SAMHAIN in ÉIRINN

1st published in The Daily Lobo, October, 2008

A black-faced Colm and a red-skinned Seamus met in front of the Church of Adam and Eve, a half-mile from their Dublin homes. When religion had been outlawed in Ireland in 1698, people went through a pub, called the Adam and Eve, into the back room, where they heard Mass. A church had been built on the site of the pub after the Penal Laws had been repealed in 1829. Tonight it was just a rendezvous.

Have you seen Mary yet?” Colm asked, and hastily added, “And the others?” “No, but I can hear her,” Seamus answered. “Ah, yes, that’s Mary’s voice,” Colm sighed. “I surely do love her singing.” Colm could not disguise the giddiness in his voice. He’d gotten a ring in his portion of bairin breac that very evening. A ring in your fruitcake foretold marriage. He’d been hoping for a coin to foretell wealth, but the ring made him think of Mary. He planned to give it to her this very night.

Seamus giggled, and would have teased Colm about Mary, but he’d already received enough teasing about his bad luck at snap-apple. In snap-apple, a pair of crossed sticks were hung from the ceiling. One stick held an apple, and the other a burning candle, and the sticks were spun. Seamus had singed his eyebrows trying to bite the apple, and had ended up with black streaks across his face. He’d decided to complete the effect by blackening his face with soot, and now wore all black from toe to cap. Next year he resolved to stick with bobbing for apples. That way he’d only get wet, at the worst.

Colm had painted his face and arms red and wore a red cape made from an old tablecloth over his bright red shirt. Around the corner swung Mary, singing, followed by Casey and her younger brother Gerry. Casey wore her father’s rough farm clothes, and Gerry wore his sister’s white Communion dress and even her white shoes. Mary was dressed all in green – bright green socks, and dark green dress, covered by a green and white shawl that reminded Colm of a field of clover.

“Are ye ready, my fine Guisers?,” asked Mary of the group. On Halloween in Dublin, young people, known as Guisers, dressed up and painted or masked their faces. They roamed the countryside, pretending to be the returning dead or creatures of the Otherworld.   Seamus said solemnly, “Yes, Goddess of the Land. The Lord of the Dead is ready.” “We’re ready,” laughed Colm and the others.

And they had a fine time of it that night too. Colm and Seamus moved grouchy old McCann’s privy from his backyard to his front door. Mary and Casey let Mrs. McDermott’s prize bull out, and he was now with Father O’Malley’s cows. Gerry had poured water down his uncle’s chimney, and they all knocked on every door they came across, then ran away as fast as they could before the cowed inhabitants could answer.
On Samhain, summer’s end and the eve of winter, the time-stream was interrupted, allowing communications between this world and the Otherworld. The dead could return to the places where they had lived.

Food for the dead was put out ceremonially, indoors or out-of-doors. Gates and windows were left unlocked to give the dead free passage. Besides the spirits of dead humans, swarms of sidh, or fairy beings, came into the world on November Eve, but not all of these creatures were friendly. Most doors that these Dublin Guisers knocked on that night had Jack-o’-lanterns carved out of turnips next to them. These simulated spirit guardians, and were placed at doorways to keep out unwelcome visitors from the Otherworld. “I’m hungry,” Colm announced. Mary grabbed Colm’s hand and together they all left their pranks and began parading through the central part of town, asking for apples and hazelnuts, as was the custom there. Apples are the sacred fruit, which, eaten by the dead, bestow a blissful mortality upon them this night. Hazelnuts are symbols of wisdom, and are freely given to all who ask.

Pockets bulging with their loot, the group gathered around one of the great bonfires, lit for this occasion, and warmed their hands while stuffing their mouths with hazelnuts. Colm slipped the ring onto Mary’s finger. Their faces glowed in the light.

The competition between the winter-god and the summer-god (or winter and summer aspects of the same god) is almost over. On November 1st, the winter-god, who is, among other things, the Lord of the Dead, comes back into his own, and the dark cycle of the Celtic New Year begins.

