PERFORMANCE TEXT MAY 2014

HERE & NOW

Performance Text

by Veronica Dyas

15th, 16th & 17th May 2014

Project Arts Centre

Dublin, Ireland

PARTS:

1. Opening:Some one else lives in my home now/It’s hard to extricate yourself from a Life

2. - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 -

3. REPAIRATIONS/Cruz de Ferro: AIR

4. BANK/RITUAL/PROJECT DOWNSIZE: FIRE

5. WALKING/End of the world/beginning: WATER

6. THIS IS MY BODY/Meeting MySelf on Stage: EARTH

7. MAPPING MY HERE & NOW: Stayin’ in The LOVE - LOVE

I: Opening:Some one else lives in my home now/It’s hard to extricate yourself from a Life

VISUAL: A BAD POWERPOINT PRESENTATION/OFFICE/COLLEGE

When I was about 3 years old

I let go of my mother’s hand on Thomas Street

We lived in Marrowbone Lane*

ASTERISK THAT:

I let go of my Mammy’s hand.  It’s a big busy street so I know I’m not supposed to, know I’m supposed to hold her hand.  She lets me let go though, we are walking slowly, as we mostly are, she likes to walk slow, and I only have little legs so it suits me too.  I let go of my Mammy’s hand and I run over to the man in the doorway sitting three steps up leaning against the door.  He is hairy and duffled coated and smells of the street and cider that he’s half drunk.  I wrap my arms around him.  He wraps his arms around me.

Part of me doesn’t want to be here talking about this tonight

I’d rather if we didn’t need to, if we’d resolved this already

But we haven’t, that’s why I am here

All of this exists within a paradigm*

ASTERISK THAT:

in this moment together in this room

There’s a few paradigms going on at the same time

It’s hard to step out of that, see clearly beyond it

There’s definitely a few paradoxes

Distinct Truths that seem contradictory

But they aren’t

I’ve lived in them and with them

I live with them now

Here

Some one else lives in my home now

I’m a landlord who doesn’t believe in private ownership anymore

I am one of the 136,564 people in residential mortgage arrears*

ASTERISK THAT:

With negative equity

in this our city, in this our land

Camino to Santiago 2011*

ASTERISK THAT:

I walk with people trying

J’essaie

To find another way to live

I walk with beings of light

Meet my Grandfather, he died in 1980

you’ll need to bear with me!

There’s things I experienced I still don’t fully understand

I came back to a life that was never really mine

Letters from the bank were overwhelming

I had limited options

The options are very limited

When I walked I knew things to be true

I felt them in my body

It’s hard to hold a paradox

It’s hard to extricate yourself from a life

I have come to believe that

The Love is the answer to all the questions

and that Fear is the opposite of Love*

ASTERISK THAT:

I’ve lived in both states absolutely

I chose to live in The LOVE now

as much as possible

I let go of my Mother’s hand and ran over

To a man drinking cider

In a doorway on Thomas Street

A strange man in a doorway*

ASTERISK THAT:

It was natural

My natural instinct

I knew what we needed in that moment

So thats what I did

I’ve been trying to get back to that

My natural human state

Marrowbone Lane

they surrendered the keys when I was nine, my Ma & Da*

ASTERISK THAT:

I couldn’t understand it

Walking up by Fatima to the new house

Leaving my last home

I didn’t understand

The pressure they had on them

They’re both from houses

I’m the only one from the flats

and their parents

Worked every day

My granda cycling from and to Ballyfermot

To where the point depot was

To work in a factory making cars

Stopping off at Adam & Eves to warm his hands

Take a sup of tea from a flask

Before getting back up on his bike

Because they wanted something else

My Grandmother taking in invisible mending, making baker boy hats

So they’d have something to pass on

Tenants after tenements who

Purchased their rented home off the Corporation*

ASTERISK THAT:

