plastic perfect

The Swiss Cottage in Cahir.

| Mairead

24 9a

(Pretty Swiss Cottage)

My mother and I went to visit the Swiss Cottage near Cahir on Saturday. It was built in 1810 for Lord and Lady Cahir and is a Cottage Orne. A playhouse for the rich. It was built for tea parties and to look pretty. It looks very pretty. It fell into disrepair but was restored in the 1980’s. Not much of the original survived, some wallpaper and one small window, so the restoration recreated the original and did a beautiful job.

24 9b

(Veranda going around the cottage)

You get to it via a walk along the very picturesque river Suir (pronounced sure), over a bridge and through an underground tunnel into the basement servant’s quarters (now a reception area.) When you’ve bought your ticket you walk up the servants stairs and through a hidden door to the hallway of the cottage. Here there’s an oak staircase painted a dull brown – the idea was everything had to look rustic, peasant-like, not expensive. So the oak was disguised.

24 9c

(Cute flower covered balcony)

I forgot my camera… again, but the cottage can’t take an ugly picture. Although it’s very pretty it’s not real. Come to think of it sometimes real is not pretty.

24 9d

(No photography allowed inside the cottage, this is a weird shot looking in one of the windows)

24 9e

(The one original pane of decorated glass)

From a rainy Greystones, Mairead.

Be careful with the lettuce….

| Mairead

Hands 2

(Perfect Hands… Granny and grandchild)

I will be giving a talk in Dublin on Tuesday night and one of the sections is about being unique. I was thinking… we’ve heard it all before…. each person is unique. From our finger prints to our retinas to our heartbeats, we’re all different. We even look different. Of course we know this already, it’s normal, ordinary… and so it’s lost. Uniqueness needs to be connected to our everyday life. When I look in the mirror I don’t think about my particular eyes being the only eyes exactly like them on the planet. I’m more interested in what I’m wearing (do my clothes fit in?) How I look? (do I look normal?) Is my hair brushed? (will people think I’m a homeless bum?) Is there lettuce in my teeth? When I look at my hands I don’t notice the intricate patterns that are mine alone.

Hands 3

(Perfect Hands… Aunt and Niece)

We watched a movie the other night about the guy who created the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover. He realised that fingerprints would be a great way to identify law breakers. Before that it was only possible to identify criminals or potential criminals from their photograph and if they were seen in the act of law breaking. But fingerprints are left behind after the person has gone and fingerprints are unique.

Hands 5

(Perfect Hands… artist)

Why would any of us worry about being as good as or as smart as or as pretty as or as successful as anyone else? Do we ever wonder if our fingerprints are “good” fingerprints. Are they smart fingerprints? Are they pretty? Are they successful as fingerprints? Yes, yes, yes, they are perfect fingerprints and only because they are ours. They would not be perfect glued onto anyone else…. they would be counterfeit. Fraud.

Hands

(Perfect Hands…. another artist)

So, as I look in the mirror this morning I will be brushing my hair and extracting lettuce but mainly I’ll be looking for what makes me different; what makes me unique; what makes me a perfect specimen of me. And it’s not just the stuff on the outside that’s unique, it’s a combination of everything about me. A combination of all the things I love, all the things I like, all the things I hate, the way I relax, the way I cry, the way I get mad, the stories that inspire me. Every little thing about me bundled all together is unique and is a perfect me.

Seriously, is there lettuce in my teeth? Mairead.

Honeymoon in Edinburgh.

| Mairead

Scottish Flag

(The Scottish Flag)

We arrived in Edinburgh on Saturday afternoon. Twenty five years after we had planned to get there…. I wanted to go to Edinburgh for my honeymoon and Denis was happy to go too! But we never made it. At the time Denis was working on a cutting edge project. (Bear in mind it was 1985, cutting edge then looks boringly ordinary now.) It was also a secret project. Even from me. I had no idea what he did at work except he liked it. I soon found out.

1Edinburgh Castle

(Edinburgh Castle)

Unfortunately our honeymoon clashed with a very important work deadline. I was twenty four at the time and very set in my ways about the world, love came before deadlines and my honeymoon came before everything. Then his boss made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.

1Kilt

(They wear knee socks under their kilts)

I was invited to a meeting in his office, where I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement before the secret project was revealed to me. I think he thought if I knew how amazing the project was I would happily give up my honeymoon. I must have been ahead of my time because I thought it was boringly ordinary then. But the boss had daughters and he must have had an inkling that I would need a different kind of motivation. His offer: instead of Edinburgh he would pay for a honeymoon in New York and even throw in a trip to Disney World in Florida, but it would be a month after the wedding and Denis would be in New York for that month.