Doc Silver’s Monologue

October 23, 2019

Recently, I applied to audition for a movie. I use a site called Actor’s Access. One pays a yearly fee, or per submission. I’ve had an account there for at least two years, and I keep it updated. I receive emails notifying me of acting jobs in my area. I have never gotten a reply to any of my submissions until recently. It was an out-of-state job, and for the first time, I applied. I never had done so before, because it’s a huge waste of time and money to travel long distances for an audition. I applied, with no expectations. But, of course, this time, the production contacted me. I would have to submit a video audition.

When you are going to audition, there are two things that usually happen. Either you receive the “sides” ahead of time in order to audition with the lines memorized, or you are handed the sides when you show up at the audition – which is called a cold read.  (“Sides” are bits of the script containing your character’s lines – a whole scene or part of a scene.) In a cold read, you might have a few minutes to look it over and think about how you want to want to play it, with an optional way to play it as well. There’s no time to memorize it, and you are not expected to. However, you cannot audition looking down at a piece of paper, nor can you hold it up, as it becomes a huge distraction on camera. So you try to hold it horizontal, within range of your vision when you look down. You also cannot audition looking up and down while you’re doing the lines.

The trick is to know the very first line. Then you look down, get the next line in your head, and look at the reader or at a point very near the camera lens. You cannot look directly at the lens, unless they ask you to, or it’s for a commercial. Once an acting teacher told the class to look down at your lines while the other actor, in a dialogue, is speaking. No, you cannot do that. I wasted a lot of time in auditions because I did that. One thing the casting director or agent is looking for is the reaction on your face to what the other person in saying. If you’re looking for your next line, while the other person is speaking, you’ve blown your chance. Thank you for coming in today. Next!

So, what one has to do is look down just before the other person speaks or just after. You must be looking at the person while they speak, even if it’s “just a reader”. Readers in auditions speak in soft monotones. There are too close to the microphone to speak loudly. But you have to look at them. Sometimes you’ll forget the line or part of it. What I’ve learned is 1.) never apologize. 2.) Don’t stop. 3.) Look at your lines, and start the sentence over that you choked on. In movies and TV, it doesn’t matter. It takes little time to redo the line, and the blown line can be edited out. They may ask you to start over, but that can be a waste of time for busy casting directors.

All this has just been to prepare you for what happened when I was asked to prepare a video audition and submit it. No sides! They gave me nothing to work on, no lines at all. This was a first for me. I was asked to write my own scene. No preference as to monologue or dialogue. What I was given where a list of things my character was like, the things he believed in, his quirkiness, and references to similar characters we’ve all seen before.

My video was to be at least two minutes, but less than three.

I got it done, after a surprising number or takes. I had one I liked best, so I uploaded it. That was a bit scary, because the submission deadline was fast approaching, and video uploads are deadly slow. However, it finished uploading in time for me to submit it, with five minutes to spare. Yeah, I should have submitted it much sooner. However, the monologue scene I wrote was too long when I was actually performing it. I had to keep modifying the lines, shortening them, cutting, doing the whole thing faster, without  rushing it. Tricky. And then I wasn’t happy with my performance, so I did it over and over until it felt right, and funny. I’m not that good at being funny. But, it made me laugh. Then again, since I wrote it, I was biased.

I never heard a thing back – par for the course. So, I can’t upload the video here, because I’d have to sign up for a pro account for a whole year to do that. And, they might object to a video that gave away something about the movie before its debut.

 However, since the writing is mine, and I created the character, I’m going to at least show you what I wrote, after a whole lot of editing to pare it to three minutes:

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Doc Silver’s lecture to his physics class, © October 10, 2019

     What do you mean you can’t find love? Our destiny is love. Listen…. Love begins as attraction. All cosmic bodies are attracted to each other. It’s not just gravity. We know a lot about the effects of gravity, but the actual force is a mystery. Why can’t we call it love?

     Look at molecular attractions. Negatively charged electrons are attracted to positively charged protons. This attraction is what holds atoms together. There are many protons in a nucleus which should repel each other because of their negative charges. But they are held together by a stronger attractive force. Why not call that force, love?

