of 30, what you'll be like in 20, 30, 40 years time and whether or not you'll still be in love with the person you're in love with now? In which case, why bother pledging that you will be? But, still, the reigning expectation is that you want to get married, so if this looks like it might not be on the cards, you are required to state, bravely and heroically, that you're 'ok' with this possibility. You need to assert it, to reassure people you're not sad, that you'll be ok, that it actually might be a life choice, not an unhappy circumstance. I think that's kind of crap. I mean, its not like, you've made a life choice to go around strangling puppies, or anything like that. Its not like you've decided to do something completely immoral and despicable, so why does it need to be defended? And, if marriage is really not the be-end and end-all, why do you get pitied if you're single, why do people start to get an anxious look in their eyes the older (and more single - oh, yes, its possible to get 'more single') you get, why do you get offers to set you up, take you out, blah, blah, blah, why does your own brain start to manipulate you, to intimidate you, to make ticking noises at you every time you admire another friend's wedding photos? (On a side note, I'm aware that I'm babbling a lot about how tough it is to be a straight woman dealing with the assumption, that as you're a single woman, you must want to get married, and your single state is probably due to some hideous deficiency on your behalf, which you must be both embarrassed and mournful about. I can't imagine what it would be like as a gay woman, or man, who has found the love of their life and isn't legally allowed to get married)
Anyway, that's a lot of questions on a very big topic that I don't think I have successfully man-handled into a single blog post yet. But its kind of late, and I think I'm going to turn in, as the post has turned much more strident, shrill and possibly offensive than I ever intended. Married folk, I'm not meaning to bag out marriage. I'm an old-fashioned romantic, and I love that you've gotten married, really I do. I always cry at weddings. I love oohing and aahing over the photos and would like to see them more of them on Facebook, please. Its just that, as an old-fashioned, idealistic romantic (and I mean that in the larger sense of the word), sometimes things don't happen in the real world the way you would like them to, and that includes both being married and being single.

Oh, wait, now I see why people want to get married...

Apparently, I'm an Art Teacher now.

Yesterday was one of the best days I've had in Ireland. No, strike that, yesterday was one of the best days I've ever had.
As part of the ongoing Creative Connections course, we, the participants, have to pass on some of the skills that we've been learning to the general public. So, over 6 weeks (starting yesterday) we have to run 6 public workshops for 60 women and children, both from Ireland and from other countries. These women would be broken into 3 separate groups according to the age of their children, and each group would be facilitated by a group of Creative Connections ladies. So, yesterday (Saturday) was our first workshop.
We had been planning for the workshop for two weeks, but, of course, as these things go, and it being our first time ever running an official workshop, we were still woefully under-prepared and disorganised come yesterday morning. I had volunteered to be my group's team leader, as I am missing a huge number of workshops that are coming up in the next few weeks, due to work responsibilities of both the au pair and theatre types.
As team leaders, on the Saturday, we were meant to organise the running of the main activity for the day (printmaking), give a demonstration, locate and organise materials, schedules, and be on top of what each other member of our group would be taking responsibility for in the running of the day. All preparation had to be done on the Thursday before our Saturday workshop. For a while, the Thursday session went quite well. It was interrupted briefly to allow everyone to have a chance to ooh and aah over the 2 week old son of one of our group members (it is a group of women, after all), but we were having a great, if somewhat sleep-deprived hysteria induced, time for the first 2 hours of Thursday. Unfortunately, due to a variety of confusions, not least of all, what exactly we were meant to be organising, we didn't realise the majority of the things that we were expected to have organised by the end of the session on Thursday. This meant that at 9:15pm, with the session finishing at 9:30pm (and my last bus back to Kinsale leaving at 10pm, with a 10 minute drive from the Mayfield Arts Centre to the bus station), the three team leaders were running around anxiously, not quite sure what to do or who to talk to, or where things should go.
Oh, ok.
I was running around like a headless chicken, picking up materials, putting them down, demanding people help me, telling them that I knew what was going on and they didn't (when I really didn't have a clue), and generally panicking about how I was possibly going to get this all under control as well as get the 10pm bus, so that I didn't have to cop a 40 Euro taxi charge to ensure I got home in time to sleep and get up to start work at 7am the next morning.
I left at 9:35pm, with the assurance of our own group leaders that everything was under control, that we'd all be fine and things would work out on the day. I remained unconvinced, gripping my hands anxiously all the way to the bus station, sitting up bolt upright on the bus home, and devouring a strange concoction of baked beans and pasta when I finally got back to the house, my stomach rumbling due to 3 hours of anxiety and adrenaline. 
