Advice

by ciaranorton on January 25, 2012 in Love with No comments

There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you — of kindness and consideration and respect — not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.

From a letter sent by John Steinbeck to his son Thom. Via.

Nothing to see here*

by ciaranorton on January 13, 2012 in Uncategorized with No comments

And it was with his glad sigh of relief when her light watery laughter curled up the side of the cliff and into his anxious ears that he knew he loved her.

From ‘The Offshore Pirate’, part of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s collection of short stories, ‘Flappers and Philosophers’.

*Just another girl-loves-Fitzgerald moment on the internetz.

 

 

Come again another day.

by ciaranorton on January 4, 2012 in Writing with No comments

The wind and rain we’re experiencing right now scares me. Its the sound, the all-encompassing sound you can’t hide from. No music drowns it out. The double glazing shakes; my room at the front of this house on a tiny hill seems to feel every single gust, every drop of damn rain. All of the other night noises, the noises I can recognise and differentiate (my neighbour’s car, my brother walking from his car to our house, the dog that never.stops.barking. barking…) are lost to weather and I sleep and wake and sleep and wake, stirred by noise I don’t recognise, am not familiar with. On Saturday we slept with the hotel balcony door open and the heating off, the slow hum of the city on New Years Day barely woke us. What a difference four nights makes.

Enter 2012

by ciaranorton on January 2, 2012 in Uncategorized with No comments

I’m in bed, in my pyjamas. I got up briefly around noon for food and took a bowl of cereal back to my duvet with me. This is my last real day of Christmas holidays. Tomorrow will be mostly taken up with The Fear.

The time has passed for a Christmas recap and with her wee photo collage I feel Rosemary summed up our NYE experience perfectly here.

Happy New Year, happy new you, happy old you and happy future you.

I quite like what I think 2012 might have in store.

Stuck in the middle

by ciaranorton on December 21, 2011 in Travel with No comments

As a crossroads of history, Jordan is surely unrivalled. It is here that Moses, during the Exodus, struck a rock from which water sprung. The north-south line of the nearby Jordan River, which feeds the Dead Sea, follows the ancient trade routes from Europe southwards to bountiful Egypt. To the east are the Tigress and Euphrates of Mesopotamia, where the cut of the first plough heralded the dawn of human civilisation; to the west is the Mediterranean where the Hellenistic world first made footfall even before Alexander the Great came through on his way to India. Jesus was baptised by John the Baptist just up the road. The Crusades were fought all around. The Ottoman’s Hejaz Railway was destroyed by Lawrence of Arabia just over there. The list is endless.

from ‘Jaunt Around Jordan’ by John Lane in the Irish Times

Some of my happiest memories are from our time in Jordan as youngins. I think the time has come to go back.

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