So they’d have something to leave to their children

They left them more than land though

There’s no price on what they left them

My first proper job

After I came back from dropping off the edge of the world

That’s how I felt in active addiction

Like I’d dropped off the edge

I ran, fixated on staying out of my head

Really it’s about not feeling

I didn’t want to feel

I couldn’t grasp my reality

So I self medicated to change it

Things happen in that state that don’t happen sober

The shame then, the shame

Every thing becomes very small

And stays small for a long time

At 15 drunk, stoned semi-conscious

Hyper self conscious at the same time

I am everything - I am nothing

I place mySelf in a position to be harmed

I am harmed

physically, sexually, mentally, emotionally

These are the levels on which I was damaged

These are the levels on which I am learning to recover

After I came back from dropping off the edge of the world

When I started to come back

My first proper job

was in a major corporate Irish family business*

ASTERISK THAT:

After nine months I left to

Work in the not for profit sector

the public sector*

ASTERISK THAT:

I am in fear, but you can’t tell

I have to be in the world so I’m learning to hide it

I go to work every day, so I can afford a mortgage

I can’t afford a mortgage

Prices are rising

It’s already too late to go back to The Liberties

No longer the inner city, now it’s

‘central to town and all amenities’

Prices are rising

The first rung of the property ladder is the hardest

It’s the hardest first step

They tell me Rent is dead money - Dead money

And I don’t know then that

all money is a dead thing

There’s no life in it*

ASTERISK THAT:

It’s the year 2000

The world is ending

Or just beginning

No one is really sure

Shared Ownership Scheme*

ASTERISK THAT:

I bring my Mother to sign the papers

It’s a gesture of goodwill

and because I’m afraid

and I’ve no-one else to ask

I sign the papers

Shared Ownership Scheme*

ASTERISK THAT:

I go to work every day in administration

I get promoted

So I can afford the mortgage, even half a mortgage is hard

on the two bedroom terraced house in Ballyfermot

where when I open the door I know everything

is in the same place as when I left it

The same and thats important

A little box

I collect boxes too

I make a will*

ASTERISK THAT:

because these are the added extras

The accoutrements of home ownership

Life Assurance/Property insurance/Property Tax now

I buy a washing machine

And stand in my kitchen looking in amazement

How do I own a washing machine?

I’m 23 years old and on my own

I go to work every day in administration

I get promoted

So I can afford the mortgage, even half a mortgage is hard

I start therapy

I go to therapy every week

I’m finding my voice, I’m recovering

I’m finding my voice for years

I go to work every day in administration

So I can afford the mortgage, even half a mortgage is hard

Eventually the Social Workers re-socialise me

I go to college

Borrow money off my aunt so I can finish

I’m still trying to pay that back

Change to a full mortgage in 2008*

ASTERISK THAT:

full mortgage and the system is crumbling

I go to work every day in administration

So I can afford the mortgage

I work in the Social Work Department

I meet him there

He’d be categorised as ‘an out of home dedicated street drinker’

That’s not who he was…

II: - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 -

SFX: ‘Jesus Blood’ version - John Nee

2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha

[Breathe]

He’s standing at the hatch window

Leaning in

He’s standing at the hatch window

Leaning in and he’s laughing

We’re not sure why

He knows every song on the radio

who wrote it, what year

the number it was in the charts

and we all sing along

2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha

[Breathe]

At closing time he walks the site

and takes a seat in their waiting room

on the other side

all night

most nights

back leaning in the hatch window

laughing

we can smell him across reception

some of us don’t like that

Some of us think it’s not right

It’s definitely not right but not because he smells

He’s standing at the hatch window

Laughing

He’s lost another tooth since we saw him last

But he won’t tell us how

2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha

[Breathe]

He’s leaning in the hatch window

laughing

bear chested ‘cos he’s just had a wash

it’s not ideal

this makeshift washroom in the reception

bear chested - weather worn skin

we can see the difference now

read the markings of life on his body

R.I.P

in indian ink

R.I.P

in memory of

R.I.P

Mam

it’s not ideal

this makeshift home

this site he’s taken as his own

it’s not the same the days he’s not in

we miss him, worry where he is

we’re not supposed to let him stay

there’s no policy for this

2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha

[Breathe]

he’s leaning in the hatch window

laughing

eating our lunch

his blue eyes

his blue eyes watching

knows every song on the radio

knows every one

his Social Worker finds him a bed

in a hostel where he can drink

its not easy

there’s only a few

and its not easy

to say its okay

its okay

he’s going to drink today

he may drink every day

but maybe he won’t lose any more teeth

2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha

[Breathe]

