Walking Photo Journal - Maurice of the Mountain - 100th Post

Maurice Collins

I was thinking about my 100th blog post, and to be honest, I couldn't decide what I would do for this momentous event!  So with no idea in my head, I went on my daily walk, and then I found the most brilliant inspiration. 

The man in the photograph is Maurice Collins, he is 94 and he walks the mountain everyday, sometimes 2-3 times.  He is a great man and apart from a little difficulty of hearing at times, and arthritis in the knee, he is probably healthier than myself.

It is great to talk to Maurice, because like the mountains he has been around for a very long time.  We spoke today about the bit of frost in the air, and the snow of 1947 when there were 40ft snowdrifts, we also spoke about the people, the new ones, those that have been here for only about 20 years!

Maurice got married at the age of 45.  His mother he says was a very good woman, and it didn't seem right to bring another woman into the house.  But when Maurice did get married, he was blessed with 5 children. 

As we walked down the mountain together, every now and then, he would throw a eye to his son's cattle, or wave to the odd mountain driver. 

I asked him what his secret was, was it healthy living?  He lived a hard life, he told me, but usually had enough to get by.  Times could be tough, but you just had to get on with it.  He misses being able to drive his car, but he misses driving his horse and cart more, despite often getting soaked through, often 3 or 4 times a day, hence the arthritis. 

Maurice remembers a time when Fridays was the day that folk, including his mother and father would travel into town, Camden Street, and sell eggs or buy seeds from Bolands.  They would make a day of it, he told me. 

The only time Maurice left Ireland, was when he went to London for his honeymoon.  He has a sister in America, a member of the Sisters of Mercy I think.  When he talks about London and America, you just know that he has no call to worry about either, his world is his life on the mountain, and there isn't an ounce of regret that this is the case. 

I enjoy talking to Maurice, he has a good outlook on life, and a gentleman for sure.  He loves everything about the mountain, and takes life as it comes with an appreciation that tomorrow is promised to no one.

We left each other at the corner of Piperstown Lane, both going our separate ways for a cup of tea to bring warmth back after the chill of the mountain air. 

I am sure I will write about Maurice again, he is just one of those folk that always brings something new to the conversation, but for now, thanks Maurice for my 100th post!

Walking Photo Journal - Sunset over Glenasmole

Sunset over Glenasmole January 29th 2011

Thought for the Weekend - Marilyn Monroe

I'm in the middle of reading 'Marilyn Monroe - The Personal Archives' at the moment, so I guess it is of no surprise that Marilyn gets the ticket this week. 

Marilyn was a movie icon that has always intrigued me.  In fact one of the first essays of any substance that I remember writing as a teenager, was about Marilyn Monroe, and how people are seldom what they seem.

'I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.'
— Marilyn Monroe

Walking/Photo Journal - Reluctance

I dragged myself out walking today, and pretty soon I felt a bit like Robert Frost when he wrote about the end of a season.

Reluctance

Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last long aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question 'Whither?'

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?

- Robert Frost -

Magpie Tales - Escape

Escape

Her twelve year old feet run through the forest, they are bare and she is freezing.  There are lots of dark places hidden within the trees.  Beyond the tallest trees she can see the light glistening, calling her, telling her the way.

The light she knows is her only hope; she tries to stay focused, pushing herself forward, but her knees are weak, and she loses balance.  She has to get up, escape. The white canvass soaks through her, eating her skin as the trees swirl and she falls further still. 

The trees are closer now and so is the noise, a loud echo, that tells her, he is close.

http://magpietales.blogspot.com/

In the Skin of the Lion - Book Club Review

Michael Ondaatje

As you will see from the reviews below, we are a mixed bunch when it comes to opinions.  Certainly Mr Ondaatje caused some very lively debate regarding quality prose versus the merits/necessity for plot.  Some people fell in love, whilst others were less so.  All part of life's rich tapestry I guess!!

