Thursday, February 29, 2024

Leap day.

29.02.2024. Happy leap day. A leap year. A rare day. Four years ago on the 29th February 2020, the first case of Covid-19 was reported in Ireland. Then, I was pregnant and scared. Covid-19 was all the news but we knew barely anything. Now, here we are. I tested positive for Covid for the second time exactly two months ago. The disease has been surging in Ireland and the US, among others, but is barely reported or remarked on. We know a lot, but choose to do little. Maybe we're all too busy looking at our phones. While the wars rage and the planet burns and the children are killed. We can do more. Better. Much better. But we need to communicate with one another, we need to hope, and we need to act.

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A nice piece by KIN MX on Camden Row in Dublin 2. The spirit's wings are feathered by love, peace, compassion, kindness, community, respect, communication and unity. Resentment, hopelessness, revenge, separation, sadness, fear, media, anger, loneliness, depression, and frustration are the tentacles that try to strangle her. But she is clothed in forgiveness, love, gratitude, unity, hope and trust.

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

Sunrise.

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Dawn over Portobello in Dublin.

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A stunning sight to wake up to.

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Red sky in the morning.

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A new dawn, a new day, a new year.

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I hope it isn't a warning.

Sunday, December 31, 2023

Covid 23.

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It's the end of the terrible year that was 2023 and I'm sick with Covid. I tested as I was hoping to go to a friend's birthday party on Friday night, and there it was, a faint line where no line should be, to surprise me and kibosh my plans. Then ysterday, another test, this time wildly instantly positive, the damning line appearing within seconds, when the control line was still faint, before the liquid had even had time to climb to the top of the window. I have Covid. I have fecking Covid. And I feel really down about it. And unlucky, and pissed off, and worried. Worried about possibly having passed it to others, not about myself. When I told a friend (and close contact) their response was casual, hope you feel ok, don't worry about potentially having infected other people, sure it'll just be a light cold or maybe like a bad flu. This is not my attitude. It's also clear from other people that some have been testing before going out to group events, as I have done, or before meeting me, and others haven't. I thought about these responses, and what having Covid means to me. First, I'm not very worrried about how sick I'll be with this infection, right now, these few days. I was finally able to get my Covid booster 2 weeks ago, so it should be mild. I'm young, I'm fairly healthy, I will probably not feel all that sick. So far I feel a bit tired and have a runny nose and the occasionaly cough, it's not even the worst I've felt over the last two months from other illnesses. That's not a concern. What worries me is the potential to have passed it to others, to other people who are not as healthy as me, not vaccinated, not able to fight it off so well. My partner and my young child are top of my list of concern, neither are vaccinated because they have been perpetually sick and so it was not advisable for them to get the jab. I'm concerned for elderly parents, and in-laws who are immune-compromised, friends with underlying conditions. The many friends who themselves are at low-risk but whose elderly parents and other family members decidedly are high-risk. Most I have not seen in person recently, but those people are my main reason for taking the precautions I do, all the time. And because while I may not be in direct contact with these more vulnerable people this week, I can't know that the person I stand next to in the shop queue, or who I might inadvertently cough towards on the bus, that they are not more vulnerable, or going home to someone who is. It's about caring for other people, especially those who might be at higher risk than me. This seems obvious to me, and the humane thing to do. But others don't seem to see it that way.

And the other concern is the long-term consequences. Known and unknown. But which I would like to avoid, for me and others. Having seen friends disabled by long Covid, having experienced some of its effects myself and for loved ones, I want to avoid that. And reduce the risk of it happening, if I can. But what can we do. Onwards into 2024.

Thursday, November 30, 2023

Grieving.

My life is suffused by loss and grief. I am weighted down by this loss, this absence. The death of someone I love. I am not ready to use the past tense. I feel the weight of this grief like a solid metal shape held inside my torso by hooks which dig into my flesh inside my body yet do not give way, releasing this burden, instead they continue to rip at me, unexpected sharp pains, while the weight remains, pulling me down, making it hard to move, to think, to do anything. It is bearable and unbearable, concrete and intangible, unbelievable yet constantly, grindingly, blindingly real. I know it will get better and worse, it will change, as it is changing, minute by hour, week by day, I know the loss will become more and less. I am frightened of how much bigger it will become. And frightened of it shrinking and losing some of this love, this presence in absence. I am grieving. I am mourning. I am surviving death.

I feel the personal loss bound up in larger losses, the grief of thousands, and of individuals. In Israel and Palestine, in Ukraine, in all the other conflicts, the deaths from hunger and disease, the other kind of grief from Parnell Square, the violence, the murders. For the planet as another COP begins, overseen by the head of an oil company in an oil-rich countr. The grief for us all. It makes this personal loss much harder.

I know my grief is 'normal'. I know many others go through similar, have gone through similar, very recently, very similarly. I have the good people and the people I love and who love me around. Everyone and everything is not lost. I know it is in some way ok and will be ok even though it is also not ok. Nothing like ok. I am grieving too for the past, for the things not done, the time wasted, the losses inflicted on me and that I gave away. I am grieving the present, what isn't here, who isn't here, the absence in my now. And I am grieving the future I will not have, the futures other people I love will not have, that can never be, that I wanted and wished for and looked forward to and lived in the presumption of. I am grieving in three tenses. I am not ready to use the past tense.

Saturday, September 30, 2023

Too much too fast too soon.

It all seems like too much. Too many people dying too young, too soon, too fast. And more yet to come. Too sad.

Thursday, August 31, 2023

Stop killing people with cars.

Please can people stop killing people with cars. Especially children. Two three year old children were killed by cars in two separate incidents in less than 24 hours. A three year old boy and his two grandparents all died when the car driven by his father with his mother in the front passenger seat hit a wall in Cashel in Tipperary on Tuesday night. On Wednesday afternoon a car hit a three year old girl on a residential road in Laois, and she died. These are horrific. They should never happen. They can be prevented. People need to stop driving. Just stop driving. Stop speeding. Stop driving drunk. Stop driving while on drugs. Stop using your phone while driving. Stop driving when you're tired, or distracted. Stop driving unless you have to. Stop driving except when you treat getting into your car as loading a volatile, tonne weight weapon with your hands and feet on the trigger. Just stop driving. Stop killing people with cars.

Wednesday, July 26, 2023

RIP Sinéad O'Connor

Photo of Sinéad O’Connor singing (PC100725B)

The world is without an incredible voice. Rest in power, rest in peace Sinéad O'Connor.

Video of Sinéad O’Connor singing (PC100722)

Video of Sinéad O’Connor singing for 50 years of Amnesty International, at Sean MacBride House in Dublin, Ireland, on 10th December 2011. Click to play the video.

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Photos and video of Sinéad O’Connor singing for Amnesty, in Dublin, 2011.