He’s hiding in the bathroom

he won’t come out until I get there

I only drop in to bring him smokes

He’s been hiding in the bathroom

Since I left him, all day

“I’ll walk out with you” he says

And he does

Walks an unfamiliar way

That day

That one day

He went out in the world again

2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha

[Breathe]

He’s back leaning in the hatch window

Laughing

We keep asking what can we do

There’s no protocol for this

We have meetings about him

Some of us don’t think it’s alright

Some of us don’t want to turn him away

There’s a safety in this small space

The smell in reception

His blue eyes

he’s lost another tooth since we saw him last

but he’ll never tell us how

Leaning in the hatch window

Laughing

2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6; 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6; 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

23rd April 1956

Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha

[Breathe]

And we all sing along

III: REPAIRATIONS: Cruz de Ferro: AIR

VISUAL: Collage of Cruz de Ferro building from ‘All Love’ image

SFX: ‘Walking West’ - Madelyn Medeiros

I’m sitting in a doorway contemplating stopping

there’s only a patch where it’s not wet

One tiny dry patch

It’s raining everywhere

Whats this about

Eating a can of sardines with my fingers

Because I don’t know how to live outside yet

I don’t know how to pack food in the morning to carry all day

I don’t know how to walk yet

Even though I’ve already crossed the Pyrenees

There’s a private hostel in this village

I can stop if I want to

If I want to I can stop

Nobody made me come here

I’m only here for mySelf

I haven’t seen another pilgrim all day, only one on a bike

I can stop if I want

Lick my fingers, the juice of the sardines in tomato sauce

A drop of water in the bottom of my plastic bottle

I’m an unlikely pilgrim

I don’t even know to carry a flask

And after when I do know I don’t want to

I do it my way, walk my own way

She speaks to me more now

The camino

I know she’s a she even though it’s masculine

I sit in the doorway of another locked church and feel well

Satisfied

This is easy

All I have to do is walk

I get up and walk again

I continue

At San Antón I ask

“Give me back what I have lost”

I watch the pigeons

I stay still a while, I stay still and ask

“Give me back what I have lost, gracias”

The Maseta runs on and on in a straight line for miles, kilometers

I used to play that game when I was tired

if I’d 12km left to walk, I’d think ah sure it’s only about 6 miles sometimes that was a mistake though

completely flat

after climbing the Pyrenees you’d think that’d be a good thing

it’s not, it divides pilgrims, they love it or hate it, I hated it

Looking at the same thing

endless road ahead, the endless way

Singing was my only way to get through it

that’s how I made friends on the camino, singing loudly and badly

Every day I walk into the unknown  

Every day something lands with me

I start to see clearly

I Listen to the way

And it’s okay

Just for today

It’s okay

More and more it’s all okay

I walk by a wolf sitting under a tree

She watches me pass, she lets me walk by

I take one night in a hotel

It’s a luxury my Mother promised me

‘When it gets too hard I’ll pay for one night’

It gets hard

The proximity to the other humans at night

Mostly it’s the snoring, that’s my main issue

Old men snoring

I close the door of the hotel room

And relish the feel of the key in my hand

It’s one night with mySelf

Next day it’s back to mixed showers and bunk beds

We share bread and cheese on a path in the forest

We drink coffee made over a fire, talk about The Life

We sleep next to each other on the floor

We sing as we walk

walk and talk, walk in silence

Walk alone, together

I am learning that I am still an addict

I wake up every morning

Desperate for a coffee,desperate for a cigarette

Some mornings I walk in the dark just to get a coffee

I land on another way

Galicia is like that

It’s kind of pagan

They have a saying

‘Yes there are witches, but we don’t see them’

