Blog Archives - A Cottage by the Sea

The Wedding: a common touch

4/29/2011

Yesterday it was Boston’s sports teams, today it’s Williams and Catherine’s (no more Kate) wedding. I wasn’t planning to watch, but when I woke up at 5:30 and remembered it was the wedding day, of course I turned on the TV. And I’m glad I did.

The show carried itself. No TV chatter. Just the visual--royal opulence, but really so tasteful and relaxing. Royal pomp and ceremony, exquisite music, the wedding vows, short homily, Romans 12: 1, 2, 9-18, more exquisite music. The common touch. The world’s trouble spots are still troublesome, but for a brief moment today, maybe, just maybe, people around the globe allowed themselves to smile and take a deep breath or two, before getting back to work at hand.

Bruins, Celtics, Red Sox and silence

4/28/2011

Let me tell you, if you live in Boston and like to follow the hometown teams, it’s not easy to lead a silent life these days. Last night the Bruins beat the Canadians in overtime at the Garden and will be taking on the Flyers on Saturday. Then there are the Celtics who beat the Nicks four games straight and are now quietly awaiting their next opponent. Red Sox Nation is alive and well although the team is still trying to get its socks on--anyway it’s a long season. I won’t mention the Patriots because it’s not their season. However, If the Red Sox can start winning their way into the World Series, it is just possible that all four of our teams will be competing for air space in the fall.

All of this is a dilemma for me. Watching the games, and of course reading all the biased commentary in the Globe the next morning, detracts from my solitude time—not only physical time, but also mental and emotional time. Balls and pucks show up in my dreams and I try to organize my schedule around the games, although I must admit that I can multi-task.

So far, as I try to sort it all out, I’ve solved at least one of the solitude pieces. Put the TV on MUTE and at least eliminate that kind of noise.

Keeping silence on the plane

4/26/2011

     Today, for some reason I’ve been thinking about my flight home from Ireland just a week ago. My goodness, has it been that long? Time flies. Mostly I remember being startled by all the airplane noises in contrast to the silence of the sacred sites and the quiet of Dublin’s gardens and parks.

     To begin with we had to listen to the safety regulations, which, “due to technical difficulties,” were given twice . And of course federal regulations state the we still have to be told how to insert (and release, thank goodness) our seat belts. Then there is the announcement about “Duty Free”, followed by the stewardess walking down the aisle waking everyone up with “Duty free? Duty free?” every ten seconds. I have no idea if anyone on my flight bought anything--maybe 200 cigarettes for 27 euros. As you know, that’s just one of many announcements on a plane that break the silence. I’m sure you have your list of favorites.

       Then there is your seat mate, or mates if you’re unlucky. Mine was a very, very, very nice woman who wanted to talk--to tell me about the Irish wedding she attended, and how she got a new passport just in the nick of time after discovering that her old one would expire before she got home. Of course she asked me where I had been, where I liked to travel. You know how it is; all that travel chatter that we are expected to exchange with whatever stranger the fates have placed in the seat next to ours. It’s just what nice people are supposed to do.

     Except that nice person that I am, I didn’t want to chat. In fact, I couldn’t muster a word, nor could I make eye contact, and I decided not even to try. All that silence at the cottage and then the silence, mixed with too much chatter on the trip, had me feeling comfortable with a rhythm that included more silence in my life. I just didn’t want to participate in so much talk. I wanted to play by my new rules, and so I did—but very, very, very nicely, of course.

Visiting Mom

4/25/2011

A gray spring morning greeted me this morning as I walked to Dunkin Donuts to get some coffee. I forgot to give Mr. Coffee some water, so he decided he was on burn-out.
I'll have some solitude as I drive to Connecticut to see my mom. She doesn't talk much any more so I'll bring my knitting and sit in silence with her. In fact, there's something to envy about her simplicity of thought. She just wouldn't get upset about Mr. Coffee. She hardly drinks it anymore.

Yin and yang

4/23/2011

Thank goodness I’m not a hermit. Decorating Easter eggs all by myself doesn’t seem like much fun. And anyway, why would I do it? I can’t imagine hiding them and then hunting for them. I’m happy to forfeit a weekend of silence, solitude and simplicity for the good family time around here. Yin and yang is good.

Fly away home~

4/20/2011

Did I ever tell you that if I were homeless I’d live in an airport? (I got the idea from the children’s book, “Fly Away Home” by Eve Bunting.) It’s not something that I think about on a daily basis, but a week and a half ago, as I sat in the Dublin Airport for three hours awaiting the arrival of a friend from Oregon, I had ample opportunity see how it could work. When I arrived at 5:10 I walked a good half mile to the arrival area, which would be my home should I choose to live there. By the time I cleared customs it was close to 6 and the state-of-the-art food court was just opening. Before settling on my eating spot I wandered up and down checking out the locations of the bathrooms and various sitting areas where I might stretch out and lie down. You see, if you’re homeless in an airport, I reckon you have to be continually on the move so that the same people don’t keep noticing you--mobility is key—anonymity is what you’re striving for . By 9 o’clock the place was crowded, so I figured it would be a cinch to live here during the day. But come evening and into the night I’d have to be darting about avoiding the guards and cleaning folk.
Yesterday at Dublin Airport, it was clear to me that although I love airports, I don’t want to live in one. For one thing, they don’t offer like the kind of solitude I yearn for. In fact, dreaming of being homeless in an airport is a pretty pathetic fantasy. I’ll leave it to Tom Hanks to wander about the terminal. I’m glad to be wandering about in my own home.

Dublin and Howth, Ireland

4/18/2011

Day Six, Lough Gur, Grange Stone Circles, Ireland

4/17/2011

The official tour is over and at noon I’ll be on my way to Dublin with a few of the women before flying home on Tuesday. This pilgrimage of thirty-six women has offered quite contrast to all that silence, solitude and simplicity I experienced at the cottage for nearly five months. Was the trip worth it? Of course. Besides visiting some awesome sacred sites, I made several simpatico friends and solidified some ways of being for myself.
For one thing, I had ample practice slipping into my own space of the 3Ss. Yesterday, for example, we spent a two hours at Lough Gur and Le Grange Stone Circles, one of the largest stone circles in Ireland, and were accompanied by Noirin Ni Rain, one of Ireland's renowned singers. The space was filled with silence, quiet talk, song and the mooing of cows who wandered amongst us--Holy sounds. It was a precious time of being "alone in the presence of."
But then, back on the bus, real world chatter began again, all rather jarring to me. I would have liked to have listened to Noirin sing-- or we could have sung or been led to silence. But the leadership wasn’t there. Instead each of us had to create our own way of being. For me it was to go into my own silent space. Having had my cottage time prepared me well.

Day Five: National Stud, Japanese Gardens, St. Brigit's well, Black Abbey, Ireland

4/16/2011

What a day!

Day 4, Hill of Uisneach, Ireland

4/15/2011

We are always on the move, so it seems. Yesterday we had three hours to move about The Hill of Uisneach, mystical navel of Ireland, the site of the original Bealtaine festival where the great fires were kindled. After hundreds of years, they are being kindled anew on April 30th. I wandered all over and found a fairy grove that reminded me of my childhood play, which of course was my work and in many respects still is. Why? Well, it occurs to me that as long as my mother is alive, I can still be a child.