The clocks went forward. The sun came out. All the emails that landed in my inbox began in the same fashion. “Hope you are enjoying the sunshine this week.”
We lifted the covers off Fintan’s Furniture, the outdoor furniture our friend (Fintan) gave us as a wedding gift. It had been undercover for months but then the sun came out and it stayed out. Everything felt different. Something in the air. Newness. Possibility. Pollen? I was very much enjoying the sunshine this week.
I cooked up a storm, served my family chilli con carne al fresco and frozen quinoa burgers al fresco and pasta surprise al fresco. I thought about tariffs and penguins, about wars and stock markets. Then I decided to think about party paraphernalia instead, ordering decorations for an upcoming birthday party, getting into heated debates about pizza toppings and crisp flavours. We’ll be hanging a white sheet from Ikea over our “yarden”, putting up lights on the outside walls. I thought about making a balloon arch à la Meghan Markle, but she made it look even harder than I ever imagined it would be to make a balloon arch. There will be mocktails and a matcha station. Meghan, eat your heart out.
The party is to celebrate the fact that we will have two 16-year-olds in this house soon, which is blowing my mind a bit. They were newborn spring babies once upon a time. Gurgling and rocking gently in the yarden while I sang them to sleep about wanting a room somewhere and spring creeping over the window sill. Those days are long gone and who knows where the time goes. Not me, anyway. No clue.
The sun came out and then it stayed out. (Loverly.) Walking around town with a book about the monsters who made Facebook in my ears I saw a woman striding along Westland Row wearing short pink shorts. I saw people spreading jackets as blankets on the grass in Merrion Square. I spotted cherry blossoms on the branches and I smiled as John Spillane’s words danced in my head. Well done everyone, I thought to myself. Well done.
Another sunny morning arrived like a surprise. I got dressed and went to meet old and new friends for breakfast in the Merrion Hotel. Breakfast is the new lunch. Pineapple and porridge. Boiled eggs, medium. Baked eggs and chorizo. A lot of coffee, some jasmine tea. Talking and laughing and talking, until we were the only ones left and our waiter Fiona gently steered us elsewhere so they could get the place ready for lunch. The long breakfast is the new long lunch.
Lunch is still great too. The next day, all blue skies and gentle breezes, I met a friend in the Pepper Pot Cafe. She was in the midst of a complicated kind of grief. We ate pear and bacon sandwiches while I listened carefully to what she was saying and to what she wasn’t able to say. Afterwards, I spent too much money on a new Scrabble board with the hope it might improve my game, the way I imagine a cyclist thinks the purchase of new shorts might make them go slightly faster.
I’d neglected my own bike in recent months and now, with everything so sunny and bright, I had a physical ache to get back on the saddle. I collected the bike from the bike shop where it was in for repairs. Someone had slashed the seat, so they gave me a new one. I also added a cushiony, gel-filled, bottom-friendly cover. One of the pedals was falling half off so they fitted a new pair.
Delighted with life, I cycled my souped-up bike into town, locked the bike outside the Abbey and went to meet a friend for dinner in Meagher’s Pub on the quays. Delicious buttermilk chicken burgers, home-made salt and vinegar crisps, kimchi chips, the freshest fish.
Back at the Abbey I went to show off the new saddle to my friend but the bike was not there. I had no time to grieve or ring the guards and anyway, what could be done? We went into the Abbey to see Youth’s The Season-? by Mary Manning, a play written nearly 100 years ago by an astonishingly talented 26-year-old Dubliner. The cast is full of bright young things, playing an absolute blinder. The play itself is fresh and relevant and I forgot about my stolen bike while I listened to Manning’s words. She was way ahead of her time. One of two gay characters in the play is asked to “drop the effeminate cliche” and Desmond replies, decades before Lady Gaga ever opened her mouth, “It’s my temperament. I was born this way.”
I came to terms with the loss of my wheels quickly; it was only a bike, nobody died. And there was always the Bike to Work scheme. When I got home I sent an email to the office to check if it was still available. Then I checked the weather app. It said rain and clouds and colder air was incoming. I’ll believe it when I see it. Anyway, soon there will be 16 candles on a chocolate pistachio cake and two young almost-women with their lives ahead of them dancing with their friends under kitchen disco lights. Youth’s the season for joys. And the sun will shine again.
