There are days when people with difficulties and traumas can't do much. I had a day like that recently.
What matters in life is every day. Every minute. And on days when your present is disrupted by the past, sometimes remembering and putting the memories to bed again is all you can do.
A few weeks ago I came home upset and sad. All I could do is listen to music, cry, and let some of the emotion out. I don't do that often. As an autistic person and a survivor, I am very static and can seem without the sad and angry emotions at all unless I'm really provoked, and of course there was no one to see me cry.
Sometimes it helps to let the emotions out, to use music, as I do, to bring up the memories and then put them to bed again so I can feel better.
I started writing this post back on that day when I came home feeling bad, but so much happens in life, and it is now the week between Christmas and New Year. I had a nice Christmas, for me it isn't piles of gifts, there were no piles of gifts, but a Christmas without violence, without suffering, without squalid accommodation, without grief and anger and pain, a Christmas in a warm clean place with plenty of food and tea, a jigsaw puzzle, films, music, Mass on Christmas Day, a very nice dinner and a long walk. That's all I need, and I know I am luckier than some, that for once in all those hard, lonely, violent or desperate Christmases, I now have had a nice Christmas. If you are a survivor as I am, you may be wondering if that means things will go wrong in the New Year - yes, we do that don't we?
Not everyone loves music or uses it to rouse and put to bed memories, but it's something I do, and it helps me, as you may have read, I walk round Limerick with my headphones or earphones and my music on, it makes me less afraid of being out among people, a thing I have never shaken off but which lessened a little with the help of a psychologist.
Music can be an incredible help to mental health, and a large percentage of the population like music and can access it. Do you like music? Treat yourself to some music if you can, whatever genre or style you like, or explore new genres. I do a virtual travel project and as I virtually travel, I learn about new styles of music from around the world.
What do I mean by virtual travel? Well it started when I lived in France during the first part of the 'Covid Pandemic' and we were all fairly static then, and I had a feeling I'd always be poor and never be able to travel as I dreamed, so I started to explore the world virtually. I do most of this visually with comprehensive Youtube videos on the history, geography, topography and demographics of each country plus all notable places, features and culture, and then I use travel vlogs to actually visit each country. I've learned a lot, I write out what I learn but it's not for publication, it's purely for my own interest, and it's a geek thing, it's just for me, because even now, living in Ireland. I feel I may never get to travel much. I am on my 147th country and will also go on to disputed and overseas territories when I've done the official countries.
I don't want to bore you with the above, but it's another example of how life is limitless, you can learn and travel when you're disabled and a pandemic restricts the whole world from travel, so there I was, a UK citizen, living in France and then Ireland during the pandemic, and travelling all the time. It's as I said in previous posts, there are ways round roadblocks and barriers, you just have to find them.
Back to music. What music reminds you of childhood? What music reminds you of dating? What music reminds you of bad times? What music reminds you of good times? What music reminds you of grief? Use music to help you with emotions, you'll be surprised.
That night when I came home in a sad mood and had a rare cry, I went through a huge selection of music from present to distant past. The Limerick Love Song which is in my daily playlist 'By your side' by 10th Avenue North was in there of course: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdjRmM0Q0qs
Then there were songs such as 'Memory' from the musical 'Cats' and 'Old Toy Trains' by Roger Miller, which reminds me of my brother and Christmas. I haven't spoken to my brother for many years and probably never will again, he and I were close but my family are unstable and abusive and I have no contact with them. But if you can imagine growing up in a big family and then being totally separated from them, it's times like Christmas that it can hurt, but I have to think that it's the right thing for me, for my well-being. Music helps me to remember and then put the memories to bed.
Trains and the railway were a central part of my life when I was young, and I remain an extreme train fan, and am sorely disappointed with trains and railways in Ireland, unfortunately, but I remember the trains and railways in the UK, back when they were good, yes, I'm old enough to remember. To remember slam door trains with windows which opened so that you could put your head out and the diesel locos. A big piece of my heart is with the old train days and the railway which was.
