Sneak Peeks by Louise Yeiser McAlpin

Kiss Me, I'm Irish

Not really, but do it anyway.  It’s St. Patrick’s Day, a day of  magic and mischief, not to mention green beer and all-day drinking.  I will celebrate with my son, Nicholas, who is home for a St. Patty’s evening hockey game.  Tomorrow he leaves for Cincinnati to visit his dad, while I stay behind for writer’s lockdown, a miserable state of rigid isolation that increases in hysteria and intensity the closer I get to deadline, which is, appropriately enough, April Fool’s Day.  That doesn't bode well for me, does it?  Ah, well.  All the more reason for the aforementioned hysteria. 

For today, I’ll give the party-ers their green beer, while I fill my head with those mystical pots of gold, magical leprechauns, good fortune and the gracious green of Ireland.  Today we’re all Irish, even me, so each of us is eligible for good luck and kisses.  Be on the lookout.  You never know when they’ll strike.

Click here for an Irish jam session in a hotel bar.

Click here for some lively Irish dancing.

Click here for your Irish blessing.

Happy St. Pat's Day, yeah. 

  From Louise

a Bit o' Luck, a Lot o' Skill

St. Patrick's Day is much more meaningful to me this year, since it's a celebration not only of the beloved saint, but also of Ireland, and I am hoping to go to the emerald isle this summer to write under the tutelage of Carlo Gébler, as part of the Carlow University's low-residency MFA Creative Writing program.  I just finished reading Father and I: a memoir and I am awestruck by his writing.  How terrific it would be to continue working on this with such a memoir master looking over my shoulder.  So while today may be the day for green, shamrocks, pots of gold at ends of rainbows, leprechauns, magic and the luck o’ the Irish, I am wishing for every ounce of writing skill existing in my body, mind and spirit to form compelling, stunning, breath-taking ideas and sentences and paragraphs and descriptions and titles in my head and come pouring out of my fingers onto the keyboard, to be flashed onto this flickering screen in front of me, so I can edit and rewrite what I hope to be the most ingenious, knock-your-socks-off, wickedly beautiful and introspectively haunting 25 pages of creative nonfiction I have ever written.  Because, you see, Ireland beckons. 

Happy St. Patrick's Day to you, yeah.

Bits o' This, Bits o' That

Today's blog entry is brought to you by Unconscious Mutterings (week 214) and SixSentences.com.

Ryan  ::  Seacrest.

Gay or straight?  It wouldn't have occurred to me to wonder, if Simon hadn’t been teasing him mercilessly about coming out of the closet (check it out).  Each week , there’s a new barb, a new comment, a new insinuation. And then he turns his venomous wit onto the kids.  I shudder, thinking of it.  He's reminiscent of a mentor/tutor/coach gone mad and running amok among the populace, popping into view here and there to shatter people with opinions that he chucks like spears.  And though I may agree with his performance assessments almost always, I have to say that if I were in his shoes, I would be inclined to remember that I was speaking to a bunch of kids and young adults, not another jaded old man like myself, and would find a less hurtful way to tell them that they suck.

Intuition  ::  Trouble.

I have a well-intentioned commitment to practice the fine art of living my life intuitively.  This possibly gets me into more trouble than anything else I can think of at the moment, and will probably continue do so until I learn the difference between an exciting idea and an intuition.  My friend, Kate from Portland OR, once told me, “Sometimes those exciting ideas are little gifts from the Universe.”  Oh, yeah?  Well, sometimes they’re not.

Apology  ::  Nope.

I won’t apologize for looking too long at one of my fellow students, fodder for a riské piece that Six Sentences picked up.  Or am I just creating Mrs. Robinson-type fiction and passing it off as memoir, just to get your attention?  I'm not telling.

Keep 'em guessing, and have a wee bit o' fun and a great St. Patty's weekend.

From Louise

A St. Pat's Non-List

When I was young, I thought St. Patrick’s Day was a terrific excuse to wear green, kiss everybody in sight, drink like a fish, and pretend to be Irish; but now that I’m older and wiser, I have a greater appreciation for the history behind the holiday.

Although every account I have read of St. Patrick's life differs on the details, this is the main gist of what I can piece together.  As a child, St. Patrick was a herder in Northern Ireland, was sold into slavery as a teen, escaped his captors, converted to Christianity, became the 2nd Bishop of Ireland, abolished the pagan rites of the Druids at Tara, converted all the leaders without bloodshed, and baptized thousands of people in holy wells that still bear his name today.  In his spare time, he founded monasteries, schools, and churches, doing such a good job of expanding the Church’s influence that it’s no wonder he achieved sainthood.  On the date of his death, March 17, 461, St. Patrick’s Day was born, and has survived throughout the ages to the present.