In this village a white horse runs free

in the yard the hens follow one rooster round the path

on my back the fire warms the crackles of my heart

The music of the world plays on

In this place, there is nothing

village abandonado

only this albergue, this hostel

It looks like home, over familiar

Looks like home except it’s higher

it’s the highest point on the camino

the home stretch

Pagan

where I start to wonder, again

why I am here

I speak with the mountain

Meditate as I do everything

I feel I am home, cared for, protected

Just for today

Just before the summit and the cross

I sit by the fire and write

What I need to leave here

What do I need to make repairations for

REPAIRATIONS

not to fix, some things can never be fixed

they can heal though

Here I feel like a woman, grown, adult

I feel like this state is possible

That there is Abundance in all The Life

Enough for everyone, without waste

I leave my fear on the top of the Mountain

I walk on in Trust  

I leave the feeling of Unworthiness behind me on the Mountain

I walk on in Trust  

I leave the blockage in my throat behind me on the Mountain

I walk on in Trust  

I make Repairations for all of them on the top of the Mountain

I walk on in Trust  

After

I walk more and more alone

Solo pilgrim

Say goodbye every morning to my camino family

We are a family now

Perhaps we will not meet again

Perhaps

I walk on

Deliberately avoid the earlier stopping point

Where I know I will meet familiar pilgrims

It’s nothing to do with them

I’m just tired of talking, I need to think my own thoughts

It’s getting near the end, it’ll be time to go home soon

I choose to be solitary, I want to be alone

This is the part of my life where I walk in ever decreasing circles

A dark day

Dense with shadow and rain

I feel every step

The darkest place I walked

I try to walk for someone else

In repairations I try to walk

It doesn’t help

I try to be grateful

I don’t have to do anything

Just walk

I think of people who haven’t got this choice

I walk then for all the prisoners

then add for all my crimes

It still doesn’t help

I feel every step

I start singing hymns

I think maybe that’s how I’m supposed to arrive to a monastery

That doesn’t help either

Sometimes you just need to get to higher ground

Sometimes that’s painful

I arrive in Samos

Solo pilgrim

There is no one else in this albergue

I am alone in this hostel

It’s a huge room

Over a hundred bunk beds

All empty

Benedictine monastery

Ancient and devoid of life tonight

The monk arrives, he looks like Yoda

And somehow we communicate

Though we can’t speak each others language

I think of walking on but it’s dark outside

And I don’t know what’s ahead

I choose a bed in the far corner where I can assess the situation

Just in case

Yoda gives me a little lamp before he leaves me alone

Teaching me how to lock the big wooden door

His empathy is palpable

I lie down in my bunk

And it hits

Terror

My terror of being alone in this space

This unknown place

Out of the corner of my eye I see her

The Lady

Sitting with her face to the wall

two thirds of her face to the wall

All white

All white light

She is present in this space

Tranquil, there’s a peace to her

Still I’m afraid

I convince myself that its just a sheet

so I can close my eyes

In the longest night

Where I play the three songs on my phone over and over

My MP3 stopped working when I passed the quarry

There’s always a kick back period when I change something

When I doubt everything can’t slow my head down

Can’t stop thinking but can’t hear my thoughts

Fits of sleep, itchy feet, belly grumbling

I was so hungry earlier I ate the stew and just picked out the meat

I’m a vegetarian

I sit up in my little bunk in the middle of the night

with the realization that

I manifested this

I wanted to be alone

Solo pilgrim in Samos

I made this happen

And I sleep the most restful sleep of my camino

Rise early and walk the most beautiful way

Later

I sit by the river and watch the stream

frantic then suddenly still a little after

I see ley lines of infinite potential

Torrents of infinite choice

Everything is connected

I arrive in Santiago

Hug the saint, it’s what you do

But that’s not why I’m here

I go beneath

To the little room

With the silver box

Holding his cadaver

What’s left

What’s left

I wonder

Sitting under this emporium of stone

Carried on the backs of pilgrims for years

I stay there the longest time

Heaving tears snotting out of me

I can’t move on until they stop

Everything is different now

IV: BANK/RITUAL/PROJECT DOWNSIZE: FIRE

VISUAL: FIRE PROJECTION

I fly home via London

The headline on the Metro reads

“The Lost Decade”

I walk around the Occupy Camp at St. Pauls’ with my uncle

After lunch in The City watching the bankers drink champaign

Back home in Ballyfermot

Opening another letter from the bank

Arrears figure rising

I remember the sensation

I manifested this

and I realize this is all wrong for me

Opening another letter from the bank:

Dear Ms. Dyas…

“I have completed a review and assessment of the financial and other information you provided and regret to advise you that your request has been declined.”

