You may call me Little Miss Sunshine!
The wonderfully
thoughtful and intellectual Mulier Fortis has very kindly nominated me for a
Sunshine Award. Now, I will delight in leaping through the following hoops…
CAUTION TO READERS: You need a sense of humour to read parts of the next section. At least have a tank of oxygen and a defibrillator at hand.
LIFE
1. I am an
emotional Benjamin Button. If Mr Button was born old and became younger, then I
was deadly serious as a child, and have become more light-hearted with age.
From sulks to smiles. From seriousness to high spirits. In my first year at school, the teacher was
trying to take a photo and I turned my mouth into a sullen frown. “Smile Mary,
go on, smile. All the other girls are smiling,” said the teacher. “I don’t like
the other girls, and I won’t smile like them,” was my retort. The teacher took
a sharp intake of breath and let the matter rest.
I found a
childhood photo that demonstrates that glum mood.
Then at 18,
a smile threatened to break forth…
And now as a
20-something, smiles abound….
 |
| Well, who wouldn't smile after getting roses? |
2. In the same
vein, when I was younger I used to only read books of a depressing nature, and
have grown into happier books. As a teenager I used to enjoy reading turgid
tragedies and painfully gritty realism. The thought of reading the same books
now literally turns my stomach.
3. Not a book
that I enjoyed, but the one that had the strongest influence on me was
undoubtedly Bernard Nathanson’s The Hand
of God. I’m struggling to put into
words the impact that Nathanson’s biography had on me. It was like reading the
book changed my genetic code and rewired my brain. I knew that I was a new
person for having read it. It instilled in me a compulsion to stop
abortions. Reading his descriptions of how
his own girlfriend had an abortion in 1945 when he was 19, and then how 20
years later Nathanson performed an abortion on his own child were some of the
hardest descriptions that my eyes have been subjected to.
When I lived
in New York, I was determined to get to know Bernard Nathanson, and after
pestering him with calls, he invited me to his home in Manhattan. When we were
finished talking he said, “thank you so much for visiting me. I’m so glad you
took the time. Your visit has meant a lot to me. I will pray for you.”
The photos
that I took of Nathanson and me were burned in a house fire. But I did save the
book that he signed from that fire.
As you can see, the fire licked the cover,
but not his dedication.
LOVE
4. There is one
reason why I have not dated more. Most people presume it’s because I can’t find
men who are prayerful. But that’s not the real reason. It’s because I have a
highly sensitive sense of smell. No kidding. I have the olfactory powers of a
bloodhound on speed. MI5 should hire me for special sniffing assignemnts. I
will pick up on the most remote off-putting smells released from a male, and it
dampens the attraction that I might otherwise feel.
5. OK, stop
badgering me! I am ready to divulge. I admit it: I have a HUGE CRUSH on a
London-based actor. A friend of mine
keeps joking that she will pick up a copy of The Daily Mail and see photos of
me and him having a clandestine stroll around Kensington. #Ishouldbesolucky This
actor chap has beautiful ears. In fact, his ears are nicer than mine, and this
could lead to an imbalance; the man should not have prettier ears than the
woman. But much more importantly, he smells wonderfully.
6. I’m crazy
about dogs. I covet t-shirts and jumpers that have dog patterns on them. One
great advantage to living in West London is that there are whole zoos of dogs
on every street. Every type of exotic pooch has been brought from the most
remote parts of the globe to be paraded on High Street Kensington. They say
Londoners are a cold, indifferent bunch. But if you tell them that their
Congolese sheep-dog has ‘a lovely coat’, as I often do, then you will see a
broad smile spread across their faces.
In South Kensington, you see guard dogs skulking around corners, the
high-powered Rottweiler that guards the plush domains of the super-wealthy. I
shy away from them.
7. If I ever
leave journalism, then I will become a dog-groomer. There is a dog-grooming
salon on Gloucester Road, and I asked the owners which are the requirements for
their employees. They told me about a reputable 18 month dog-grooming course.
WORK
8. I LOVE writing
for The Catholic Herald.
9. I published
my first piece of journalism when I was 18.
10. His Hermaneuticalness will love this. A week ago, at a Christmas dinner party, a
kind friend gave me a smoking lesson. I wanted to learn to be a glamorous
smoker who exhales like Rita Heyworth. This involved coaching me on puffing out
the smoke gracefully, but I still cough out the smoke in billows like a house on fire. The smoking lesson was to prepare me for two upcoming jobs. I am
preparing to interview two smokers, and have been given a tip-off that if I
smoke during the interview and offer cigarettes to the smoker-interviewees that
I’ll get better answers! I’ve been warned that if I don’t smoke, that the
interviewees will cut short the interview, and leave me so they can be in the company of
fellow smokers. By the time of the
interviews, if I still don’t smoke elegantly, then I can get the interviewees
to coach me on the dark art of smoking and write an account of it.
Most of the
blogs on my blog-roll have already been nominated. So, I went a’searching on Mr
Linen’s blog. Richard Collins has a remarkable blog-list and has a way of finding
Catholic bloggers who are very sincere and write edifying blogs.
LADIES FIRST
GENTLE
GENTLEMEN
In America, smoking is not nearly as common as it once was, and still is in Europe, so it'd be positively frowned upon (and illegal too) to smoke during an interview, unless it's x-feet away from the building and all that.
ReplyDeleteNow Miss O'Regan, how could you possibly know how this actor smells good?
Well done, sister Sunshine!
ReplyDeleteThank you for nominating me. Now I have something to write today. ;)
ReplyDeleteWow! I'm not sure that I read ten blogs, much less know ten inspiring bloggerites. But I'll surely do the ten item meme bit. And you shall likely be sorry.
ReplyDeleteThat pic of you as a child is wonderful, glum expression and all!
One tip: if you can get the hang of exhaling smoke through your nose, that should help you feel more in control of the whole process. It looks kinda cool, too.
ReplyDeleteDear Mary, thank you for nominating me for a Sunshine Award. I don't really deserve to be nominated for that but thank you anyway. I also wish to let you know that my mother passed away last Friday. Please pray for her and for me too as I feel the loss of her presence here so much at home. God bless you.
ReplyDeleteDear Anne, I'm so sorry to hear about your mother's death. Please accept my sincere condolences on your loss and I hope the grief eases.
DeleteGod bless you and your work,
Mary
Mary
ReplyDeleteYup here in California smoking isn't cool. Remember those things are cancer sticks. When I was younger I eventually discovered that as I wouldn't kiss an ashtray why would I bother to date someone who smelt like an ashtray?
OTOH I do enjoy reading your blog.. Please keep it up.
JM
Hi JM,
DeleteThank you so much for your comment. I'm so glad that you enjoy reading my blog, comments like yours make my day.
I agree with you that cigarettes are 'cancer sticks'. Here in London, on High St Kensington, there are so many people walking up and down with the electronic cigarettes. I smoke one cigarette every few years and am scared of smoking - because of the house fire that I had in 2008. I don't like matches or lighters or the electronic cigarettes, the flickers of fire from matches or lighters induce anxiety in me.
God bless always,
Mary