Meandering Through the Weekend

It has been my kind of weather this weekend--clouds and rain mostly, even though I woke up to bright sunshine streaming through the bedroom windows this morning. The rain has often come bucketing down and I realized how much I had missed hearing it clatter against the windows. For some reason it rarely did that in Killybegs. Even on Friday afternoon as I rode out a migraine in bed, the sound of the rain was soothing and distracted me a little from what felt like a guy inside my face, stabbing me with an ice pick!

Thankfully I was feeling better by Friday night and got a good night of sleep, awakening on Saturday to the rain against the windows. We made a quick dash to the store for some eggs and milk in between showers, came home and settled in for a lazy weekend.

I made a hat yesterday out of a ball of mostly cotton yarn I had gotten last summer at the charity shop in Killybegs. I had gotten two balls of white and one grey. I used the grey and one white to make an infinity scarf using a Tunisian crochet elongated knit stitch. I made the hat using the same lacy stitch.

The ball of yarn was only 110 metres and I used it all. I made the man part of the hat in a strip, turned it sideways, sewed the first and last rows together to form a tube, then used regular crochet to make the crown. I just did 2dc tog around until there were a few stitches left and cinched it closed. Then I worked an alternating sc, ch, sc brim, working around and around doing sc in the ch spaces and ch1 over the sc stitches. I just went until I was almost out of yarn and then wove in the ends.

Another lazy day today as I sat around and read a couple of books.

Small, simple pleasures--rain spattering against the windows, cups of tea, yarn, and books. Happy days, as they say here. I hope you are having some happy days in your neck of the woods!

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Tranquility Corner

In our bedroom we have a couple of dressing table sorts of things instead of dressers. These have small drawers--one has 4 drawers on either side and one has just one column of drawers. The wardrobe also has a couple of large drawers at the bottom. Bill uses these wardrobe drawers and the smaller dressing table, while I use the drawers in the larger dressing table. In one corner on top of my dressing table I have arranged some stuff that is meaningful to me in various ways. I see this corner all the time--as I am dressing, when I come into the bedroom to get or put away my rucksack or some other thing, and all I have to do is look up when I am sitting in bed reading or stitching and there it is. I find it comforting and peaceful to rest my eyes there and to be reminded of a few things.

The photo was taken by a friend, Laurie, back in the US. She made it into a card and sent it to me. We liked it so much we framed it. I find the basic psychology of Buddhist teachings to be very commonsensical and helpful. They are a sort of guidebook for life that works well for me and I can go back to them in moments of stress, unhappiness, discontent, or feelings of ill-being. I also remember them as I go through each day. Simply put, there are the Four Noble Truths:
1) Everyone suffers sometimes
2) Often this suffering comes about because we want things to be different than they are--we cannot deal with reality and crave something different, whether that is material or something else
3) There is a way to lessen this suffering
4) That way is the Noble Eightfold Path, which includes things like right view, right action, right intention, etc. This is also known as The Middle Way.

I like the fact that Buddha here is sitting quietly in the snow. Now that I rarely see snow anymore, I find this image comforting. The fact that the image was created and sent to me by a friend far away reminds me that I am lucky enough to have many friends in different parts of the world.

The small vase was given to me by Bill, who found it in the "clearance" section of the charity shop. This causes me to remember both his thoughtfulness and care towards me and the fact that there is more than enough stuff in the world and we should use that before acquiring new things.

The doily was made by me years ago during a time of difficult transition in my life. It is a reminder that everything is impermanent, suffering included. It also makes me grateful for my creativity, not only because I can make cool stuff, but also because that creativity allows me to build a life that fits me instead of trying to fit myself into a more conventional lifestyle which would not suit me at all.

The driftwood, shell, stones, and pottery shards all came from various beaches here. The driftwood and pottery shards once had jagged edges but these have been smoothed by time and being tossed around on the waves. The stones, shell, and driftwood bring to mind my connection with this earth. How varied these things are! Even the stones (I have had a thing about stones since I was a kid) are so different from one another. Colours, shapes, textures, markings--all are different, just like people. In spite of their differences, though, they are all stones and all a part of this planet that we share.

I am also mindful that the fact that I have these particular bits is completely random. They happened to wash up on a part of the shoreline that was accessible to me one day while I was walking along and they caught my eye. On a different day I would have noticed something else. So it is with stuff that happens to us sometimes. Stuff happens and what we do in response to the stuff that happens is what creates our life.