All of us were hooked on the railway, and a family in crisis and distress found comfort in the familiarity of the railways, the trains and the stations. My brothers and sister would spend a lot of time down at the stations, passing the time and escaping the hellish situations at home, and they got to know all the station staff by name. Things are different now, you wouldn't be sitting chatting to the sparse station staff, on stations which have staff, but back then, even on that busy mainline, the staff were genial and happy to chat, a bit like in 'The Railway Children' perhaps.
When I was aged between 8 and 11, my sister was suicidal, badly abused and with no one to turn to as my parents refused to engage about abuse and were too caught up in their own problems, so she'd go and stand on the foot crossing or the foobridge on the railway line and try to find the courage to be killed by a train, and then she'd come home and tell me about it, no one else, she'd tell me. I was close to my older sister just as I was close to my older brother, they were essentially pseudo parents to me and of course my sister's suicide ideation and the fact that she only confided in me, had a lifelong effect on me. It's one of the reasons I'm writing this blog. I want you to live.
One of the places where my sister used to consider suicide is unfortunately too often a scene of suicide even now, as the train tracks are so accessible, and when I was researching last year, there was a suicide there. It made me think, what happens to the train and driver if the train he's driving hits someone? I looked it up and it's a lengthy and complicated process and the driver is of course affected. Suicides on train lines are too common in the UK, I don't know about Ireland but there have certainly been a few while I've been here.
My sister used to be down at the railway every day, and often on the trains as well, she used to go in the Guard's Van with her bike, another old tradition that's been lost, the guard's van was for the train guard, parcels and bikes, she used to ride in the guard's van and talk to the guard. It's good that she got away from the family and talked to people, I didn't get so much opportunity to get away, we didn't normally go to school, a gypsy family and outside of society including schools. My sister would come home and she'd listen to 'Another Town Another Train' by Abba, 'Move On' also by Abba, 'Where the Waves Roll out to Sea'... and so those songs were part of my life. It was indeed the end of 89 when we listened to 'Happy New Year' and looked out at the darkness and the sea with the foghorns from the different ports shouting out the New Year's greeting in turn. 'What lies waiting down the line, at the end of 89...' another song and memory which stays with me.
'Another Town Another Train' became my theme tune, still partly is, the song of a brokenhearted traveller who lived and died on the railway line, only I didn't die, neither did my sister, we went on through life, damaged and full of problems. When I hear 'Another Town Another Train' I'm back there on that seashore in the dark, I'm back there by that railway line, and my sister, who is long gone from my life and who I will never see again, is there with me. Day to day I barely think of that family I was in, I barely give them thought, which sounds harsh, but it's the right thing for me to be separated from them, for the sake of my health, but if or when I need or want to remember, then songs wake the memories and then put them to bed.
I wish I could tell you that things got better and we all lived happily ever after, but no, things only got worse, and by age 16, my sister had left the family and gone back there, to the town between the beach and the railway which we'd left behind, moved away from. Aged 16 and severely damaged, she tried to make her own way rather than going on being part of the family, and she ended up injured and starving. She left me her photo albums and her music. She was obviously a great Abba fan and said that 'When all is said and Done' was the song that made her realise that our parents didn't care if she lived or died. And that song reminds me of my bewilderment over her leaving us, and leaving me alone with no one to talk to, as my brother was preoccupied with other things now. My sister was one of the great influences on my early life. Then when we moved again, and Christmas was coming, my brother remembered me and took me under his wing again, we listened to Greg Lake's 'I believe in Father Christmas' as we secretly tried to make Christmas in poor conditions special for the other children.