I think of running away

Dear Ms. Dyas

“I have considered all the facts of your case and concluded that there is insufficient income evident now or in the foreseeable future to allow us to consider an alternative repayment plan at this time”

Dear Ms. Dyas

“We continue to manage your case under the Mortgage Arrears Resolution Process (MARP)”

I think of posting back the keys

Dear Ms. Dyas

“You should be aware that if you choose not to engage with us in relation to these arrears, you will lose the protections afforded to you under the Central Bank’s Code of Conduct.

I think of burning it, but it’s terraced

Dear Ms. Dyas

“...where we deem a mortgage unsustainable, we are obliged to inform you of The Options:

1. Voluntary Sale

with 100 grand negative equity that’s not an option

2. Voluntary Surrender

with 100 grand debt following me and having no home that’s not an option

3. Trading Down

it’s a two bedroom terraced house in Ballyfermot

and there’s another one now where you get to rent the home that you previously owned, off the bank*

ASTERISK THAT:

I fill out another Standard Financial Statement

Write another letter to the bank

I write letters now

Stand in the centre

in this house that was never really my home

The camino showed me that

Think of the families, the other 136, 563  

Choice taken away

Homes under threat, homes lost

The rug of the hearth literally being pulled from under them

Burning desire towards flight and then fight

It’s suffocating, I’m surrounded

I consider the question what do I really need

To live HERE & NOW?

I walked across Spain with just a schoolbag

Every letter, every ticket stub, every receipt

I had to have me things around me

The evidence that I am real

To prove I am here

forensic examination - Downsizing begins

To let it all go

Keeping only what I need to live here and now

It’s an action

An action I can actually take

I examine everything

held for too long in boxes and bags

gathering dead dust, gathering fear

they need to be sent out into the world again

to be used, valued

I was aiming for a different life then

Let the dead die

the camino told me

I try

Every letter, all my things

I spend days scanning documents

Scanning a piece of paper I wrote on when I was twelve

I question the time it takes

Is it worth wasting this time, for this?

Loading CD’s I haven’t played in years

I work off my list

The list and piles of things I never got through

I do, I go through it all

Leave nothing unsent, leave nothing unsaid

photograph everything before I can let go

I go through pockets in jackets I’ll never wear again

His face comes back to me

-2-3-4-5-6- [Prayer Book gift]

“To SW St James

From my heart”

[breath]

I have to do it like this

take this time

I’m trying to understand

lighting the papers, watching the fire

wishing them all well as it burns

transformation of matter from solid to dust

dust into smoke, smoke into air

blown away into the ether

and all my past is there

I say goodbye

to the things I'm conscious of and the things I'm not

in the watching it lands in a way

that no amount of talking about it ever could

Gifting what I can’t bear to lose

I try to gift the right thing to the right person

I write letters to try to articulate why

and tell them what they mean to me

The only thing I can’t replace is people

a kind of living will, signing with the words

Wishing you

Love & Abundance & Joy

in doing this I am learning to wish that for mySelf too

Gifting jewelry through bloodlines

Trinkets across friendships

I emphasize that they don’t have to keep it

It’s about ABUNDANCE

So they can pass it on, that’s important

Not everyone wants a worn out photocopy of ‘The Desiderata’

or an interactive ET

These were my precious things

I needed to find the right homes for them

Movement, keep everything moving

To lose the remnants of that Life in fear

The opposite of The Love

it’s about letting go, simple old school letting go

How do you let go?

ABSOLUTELY

in the action I bear witness to all that went before

Nothing ahead is as hard as what’s behind

I hold my notebooks, I hold what I need

I make repairations, sort out the house with my Da

I couldn’t have done it without him

I hand the keys to an estate agent and become a landlord

and step into The Unknown

It’s hard to extricate yourself from a life

I manifested this

I can manifest something else

I have time

V: WALKING/End of the world/beginning: WATER

SFX: ‘Pass The LOVE’ - Dylan Tighe

Santiago to Finisterre 2013

I place my stick

It’s not my stick, I just use it for a while

I put one foot in front of the other  

I’ve come back to walk to the end of the world

That’s what they call it

Santiago to Finisterre - the end of the world

After there is only Tír na nÓg

That’s what they say

In the forest I walk into the unknown

really now

the fog descends and I can’t see what’s ahead  

I’m walking for miles in the torrential rain

It’s taking time for my body to remember how to walk

It’s there but it takes time to locate

My shoes are wet, feet sore

That didn’t happen the first time

I walked 800 km without one blister

Another pilgrim told me to stay in my flipflops for as long as possible before starting the camino

