AH SURE AZURE

Author: Kathy

  • Protest as an Effective Means of Change?

    Protest as an Effective Means of Change?

    Resisting something makes you focus on it. It draws you in to it and makes you focus on something you don’t like. Like not using AI. Like becoming incensed when Windows takes over your operating system. It’s a kinetic relationship and you become closer to and more focused on what you don’t like or what you object to.

    Like painting a banner and standing in the street. You become part of the thing you object to. The thing you’re objecting to becomes more objectionable because you can’t change it. Yet you continue to stand, to object, to become a pillar of resistance that won’t relent until someone else does something.

    And that is the key. Waiting for someone else to do something is never a recipe for success. There has to be action. I have observed Democrat objectors all across the USA standing with banners, with slogans they thought up that they believe are saying something. ‘No Kings’ – what does that mean?

    It takes a couple of thought processes to realise it means that Donald Trump thinks he’s a king, but we’re saying he’s not. But the fact is, noone thinks Donald Trump is a king.Unless the protesters do. In some strange way, they are conferring kingship on him which I’m sure is not their aim at all.

    As for action, we wait for Democrats to publish a policy manifesto that will inspire people. We wait for a leader to come forward who will unite people. But all we get is resistance. It’s a bit adolescent to be still standing up to your elders. And Donald Trump is the first to sniff this out. It’s called weakness. and he pounces on it like a cat all over a mouse.

    The ideal of peaceful resistance, starting with Ghandi, and continued with the Civil Rights movement in the USA, is a wonderful thing. But it’s not the same as the defeated party in an election garnering consolation by massive demonstrations, saying little except they don’t like the government. Be a party in opposition. Pull up your big boy pants and knock on the door of your congressman – create real action instead of familiarizing yourself with what you don’t like. Put your focus on where you want to be instead of bemoaning the status quo.

  • LIVING IN A SMALL SPACE Reflections on Control

    Moving from a one hundred square metre space to one of forty square metre is exciting. It’s a pretty, cheerful studio with everything one needs. A TV infront of the bed, washing machine next to the sink and a neat mini oven and hob tucked in behind the bathroom door. It’s like being away for the weekend.

    Meanwhile the renovation of the one hundred square metre space is ongoing. Walls are pulled down and the bathroom is deconstructed. Bits lie all over the garden like shrapnel from a bombing. Rubble lies on the floor and the workers take off for the weekend.

    My heart is still in that place and the rubble is lying on my atria, my ventricle is covered in dust. My grazed persona calls the men to please clean up. They do, sweeping through the place with the force of a small army.

    Why is this so stressful? Not living there at present should give me distance and the ability to wait. But I dwell in the present. I don’t have the ability to see or to trust that this place will be cleaned. It will be built back up again, it will be renovated. But for now, it’s a grey dusty place that my personality won’t allow me to see as temporary.

    I look at kitchen plans through dull eyes with a distressed spirit. Yes’ that’s fine, that will do’ is my default. My friends pings me with another Pinterest idea. She’s American and passionate about ‘makeovers’. She jolts me into action with the effectiveness of an electric shock. Her vision is contagious. we see sunken 1960s kitchens, luxurious wooden floors and underfloor heating. My workers see laminate and heaters on the walls.

    Then I miss sitting out, watching the sun rise in the mornings. My studio begins to feel like a prison. I wake up with an urge to get out every day and gallivant in cafes. but even this wish is thwarted because I have to tour the plumbers shops, wander the electrical cooperative and order skips. Then they arrive in the evening, just when I’m breathing out and swtiching on a film. ‘Ela Katerina’, I hear from downstairs, or a knock on the door reminds me the work is only starting.

    All elements of control of my life have vanished down the bathroom sink that now lies in a landfill. There are bright moments, when the guy in the plumbing coop spends two hours patiently going through the steps to creating a bathroom. He gently corrects me if I say somenthing about the sink style – that’s the next step- Oh, I say, of course – that’s the next step. He shows me the glossly tiles, assures me they will be safe and listens with a poker face when I say I want the taps in the middle of the bath in case – you know- noone likes the tap end.

    I reflect on how nice it is to have all this attention paid to my needs and taste. I still can’t see it, though. It’s like homesickness – you think the distressed stage will never end. Is it an inability to see a future? It’s like having your senses cut off so you’re disconnected from the earth and the seasons.

    Renovations here in Greece move with the seasons. As the weather improves, as Easter approaches, magic happens. No wonder the Sun God was worshipped. Stuff happens when he shines and casts his blessing. Meanwhile, we go on thinking we’re in control.

  • Forty Years, really?

    Forty Years, really?

    River Lee Hotel, Cork

    Forty Year Reunion  15th November 2025

    We spent three years together.

    sitting in lecture halls, standing outside waiting for the professors, sitting around styrofoam cups of coffee in the Rest, near each other, together even if not engaging.

    Ninety percent of communication is body language. We got to know who was standing beside us without looking, we knew the backs of each other’s heads from a distance of forty feet.

    We recognised a laugh across the quad and we were all equally part of what was going on, welcomed, brought up to date, , always with a laugh or a smile. because times were good. 

    We were young, ambitious, and mostly healthy. The world was our oyster. So we partied, those of us living at home envious of the students who came up from the country, who lived in flats they shared with classmates, where the parties happened.

    Twelve lectures a week, some tutorials and library study when we felt inclined, with one set of exams, at the end of the third term. 

    No contiuous assessments, no papers to be submitted mid term, just a massive cramming three weeks before and after Easter.

    We formed our groups, girls and fellas. but always fun interaction, flirting and hilarious laughter. Always the light touch to lift us out of a rainy Monday morning, we fed off the levity in the air.

    Whether from a Kerry man with an incisive sense of humour, or a Corkman stating the obvious, it was always good natured and supportive.

    This is what has lasted down the years. 

    This is the gem that refuses to fizzle out when we meet. the ready smile of interest and curiosity, when we all have forged our way in life in our various ways. This meeting changes nothing in the direction of our lives. It doesn’t threaten us, we’re all coming with different baggage and life experience. 

    What we can share is a past, a memory of times when we moved a bit quicker and the world was our oyster.

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