     We are made of stardust forged in the intense heat of stars. That means many things. Light travels the universe, and so can we. It’s within us, in the atoms and subatomic particles of every cell in our bodies.

Shit…. Where was I going? Yeaaah….

     Oh yeah! Soulmates. You want to find a soulmate. Yes, you do. Everything and everyone is connected. Just as atoms pair up with compatible atoms, so do we have soul connections.

     There’s electricity in our bodies, energy in our atoms. Electrons zooming this way and that. Did you know that as soon as you train an electron microscope on a structure, it changes? The energy of the ‘scope alters the energy level of the electrons, so you can never know what the structure is at any given moment.

Possibilities.

So, what’s the lesson here…? Ah, I know…. Yes. Here it is: don’t look so hard. You’ll never find love that way. Just let it be. Let it be, let it be…. Where was I? Exist! Bounce around like an electron. Change energy states. You’ll meet the ones who resonate with you.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

P.S. OK, OK, I can hear you think: I want to see the video. OK. I’ve Youtubed it:

Doc Silver’s Monologue  © October 10, 2019

 

 

 

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

A Place to Come Home To

     Divorce is never a good thing, at the time. It may have been necessary. It may have been your choice, or not. It may have been something you cannot accept. But it is a lonely time nevertheless. You will probably stare out the windows a lot. In winter, you will see the death-like trees swaying in the wind. It can be a time of despair, sitting alone in a still house, realizing just how much you miss the marriage, the warm body in your bed, the company, the other person there when you come home from work. It is never easy to accept what has happened, or where you find yourself.

    After marriage, divorce feels like death, barren, and desolate. Death is, of course, worse, but divorce hits you hard personally, like a punch in the gut, or running your head smack dab into a pole. That first night you sleep alone, when you know it’s over, and you’re on your own again – in an empty house – you notice the quiet alienness of the place where you are. Perhaps you live in the same place, and they are gone. Perhaps there are other people there, or children too, but it is just not the same. Your closest connection, your lover, your partner – gone.

There is a feeling of prison. The walls confine you. You want to get out, but outside is like winter, dark and cold, and you avoid it. Inside is not much better. You can distract yourself with family, friends, TV, music, books, food. There are poems to write, full of angst and despair and self pity. You write, hoping to find some acceptance, some understanding.

You can’t go to that special person any more. Maybe you’ll hear about them, or see them around, or have to exchange kids or other pleasantries. But that connection is gone. They are like a stranger you once knew, family you don’t get along with. You ask why? But, there is no answer to that question. It’s what it is, but you keep going round and round and asking: Why, why, why? You don’t come home anymore. Home is family, and that has changed. There’s a chill you can’t shake, even in summer. Sharing your life for years, maybe decades, and no more.

In summer, I felt that chill through the heat, sweating in the sun, or the night, keeping the cooler on until I fell asleep. But there was no comfort in an empty bed in an empty house that made me feel like I was barely alive. At times there was an overwhelming sense of despair. Yes, there are plenty of fish in the sea. Who cares? I went over all the events that led me here, analyzing everything said or done. I thought of prior relationships, what happened then, what happened now. Over and over, and over until I just wanted to stop those thoughts forever.

That first winter alone, certainly a winter of discontent, was an adjustment. Cats are nice, but a poor substitute for actual human touch, for conversation, for making plans, and going places together. I touched base with the few people I know well, but they have lives of their own, and my life did not feel like a life. Always, in my head, I was alone. A piece of myself had been cut out and discarded. After a while, I couldn’t take it anymore. Christmas was coming. High suicide rate around holidays. Tempting, but not an option, just yet.

I decided I was going to get a tree, a nice aromatic evergreen. I decided to make a Christmas for myself, not one I could share, but just for myself anyway. I had no lights to decorate with, no ornaments for the tree. eBay. Problem solved. I found ornaments and lights, like my parents had for me, three bothers and three sisters. There are a few bad memories from back then, but so many joyful ones, like finding a bright and fragrant tree, twinkling and radiant, as we all came down the creaking stairs, holding on to the banister, so we didn’t have to worry about forgetting to take one stair at a time, or tripping over each other. Presents under the tree. Stockings full of fruit and nuts and candy hanging on the fake fireplace mantle, over fake electric logs.

