Tuesday, June 4, 2019

Writing Week Day 3

Oh my goodness. What a time I've had just now. But wait - let me start at the beginning.

I didn't sleep as well last night as the night before -- probably because I got my period and also I had a couple of glasses of wine and I should know by now that wine (even a glass or two) negatively affects my sleep. But even still, I slept better than normal, so this is in no way a complaint.

I made myself a little omelet and some toast and then it was straight into it. I sat down to work and basically worked from about 10-something to 5-something. I didn't even break for lunch. I now have 18,500 words down. Some of the parts I worked on today felt a bit tedious. And a lot of the story isn't literary -- it's difficult to be literary when you're talking about the minutiae of death. So much of the story is like, I bought him a steak and he only had three bites. But I want to include that bit because it's a true representation of what happens when you're desperately trying to keep someone alive.

I was thinking about that bit in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - you know, the hardest section of the book, where the priest is giving that long sermon about hell. It's so fucking long and boring that by the end of it, you really start to feel like you are actually in hell. Well I guess the thing about what I'm writing is that I want to really convey how tedious and relentless it is to be obsessed with another person's food intake. I don't want to gloss over the long-winded, desperate planning that goes into finding the perfect food that they're going to gobble right up, and look at you, and say, "That was delicious, I'll have approximately 500 more, and then once I eat these, I promise I'll have the will to live and we'll all be so happy, and p.s. I'm never going to die. Thank you for buying me this shake." Because this is the fantasy land that carers live in and I want to be true to that life.

So anyways, Mary, the amazing sculptural artist here, is doing a really neato project that entails recording women's stories and she asked to interview me. So I stopped working and went up to be interviewed. The mic stopped recording a half hour in, so I went for a walk while she sorted out the technical difficulties. My MdDS has definitely come back, although mildly, and I decided that I should probably walk for the sake of my vestibular system. While I was walking (and being rained on), I chatted to my sister Tina. We had a lovely chat. Then I returned so Mary could re-record me. There were still some technical issues, but we left it because by then it was 8:30pm and our stomachs were growling.

Next door there's a thatched roof restaurant with tourist prices, but we had 10% off coupons and it appears to be the only half-decent restaurant in the village. Yoni joined us, and as usual we updated each other on our projects. We talked about vegetarianism, our artistic goals for our time here, and various other very interesting subjects. When it became clear that the restaurant side of the establishment was closing, we moved over to the bar, where a man named Callum was already drinking. Mary introduced us. Callum helps Jess and Hugh with bits and pieces here in the house, and that's how he and Mary were already acquainted. He introduced himself to me and Yoni, but already seemed to know a bit about each of us.

We then proceeded to have one of the most hilarious and entertaining conversations that I have ever had. Callum has lived here in Killeagh for 40 years. Previous to that, he was living in Dublin for a couple of years, and then previous to that he was born and reared in Derry (the county, not the city). He wore an Easter Lily pin that he said someone stuck on that particular shirt several years ago, and has never come off since.

Do you ever just laugh and laugh and laugh so much that you realise you can't remember when you last laughed that much? That's how this conversation went. All four of us were in absolute stitches. And it worked perfectly -- each person added a funny element to the conversation and it definitely would not have been as entertaining if even one of us hadn't been there. First we talked about this house being haunted. Then we moved onto ghost stories, crazy artists who stayed in the house, stories about the house's previous tenants, the church conductor, flying in planes, and more. It was one of those times when I felt completely in the moment, listening intently, translating Callum's accent for the other two, telling jokes and stories, and thinking this is fucking amazing. This makes life worth living. This is what I want to recreate when I write, or at the very least put a name to.

So it's later than I'd like it to be, and I'll go to bed now. But first I want to say something.

You don't have to have the perfect job to live the life that you want to live. You can live a great life in other ways. I used to think that if I didn't have certain things, then I was a failure. Now I see that as long as I can feel joy or feel that joy is possible, I will never be a failure. 

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