It's not that I'm superstitious, but more because I fear that I have so much to tell this time that the attention span of new visitors won't reach, so this time it's a double edition. It's up to the reader to decide where one goes into the other.
The sea is of a familiar shade of grey. A lumpy ripple and a touch of swell, not overly restless. Above the Aran Islands some blue ogles, the rocks are drying after a shower and standing out sharply. This is going to be a day inside with possibly later an hour up and down to the barby wire.
As for Magic Realism, here it comes in abundance. A few days ago I sat at the overhang and was telling my talk-o-matic some impulses when it slipped through my fingers and disappeared between the rock chunks. Oh catastrophe, what have you done to me, this was a toss of total loss. I ran back to the meadow, shouldered my two- metre long crowbar and as swift as the rocks could carry me I went back to the scene of disaster. There, to my surprise, I heard my own voice. In its fall the device had hit the play button. Now usually I have it set on voice-activated, so when it was silent I addressed it. This way a conversation originated in which my faithful friend gave me directions how to free him from his knotty spot. From two sides we unified our attempt, effectually supported by my XXL crowbar. After litres of steaming sweat the deliverance came. So now I have it on a leash.
Since my anti-draft specs I melt with the rocks. From childhood on I have this bouncy walk, so my bounce muscles are so developed that I move like a puma on the rocks. Thus, as if in trance, I slip into thought-hunting mode, for when my body is busy the barrier of my brain is lifted for a while. But recently I've done so much rock walking that my toes suffer from RSI.
The miracles have not yet left my life by far. As my kettle did not sound its boil, I put it into flute class and now it warns me with a penetrating 'Flatterzunge'.
With the sky, its reflection on the water also brightens up. Isn't it gratifying to see that all is connected?
It is a well-known fact that when you have to sneeze you can stimulate this, by looking into light. Because of my drafty walk of life I often get the sneezes. Now it is not so that the average Irish driver does not want to dim his headlights in the dark. It is the undulating landscape in which the oncoming cars from the height can dangerously blind you even with dimmed headlights. For me this danger doubles up as by this sudden light I also have to sneeze irrepressibly.
Which doubles up as well. It is widely accepted that artists have to suffer. If you also, like me, are as stupid as to go into the water without gloves, then only because of the amount of invested hardship this writing would land on display in a museum. At first I thought I would get aqua-inted and I did, as far as you can, to cold. But I had my Olympus camrad with me and this fits neatly inside the wrist of my wetsuit. Dusty was a rewarding subject for my first underwater takes with Ollie, but taking it in and out let chilling swigs of water into my sleeve.
Dusty, though, was messing around a bit, and I don't say this lightly. In spring, because of the low water temp, you see spider crabs everywhere. Prehistoric giants, up to half a metre across. I dived on one such a colossus and close up I saw a slug on its shell. The slug was kelp-coloured, had two flappy feelers and what seemed like a turret on its rear end. A second one joined and a third was hanging from a nearby shred of kelp. Because I had never seen these before I wanted to photograph them. This did not happen. In her jealousy Dusty continually swam in my image area so I quit.
Another wondrous encounter was with a friendly wild seabird, don't know the brand. I saw it so close I thought there was something wrong. Even when I swam over it did not take off. I saw the webbed feet treading underwater, but hardly to any effect. I thought to nudge it to the beach, but to no avail. But after I did not look, there was no trace of it on each of the 360 degrees. A little later it was there again. Then I think, like with everything I don't understand, especially with computers, it's just my fault, that I oversaw its little head, or that maybe some wavelet had been in between us. But just a little later I saw him winging away underwater. At first I thought this bird had migrated from the Galapagos and was not familiar with the phenomenon of mankind and its murderous courtesy. But last night it was revealed to me in a dream that I was visited by the holy waterwing and that it was good.
Because my merino underwear is black and not offensive I dressed in it yesterday, when I came out of the water. The black absorbs the sunlight and soon my skin was back on temp. But after two hours in the water the cold penetrates deeply. Also from the inside I fight it with thermos flask tea. However, with the sun's setting, also the heating goes off. Then I wrap myself in down and brood the last cold out of my limbs.