There’s nowt as queer as folk.

On rabbit holes, parroting, cognitive dissonance and creating our own realities.

It makes perfect sense to me to stir a glass of electrolytes with a knife. Or to wear a hat indoors, if I’m cold. But does it make sense these days to sit and write a novel, when all around is chaos and destruction? Shouldn’t we be trying to get our voices heard on some more important matter such as the withdrawal of one country from another, taxes, or the collective expenditure on missiles designed to kill? And what about Bill Gates? I mean, what about him? Where the hell is he and why is he not in prison yet?

We have been down all the rabbit holes, well it feels like I have anyway. There are rabbit holes coming out of the rabbit holes. You could be down there forever. Like the labyrinth of the Severed floor, there is no map, we only learn our way by repetition. Assuming, of course that you can get out of it. I am currently watching Severance and it feels like it is an existential documentary on cognitive dissonance, showing us that our ability to compartmentalise is a treatise on current society.

I have a dog and even he gets tired of chewing his bones. All of this is exhausting. I am exhausted, and I want to allow myself the space to breathe, to write a novel, to play, to colour in my adult colouring book. I like to imagine that I am putting colours together that have never been put together before. My eldest, when she was about 4 or 5, taught me that you can put pink and red together. ‘Mama, it is allowed.’ She started a trend.

I met my husband while we were both students working for masters degrees in a Gaeltacht town in Connemara. This town was so small was comprised of 2 pubs and one shop, which is typical of Irish towns. After a short time there I saw there were two communities living in this small town; the students, and everybody else. There was no mixing, we were eyed up resentfully in the shopa, you could hear them whispering about us when we walked down the road. Nobody reached out to ask us if we were well, if we needed anything being so far from home. But every Tuesday night there was music in the pub, and for that one night, our differences were forgotten. There was a couple that got together once, a student boy and a local girl, but that didn’t last very long. I think that’s the way we are going - 2 communities living in the same place, those that can see what is going on, and those that do not want to see. The cognitive dissonance is strong in these ones.

My now husband told me back then that as a joke that he would come up with taglines and say them a few times here and there around the place, just so he could hear them repeated back to him. The phrase at the time was ‘Asta La Vista, Baby’. I had heard that said in the shop only that morning, by a local, and had a hard time believing that he came up with it, particularly as it did seem to have its origins in a movie. I dared him to come up with another one, a new one, so that I could see it in action. He did - for the life of me now, 35 years later I can’t remember exactly what it was. Let’s say it was ‘See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya,’ or something to that effect. It didn’t take long for it to get around the town. Less than a week, more than likely. We laughed about it for a long time, then he tried another one, ‘love you long time,’ that went around the town too. Nobody knew why they were saying these phrases, they didn’t know they were from him, they heard them knocking around in conversation, over a few pints, down the shops, or greeting people on the road. They’d start to parrot them too. There’s nowt as queer as folk.

My point is this - with the current cacophony of chaotic voices shouting over each other to be heard, is there any point adding another voice there? And with the numerous excavated rabbit holes, do we really need to dig for more? There are people on several sides of the tracks vehemently declaring they are the only ones who know the truth - is that really the way to go at this stage of it all?

I always come back to what I know is true, which is this:

• The more we think we know, the less we actually know.

• Most of these narratives are parroted by people; that does not make them true.

• Agreeing that a narrative is true, or is not true, does not change the essence of this reality, it only changes your own reality.

• These narratives do not matter in the grand scheme of things. What matters is your own reality. The one you create for yourself.

So look at that for a moment -

• Do you leap out of bed excited for the day, or is it an effort to summon the energy required to put your two feet on the ground and drag yourself out of bed? What could you do to give yourself more energy for life?

• Do you care about your health? What are you doing so that you don’t feel crappy and can enjoy your one and only life?

• Do you love?

I would like to think that we do, in fact love. Love something here, in this realm, whatever the realm might be.

So I make a list of what I love to keep me grounded and sane:

• I love my children, I live to try to make this world a better place for them.

• I love my husband, he is my best friend and the time I spend with him is the best part of my day.

• I love my family, they don’t understand me but that’s okay, I love them anyway.

It’s the small things keep us here.

I’m not sure how to end this, only to ask you what is it that you are living for? What are your hopes and dreams? What is your list that keeps you grounded? If you want to, let me know in the comments below. Because the small things really are the big things after all, aren’t they?