Valerie Masters

Ten pence Daddy... A memory ♥️

2025-12-14T11:27:20.315-08:00

Did you ever leave school in the early eighties as a underweight scratchy child with a school bag bigger than the bones carrying it and a hunger that meant you wished you hadn't given your only 5 pence to the poor black babies box coz you could have gone into Babs or Maureen or Phil in the Country Shop with your swollen belly and gotten free soda bread and butter or slipped into Flynns Bakery and played the victim so they'll give you a fresh bun or even gone on down to Michael Walsh and bought a packet of Bourbon biscuits, which are actually 10 pence but he's so kind he'll smile and pretend you handed him 10 pence. But you've left home this morning and you were warned to be good and honest so you cling to that 5 pence and you fall out the road to home and you pray you won't die from starvation, and you pretend you don't recognise the other children walking fast in front of you, bloody family. Is it you ignoring them or they denying you. A question I've never dared to ponder.

And suddenly you're at Kennys avantly (hey it's what I called it) and you know if you make it around the corner then you'll see the block factory and there lies the paradise you've longed for.

There lies your Daddy, leaning against the little office counter, a ring of cigarette smoke writing lines in the ceiling, his fingers browning below his nails. He smiles and nods at me, nodding at the bloody family as well but they don't matter. I've walked 500 miles and I'm safe and pretty soon he'll nod again soon at one of the lorry drivers and I'll be lifted up into a truck that's 1000 feet off the ground and I'll be bound for home.

It could be Oliver or Paudgin or Hugo or John or any of the kind block builders thats driving and you don't care coz they're so kind and it's a bloody lorry. You're swanning over Toome bridge and you might not make it, it's so high up and maybe you'll die then you don't and you're safe and your underweight ass sits on the stoop waiting for daddy to stub out his fag, lock his office and arrive home only for daddy to pull you off the stoop and demand to know why you haven't been helping Mammy

I swear to god when I grow up I'll not sit and the stoop any more. I'll not, and then he can't shout at me.....

But suddenly I'm grown up and the stoop is a memory and the block factory is gone and Daddy is gone and I can't help Mammy like he asked coz she's gone, and the Country Shop, flynns bakery and Michael Walshs is gone and if I had 10 pence now I'd hold it so tight and make a wish to have a stoop to sit on while watching the world I loved stroll by... maybe if I had two 10 pences if be able to watch the world stroll by from the front of a lorry......

Maybe that extra 10 pence will get me an extra wish to get a hug from Daddy and Mammy one more time.....

Valerie Masters

Can I be Santa....?

2024-12-29T15:36:00.001-08:00

I'm not sure I'd be able for the suit but sometimes I wish I could try it on and shoulder the magic and hardship that goes with wearing the title of Santa... this year more than ever. This year I wanted Santa to just visit everyone I loved and place a pray on them, because I knew they were praying for me, this year I begged for it, most of the time, and at times I thought if I was Santa I'd make all the people I knew and the town I loved forget for a moment that they were suffering or grieving something or someone.....

I'm adult enough to know that I couldn't handle being Santa but every now and again I fool myself into thinking I'm more than capable....
I'm not talking about the Santa that comes every Christmas eve and leaves dreams and presents under the tree for the little children all over the world to wake up to..... we all know he exists.

He's legend he is.. I remember writing to him and I can still see my left handed scrawl begging him for a doll and promising I'd be better next year if he'd only see how much I needed that damn doll and how much I'd be accepted if I could take that doll to school and brag that Santa comes to all of us even if I'm harmless in the head..... yep Santa comes to even me....
No tonight I'm talking about the other Santa we choose to believe in, the one we need to believe in ... the adult Santa we constantly wish to and pray to... this Santa comes in all shapes and sizes.. sometimes he's a dawn that's maybe not so dark when you don't want to wake up, sometimes he's a light switch that turned on when the meter is running low and you know it's gonna run out soon and it'll be dark again... sometimes he's a wish that you didn't bury those you had to kiss goodbye... and sometimes, just sometimes he's the reason you don't have to pretend....
Have you ever played pretend.... I'm guessing you have because it's a game for all the world. You wake up.. let's pretend it's a good day... You get dressed...lets pretend you're not covering up the bruises you wear from the pain of last night and the beating you pretend you didn't get... let's boil the kettle and listen to it whistle as though you didn't bury a child... or a parent.. or a sibling.... or fuck it let's pretend you haven't buried yourself on multiple occasions.....let's lock the door as though you're not afraid to be alone and you don't believe the night will last forever, the silence burying you as you pretend not to lock the door....
Santa comes to us every minute of every day... He's the floor we step on every morning in the hope we don't sink... He's the cold water that hits us in the face when we need to wake the fuck up... and the tea or coffee that hits our throat and reminds us that we need anything to get us through the day... he's the banister we cling to when the stairs are sometimes to high to climb with weary bones... the duvet we pull tight under our chins when exhausted we need sleep but afraid to sleep.. and afraid to stay awake because staying awake means our own thoughts will choke us... and he's the comfortable sweater we dragged on because sleeping in our own skin hurts a lot and maybe that sweater will protect our skin from bleeding...
And sometimes he's that cardboard that stops the world from freezing you to death because the blasted doorway won't protect and the noise is loud and the world doesn't care and sometimes he stops the world from knowing you're homeless and tonight you won't get kicked or robbed of all you have.... that sacred cardboard.... and maybe you won't die and not know you died homeless, and knowing you are one less problem for the world....