Of course there is a bit o’ mythical magic surrounding this holiday, especially since we’ve had centuries to embellish the old stories and make up new ones.  A favorite is that St. Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland.  While this may have been caused by the island separating from the rest of the continent at the end of the Ice Age, I concede that this explanation is no fun at all.  So I believe that St. Patrick did it with magic, which makes him even more heroic because nobody really likes snakes anyway, being sneaky, creepy, and given their propensity for causing people’s downfalls, and all. Besides, magic is always better than the truth, so I’m sticking to my guns on this one.

In my quest to find out why the shamrock represents good luck, I learned that St. Patrick often used one during his sermons to illustrate the relationship between the three facets of the Holy Trinity.  Thus starting as a great visual aid and religious symbol, over time it became a tribute to the saint, and eventually morphed into the easily recognized symbol of Irish luck we enjoy today.

For many of us, St. Patrick’s Day is a celebration of all things Irish.  For the more devout, it is a quiet day of renewal and prayer.  Still for others, it’s the beginning of spring.  And then there are those to whom it will always be just a terrific excuse to wear green, kiss everybody in sight, drink like a fish, and pretend to be Irish.  Given all that, there is one thing of which I am certain: on St. Patrick’s day, celebrated year after year on March 17, we are all Irish, each and every one of us.

On that note, Happy St. Patrick’s Day.  I wish you well.

A Partially Reverent Review of St. Patrick's Day. Sort Of.

I used to think that St. Patrick’s Day was just another excuse to claim to be Irish, kiss everybody in sight, drink and act like a complete dodo head, but after having done a wee bit o’ research on the subject, I can see that there is a little more to it than that.

Of course, I always knew that St. Patrick was the patron saint of Ireland, but I didn’t realize how ancient the holiday itself was, dating back to the saint’s lifetime, around 385 - 461 AD.  I also didn’t fully appreciate that he was credited with bringing Christianity, specifically Catholicism, to the island.  Somebody had to drive out the pagans, right?  Apparently not.  Instead, he converted them.  Good for St. Pat!

At 16, he was sold into slavery, escaped his captors and became a Christian convert, to eventually be appointed the 2^nd Bishop of Ireland, hell bent on converting the Irish pagans to Christianity.  He was responsible for abolishing the pagan rites of the Druids at Tara, converting the warrior chiefs and princes, and baptizing thousands of people in holy wells that still bear his name today.  He founded monasteries, schools and churches throughout the country.  No wonder he became a saint.  He did a terrific job of expanding the Catholic Church’s influence during his lifetime.  And on the date of his death, March 17, 461, St. Patrick’s Day was born, and has survived down through the ages, a holiday almost as old as Christmas.

There is a bit o’ magic and mystery surrounding this holiday.  Naturally.  We’ve had centuries to embellish the old stories and make up new ones.  A common favorite is the one where St. Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland.  While it is true there are no snakes there, and probably never were, it is most likely due to the fact that the island became separated from the rest of the continent at the end of the Ice Age.  But if a person would rather believe that St. Patrick did it, that’s okay by me. Most of the time, I prefer magic to the truth myself.  However, it is difficult to ignore the obvious metaphor between the snakes and the pagan rituals which were driven away by our Irish hero.  It’s all a matter of individual perspective, I suppose.

I always wondered why the shamrock became regarded as a symbol of good luck.  Apparently, St. Patrick commonly used one during his sermons to illustrate the relationship between the Holy Trinity.  Great visual aid!  The shamrock thus started out as a teaching tool and religious symbol, and over time, became a token of good luck, worn on St. Patrick’s day to commemorate the saint himself, eventually developing into a more generic symbol of good luck.

Today, St. Patrick’s Day is a celebration of the luck o’ the Irish and is associated with the colors green and gold, with shamrocks, pots of gold at ends of rainbows, leprechauns, luck and magic.  Among the more devout, it is a day for spiritual renewal and prayer.  And still for others, it’s a celebration heralding the coming of spring.  And then there are those to whom it is just another excuse to claim to be Irish, kiss everybody in sight, drink and act like a complete dodo head.

For me, St. Patrick’s Day is an opportunity to wish people well with a phone call, a hug or a kiss.  And on St. Patrick’s Day, we are all Irish, every single one of us.

On that note, Happy St. Patrick’s Day.  I wish you well.