On eBay, the old, thin, glass ornaments have indentations. They are known as indents, double indents, triple indents. There are glass ornaments in the shape of teardrops, small and large. There are miniature Santas, stars, pine cones, tiny little glass balls, or baseball-sized ones, and fragile, every last one. When I was young, sometimes I would press my thumb into an indent, testing it, and sure enough they broke easily. Once, my parents could forgive. But every year I was tempted all over again. Every time I broke one, I marveled at their fragility.

I couldn’t understand why things were made that could so easily be broken.

And I was terrified. But I discovered that I could drop the pieces on the floor, blame it on the dog, or cat. My parents seemed to accept that. Eventually I learned to appreciate the ornaments for what they were, for their fragility, and their beauty.

Done. After months of loneliness, despair, and longing for someone, or something, for peace, anything different from that bleak existence, walking the Bosque in winter, those lifeless trees so deathlike in their slumber, and then, months of shopping, I had dozens of ornaments from people on eBay who no longer wanted them. I wanted them. I even found some in antique shops and second-hand stores. I also found bubble lights, those fascinating multi-colored, liquid-filled tubes heated by small bulbs, bubbling away for hours on end. I bought a tall bushy green tree for them from a Christmas tree lot.

     I tapped into memories. Music filled the house – not that Christmas schmaltz, but jazz, blues and classic rock. All was bright and colorful. I built a real fire in the fireplace. The house felt warm, over and above the heat. I felt an acceptance of where I am. This lonely space with prison walls was not so quiet. The music made me smile, and the fire popped, spit and crackled. Home. This house feels like a home now, for one person, but less fragile.

Oh, Donald Boy, Karma, Karma is Calling

     A man on a beach. He appears to be sleeping. Could be dead. The wind blows his hair back from his forehead. He stirs. His eyes are closed, his face contorted. Perhaps he is dreaming.
______________________________________________________________________________

     I am damned uncomfortable. Damn, it’s hot! I’m stiff, sore in parts of my body. I must be asleep, but I can’t wake up. I want this dream to end. Still, I feel a breeze, a hot breeze, as though the air conditioning is off and someone has left a window open. Enough of this. Things aren’t right. Someone will pay for this. I open my eyes to blinding light. A spotlight? Is there a TV crew in my bedroom? I can’t see anything. “Turn that damn light off,” I yell. No one answers. Impossible.

