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August 11, 2014

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#100HappyDays Day 5 – a new venture

The piece below with a Mayo theme was first published in the newly redesigned Mayo News on 5th August 2014 as an introduction for my new column, titled An Cailín Rua, which will be appearing every two weeks from now on in that fine publication. I’m really delighted to be working alongside such a great team for a paper of which I’ve been a big fan for a long time.

My name is Anne-Marie, and I am an exile!

It’s been a while since I lived in Mayo. That’s purely by design; sixteen years ago, as soon as I finished school, I packed my bags and hit the road out of Mayo as fast as my legs could carry me. Brighter lights beckoned, the world was waiting and I didn’t look back. Back then, being from a small village in North Mayo felt stifling and restrictive, with nothing to do and nothing to see. Being elsewhere meant freedom and discovery.

It’s been an interesting few years. They’ve brought me around the world, through a couple of colleges, across a spectrum of employment, with a wonderful variety of people. They brought me up the walls and around the bend more than once too. I wouldn’t change much.

For many of those years, Mayo felt distant. Other places started to feel like home. And while I never minded going back, I didn’t mind leaving either. It’s funny, though, as time passes how your perspective changes. (I think it’s called getting old.) After a few years living in the capital, more and more, I find myself craving the slower pace of life of the West. Now, feeling stifled and restricted means traffic jams and long hours at a desk. Freedom and discovery, on the other hand means the mountains and rivers and wide open spaces of home.

Living in the capital isn’t all bad, of course. I’m one of the lucky ones. I have friends here and a decent standard of living and I’m not exactly far from home. The three-hour drive from Dublin to Mayo pales in comparison to the trips home friends working abroad must endure. Friends who, out of necessity, have left their families and are working on the other side of the world to earn a living and build a future for their children. I have a decent job I enjoy with patient, understanding colleagues who tolerate my need to talk relentlessly about GAA for the first hour of every Monday. And I’m a hop, skip and a jump away from Croke Park, which comes in very handy in this glorious era of Mayo football. B&B is in demand, so book early!

Technology, too, makes it so easy now to stay in touch. The internet ensures we can read the local papers, listen to the local radio, and hear the local news. It struck me the other day that I probably now know more about Mayo now than I ever did when I actually lived there. Social media makes it so much easier to be a GAA fan away from home, too – the news, chatter and gossip you’d only have heard on the street or in the pub at home fifteen years ago are now at your fingertips online, and all Mayo exiles scattered around the world, from Sligo to Saudi Arabia can join the conversation. So while you might not be at home to savour the build-up to a big game like last week’s, it’s the next best thing.

Speaking of which, we really are everywhere, we Mayo people. We get around. My work in research takes me all around the country, and last week I found myself driving through Co. Kilkenny. As I rounded the corner into a tiny village called Crettyard, there high outside a house, flying proudly beside the obligatory Kilkenny flag was our very own green and red. I nearly drove into a wall in excitement. I love the comfort of seeing traces of home in unexpected places around the country and further afield, and during the summer I don’t think there’s another county that shows off its colours quite so proudly. And GAA plays such a strong role in Mayo – It’s a part of our identity, our DNA, and it goes far beyond sport, connecting us no matter where we are. (Incidentally, that day I met a Kilkenny person that day that didn’t like hurling. Who knew such a person existed?)

So while one day I know I’ll be back for good, for now I like knowing that no matter where you go, you’re never too far away. Maybe it’s my advancing years; maybe I’m just getting sentimental. Or maybe there’s some truth in the notion that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Either way, I’ve learned over the years that there’s just no place like home.

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July 16, 2014

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100 Happy Days

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#100HappyDays – Day Two

Day 2 of 100. A bit daunting looking 98 days ahead, but I have just proved that I have two days’ staying power which for me, is not bad.

So, full of enthusiasm for this new undertaking I spent today looking for things that might make me feel happy. By 2pm I was starting to get a bit worried that I might be dead inside.

I’m not sure that this is how it’s meant to work but by 4pm, I figured if happiness wasn’t going to me, I would have to go to it. So I picked up the phone and booked a yoga class.

When I first moved to Dublin and was finding my feet in a new city, with a new job, new housemates (three lovely, handsome but hopelessly and worryingly undomesticated guys), a new social life, a rather unstable relationship, an equally unstable car complete with two L-plates, yoga was what kept me between the hedges. (Metaphorically speaking, that is. Behind the wheel was another story.) Two hours, two nights a week to shut out everything and simply concentrate on not dislocating something, not falling on my face, not falling asleep during Shavasana and not farting during child’s pose (it has happened to someone, in nearly every class I have ever attended, but never me) was enough to distract me from all the pressures of the outside world. Total bliss.