Friday evening I was babysitting, and I also spent an hour or so on Skype with a dear friend, babbling away about various things that had happened to us during the year, including my recent decision to leave the au pair business and figure out 'something else' to do. Whilst this was lovely, added to my already frayed nerves surrounding the Saturday morning workshop, my buzzing mood practically made it impossible to sleep. To get to Cork on time, I had to get up at 6:45am on Saturday. I eventually convinced myself to get into bed and read at midnight. 45 minutes later I was still sitting bolt upright in my bed, flicking back and forth through Vanity Fair and biting my nails. Convinced I was never going to get tired, I switched off my light, lay down and closed my eyes, hoping my body would get the idea.
It didn't.
I woke up at 6:45am having had approximately 5 hours 'sleep' that had been consistently interrupted by anxiety-induced nightmares. I dragged myself out of bed and stared out into the darkness that is Ireland at 7am these days. I got into my clothes, got my bag together and snuck out into the kitchen. Little Man was already sitting up on the couch, watching the telly, with his poor mother fast asleep next to him. He took one look at me and demanded, 'Where are you going?' waking his mother up straight away. Whilst I felt guilty, the upside was that she said her sister (and our next door neighbour) would be driving to work in Cork in 15 minutes, and she would be able to give me a lift. So, I got a very comfortable ride into the city in a BMW, which included my very own, personal seat warmer. My bum has never been so toasty.
The problem with being so efficient getting into Cork, however, was that, when I arrived at 7:45am, absolutely nothing in the city was open. I hadn't had breakfast yet, I was in desperate need of a tea, and I was freezing cold and being rained on, but not a single store was open. Not even the markets were set up yet. I did a couple of laps of the city, searching for anyone, anything, that was open, and, then, giving up hope of finding anything, continued to do laps so as to prevent my knees from freezing together. My sleep-deprivation and anxiety made me irrationally angry and I blamed the lack of open shops variously on a combination of the crap economy and lazy Irish people who drank too much on a Friday night and, therefore, didn't get up early and go into the city on a Saturday morning for coffee and a bagel, hence no stores or cafes opening before the hours of 8:30 or 9am (dear Irish people - I don't think you're lazy or crap. Well, your economy isn't great at the moment, but I'm fairly sure you were already aware of that. And I do not blame you at all for this occurrence. Well, maybe your politicians. And your bankers. But, not you, dear Irish person. Do not take my sleep-deprived, hunger-induced insults to be my actual view of the world).
Eventually, a cafe opened up and I managed to get myself a pot of tea, improving my mood immeasurably. After a crepe filled with olives, sun-dried tomatoes and feta, the whole world seemed brighter, and everyone, including my exceedingly surly and grumpy crepe lady, who charged me 50 cents more than her menu said she should have for my crepe, was my best friend and could do no wrong.
I got myself a few snacks for the day and then headed to the workshop location for set-up. Anxiety kicked in again. Once all the materials were out of the car, we had to start setting up. As the workshops were up to us to run, our trusty course supervisors were attempting to stand back and let us organise things. We weren't given directions as to what needed to happen next, or what things should go where. An overall group leader hadn't been decided on, so we were all standing around, debating what should be done. Eventually, I picked up a variety of things and started dividing them out amongst the tables. Other women started over jobs. Before we knew it, it was 10:20am, and women were arriving with their children. We (well, I) attempted to ignore them, keeping my eyes to the floor, continuing to organise materials, looking at the schedule and talking to my fellow group members about various activities. 'Who should run the name game?' 'Where should the round robin be placed?' Our group was looking after the women without children, and those women with children in the 0 - 2 years bracket (those a little too young to participate), but it soon became obvious that the group gathering around us were women with children aged 6 - 12. Our participants were starting to get a little tetchy, seeing that things weren't quite under control, and that we weren't quite ready to start at 10:30am, as had been promised (but, hey, this is Ireland, people never start anything on time here - except buses - so, what could they really expect?). We ran around, checking with people, until it became obvious that the age groups we had been expecting were different from the ones that had been organised. Things were put right again, and we were given our group of 10 - 12 women, plus one 2 year old boy with blonde cherub curls and a darling 1 year old girl with the biggest blue eyes seen this side of Hobbiton.
The mix-up with age groups and materials meant that I hadn't had a chance to check with my group who was doing what and in what order. I asked one of the ladies in my group if she would run our first activity, a name game. She said yes, but then started off on a tangent about all the singing and dancing games she had for us to play. I said that was great, but what about the name game? She said she would like to give us a singing game to play. Before things got completely off schedule only a minute into the workshop, and showing my control freak side perhaps a little too early in the day, I took over and ran a quick name game. It was possibly too quick and too rushed, due to the fact that I hadn't planned to do it, and that I was anxious about how things were going to be organised from then on, but, at least we had started going.