     I close my eyes, then crack them open just a little. Squinting, I know something is wrong. I yell, scream at the top of my lungs, the sound coming from deep inside of me, maybe. No one answers, no one comes. Impossible.
     I am not in my bed. I don’t know where I am. Shapes moving, wind, far away sounds. I close my eyes again. Maybe I’m still dreaming. I relax. I’ll wait a bit. My hands. There’s something in my hands, or under them? It’s dirt, or maybe sand, I don’t know. Now I feel it under my back, the ground, hard and scratchy. There might be sticks, rocks under me.
I sit up. I raise my hand to my eyes, shielding them from the light. I open my eyes slowly. Yes. That’s the sun. I must be outside. I am sitting on the ground, on dirt.
     I’m awake. My eyes are adjusting to the hot, burning sunlight. The shapes I saw are big trees, big leaves moved by wind. The wind is very hot. This is not a park, not a golf course, not the West Lawn. Looks like some piece of undeveloped land, maybe some lazy ass’s property not taken care of. There are dead trees too, with no leaves. Dead leaves on the ground. Not cleaned up. Damn lazy people! I stand up. I am barefoot. I look down. I have no pants. I feel my magnificent chest. It’s bare. I have no shirt. No clothes. I scream obscenities. I yell, “Who has done this to me? Why me! Of all people, why me?”
     Where the hell is my wife? How could she let this happen to me? Where are my security people? I’ll call…. I don’t have a phone. That’s right. No pockets. I look around, there is no sign of my clothes or my phone. It’s a nightmare; a walking nightmare. Things like this don’t happen. Not to me. A hat. I really need a hat. My head is so hot. I wipe sweat off my forehead, and I feel my hair. It feels like straw, dry, stiff. Where is my assistant. I need a comb. I need a shower. O god o god o god! What has happened to me? This is impossible. Everyone loves me. God loves me. Then why? Why why why why why. I scream again for security, for my assistant, for my damn absent wife. No answers. How can this be? I scream and scream. Nothing.
     My throat is dry now, raw, almost hoarse. I need a drink. Water, Yes. No. A beer. “Someone bring me a beer,” I shout. “Now!” I’m just rambling. There really is no one. No one to answer me, no one to call, no tweets to send. This is torture. Thirst. So damned thirsty. I have to find water, at least. I walk. I pass endless trees, but there’s no fountain, no pool, no stream. Not anything but these damn swaying trees. Am I dead? Am I in heaven? In hell? What could this be? No people. Just me. Funny, sometimes I wished for that, a world free of people, my world just for me.
     Well, maybe a few people. Smart people like me. Like me. People like me. I need to see another person, a few people, a rally. Yeah, the feeling I get when people yell my name, when they worship me, tell me they pray for me, love me. But there’s no one. No one to talk at. No one to cheer me. No one to blame. It’s not my fault. Not my fault. Not my fault. Of course it’s not. How could it be my fault?
     Enemies. They’ve kidnapped me! Dumped me some godforsaken place, in some shithole of a country. Democrats! Liberals! Even traitors in my own party! They think they can get rid of me this way? Just like them to do something this sneaky. No one points a finger at them. No one except me. How dare they? I know how to handle people. I’ll destroy them, humiliate them, destroy them all. They’ll pay! And pay and pay and pay.
     God! I am so thirsty. Water, water, waa-ter, waaa-ter, waaaa-ter. My tongue hurts. Someone bring me water, damn it! I’ll die! Look, I’ll pay anything. Anything! Name your price. That’s how it works. Yes. Name your price. I’ll dicker. We can haggle. Everyone has a price. Everyone wants money, even when they don’t deserve it.
     O god, what if it wasn’t the Liberals? What if it was terrorists? O, what’s the difference? What if I’m being held for ransom? No, no, I would have been rescued by now. I’ve been abandoned. I knew it! Everyone has turned on me.
     Water. So dry, so tired. My skin is burning. My head is so hot. I can’t take any more of this. It’s impossible. This can’t be happening. Not to me. To me, no, not never. No. Not to me, to me, not to me, to me, to me, me, me, meeeeeeee!

________________________________________________________________________________________

A beach. Several boats landing. Military personnel jump out, walk slowly up the beach. A body lies above the sloped sand, among the trees. They advance, cautiously. They from a circle around the body, half of them look outwards, continuing to scan the area. Half look at the body. Male. Bloated or obese; it’s hard to tell. Pale, sunburned skin. Could it be? Two marines roll the body over. It is! It is. Yes. It’s the President. He’s dead. They call it in. Someone is sent to the boats for a blanket. The rest fan out, searching the island’s golf course, for something, anything to explain this. Guns are cocked. Eyes peer though filtered lenses, looking for suspects, someone, someone to explain, someone to blame.

Later, talking heads discussed his death endlessly on every news channel. A mystery. No obvious cause of death. He had only gone missing, from his bed, four days ago. Dead for two of those. Toxicology tests showed no sign of poisons or other toxins. No fluid in his lungs; he hadn’t drowned. His heart had obviously stopped beating, but no reason was found. There was no evidence of stoke. No bruising. No fingerprints on the body. Why did he have no clothes?

Speculations. There were plenty of those. Expert opinions given and endlessly debated. Accusations made. Mystery. How was it that no one knew where he was? Was he dumped here, in this spot? How was he killed? Somebody did something to him. It had to be murder. Assassination. There would be hell to pay. Maybe war. He didn’t just die, of that everyone was perfectly sure. That couldn’t happen.

