This is a blog in honour of spontaneity: a word that inspires horizons of possibility, slightly blurred at the edges and punctuated at crucial moments with the landmarks of surprise. If spontaneity were a Tinder bio it would play up its kookiness to the max with plenty of reminders that they "go with the flow", "don't do planning" and "don't trust people with matching socks".
Spontaneity is elusive, enticing and increasingly hard to come by. For its disappearance, I point my finger in blame at the ominous villain and unwelcome guest of 2020. The reason behind its quashing is of course justified but the outcome is regrettable. Organization, booking and planning are the requirements of any trip, evening out or vacation-staycation; three things that I do not do well.
This understanding was prompted by a recent trip (which now bears the engraving 'In Loving Memory Of Spontaneity') for which myself and my flatmate took our bikes and ourselves to Mullingar (with a little assistance from Iarnród Éireann)...
We were going to make ourselves useful at a friend's inherited cottage, when I say cottage it would be more accurate to say that it wore the jacket of a cottage without the intrinsic clothing underneath. Water was gathered from a tank which in turn flowed into a downpipe which in turn flowed into a bucket; the fridge and the oven were mutually exclusive meaning that cooling and cooking could not exist at the same time and most of the utilities existed only in our imagination, helpfully prompted by sticky tape signs displaying messages such as 'storage shelves' or 'cool art' here.
A large portion of the time was spent frolicking in a nearby lake, whimsically spreading wildflower seeds and then, feeling guilty, painting a door with large peppermint green splodges to resemble, by the end, a surrealist's cow. To get to this location of freedom and fey we had, of course, advance booked tickets. Partly resenting the injustice of this 'necessity' and partly not wanting to plan the journey home at such advance warning as the day before, we decided we would "do that later".
Unsurprisingly, having had too much fun living like railway children, the departure afternoon wore on without a booking being made. After all, our muses just clung onto the back of these steam powered monsters like stubborn limpets; we would be fine. Dining around the previous night's fire pit eating two nights ago cous cous salad topped with freshly made pesto pasta our assumptions were that if all else failed, we would surely find a passing donkey... or a horse outside.
A few hours later we found ourselves standing on the main street of Mullingar waiting for a non-committal bus to arrive. Forty five minutes later we had given up. Filled with the comfort of creamy McFlurries we spun to the train station for a 9PM train we had sworn we would not get--"must get back earlier for work in the morning" and were greeted by a stern faced ticket master asking, doubtfully, "Have ye booked yerselves on girls?"
We in return greeted him with faces of heartfelt regret and endearing innocence. No, we had not booked ourselves on. We had been left in this regrettable situation by a dastardly bus and this was our only option to possibly make it back in time for work. He was firm however and muttered of the 'impossibility' of getting on with bikes and the imperative to book, before giving a final and resolute shake of his head.
Luckily, like all pleasant adventure stories, the heroines pull through. Thanking profusely the (now quite friendly seeming) ticket master for his change of heart we assured him that we would remember him "if we ever became rich and famous" and dashed for the carriage before any change of mind could be made. We sat squished between the toilet doors and our bicycle frames in relative discomfort, issuing muffled apologies behind our masks every time a confused passenger tried to edge their way past us. We were in bed by midnight, having taken on board the lesson that spontaneity is in fact possible if you learn the wily art of charming the pants off people. In truth, and much more importantly, our trip had the good ending hoped for due to human kindness and understanding.
Despite this maligned 'lockdown' on spontaneity, steadfast examples of wonderful irregularity and human kindness, as illustrated above, peek through.
The other day I saw a large sea gull take a very deliberate shit on the shiny top of a 4x4 in leafy Rathgar. What this enjoyable juxtaposition can speak to, I will leave up to you. It brings me cheerfully on to the subject of my father who I'm sure would have enjoyed it immensely. Perhaps the real purpose of this post is to wish happy father's day to a man whose kindness, sense of adventure and, you've guessed it, spontaneity, embodies in spades what I have been struggling to articulate. His skip diving exploits are the stuff of legend and with a mischievous glint of an eye he has been responsible for many a family walk 'off-piste' across unchartered lands and ruins ripe for exploring. What I believe he would see in this seagull is an act of protest and a refusal to believe that 'the done way' is 'the only way'.
xoxo to one cool dad
My o My that was a Mighty blog: signed A One choked up Dad . Sniffle.