Time Travel. Back to Donegal, and back to London...

Donegal days for a cousin's wedding, with reflective London stops on either side.

Another bundle of Donegal days this last week, paired with nights in London on either side.

It was a first February trip back to our family HQ, methinks. A time of year where you can feel the optimism of the light shifting towards spring, and the shrill cold of winter months starting to be left behind.

The centrepiece of the trip was a big Irish wedding. Celebrating cousin Orla, one of twenty-six cousins on Dad’s side, making the ultimate commitment to a fine Englishman, Seth.

“Definitely!” had been my immediate reply to the first WhatsApp mention of the wedding that I’d got last summer from Orla. I just knew this gathering of Brennans would be such a welcome and needed return to celebration after the series of funerals reaching back to Mum's surprise passing in 2019.

And so it was. Two nights of build-up and families coming together, then a wedding day that was bathed in sun between the rainy days, and painted all over with Orla and Seth’s personal touches, like a flower girl dance routine opening the ceremony, an Irish reel marking the solemn moments in the humanist ceremony, and Uncle Fergus and cousin Niall’s two guitars and two voices splitting harmonies in the ethereal Romeo and Juliet by Dire Straits. And then again in pulling us all together through the wash-up party at the charming Biddys O Barnes pub…

Each night kept time with a rake of guinness (the group noun for a flock of pints) one flowing into the next, sponsored by the banter and wit of Irish conversation. There’s a playful joust between seriousness and jest that is so unique to the Irish personality, in which humour always pulls in to slay any serious tone settling in for too long…

As contemporary English-Irish poet David Whyte remarked, in a wonderful interview with Krista Tippet (link) that makes great listening on a long drive:

“One of the great things in the Irish tradition, is the way that humour is used constantly to subvert any artificial ideas you may have about yourself or the world.”

---

London felt safe and clean and functional - refreshingly not one homeless person seen in those 72 hours.

Strolling through the streets of your past, you can pause and see what has changed, and what is timelessly the same. Smells will invoke a snapshot memory, you observe new layers of graffiti on the same old walls, or the play of light across a road that brings you back to who you were fifteen years ago.

Pausing on street corners, and gazing at structures that have not changed apart from licks of paint, while you evolved into a different person with the years, is always a thought-provoking feeling.

What if I had stayed? How should we think about tension between the value of continuity and the value of change?

Continuity is so rich in gradually becoming part of the furniture in a community, and being able to build relationships of depth and consistency of direction.

The second allows us to shift through new experiences and lenses on the world, evolving more significantly in who we are and in the possibilities that sprout from that. I’ll tend to goad myself with the thought that if we get just one life why not have more revolutions of experience than less?

So, the London days felt like time travel, they always do.

I love that city and it will always be part of me. But ‘life rule’ invented in my mid-thirties ‘always live by the ocean’ stays in place and has the upper hand in San Francisco…

---

Money is for flow, not stock…

“Not he who has much is rich, but he who gives much.”

— Erich Fromm

Asking ChatGPT about Eric Fromm, I learnt “Erich Fromm was a German social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist. Born in 1900, he explored the interaction between psychology and society, emphasizing the importance of love, freedom, and non-materialistic lifestyles as pathways to true happiness and human fulfillment. He passed away in 1980.”

Pairs well with our Donegal Dad who endlessly reminds us that money needs to flow more that stock, in a life well lived…

“There are no pockets in a shroud”

— Peter M. Brennan

…funny too then, to this week be recommended a book by a friend in London called Die with Zero by an energy hedge fund manager, Bill Perkins (one-clicked!).

---

Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott

I’m finally reading this utter gem of a book, a compilation of hilarious and beautifully written perspectives on writing (and life!), after having heard it recommended so many times over the years.

Bird by Bird consoles as to how hard writing is - from a 16-title author - weaving through observations from a lifetime of writing and teaching too.

A few of the reassuring quips I underlined...

“Very few writers really know what they are doing until they’ve done it. Nor do they go about their business feeling dewy and thrilled. They do not type a few stiff warm-up sentences and then find themselves bounding along like huskies across the snow.”

and…

“E. L. Doctorow once said that “writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

…and…

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft."

And, Anne Lamott is a ‘local’ for us San Franciscans, growing up just across the bridge in Sausalito and Bolinas, and now teaching in her later years, having authored 9 non-fiction books and 7 fiction titles since scribbling teenager days.

Highly recommended, whether a writer or aspiring writer yourself, or simply to enjoy a relaxed read on the inner tormet of the creative process and what we go through when suffering ‘the instinct to write’….

[You can see all of my career pause reading on Good Reads here.]

---

More soon.

Stay curious along the way…

Kevin, back in San Francisco