______________________________________________________________________________________

     A fiddle plays softly, mournfully at first, and then faster, louder, full of energy, becoming a jig, and feet are heard dancing. There is joyful singing.

69 at Ten-3

It became time to write again. Happy Birthday to me. I turned 69 on October 8th. Went to the reunion of my high school class of 1969 earlier this year. In my senior year, we all had orange and blue buttons that said simply: “69”. We loved it.

My stepdaughter Maya’s birthday is September 26. Ever since her mother and I divorced, Maya and I have continued to celebrate holidays and birthdays together, and sometimes just do some wine tasting.

Maya posing

What?

We really like blind wine tastings. I used to be pretty good at it while we were both working for a winery. Now I drink less wine, and not much grape wine, so I have a hard time identifying one dark complex red from another. But it doesn’t matter. We always have fun at those.

For some years now, we get together on a mutually agreed-upon date somewhere in between our birthdays, or perhaps after mine, to exchange small gifts and have a good dinner with some good wine. She was pretty busy around her birthday, and also picked up a nasty cold, so she actually stayed home on her birthday. Her dad sent her a video of himself and her nephew singing happy Birthday and blowing out some candles.

Finally, we got together. We rode the tram up the mountain to the new restaurant here. The tramway itself opened in 1966.

One of two new tram cars approaching Sandia Crest.

The restaurant is called Ten-3 because it’s situated on the crest of the mountain ridge at 10,300 feet above sea level. The highest point in the Sandia Mountains is nearby, at 10,678 feet above sea level.

Wonderful place. The original High Finance Restaurant had been there since 1979, and had to be replaced. It closed in 2016. It was completely demolished and a new foundation put in, but the weather up there is unpredictable. Forest fires, high winds, and snow hampered the work. At times workers could not even get there.  It took over two years to build the new one, and I’ve been not patiently waiting for it to open all that time. I used to hike up the mountain some early mornings and have lunch up there. A good cup of coffee, when it was chilly, or a nice beer after a long hike in the summer heat just could not be beat. Over the last two years, I watched the building slowly, slowly take shape.

Approaching the site

Frames for new windows!

Metal and Concrete

Concrete, rebar, more concrete

Construction

Construction

It opened in mid-September, instead of Spring, but hey, it’s open now! There are two sections: the bar area, and the fine dining area. Different menus for each, but the food is good no matter where you sit. We opted for dinner, so Maya and I split a smoked pork belly appetizer, and the New Mexican Paella entree. It was plenty of food for us. There are other menu items, and some are very pricey, so if you’re looking to splurge, this is the place. When you add in the cost of a bottle of wine, and taking the Tramway up, it costs quite a bit. I wanted to experience eating high above the city again, but it was really worth the cost to treat Maya. She has been my absolute joy since she recovered from four years of brain surgery, chemo, and radiation to treat the tumor they discovered in 2004.

I celebrate every day that she is alive. Her tumor is gone. She fully recovered, graduated from college, and even though she has a full-time job, a daily grind like most of us, she studied and received her Master’s Degree as well. She is doing well. Even while doing all that, she and I worked part-time for a winery for 7 1/2 years until it closed after the vintner’s death.

Since then we see each other less often, so it’s always a treat for me to see her smile and enjoy life. Although the experience of ascending the mountain, and experiencing those magnificent views east and west is exhilarating, there is nothing like spending time with Maya. She is intelligent but witty, hardworking but fun, runs to relieve stress, and enjoys her life and friends. She does not worry about a recurrence of cancer, or of dying. She lives life now and travels often. I am so incredibly lucky that she exists in my universe. There are times in my life when I am tired, lonely, and depressed, but just thinking about Maya always makes my life worth living. I’m glad she has time for me.

I have many interests in my life, and I am sometimes busy as fuck, but a little time with Maya here and there, and I am happy. I love her. Her happiness succors me, calms me, and makes life bearable.

1992-94

After treatments, 2005

Inn of the Mountain Gods

White Sands, 2005

Celebrating 2005-06

2006

2007

2009

2010

2013

2017