from his future unknown he told me

I never got one blister

This time is different, its only about 80km

But my feet are already in bits

It’s the eczema, not the walking

I go on

I move forward

I continue through the fog

though I feel a little afraid

into this unknown obscure way

I am suffering now with my feet

They’re red raw and weeping

I don’t know how long this will last

it gets dark rapidly in the fog

it could be forever and ever

This goes on

It goes on…

I can smell the sea and know it’s close

Can’t see the way but know it’s there

it’s not important

Nothing is important

I’ve come back to walk to the end of the world

But I’ve been to the beginning since

I’ve been to the top of the mountain in Andorra

Washed my clothes and myself in a freshwater river

Walked in silence at Bugarach

listened to Sufi Singers chanting from a rooftop in Granada

That’s all with me now

I stay still and listen

how did I get here

from where I existed for the longest time

gone - In a flash

In the blink of an eye  

I live here now

Shelter in a doorway then cross the street to sit in a bar facing another locked church

Open your doors

I want to tell them

Wasted spaces, set times

I meet a man from Rome who’s walking back

We speak together, exchange something else

We are finding that we

Don’t need them to find ‘God’

To find each other

To find ourSelves

I realize now I was afraid to walk to the end of the world

the first time because I thought I was on my own

We are arriving

With every step into the unknown

in this fog that obscures the light, the way

Constantly

perpetual forward motion

each, every

I continue, I lose my fear  

I lose my fear and I continue  

At the end of the world I burn

what I’ve been carrying for months

For me, for them

Watch it take it’s shape in my fingers

and let it blow out to sea

I sit in Santiago for about five days

I’m in the cashflow situation*

ASTERISK THAT:

I learn the price of a banana

It’s 18cent in Galicia

I sit in the square at the cathedral

and watch the pilgrims arrive

watch the pigeons

Think back to my first arrival

Still holding impatience in my skin

Phoning my mother to book me a flight

‘I thought you liked it there?’ she said

‘I do, but it’s over now, just book me the flight please’

I couldn’t wait, I couldn’t stop

Even after all those grand jours, big days on my camino

This time I sit in the square

For five days in peace

I sit with mySelf

with the discomfort

In the flow

And be

Smoke a rollie in the archway

Listening to the Opera singers sing ‘Danny Boy’

Take a picture of the red slippers

And think there’s no place like home

DANCE: Stayin’ in The LOVE Rave Meditation

SFX: ‘Pass The LOVE’ - Dylan Tighe

After seven months away I’m back

I hold their keys in my hand

walking through town

Make another bed in someone else’s home

Learn how their heating works

Listen to them when they tell me it’s no problem

to turn it on if I get cold

I left you a few jumpers there on the bed

I’ll fit them windows for your birthday

Here, I bought you a new phone, it’s smart

There’s always a bed at ours if you’re stuck

Don’t worry about the loan for now, it can wait another while

Cross Capel Street Bridge

Pass a young man with a sign that says

“I just need a little bit a help”

In this our city, in this our land

I don’t need to try to be grateful

It’s palpable

Hold their keys in my hand

Each, every

Love is an action

VI: THIS IS MY BODY/Meeting MySelf on Stage: EARTH

SFX: ANGLO-TAPES & Finance Committee on Mortgage Arrears Crisis MIX

VISUAL: This is My Body Film

SFX end: “Because if we stay in their language, nothing happens

If we stay in their language, nothing happens

The only thing she liked about herself was her teeth

And she broke them one night, on the street

Staggering

linking him, he stumbled, she fell

Teeth smashed

Bleeding

But she still went home and slept with him

I didn’t know I was worth more then

Marked on the body

Planned precisely

to hold the space

of what needs always to be known

Others etched by experiences in The Life

that she was powerless to control

The spiral of Life

her Universe

as I understand it

Carved above the shoulder

Where I can never see completely but always know it’s there

Ear pierced ears, three holes left, one right

Because she used to be Kool, with a ‘k’