 (See excerpt link below)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rMKQhMPH3E&feature=related

        
I love In the Skin of a Lion because it changed my opinion of what a novel can be. Michael Ondaatje is a very unique writer - his style and sense of structure is very distinctive and original. He is not linear, and eventually, as his 'very faint, very human' structure reveals itself, I found myself submitting to a free, image and character-driven version of storytelling. What is initially frustrating but ultimately liberating is the extent to which he allows you to make up your own mind. I like that sense of unpredictability in Ondaatje, that the story is written on the wing (like life) and that the story can go anywhere at any time. Not many novelists are able to make you feel you are on such a free-floating journey when you read their books.

                                     
Ondaatje is a great writer, it's just a shame that he's not such a good storyteller.

       
Hauntingly beautiful, perfect writing, poetic, moving, thought provoking - this book really does ‘bristle with intelligence’ as the blurb on the back cover suggests. Historically very informative I felt I learnt a lot about Canada’s backwoods and the ‘throbbing polyglot city’ - and about the particular tensions between rich and poor, excess and want.  The descriptions of work, of back breaking labour and the products of that labour were also exceptional.

Maybe I’m just too tired but I had to work a little too hard at times to follow the plot– I got lost and had to re-read a good bit to the point where I have to confess I wouldn’t have made it had I not committed to read it in the group. This would have been an awful shame because I would have missed so much and especially the exhilarating debate it caused.  I fell in love with four of the characters -  Nicholas, Hana, Caravaggio and Gianetta (in the order in which we meet them).  Maybe I haven’t read enough of this postmodern structure and it will grow on me but – in the end - in terms of plot I felt a bit left at sea like Caravaggio and Gianetta – and not sure if the author will come back for me.

                        
Really nice, poetic writing, shame about the plot being stuck so deep in Mr Ondaatje's subconscious that he completely failed to tell us poor mere mortal readers what was going on.

I was left with a love/hate feeling towards ‘In the Skin of a Lion’, mainly because Ondaatje sought to bury plot and understanding so deep that at times, it was like finding a needle in a haystack, a beautiful haystack, but a haystack all the same.  The novel has merit on many fronts, some of the brief encounters alone, like the meeting with the young boy Al, by themselves would salvage you from hating this novel because of their pure joy to read.  There is absolutely no doubt that the man can write and does so brilliantly about love and sex and many other things, but at a cost.  Overall I was glad I read it, and understood that it would not be a linear tale, but his ‘very faint, very human’ structure', (a quote I got from google during the reading of the novel, because I needed to know what made the man tick!) was a little too faint for my mental well being at times.




    
This book is about the immigrants in Toronto in the 1920’s who built the bridges, waterworks, tunnels.  It is about the dispossessed, those without who see the lives of the rich and feel the anger burning within them.  Sometimes they rise against it or get drunk and feel kinship among their own. It is a book about love.  Love that doesn’t own but is given freely.  It is a book about life, the whimsy of it and the way we grow.  Above all, it is a book about language that makes each reading, be it the second, third or hundredth, as pleasurable, if not more so then the first.  It is a work of genius.  Allow yourself to be immersed within its pages and the world changes. 



     
In the Skin of a Lion - all 20 pages I managed - suggested itself as a challenging, yet beautifully written novel. Creating a fierce debate about whether exquisite writing is enough to make a book worth reading, or whether a conventional story arc is a must, it certainly evoked strong feeling in those who managed to get to the end. And after hearing the lively debate - flying nuns, arsonists, banana cake! - I think I might just go back and finish it.

Next month's book club choice is 'The Pornographer'

by John Mc Gahern see introduction link below:-

  http://120socks.blogspot.com/2011/01/book-club-pornographer-by-john-mc.html

Walking/Photo Journal - All alone

Sometimes it is good to be alone!

Walking/Photo Journal - Haystacks

Speaking of haystacks, I guess planning ahead, is usually a good thing.

Bales of Hay - Bohernabreena

Walking/Photo Journal - Housebound!

It's a soggy wet day in the old mountains, too dull and miserable to walk, plus the car is sick and the man in the garage isn't feeling hopeful I'll get it back today either, so housebound it is!

  (Coffee was good, next time I'll leave the plastic milk bottle and ugly butter carton out of it!)

Wet January Day

Walking/Photo Journal - Waiting for Spring

Dull, cold day, Spring will hopefully be here soon.



Dry stone wall near bridge at Piperstown