Finally, the small pottery shards are examples of someone's creativity. They were once part of  larger vessels which broke apart somehow and the pieces were scattered. I do not know whether they were someone's prized possessions, but if they were, I hope they did not cling to them, but could let them go lightly. I also do not know how far these little shards traveled to end up on beaches in Moville near the northern tip of this little island, but it just goes to show how connected things are. Some people somewhere once had these piece of pottery in their homes--possibly far apart-- and now they are together in mine.

This little corner is a sort of shorthand for me. When I look at it I feel a little bit more tranquil and at peace. And I smile.

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My Balancing Act

When we first got to Ireland and lived in Ballinrobe, things could sometimes feel chaotic. We were in a new country, trying to figure out what needed to be done and how we were supposed to do it while dealing with some cross-cultural communication and expectation issues. At some point we decided that we would set Sundays aside as stay-at-home days. There might be other days in a week when we happened to be at home and skip our daily walk, errands, etc, but Sundays would be dedicated to just having a quiet day at home. Sometimes we did not even get dressed. I made sure to have leftovers available so that my time spent in food preparation was minimal. I loved those days. I looked forward to them all week.

I have always been someone for whom solitude and being quietly at home is not only OK, but what I love best. It would be very easy for me to take that too far and become a recluse, and I am aware of that. In the past I have gone too far the other way and been over-scheduled.  When I am too busy with outside stuff, I tend to get frustrated, agitated, and eventually angry. It is not that I do not enjoy socializing sometimes. I do, but I do not need as much interaction as some people seem to require. I am definitely an introvert.

There was a time in my life when I was the mother of a daughter in elementary school, a wife, a research assistant, a teaching assistant, and a grad student all at the same time. One year when I was still an undergrad I did the PTA thing and somehow Bill and I found ourselves co-presidents. Then Bill got sick and ended up in the hospital. It was a crazy time. It worked for me then, even when I was getting up at 2 am to begin my days. I was enjoyed the work I was doing at university and I still feel good about what I accomplished. Even so, I looked forward to term breaks when I could go home and not have quite so much to do all at once. I would never want to do that now--that time of my life is over and I definitely prefer a much quieter existence. So I try to find the right balance between being home and being out. The sweet spot, where the balance is just right, shifts a lot though, depending on what is going on, so it is always a work in progress.

I find myself needing those Sundays once again, especially now that this move has happened and summer is here.  This was brought home to me a couple of weeks ago as we were heading towards a bank holiday weekend. I was very depressed, feeling tired all the time, and generally feeling like I was dragging myself through each day. It was time for some self care, so I decided that the 3-day bank holiday weekend was going to be my time to rest, meander through my days, and just be. What a difference it made! I decided to go back to that on the Sundays, so yesterday I did not bother to get dressed. I read. I crocheted. I rested. I had a beautiful, peaceful, relaxing day.

Taking the time to give myself what I need does not come easy to me--I am someone who has a tendency to be a fixer for people. In the past I have found myself over-committed because I could not say no when people asked me to do something. I could not politely refute other people's statements about what I "should" be doing or wanting to do. I could not stand by and watch as people struggled and I wanted to make it better for them. This was not good for them or me, of course. Sometimes we learn by struggling with something. I sure have. And we all have enough struggles of our own without taking on those of others. There again, finding the balance was crucial--knowing when to help or offer to help and when to stand aside is sometimes not easy, but it is important.  The bottom line in all of this is that I had to really get to know and understand myself. I had to pay attention to what I was feeling at different times while doing different activities and I had to accept those feelings, honor them, and act on them. I had to learn to put myself first sometimes. That did not happen overnight--it is definitely a process. And somewhere along the way I understood that sometimes saying no to someone else is, at the same time, saying yes to myself.

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Blooming

Ireland is not known as The Emerald Isle for nothing! I have never seen so many shades of green as I have in the two years we have been here. It is not just green though. There are so many shades of grey here in the stone walls. Tree bark and lichens display many kinds of brown. Rocks range from black to grey to brown to white. And in spring the flowers--both wild and not--burst open everywhere and the place is a riot of colour.

Here is some of what is blooming now in Moville.

Hope things are beautiful in your neck of the woods!