Mis-thought-out belly button hole

never healed

Little scar beside, the result of vanity

Nothing else

Birthmark on her inner thigh, high up

embarrassed as a girl to think that they’d think it was dirt

Her Granda said it was the thumbprint of the doctor when he pulled her out

Lighter space around the corner on the right bum cheek she’d try to measure as a child to see if she could fit it on right

Proper

The jigsaw of her body

Mismatched in my mind

Beauty spots evolve into moles

the fading elasticity of skin

Ancient markings of the people she came from

Genes grasped in the miasma

Desperate to discern what lay outside her mothers womb

In the plasticity, she made choices based on flesh

Only the body

No that’s not true

The land too

Every cell cohesing the need for earth

To own the earth beneath their feet

The force of it strong enough to attract her

even in that perfect space inside the uterus

of her Mother, carrying her mother too within

Eczema-ed feet is where I hold them still.

She has never given birth

I have never given birth

[yet]

Born with a clicky hip

nobody really defined what that meant in actuality,

in physicality

But it didn’t stop her

I still suffer with me knee, don’t know if that’s connected

I’ve a scar on the back of my head too but you won’t see that

The first: black rose

pinpricked by a biker in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

She liked to tell that story

How he shook her arm and she didn’t feel the needle after

Told much later it meant

the deepest Love

no proof of that though

Ritual pain of the last one

After the free floating

papillon celtic

got before she ever went to

Bugarach

Predates that radical transformation

A softer time

Intended to mark a birth

They went together, shared that pain

Until we came back into The Joy

That took some time

She had to escape the armour first

Built around her

As if her skin was too raw

To expose it to the elements

Different

Weaker

Metaphorical armour wasn’t enough though

She had to have bricks and mortar

To hide inside

To feel secure

To feel safe

Because she lived in fear

She lived with shame

of trauma

Overwhelming the Life force out of her

Her first experience of sex was rape

Built the walls around her

Paid dearly for it too

Paid in punts, then euros

To keep the walls around her thick

Im-penetrable

Until she could feel The Joy again

Until I could

First misa

That second night on the camino, in Roncesvalles

Sat in the pew, watched them enter in their robes

After a night lost

slept in a refugio [refu-hio] in the largest remaining birch forest in Europe

burning her clothes in the open fire

Opening

Pilgrim mass

I don’t know why I go

I can follow the ritual but not the language

I know it anyway

Feel it in my body

I have to be here

He raises the bread

“Este es mi cuerpo”

And I burst into tears

I burst into tears

Something she held back for years

Releases

And I let it

I watch him raise the bread

I observe my mind tell me I’m in a Catholic Church

and I’m against that

I rarely enter a church at home

Passive protest

Futile

I observe my tears

locate them in my body

It’s the intention of it that gets me

The intention of it

She let herself become a pilgrim then

Now I’m a pilgrim

Not of any religious route

But something happens in my soul

I know I’m meant to be here

She walked across a country to learn how to be here

Her little legs, ahhhh, poco a poco

Crossed mountains with her school bag on her back

Got up and walked right out of a city

Walked right into and right out of cities

Sat alone with The Crying Sock

All that she had on her

When the grief of it all overcame her

It takes time for the anxiety to leave the body

The last of her tissues left over her urine in a bush somewhere

I learned to piss outside

No one tells you that

That you have to piss outside

No matter, she learned

No shame in that

‘Nature will overcome’ she said

I walked across a country to be here

Meeting mySelf as I walk

Outside the shame

Outside the fear

Outside the guilt

Like another me walking just ahead

Not integral

Not mySelf

I Am

something else

Ici et maintenant

I have no future - I have no past

Just Here & Now

They say she held the key to sovereignty in her person

I have marked mine on my body

136-564, all marked, somehow on our bodies too

136,564 residential mortgages in arrears

The weight of that

The weight of that

Crushing the life force out of us

And I wonder lately how many of us

Became homeowners

after our grannies & granadas purchased houses

they were placed in as

Tenants after Tenements

After our mas & das surrendered their keys

Told there was shame in sharing the land

In this our city, in this our home

Seminal journey of an embryonic nation to

Own the land

To own the earth beneath our feet

As if that’s even possible

As if there’s any real need for that

“As God is our witness

As God is our witness

We will never go hungry again”

We’ve a different kind of hunger now

We’ve another sort of longing on us

This is my body

All I’ll have all my worldly Life

What could I need more?

