Skulking Writers In Dingle – For J.

This webbing about was recommended to me by a few people as a way to pass the time because I have some to pass, as the person who lived with me has left, so it’s pretty quiet at present. I did it on a whim and expected nothing from it. In reality, the whole thing is totally foreign to me.

I have had a computer for quite a few years, but it was simply hooked up to me and nobody else and I used it to write and keep business. This hooking up to total strangers is new – intimidating? – and I have been made jest of by a few folks for not knowing the terms and things, but, “really,” I said to them, “what difference does it make as it releates to this inane jargon?”

I actually went into a glossary of Internet terms I found on a Google inquiry and I immediately decided I do not want to use them, as they make no sense for the most part.

For example, I have a “spot” on the Internet that these people unknown to me have made available where I can do some writing and maybe put in some of my previous things if I feel confortable enough over time to do that. It is not a “site,” which word implies that I have embarked on building something intentional, which I am not. I think the word “web” applies, however, due to the fact this reminds me of a huge spider web that stretches all across the world. Therefore, I have a “web spot.” Additionally, this term of “surfing” is totally ridiculous, as there is not even a hint of an aquatic analogy present in this endeavour. But, one does move about this web, so, to me, the sensible term is “webbing about,” which is exactly what I am learning to do.

I have been putting some writing in here and I approached this as I have approached the other writings I have done previously on the unhooked computer and, before that, the typewriter. That is, I have written down some things in the same manner as usual. This means I never expected anyone to actually read any of it. I found this place to write by looking on my computer at a web spot belonging to an American baseball pitcher who was recently in the World Series and I wanted to read his views. (I got linked up to his spot from an article in the New York Times that was displayed in the Google News area.)

However, when I tried to write a question to him, this message popped up telling me I had to log in. The message also said I could get a web spot of my own on this WordPress spot, which apparently is the same zone where the pitcher writes, too. So, I signed up to have a place to write, but with no idea it might be found by anyone. I never wrote to the pitcher. I began doing this instead.

When I write, I am picturing that I am writing to someone I know, or someone I may have seen along the way, but with zero intent to distribute the writing. This allows for complete freedom, because I just do not have any reason to write except to just do it.

It helps clear all of these things out of my head, like the fish conversations. I just babble on about all these things that happen that strike me as normal, but that also make me laugh and that are most likely not normal by others’ viewpoints, I reckon.

Mainly, I want to go back and look at the ridiculous life I have led someday and laugh about it again.

Therefore, I have been making some placements in this web spot here.

Then, strangers began leaving remarks!

This has actually startled me. One is a person known simply as J in New York, who wrote a nice note under the bit about my boats and why I have named them the silly names I have. So, I would reply here to J., particularly due to the fact that he made me think of some strange notions in my head with his premise concerning my possible origins and three writers of note who might have tried to rear me up after snatching me away.

This is what J. wrote after I explained to him I exist:

“Sorry – it’s just all very strange. As if Kurt Vonnegut, Franz Kafka and Ismail Kadare together raised a child to adulthood, dropped him off in Canada and said, “your turn”.

As I sit here in my office in New York City, looking out over Times Square, I am much more interested in what’s happening in Blind Channel.”

Thank you.

I reply here –

J,

It’s predicted to rain around Blind Channel through Tuesday, with some chance that the sun might be spotted Sunday sometime. There were a few whales around this morning.

Your second note was of interest to me. It brought back some old memories.

When I was a little kid, there were three men once spotted skulking around in the general area where I was born, which is near a place called An Daingean, which some people refer to as Dingle. They may have been the guys you mention, these Vonnegut, Kafka and Kadare fellows.

Some say the three of them claimed to be writers who were on a sort of romp around the raw southwest of Ireland, behaving like lost souls and mooching food, drink and lodging at every opportunity. Legend has it they were trying to gather some material.

There was in those days a great deal of suspicion aimed at folks like that given the very insulated nature of the area near Dingle and Tralee Bays, extending all the way back down the track to Killarney. It was said, according to my Mother, that the men came “too far” when they wandered out on the peninsula, so they hastily went back up the road through Camp and were last seen headed down the M22 for Cork aboard a sidecar motorbike. The driver reportedly had large, bushy eyebrows.

However, around age four, my parents spirited me off before any itinerent writers could get me, bacause much of my extended family already were/are itinerent writers posing as fishermen, brewery workers, pirmary school teachers and a priest.(Ha! What a crock that is!) My parents thought there were enough writers around not making any money. It was their intent, they claimed, “to not raise another.” That said, both of my parents dabbled in the written word but were extremely careful whom they let know.

We moved to St. Johns, Newfoundland, and then out into the bush and tundra where the old man did surveys looking for mineral deposits. He was a geologist. Oddly, the area of Newfoundland where we went can clearly be seen on a map to have broken off of Ireland at some point and drifted away.

The east coast of Newfoundland and the west coast of Ireland make a perfect jigsaw puzzle fit. Go look for yourself, it’s quite true.

We could reportedly witness the sunset over the sea from where I was born, although I hardly remember. My father, on the other hand, would remember vividly and he described over the ensuing years to me the sunsets when he took us in the car out the Dingle Peninsula to the cliffs overlooking a forlornly beautiful place called Great Blasket Island.

The island was a place about which my Father would tell stories of painfully green spring grasses and huge schools of porpoises that would gambol about in the local waters. It was clear to me that my Father did not like having to leave the area to work elsewhere.

Once we were ensconsed in Newfie, we could see the sun come up from the cliffs near the Marconi wireless station where the first news that the Titanic was sinking was received from the striken ship itself.

Now that is a windy and barren, yet hauntingly beautiful place, where you can, at certain times of the year, see thousands of puffins nesting in the rocks, or massive icebergs drifting past hundreds of feet below. It was as if the sun was being handed right off across the water from one group of Irish broke people to the other group of Irish broke people on the other side.

Father always commented with a degree of irritation it was “just as though we’re looking at ourselves in a blasted mirror.”

I suppose that meant we just may as well have stayed where we were to start, I am not sure. I am sorry to say I can’t ask him as he passed four years ago. I think he had something more like Florida in mind when we left Ireland, however his brother lived in St. Johns and a job was waiting and Florida is not noted for its vast mineral wealth, is it?

I grew up on that side of Canada before I decided to move west in an attempt to learn to speak English in such a way that could be understood by a non-native of Newfie. That means, I had to learn to speak English from scratch, a pursuit in which I remain engaged to the day.

Since you took the time to read any of this, I thought you might like to know.

I have never been to New York, but thanks for reading.