You can possibly see a pattern there with me and my brother and Christmas. It started when we were 7 years old in that terrifying unregulated hostel with the addicts and alcoholics, secretly preparing gifts and goodies to make Christmas special for our siblings. And until this year, he would be in my thoughts at Christmas, but now my family are really fading from my memory, family are important, they shape who you are, they shape your brain, and I'm damaged for life, but they were important, it's just now they've been gone so long and hurt me so badly that as I grow, I am moving away from them and the memories, they are too far beyond forever and are not the children I grew up with anymore. And this is something I mentioned, it can be very hard to leave hurtful and abusive relationships, but when we leave, despite the pain, we then start to grow.
The worst year of my young life was when I was 12 years old. During that whole year we were caught up in serious gang violence, and I suffered a breakdown defending my mother and sibling's lives until help arrived, this was just one of the many many incidents of extreme violence during that year and throughout my childhood. I had a breakdown, but because my parents didn't allow and were against medical and psychological help, I didn't get help and became elective mute, non-speaking. The song that reminds me of those times is 'Both side of the Story' by Phil Collins. What I describe is sometimes assumed to be Belfast when people hear parts of my story, but it wasn't. In recent times, the world has expressed horror at the UK riots and the excuses made for those riots, and of how school children were involved, but it isn't new, it is part of UK culture and was around in the 80s and 90s. It isn't new but it wasn't original bred on racial hatred or immigration propaganda, there were other things behind it back then, but it has to feed off something and so race and immigration became the target.
'Both sides of the Story' by Phil Collins takes me from that terrible year as a 12 year old on the dangerous sink estates, to the ghettos of the big city not long after, out of the frying pan and into the frying pan with no relief.
I always tell everyone if I tell them anything about my life 'I'm only telling you the tip of the iceberg'. And that's all I can do here. I manage my memories and emotions and file them safely through music, I've only named a few songs here but for me, every place, person and emotion has a song, and I believe that is what has saved me. Does music help you? Could it help you? I have so many more memories and songs but I think I've shared enough for today and will continue the music theme another time. If you don't already, try using music to help you with life.
My Limerick/198 playlist includes:
- 'Snow in August' Patrick Doyle's composition from Nanny McPhee. The 198 Theme.
- 'By your Side' 10th Avenue North - The Limerick Love Song.
- 'Long before your Time' Johnny McEvoy.
- 'Goodbye Yellowbrick Road' Elton John.
- 'Ship to Shore' Chris deBurgh.
- 'See beneath you're Beautiful' Emile Sande and Labrinth.
- 'Limerick you're a Lady' Various.
- 'Three leaf Shamrock' Various
- 'Are you right there Michael' Various - I know it's a Clare song but I'm a hybrid like many people.
- 'Brahm's Lullaby' Jewel - for O'Brien's Bridge (a village near Limerick).
- 'Any Tipperary Town' Various - just to be controversial.
A note on the last one. Hurling is a fiercely competitive sport, especially in County Clare, but also Limerick and Tipperary. And the little town of Clarecastle has three sports, hurling, hurling missiles, and Mass when you stop hurling things. If someone really angers you, you get the lads to bundle him into a van, drop him blindfold at Clarecastle with a hurley in his hand and shout out 'Hey lads! The Tipperary Team are here!' and drive off, hoping you remembered to give Michael a bullet proof hat and some body armour. I'll tell you the one about Mass next time.
I wish I could put Limerick November and December 2024 in a freeze frame, in a snow globe, and keep it forever. Some of the happiest days of my life. That fecker who left me on the streets sold the property he was supposedly putting me in to rent, early in December, interesting. He wasn't really going to give me a tenancy, but didn't I fall for his games? And it devastated me but didn't kill me, because bad things happen in life, and life doesn't need to end, even if we carry the wounds, the scars. Life is limitless and beautiful. Shock, anger, grief, they are normal when bad things happen, and then slowly, we start to move forward, maybe to change things as a result of what's happened.
I use music to help me with everything, and in the early days, sometimes all I could do was listen to my Limerick playlist, go in church to rage to God, and sit quietly.
