JandalsnAll

And so it came that on the 15th day of the 9th month of the one thousand, one hundred and senventy nineth year I was given unto the world that I may show you the truth and the way of all things chocolate and thus that you might have eternal sugary goodness through me.
Yesterday morning, I awoke to the sound of the rains falling on our humble hostel, and the delightful if persistent trumpeting of angels – which I soon realized was actually some person blowing their nose in the bathroom next door. I peeled the dreadlocks from my face, peered out the window and saw that it was indeed pouring from the heavens on this most glorious of days. The Gods must be crying with joy. And with good reason, for on this day I was to open many presents. I scrambled to the end of my bed, dug out my hoard and with a victorious shout that stopped the noseblower mid-trumpet, I began to rip and tear, pull and push at my packages until they spilled forth their treasures. And oh the treasures! Sugary delights of every variety, with such brilliant colours that did nearly blind my eyes and that did make my body tremble with anticipation of a sugar-induced, foodcolouring and additive enhanced coma. Oh and there were some clothes and some shoes and books and jewellery and things in there that were good too.

I threw on all my new clothes, rushed down stairs and ran through the hostel shouting hysterically, ‘Its my birthday! Its my birthday!’. Actually I didnt but the temptation was strong…. No, deciding to leave my fellow hostel-stayers in peace, I instead grabbed the phone in the laundry, rang home and shouted hysterically down the receiver ‘Its my birthday! Its my birthday!’ After and hour or so juggling the regular phone, my cellphone and other general hostel distractions as calls flooded in from all around the world, and the washing machine beside me jumped for joy out-of-control around the floor, I retired to my cave for a good old fashioned breakfast of sugar. So began my celebratory day.

The rest of the day was actually fairly uneventful as I slipped back and forth between coherent thought and the magical world of candy. Though I did receive best wishes from the members of my surrogate family here in Dools, and was at one point during the day subjected to the strangest of rituals from one of our older Scottish guests. Upon hearing that it was my birthday, she rushes up to me and says ‘How old are you? Quick tell me so I can give you your bolms’ Or ‘poms’ or ‘barms’ or something equally unintelligible. She had hold of my arm as I bewilderedly told her that I was 26, so that I expected a hug or some similar expression. But what does she do? Still gripping my arm so I can’t escape, she starts pounding me on the back with brute Scottish strength, the way your mother might do if that piece of lego got stuck in your windpipe. ‘One, two, three, four, five…’ she counts up to ten. Then she goes for my left ear and proceeds to tug on my earlobe the way… well the way nobody in their right mind would ever do and nobody has ever done before. ‘One, two, three, four, five, six….’again up to ten. After that, thankfully, she goes back to pounding my back ‘one, two, three, four, five,six’ And then the madness just stops, she lets me go, and Im standing there like a stunned mullet staring at this strange grinning woman, wondering why, why shes been touching my earlobes. That apparently is how the Scottish say Happy Birthday. I can only thank God that Im still in my twenties and that I didnt have to find out what kind of tugging or pinching proceeds the back slapping…

That afternoon I was given strict instructions to have a shower, have a shave, put on my prettiest dress and be ready at 9 o’clock. And so abandoning my much anticipated dinner of pancakes I instead spent the afternoon wondering what the evening held in store for me. At about 8.30, K tells me to follow him and we head up to C’s house, where I walk in to the sound of Happy Birthday and find C and R there with a delicious looking sponge cake complete with candles for me, for me! Ten candles in all of course because I was turning 26. Well that was a lovely suprise and I would not have expected anything more but wait, there was more. At 9 oclock, washed, shaved and in my prettiest pretty party dress, I am driven into Ballyvaughan and treated to a great meal and the equally great company of C, R and K, at a great vegetarian Italian cafe called ‘The Holywell’. How spoilt am I? After stuffing ourselves silly we headed back to Doolin where I retired to my sugarcave full of good Italian food, too full to make a dent in my mountain of sugar even (NB. We are talking real sugar here, not ‘sugar’ as in a Neil Young’s Sugar Mountain kinda way – just so we dont get our wires crossed).

So ended my first birthday in the Green Isle – my first birthday away from home. In the days leading up to it I did expect that it might turn out to be a bit of an emotionally charged day, with me missing home more than ever. But while I would of course have liked to have spent the day at home with the whanau, opening and not sharing my presents with them, my birthday here in Doolin was a good substitute, and I suspect that when I leave here I will feel a homesickness for Doolin aswell.

And the date of departure may not be too far off – possibly the end of October but we’ll see what happens. On the art front, Ive got two blank cavases staring at me in my room, taunting me to paint them. Down at the gallery the two sculptures (here and here) in my permanent collection are holding up fairly well though I have had to spend a bit of time on restoration and maintainence of the works. I do have two more planned and Im just waiting to get them out of my head and into reality but everytime this week Ive set off for the beach with the the sun on my back, upon entry to the gallery, the weather betrays me. The wind itself is cold enough – must be straight from the antartic and it numbs my fingers til I can no longer hold my hobo stick lady stick. Then when Im on my knees the fascist anti-art clouds roll in and pummel me with their icy drops. Of course just after I make the mad dash back up the side of the cliff and bike like a maniac back to the hostel, the weather clears, the sun’s rays stabbing me in the back as I stumble soggy and exhausted upstairs, dragging my blankie of un-realized sculpture dreams behind me. Such is the suffering of the artist.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 16th, 2005 at 1:34 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.