Imagine, we were there 30 years ago! When security suggested we’d move back a little from the stage as it would be jammed with younger fans! – Anyone selling tickets? Are you going to the concert? Lowering their voice, are you looking for tickets? 300 euro.
On a walk along the Canal, The Royal Canal, we passed by Brendan Behan (well, his statue) sitting on his bench – tonight surrounded by tents and loads of people who were having a great time in expectation of a fabulous concert they were going to attend, somewhat remotely, tonight. Even if they had had the money these homeless lads wouldn’t have thought a minute about spending the kind of money the touts were looking for. In their minds, they already had a prime spot, beside Brendan, on the Royal Canal.
It’s good to be positive. To be upbeat. To believe in what is possible. Life is complicated enough as it is, we all know and fear the things that can go and are going wrong. But focusing on that, even talking about it, admitting that there are ‘dark’ or ‘depressing’ times in our lives is something we often find very difficult.
“I don’t consider myself a pessimist. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel soaked to the skin.”
That’s how one of my favourite singers (or poets?), Leonard Cohen, described himself with a hint of irony.
That’s ok for Leonard Cohen to admit. For us to admit to a sense of despair, of failure, of hopelessness, is a completely different story. What would your family, your friends, your colleagues think?
Today, I felt soaked to the skin. There you are. One of these days. Full of dramatic, fundamental questions and no answers. Scarlet in Gone with the Wind had the perfect attitude in relation to these situations.
Tomorrow will be another day and what today seems like a mountain to high to climb will look very differently. I’m sure.
Tomorrow, we’ll be joining many people who have walked, or a planning to walk, the Camino to Santiago de Compostela. All for their own reasons. Many complicated, even terminal, often close to impossible to deal with, all looking for encouragement, peace, strength, meaning, a mission in life, and love.
None of this we can find on our own.
Hospi-Tales 