I then handed back to my original assistant. She started to show us a very simple song and dance call and response routine. It was completely different from the schedule that had been agreed upon on Thursday night, but as the aim of the activities was just to get people loosening up and moving, I decided not to get too precious about the whole thing, and just joined in. It turned out to be great fun, and a good starting exercise, because everyone was working as a group, and had to give up their inhibitions, trust what was happening, and not worry about the purpose and meaning of it all (or was that just me? No, I'm sure it applied to everyone...). Afterwards, I quickly ran through the planned games, and we ended with another song and dance.
After our warm-up games we went into our first art activity, which was a round robin pastel/charcoal drawing. The women all gathered around a table and started drawing a picture. At a designated point, they had to leave their picture and move on to the next one and start drawing there. The idea is to get everyone loose, working together, feeling free and not too precious about their work and activity. It went very well, was run by one of our other group members, and we ended up with a beautiful, colourful mural at the end.
Then it was my turn to take over. I was introducing the main art activity of the day, which was screen printing. I first of all showed the women how to do a basic trace mono print, which was similar to the technique we learnt at the start of our course, but without the printing press, and with some simplified materials. The women were delighted with the quick demonstration I did and went straight to work making their own prints. Every 10 minutes I introduced another technique, and the women experimented with the the images, the printing and all the materials that we had on offer, coming up with some truly lovely prints.
Before we knew it, it was an hour and a half into the workshop, and time for a quick break. Most of the women didn't want to stop, so I let them go, whilst I went to the tea room and drank a gallon of water. I couldn't get the smile off my face. My instructions had been simple and easy to follow, and the women had instantly jumped in and started to work. It was wonderful to watch how delighted they were with the results, many of them asked for the names of the materials so they could buy them and continue working with them at home. They were working together easily, talking, making friends and giving each other ideas of what to do next. Occasionally, you would jump in and make a suggestion of what could improve a print, or if they'd forgotten a step, or to complement a print, but it was mainly standing back and watching what happened, offering advice if needed and enjoying the enjoyment the women were getting out of the activity.
After a quick warm-up exercise, we did another 30 minutes of printing, with one more technique thrown into the mix, as well as showing a quick and effective way of displaying all the prints together. This was by making an 'accordion book', which is basically just paper folded up between two bits of wood and cardboard, so that it can be closed up flat, or opened up and displayed on a mantlepiece or table. Some of the women got all the prints displayed, whereas others took home materials to finish it during the week.
After the workshop, the Creative Connections ladies had to do a quick evaluation on how the whole day had gone, and, after that, some of us went for lunch. We were on such a happy, exhausted high, that we ended up sitting in the cafe for 3 hours just chatting about how it had all gone, our lives, what was coming next, anything that came up. We also learnt that the group had been granted funding to write a book about the experience of the course and what we have created within it, which is incredibly exciting, and we start work on that from December.
Anyway, the main point of this post is just how wonderful the whole session made me feel. Talking in front of groups, and teaching, is something that I find very easy, and its something I really do enjoy. You'd think, then, that I'd be much happier about my Master of Teaching, and the prospect of potentially being a high school teacher. Ah, not so, young Skywalker. See, one of the reasons I think I truly loved the workshop was because all the women were there wanted to be there, and they wanted to learn. Also, there was no curriculum, no expected outcomes. It was all about experimentation, about expression what you wanted to express, and there is a real joy and excitement in that. People so rarely let themselves feel that in their day to day lives. Its all about, I should do this, I have to do that. To be able to create a space and run a workshop that was nothing to do with making money, losing weight, learning useful things, getting fit, finding your 'soul mate' etc. but just about learning a technique for the sake of having fun and making lovely things, well... that was just delightful. I think I would be most happy running workshops like this, outside of the school curriculum. Of course, there is an argument to say that schools should be like this, that a talented teacher would be able to teach the curriculum in such a way that meets required standards through students' experimentation, exploration, enjoyment and individual interests. But I'm also aware of how much harder it is to walk that fine line in a school scenario, finding the balance between the bureaucracy and the joy of learning.
So, yeah. The problem is that, if I'm honest with myself, I only really want to teach kids who want to learn. I'm kind of scared of the other type. I don't know how to encourage them. I do have fantasies of being a Robin Williams-type in 'Dead Poet's Society', or, even better, a Michelle Pffeifer from 'Dangerous Minds,' but, at the same time, I have enough sense to realise that just wearing a leather jacket into a Western Sydney school isn't going to suddenly make them want to read Shakespeare with me.
But, who knows. Yesterday gave me hope that perhaps teaching is something that I could do, could do well and may even enjoy. Now if only I could get through the bloody course without going crazy.

Highly accurate depiction of how an art teacher looks according to Mattel. The brightly coloured skirt and kooky scarf evidently show how bohemian, left-wing and non-conformist art-teacher Barbie is.