It is not important

Value only rests in use

VII: MAPPING MY HERE & NOW: Stayin’ in The LOVE - LOVE

VISUAL: Aspects of the stage lighting up and fading out/house lights

SFX: Extract of ‘Pass The LOVE’ - Dylan Tighe

What do I need to live HERE & NOW is not about sacrifice

its about LOVE

I kept my notebooks because I still need them

I have slept in about 50 beds, in over 70 places

since I handed the keys to an estate agent and became

an unlikely landlord

I’m not alone

I stepped into The Unknown and found my community there

I live here now

None of this is over

I’m still in negative equity, I still owe the bank

There’s times when I’ve checked into a hotel

Just to recharge, just to take space

To get what I need to live Here & Now

I’m learning that me making my circumstances worse doesn’t help anyone else

I have that luxury

I gifted my things to people I love

a fraction of the people that I’m actually connected to now

And to strangers, to people I may never meet

it’s a continuous exchange

one piece of clothing for another

one gives, one takes, one takes, one gives

keep it all moving

This is what I have left

I kept this skirt even though I’ve never worn it outside

Because I’d like to, one day, live in such a way

That I can wear it comfortably

I’m not there yet

It’s hard to extricate yourself from a life

but that’s my hope, I’m getting there

I stand outside the Dáil with a placard

Look up at the surveillance cameras and think

‘Regime’

We talk about propaganda

as we’re moved into shot to stage the protest

We consider the waste of our energy and time

Observing the age range of the other protesters

It’s all being framed, it’s all very safe

We know how to quantify protest

I write to the Catholic Church in Ireland asking them to

Open their doors for the people sleeping out

in this our city, in this our land

I get a response so I write more letters

I walk to the GPO to post a letter to An Taoiseach

I feel like that’s fitting

Asking him to reconsider selling 13,000 Irish mortgages to the highest International bidder

He does it anyway

I engage in an exchange with the then Minister for Justice

about his role and I walk from the GPO to Mountjoy Jail

in solidarity with an Irish Hero

She serves the sentence anyway

I start to write letters of Joy in parallel with letters of complaint/conflict

So if I write a letter of outrage I write a letter in support of another action

I try to spend my money in small businesses and walk around for a while with a reusable cup

My favourite thing about the ‘boom’ years was take away coffee!

J’essaie!

I get new windows put in, buy a new washing machine

a new second hand kitchen and pay property tax

on a house I can’t live in, but I don’t want to

There’s another sort of logic to that

It’s someone else's home now

There’s no solidarity in posting back the keys

I have come to believe that

The Love is the answer to all the questions

and if one person, one human being is suffering unnecessarily

then on a fundamental level we’re failing

LOVE is an Action

and if I can see mySelf I’ve a better chance of seeing you

If we stay in their language, nothing happens

there are ley lines of infinite choice

We’re still here

it’s a capacity issue, not a resource or financial one

We have the capacity

We are beings of infinite potential

Each, every

I am learning continuously

what I need to live

HERE & NOW

Wishing you all LOVE & ABUNDANCE & JOY

In this moment of

Forever,

And ever,

Ahhh, then ...

FRAGMENTS OF THE STAGE LIGHT UP & FADE OUT

SFX: ‘Pass The LOVE’ - Dylan Tighe

FADES OUT/HOUSE LIGHTS COME UP

intro to (riff)

Part of me didn’t want to do this

I had a lot of help, I wouldn’t be here without all the help

I asked people who shared some of the way with me to contribute

You’ve seen and heard some of their work here

I’m very grateful to them and inspired by their work

I’m not here on my own

...This is a film I asked Conor Madden ‘AGENDA’ to make in response, we’ve watched thousands of documentaries ….

...This is Sorcha Kenny’s response to the Downsizing … the very beginning of HERE & NOW was in her ‘Walking We Ask Questions’ ...

….This is Dr. Karen Quigley...we’re trying to avoid the whole ‘post-show’ atmosphere, so we’re going to have a ‘slightly amplified chat’ over here if you want to stay and have a cup of tea….

ENDS.