Psychoanalysing meself - it's all our Judy's fault........

I've been feeling well lately, contented. I'm working on something I'm enjoying and feeling hopeful for it.

I know these November days are short, can be grey and depressing. Cold days and nights, or worse - that constant drizzly rain, can confine one indoors. But as I sit by my fire, house quiet for once, knowing where all my loved ones are - I cannot help but feel content. I'm trying not to brood on a past I cannot change nor worry about a future I have no control over. Then I started to think.............

I have long wondered why Spring is my worst time of the year. From late March I often feel a huge sadness building in me. Why, when the natural world is gearing up to its brief magnificent season do I feel at my lowest? All of the worst bouts of long lasting depression I suffered occurred between late April and July.

But I love gardening, love sitting in the sun like a big fat lazy cat. So why, when I should be anticipating great pleasure, do I often feel incredibly tense, anxious and low?

I was born in May 1961, first surviving child to my parents. Their first child, my stillborn brother, was delivered at eight months gestation in April 1960, a huge shock for the young couple who had eagerly awaited his birth. Mam had been taking the anti-morning sickness medication that was later shown to have caused Thalidomide. The baby was ten days dead before he was delivered, sadly he was also malformed. My mother never saw her baby's body. Dad did, but he never talked about it.

So when I came along thirteen months later their anxiety levels must have been very high. They poured every bit of love they had into me, and I blossomed. Mam quickly became pregnant again and my first beloved sister, Judy, was born in April 1962. 

At that time women were ‘confined’ in hospital for up to five days after the birth of a child. I was eleven months old, my father had to work so I was sent over to my beautiful Aunt Norah, Mam’s sister, to be cared for. There is a picture of me standing in a playpen at the gate of Norah’s house. Apparently it was the only thing that quietened me. I would stay there for hours looking up the road, waiting for my world to come back to me. 

AND SHE CAME!!!!!!! 

When I read Owl Babies by Martin Waddell to children I tell them ‘Mammys ALWAYS come back’. Of course, in reality, sometimes they can’t. Serious illness or death can pull a mother from a child. Mam didn’t die until I was twenty nine, but the wrench was as bad as if I were five. And she died on March 20^th. Which would explain my feelings of grief around that time since then. But what about before 1991? I reckon that when I sense the days warming and lengthening, and see things growing, it reminds me of my anxious vigil at the gate in April 1962. And I must have been miffed that someone smaller and cuter than me usurped my position as ‘baby’ in the house.

Judy once said she didn’t always feel loved at home. Perhaps Mam and Dad overcompensated with me – afraid I’d be jealous of the new arrival. Apparently I did once balance a large 1d coin on her lips and stood, waiting to see what would happen when she opened her mouth! I don’t remember being jealous of her. Envious yet – she was (is) incredibly beautiful, with a stillness and serenity about her I longed to emulate. I wrote this for her some Christmases ago. It’s not great poetry. But it’s heartfelt.

Childhood Memories#2

Winter 1965

Judy

                          You were the most beautiful creature -

Perfect.

Flawless skin,

huge trusting eyes

watching from

the bolster on the double bed

Its creaky iron frame

bathed in the light of

the glowing Sacred Heart

that pinked

candy striped brushed cotton sheets,

blankets,

a maroon eiderdown

topped by a Gardá great coat;

its buttons left an imprint on your face

insignia of peace on chubby cheek.

You whispered -

‘Let’s play the drawing-on-the back game,

Me first.’

I loosened your pyjama top

and sketched a scene,

plump childish fingers intent on detail

hoping you wouldn’t guess it right

and I could crow

‘No!’

‘Now me’, I whispered.

But you were sleeping.

I spooned in behind you

And lying still inhaled

Pears soap and Cusson’s talc.

Now, if I close my eyes and deeply breathe

I can almost feel that moment

That safety in our kingdom -

our hot water bottle warmed

double bed

^{Evelyn Walsh, Christmas 09}

So our Juders, it’s all your fault I am a moanin’ Minnie. But I am very glad you are my sister – let’s blame the parents!!

Our Judy, Jemser and the Art of Zen

Our Judy hits a significant birthday this month. My inner ‘don’t say that’ alarm has finally started to work – after donkeys’ years of embarrassing people by innocently revealing things which are - to some – private. Now I just stick all those things in my stories/novels and they have to be read to discover what page said revelation is on!

Our Judy is much quieter than me. She is also very beautiful. I was insanely jealous of her when we were growing up. When we were small, people in the neighbourhood would actually stop my mother in the street as we toddled after her and the pram which contained whoeverhappenedtobethebaby that year. They would smile at us all but their glances lingered longer on Judy. ’She’s so cute – you have to enter her into the bonny baby competition!’

So Mam did – she got someone who possessed a camera to come and take our photos and she sent one of Judy off to the ‘Pond’s Cold Cream’ sponsored competition. And our Judy won a prize! Whatever it was or where she was placed in the competition is long lost in the annals of family history but it was official - Judy was (still is) beautiful.

So my jealousy melted away or rather I accepted facts – she was officially beautiful. When we started school I became officially ‘the bright one’; although Judy’s no eejit – in fact academically she always scored higher than me – but I bullshit better! We killed each other until our late teens; hands on hair-pulling, scabbing, kicking physical fights and the incredible bitchiness of teenage girls resulting from the sheer frustration at having to live with each other’s entirely different personalities.

I’m the oldest and bossy with it and Judy baulked at the notion of being told what to do by a sibling who had been left in charge of a household teeming with kids while parents worked. I would get frustrated at having to do ‘everything’ myself because I wanted things to be nice for Mam when she came home. Judy did her chores, but in her own time and her own way. I remember saying to Mam at one stage ‘I envy Judy. She does things becsuse she wants to. I do them because I think I have to.’ So Judy got the Art of Zen long before me – she lived it.

I have been thinking a lot lately about mindfulness, of being aware of living every moment, of simply being in any particular moment, of breathing and being aware that in order to live breathing is all I have to do. Of realising that I am part of something that is infinite and that my role for now in that infinity is breathing in and out of the body that has been assigned to me. Judy lives this – always has. Jemser epitomises it - he’s been telling me it for years but I had to find out for myself and label it in my own way – when I said this to him the other night he laughed and said in his case it could be called ‘mindlessness’.

When Judy and I started getting drunk together in our late teens/early twenties we told each other how much we loved each other despite our differences and things settled down. We found partners, had children around the same time and drift in and out of each other’s lives a few times every year. Judy is still extraordinarily beautiful, she always looked after her skin, she has a calmness about her - but also a fiery streak that can be roused and woe betide the arouser! She is wonderful and I feel very privileged to be her big sister – even though I know I’m ‘not the boss’ of her! Love you Juders!