1Quote

(“Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation.” Alasdair Gray.)

That did it, we went to New York for our honeymoon. So a month after our wedding I was sitting beside the boss’s wife on my way to New York on my honeymoon. Sometimes we think we know exactly what we want and then something even better comes along. Maybe the thing you can’t have now will be yours in twenty-five years time or not at all, but something even more amazing can be yours right now….. the perfect exam results for the magical relationship, the perfect partner for a relationship with yourself, the perfect honeymoon for the thrills of Dumbo.

Take a look at what’s on offer to you right now, Mairead.

Coffee shop writing…..

| Mairead

(Coffee Time)

Since I’ve been sitting on the sofa resting for the past four days, I’m a bit stir-crazy. So today Denis dropped me to the door of a coffee shop in Dublin and I can get back to my “coffee-shop writing”. He was going to Maplins, his craft shop, so I’m nearby on Abbey Street at 3fe. Strange name for a coffee shop? It stands for third floor espresso. There’s a story….

(Big lizard outside Berlin aquarium)

This guy, Steve, used to work in banking or the stock market or something and he gave it all up to become a world-class barista. True story… He set up a training room in his  apartment (on third floor) and within a year he had entered the world barrister finals in the US and had come in a respectable fourth. Now he sells coffee in different ways using very geeky gadgets. He and his team also sell very nice sandwiches and very yummy muffins.

But it was the story that got me to have coffee here. Well of course it did, he gave up everything to do the thing he wanted to do? I’m in. Now that I’m here I’m ready to notice what’s different about this coffee shop? And it is different. It’s not squeaky clean, the colours are very bright, the shelves are like granny’s kitchen, not completely square, not exactly fitting and not plastic.

(Close-up of zebra stripes)

So that means it’s not exactly perfect either. Surprise, surprise. If it didn’t have a story I wouldn’t be here. Stories are really attractive to us and they are also really useful. The stories that lulled us to sleep as children. The stories we watched at the cinema or on the TV. The stories we believe about ourselves.

What do you believe about you? Mairead.

Happy Days

| Mairead

(A sail boat off Bray beach)

The de-clutter continues and yesterday I was going through the drawers in the sitting room. Three drawers in particular were lovely. At some point they had become the dumping ground for old birthday cards, mother’s day cards and father’s day cards. The drawers were full and had not been tidied for some time so the cards on the bottom were from ten years ago. Among the beautiful purchased cards, were even more beautiful hand made cards.

(Bray Head)

These hand made cards were created using folded pieces of A4 paper, pencil and crayon. They were made by seven, maybe eight year old hands. The spelling isn’t perfect. The planning isn’t exactly right (words disappear off the page or are squashed together near the edge). They don’t stand up on their own. At first glance they aren’t even attractive. But I’m keeping them!

(The Big Wheel, at the Bray Summer Festival)

Because they are real. The real is perfect, it’s just not plastic perfect. So next time something you create doesn’t turn out exactly perfect, celebrate the real perfect in it. You can even put it in a drawer for later.

You’re real perfect, Mairead.

ps if it’s a cake, don’t bother putting it into a drawer, send it on to me.

The Piano Tuner

| Mairead

(More beautiful stuff from the Yarn Room)

The piano tuner was here today. As you might expect he was tuning the piano….. His name is Rob and he’s lovely. Although, I can’t always understand what he says, I think he said something profound today! He’s from the USA and he lives in Mayo and it’s not his accent that I find hard to understand. He speaks music. He also plays the saxophone. I suppose I mean everything about him reflects his music. (Not that I’ve ever heard him play music, except for the single notes on the piano as he’s tuning.)

(Going round in circles?)

The profound thing he said today…… “no piano has perfect pitch”. Followed by “playing electronic keyboards can give you a false sense of expectation because they seem to have perfect pitch… they don’t go out of tune”. I liked that! (Now I might need to put in a note of warning, as I’m not naturally musical –  this is what I think he said, ok?)

(Very big pot)

So…. the piano is the real deal, made from wood and string stuff (surely nothing from a cat?) Anyway, time passes and someone invents the keyboard. A plastic copy of the piano. It’s perfect, it’s lighter, it has perfect pitch and it never needs to be tuned. So it’s better than the piano….. or is it? No of course it’s not!  Even the very best, most expensive, up to the minute keyboards don’t feel the same (to the piano player) as an acoustic piano.

(Possibly yellow poppies?)

It’s a bit like us, really.

When we’re not perfect, we’re also not plastic, we’re the real deal!

Plastic is so the 1960’s, Mairead.