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Detour

We headed out this morning to go pick up a few basics. Though it was bright and sunny it was not hot with a lovely breeze blowing. The water was blue. This is the view from Market Square, which is a couple of minutes from our apartment.  The water in the photo is Lough Foyle and is part of the section we see from our sitting room and a couple of the bedrooms. We are on a bit of a hill and our apartment is the first floor of the renovated old corn store (second floor to those of you from the US), so we look over some roof tops at this bit of water and the hills beyond. Because we're elevated, we get a wider perspective than this. It is always one of the first things I do in the morning--pull back the curtain and see what colour the water is that day and whether it is rough enough for whitecaps. It changes quite dramatically--sometimes a few times a day--and can be blue, green, grey, and even black. Sometimes it is misty or foggy enough that we cannot see it--or the hills beyond--at all. Often the water in this area will be different than what we see from the shore walk.

We were headed to a small shop on the outskirts of town and were going right by the road that leads to that beach, so we decided to take a detour and spend a bit of time poking around.

One of the houses on the road has a lovely front garden, complete with this funky tree. I have seen a few of these and they always strike me as funny for some reason.

 All was quiet on the beach.

We find lots of interesting rocks, driftwood, sea glass, and pottery bits on this beach. We have started to collect some of this stuff from here as well as from the wee beaches along the shore walk. I took this bit home with me.

 

The rocks on this beach are different than the ones we see along the shore walk.

Here is the Bredagh River running into Lough Foyle.

Of course, for me the best thing about this beach today was that I was there with my favourite person, who happened to be wearing yet another of his fabulous hats!

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Have a Seat

One thing I like about Moville is that there is a lot of public space right in the center of town. In addition to the shore walk there is the town green. Both of these get a lot of use by local people. Every time we walk we see all kinds of people using the path. There are a lot of exercise partners out in their gear, walking and talking together. There are mums, dads, grandmas, and grandpas pushing prams or out with small children. There are people walking their dogs, couples taking a leisurely walk, and lone people either out for a casual ramble or racing along doing their workout. There are also people who come with their coffee or lunch, newspaper or phone, or nothing at all--they sit on one of the many benches and eat, read, text, or just sit quietly looking at the light sparkle on the water and listening to the soft whisper of the water as it meets the rocks.

There are all kinds of benches along the way. A few are basic wooden benches, but some of them are like works of art.

The carving on this one is hard to see, but if you look on the right side you can see a tractor pulling a load of silage.

 

The tentacles on this guy curve around to the sides of the bench.

There are a few stone benches along the path too--they seem throne-like to me.

Up on the green there is a nice curved stone bench.

In his blog today, Bill has a nice photo of the halfway point of the trail, where there is a beautiful round table and curved benches made of stone. We stopped there to eat lunch the first time we walked the path.

It is nice to see these public spaces where people can get together, sit quietly in nature, get some exercise, enjoy the peace, the view, and the brisk sea breeze, and be away from traffic.

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Summer is Here

Summer has arrived. As always, I hope it will not last long. Yesterday was the hottest day of the year so far. It was probably around 70 but felt hotter in the sun. We spent the afternoon walking around in Buncrana and as a result my evening was shot. Spent it in bed with a pounding head and upset stomach--not the first time the sun and heat have caused such problems for me and probably not the last! I was particularly annoyed because I wanted to finish the book I am reading!! Was glad to feel OK when I woke up today. Still sunny, but not as warm and here in Moville there has been a nice breeze all day. We started by making a visit to the fruit and veg guy who sets up his stall in Market Square every Tuesday. We got our produce, came home, unloaded that and stuck our Klean Kanteens in the backpacks to be filled at St Columbcille's well. The breeze was quite brisk on the shore walk and it was pleasant and comfortable in spite of the sun. The tide was high this morning. The water is so clear.

Flowers are blooming. The white flower is new, but the gorse has been blooming for a while.

Last week they did some patching of the walk and a wall. Someone decided to add a message.

As it was when we used to regularly walk the path by the River Robe in Ballinrobe, it is interesting to see the changes along the shore walk. There is always something new to notice and the landscape changes in subtle and more noticeable ways, depending on the weather, the light, the tide, and the season. I look forward to seeing the changes as the year goes on.

On the way back we saw a small bird on a big rock.

After we had returned home I looked up Lough Foyle and learned that it is home to many types of birds, fish, and plants, some of them rare. There is an ongoing territorial dispute! The UK has announced that they consider the whole of Lough Foyle to be UK territory, though they were gracious enough to concede that Ireland takes a rather different view on this matter! Pretty sure the birds and fish do not really care!

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