Counting as life goes by

Funny how we can get excited over the little things in life -- actually I see that as a blessing. While in Cork City I was thrilled to find this HUGE ICE CREAM CONE that was as tall as my 4'11 1/2" height. Our friend Tracesea took this picture for me for my friend Nelida with whom I shared a friendly little competition to seek out the most ice cream cones that seductively decorated front of storefronts in many small towns throughout Ireland. With the disadvantage of being the driver, I was behind in my count at the end of our visit. BUT, Nelida went home and I luckily live here. Therefore, the hunt goes on, my count goes up and I feel childlike enthusiasm for each time I spy a new ice cream cone I smile and appreciate the small, delicious joys in life!

Well Blow Me Down

I thought I would contemplate this celebratory thought when I was walking the dogs on the hill this morning but the pushy winds were so strong ("HOW STRONG WERE THEY?" you ask) that I kept blowing up the hill (not any easy feat) and the dogs' fur was rippling like black wheat fields. Stefan's ears were a'flappin and Shadow barked a bit to notify the mysterious and invisible creature that she did not like being pushed around while scavaging(her "top" pleasure on hill adventures).

So my thinking turned to the POWER of the wind and how different living on an island has been for me than living in a landlocked state like Colorado where snow conditions provide nature's primary winter topic. We jostled along and I was satisfied in the view of the estuary with white capped waves and bobbing sailboats down in the marina.

Going home for a warm cup of tea in my electrified state and to tell Alana how BLOWY it was just shows how simple yet wonderful my life right now.

Blessings to you in 2007.

More Panto shots

Here we are in stage make up with Sheila (the dutchess), Margie (as the wife of the doctor), Finbarr (the star of the show in pink), Alana as the wife of the Lord, and Sive (our youngest colleague). A good time was had by all!

Uncertainties and Paperwork

Hi everyone,

Today is a "bit dicey" meaning that we could run into problems and are a bit insecure. I realize now that there are stages to this reinventing life business. The first phase is "Getting there" and this was our focus for the first 4 years. Now I would call the new stage, "living it" and this stage has its own set of issues - things that have to be endured - new talents and strengths that have to be developed.

Let me give you examples:

1. Today we have a list of things to do all of which feel very insecure because they put us smack into new systems. It is a bit like being 16 again and expected to figure a lot of things out for the first time. We are finishing our physicals (at least we know the doctor), getting our ID photos taken again (also we have this one down) and turning in the paperwork to apply for the next stage in getting a drivers liscense here. Its this last bit that is the part that makes us nervous. Do we have all the right forms? What do these forms mean when they ask.....? After all word use for the simplest things can take us astray. Where do we park when we go to the city hall? What will it be like and will we be successful. What used to be a mundane task, now is full of angst.
2. We are also going to the Garda (police) in Bandon (the central office for our area) to apply for new immigration standing. Why are we doing this on the same day? Convenience won out before I felt the fear associated with a double load of insecurities. Last year the Garda in Kinsale merely applied for an extension to a holiday visa - this year the person is probably doing it right - and seems to be writing and telling the real story that we intend to stay. If all goes well we probably will have an easy time of it in the future - but this time we have a ton of paperwork with us. We need to prove that we own the house (where is the deed to the house? we don't have a clue so then the solicitor is writing a letter). We need to show we pay taxes (this one is easy, although we don't pay anything yet we have filed for three years). We need to show that our income is generated outside of Ireland (fortunately both my university and the foundation I work for wrote letters and sent them Fed Ex). We will stay a little nervous on this one until we get the final cards that allow us to stay.

The bottom line in all this is that it is really a good thing we are still in our fifties. The older we get the less tolerance we have for feeling like we are 16 and don't know how to negotiate the systems that support and control our lives. If we run into snags we have folks here to help us sort them out, but the shere foreigness of our surroundings adds to the internal pressures. On the up side of the equation is my hope/belief that by tackling so much that is new we are regenerating almost lost cells - ultimately extending our physical and mental lives through the exercise.

Off we go, hope for the best, if all goes well we will be more legal, more safe and secure than we are as we start off,

all the best,
Alana

Post Script:
By 11am we had successfully: paid our car registration, gotten our learners permits for driving (the Irish would say "the first provisional") and applied to take a driving test (may happen sometime in the next six months). By 4pm we had also filled out the paperwork to update our immigration status so they know we are working in the State rather than living here as retired folks. This will be useful if the University College Cork and I can come to some arrangement for me to work as a visiting professor and to land research grants in their fiscal agency.