In a world that’s getting increasingly frantic, where it’s hard to “disconnect” or get time away from computer and phone screens, there is something very healing about shutting out the noise, concentrating only on your own breathing, using your body, and appreciating how remarkable it is. And for ten minutes at the end, you lie flat on your back with your eyes closed, slow your breathing and relax all of your muscles and take some time out to spend inside your own mind. It’s precious downtime for your brain and for your body, something we don’t always make time to give ourselves. When done, you thank yourself for that time. Which is nice.

I’d fallen out of the yoga habit over the past couple of years. Last week I tried to touch my toes, only to discover that my hamstrings have apparently shrunk by about a foot and I could barely reach my knees.

So tonight I took myself off , right back to the start to a beginner’s class. To my delight I managed conduct myself with relative dignity throughout and emerged relatively unscathed, having only injured myself mildly by dropping a cork block on my toe.

I think that’s a success, and therefore qualifies as today’s moment of happiness.

To illustrated this momentous milestone, here’s a photo of my feet on my yoga mat.

I told you I was a rubbish photographer.

And I apologise for making you look at my feet.

Tomorrow’s photo will be nicer, I promise. Until then …

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July 15, 2014

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100 Happy Days

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#100HappyDays

Happiness is a funny thing, isn’t it? Sometimes it feels like you have to work so much harder for it than other feelings. Like being worried, upset, sad or hungover. They all seem to happen pretty effortlessly. But happiness requires a whole lot of hard work sometimes.

When I think about happiness, I often think about Oscar Wilde and the story of the Nightingale and the Rose:

“Ah, on what little things does happiness depend! I have read all that the wise men have written, and all the secrets of philosophy are mine, yet for want of a red rose is my life made wretched.”

Poor old Oscar – and the poor old nightingale. It’s a great story. And there’s a certain truth in it about never being quite satisfied with what you have (or where you are), and always seeking something else in the name of happiness.

I’ve been feeling a bit on the blue side lately. Nothing serious, but a sustained run of feeling a bit less happy and infinitely less enthusiastic than I’d like. And I’m bored of it. When I go through a grey patch I find that I get to a stage where frankly, I get a bit sick of myself , and it’s at that stage I decide I have to make changes, in order to avoid actually breaking up with myself. (That’s a whole other post that I won’t bore you with, but suffice to say, there are lists being written and plans being hatched in the background. Which is good.)

Anyway, in an effort to remind myself that Things Are Not All That Bad, and that I have lots of things to be happy about, I figured that keeping a note of the good things would be a good start. I’ve seen people all over social media taking part in 100 Happy Days and while my first reaction, if I’m honest was to roll my eyes a bit, I did find that reading them made me smile. So maybe there’s something to it.

It’s been said that taking a few minutes every day to just appreciate what you have is a good habit to get into, and I know that there is evidence that doing so, in turn, makes you happier. The problem is, I’m extremely good at lamenting what I don’t have. However, looking at the 100 Happy Days website I am extremely excited to see that partaking in this challenge can pretty much produce miracles. From the site:

“People successfully completing the challenge claimed to:

– Start noticing what makes them happy every day;

– Be in a better mood every day;

– Start receiving more compliments from other people;

– Realize how lucky they are to have the life they have;

– Become more optimistic;

– Fall in love during the challenge.”

Well, I never. Why isn’t everyone doing this?!

But, wait. The website also warns against using the challenge to piss other people off:

“It is not a happiness competition or a showing off contest. If you try to please / make others jealous via your pictures – you lose without even starting. Same goes for cheating.”

Well, that’s a bit of a pain, isn’t it? I’d already planned on making you all sick with jealousy with photos of myself standing in the lashing rain at GAA games or covered in muck half way up a mountain in Mayo, but I guess I’ll just have to rein that in, won’t I? And incidentally, if it’s not a competition, how can you cheat in it? Hmm.

Anyway, skepticism and semantics aside, I’m going to give it a shot. If nothing else, it will be a good exercise in discipline. I’m a crap photographer though, so if you’re expecting anything visually spectacular, you’re in for a disappointment.

Here’s my first shot. (Not one of my own, but it doesn’t say you have to take a picture, just that you have to submit it. So thanks to Mick for this one!)

From last Sunday, inMacHale Park,Castlebar, after the Mayo senior football team had just won their fourth Connacht title in a row.There’s a lovely sense of togetherness that comes with being a GAA supporter. While I adore the sport itself, it’s the joy of the shared experience that gets me every time, even when the result doesn’t go your way. But Sunday was one of those days when it did – the sun was shining, the flags were flying and everyone was smiling. In Mayo, we so desperately want to win the big one, that it’s easy to take lovely days like this for granted. And there’s another lesson right there.