The Panto

Hi everyone,

Can you see Margie and I as actresses? We couldn't either, and now, even after the last 6 weeks of practices and performances it is still a new idea in our consciousness. Nevertheless, we wouldn't have missed our being in this year's "Panto" for the world.

Pantomine is a new art form for those of us from the US - not having this tradition in our background. It is common across the UK and Ireland where Christmas Pantomines feature a standard theme (we did Sleeping Beauty) updated to include local material. The audience participates by screaming back to the performers as appropriate. For instance the bad fairy in ours said, "I'm going to get you out in the car park after the performance" and the audience replies, "No you're not" "Oh yes I am!" etc.

Margie had read about Pantos and we hoped to see one. Then a woman we know turned out to be this year's director and we volunteered to help (selling coffee at intermission perhaps?). Mid November I see Cal (the director) in the chriopractor's office, and as we are chatting she takes a call from a woman dropping out of the chorus. I suggest that I can take one of the two places now left open and that perhaps Margie might also be interested. What we didn't ask was how much time was expected from us as chorus members. This was probably a good thing as it turns out, because we would have had a million reasons we couldn't have done it if we had known ahead of time what we were committing to.

Practices were twice a week (four our parts in the chorus, the main actors were there three nights). On alternate Sundays we also learned our songs for another couple of hours. We were given two lines a piece. For instance, I say to my husband when he brags that he saved the king from the tall thin burgler (next to me in the photo above) "Oh that's right, you stepped on the rake as well as the king." Practice made us familiar with our parts and generally familiar with the play as a whole. Following Christmas the tempo picked up dramatically and in earnest - the pressure on to have the costumes, the set and all of us ready by Jan 1st for a six night run. Tickets were €15 and we were sold out, to an audience of about 250 people, almost every night.

We had no idea how important Panto's are. People love them, look forward to them and connect to their history and all their holdiay memories through them. They are often filled with children, and Mom's remember when they sheparded their young (now grown) back and forth to rehearsals and performances. One man, Finbar, makes the show. This was his 28th year in Pantos, and for the majority of those he has delivered the monologue - loosely a vaudvillian type spoof on the state of life that year - playing on the Cork accent, doctors offices, the police, and current events in our small town. Finbar gets laughs no matter what he says, and there were several times when he saved the performance as another actor or actress forgot their lines. He is more than ready to take the spoof as well. A recently retired bus driver one song tells the audience that now getting to Cork "takes half the time." We learned that during his tenure on the bus, he knew the name of everyone who regularly took his bus and that if the "smallies had spent their money or didn't have enough, sure they rode home anyway." We were told the first night that people buy tickets just to see Finbar's monologue, and now we know that it is true.

As the final night's performance ended we treasured the backstage moments. For instance, the prompters standing behing the curtain giving lines to those in front as they sang a song they had only been given a few days before. Or the cast, behind a drawn curtain, set up for the next scene, singing along with the duet going on out front. The small tricks the younger actors played on us, like putting our cobwebs back on as soon as we pulled them off, blend with memories of small kindnesses such as coffee tea and bisguits at "the interval" (intermission) dished out each night by women who alternately helped with our make up and cleaned up the school after us. Huge crews of people ushered people in, build sets, took care of lights, taught the youngsters the dance of the goblins, made costumes, and put on make up - swelling the 30 of us on stage to a much larger group.

The Panto is a community event - one that embodies the light hearted "laugh at ourselves" lifestyle of the Irish. It expanded our friendship base to include many people much younger than we are, and introduced us to people who know us as people who are intent to be part of the fabric of this community. We hope to continue to support the Rampart Players, and occasionally help out - being part of the chorus, the stage crew, and certainly the audience.

May we all have a Joyous and Exciting New Year

As this year draws to a close I find myself GRATEFUL for:

1. The fact that the move worked out as well as it did.
2. Continued financial viability
3. Interesting new projects on the horizon.
4. Continued opportunities to help others grow (as in teaching) and create new lives (as in future workshops).
5. The internet, without which I could not live the life I do
6. Coming from the US which as a culture demands a self efficacy that is sometimes arrogant but often strong
7. Having time to be creative – seeing a rebirth of the artistic side of myself.
8. Being able to travel throughout Europe easily
9. Friends and family who support through connectedness and love on both sides of the pond.

It is impossible to order the list from top to bottom as they are all equally important in creating our new lives. While 2007 includes spaces to be filled in by the universe (places where things are unknown) it also includes several known and exciting elements: a trip to Turkey and North Cyprus for work, the beginning of a new way to support people in their reinvention of their lives, and a fabulous birthday holiday to ancient sites in Ireland.

I want to wish all who read this a joyous and exciting New Year!

Alana