Christmas is the strangest time and on Christmas morning millions of people wake up and for a second they will hope Santa came to them.... for a second. And in that second nobody will cry... nobody will have lost someone they love... nobody will be in pain... nobody will be beaten...be unhappy in their own bed... be beneath that fucking cardboard thst allowed the cold to leave their skin screaming for something more....nobody will weep that overwhelming sob that threatens to drown them....
Millions of people will swallow loneliness and wait another year in the hope that Santa will come to them.... millions of people will pretend he arrived and left enough to eat under the tree, enough to pay the bills and enough hope to get you through another day......

Because Santa always comes.....
Doesn't he....?

Valerie Masters

Mother.... the most powerful word. The most beautiful word

2024-03-08T14:22:00.001-08:00

I'm 6 and Jesus help me I'm desperate for a pee but I daren't say a word coz she'll behind me soon and if I'm missing at the end of the line then heaven help me, the hairbrush will be across the cheeks of my arse instead of pulling knots out for fun. I'm trying to be all cute and less ugly as I implore my 5 older sisters to at least run their fingers through the mop on my head.....
Funny the memories that hit when you're trying not to remember memories.

I'm 17 and pregnant and I'm sitting across from her and I'm crying inside because I don't know what else to do, how do you find words when words are rendered useless so I say nothing and wish I could just speak....

She held me when I cried because the knots in my hair proved too much to handle and she would never put the hairbrush over my arse. She held me when I was heading to the hospital to give birth and I was so scared, so terrified I longed to tell her to not let go because if she let go then I have to go and be a mother and what if I fail at that....
Funny the memories that hurt when you're trying not to hurt

I'm 8 and I'm going on my first sleepover and I'm stupidly excited and she stops me and tells me I can't go because creatures are in my hair and headlice have become an excuse for her spoiling my fun and my life. I'm 8 and my life is over.
Funny the memories that remind me my life was only starting and I was 8 and unaware of making memories to keep

I'm 43 and I'm lying beside her and taking stupid selfies and I send my kids a snapchat of us and she begins to laugh so hard as us laughing, and she asks to see the pic again and I explain that I can't show her because snapchat is just a moment and we can't get that moment back.
She wasn't impressed at my answer but she smiled and decided I could be forgiven anything because that's what made her amazing
Funny the memories that I pray I'll always be able to remember

I'm 11 and war has broken out coz I spied on my sisters and they caught me and god help me now I'm running coz these girls are crazy mad and its not my fault even though its my fault and looking over my shoulder I can see her wringing her hands in her apron and wondering if today is the day one of her children kills another of her children.

Speaking of killing......
Funny the moments I'd kill to have again for just one moment

I'm 13 and womanhood has arrived but there's no one here so I think I'm dying, bleeding to death at a tender age but when she discovers this in a random conversation 20 years later she laughs enough to let drive tears down her face.
She cried at everything.
Literally!!

She cried from pain, from joy, she cried at the happiest of moments and the saddest. She was the only one I ever knew who shed tears as though it was ok to wear emotion proudly.
She was right. It is ok...

It's what she taught her daughters. And today those daughters are my sisters

She introduced me to women without me realising that women would become my heros. She gave me sisters to love me,

And when i got a little older she gave me the country shop women, the flynns bakery women, the mart women, the women who were our neighbours. She strategically placed me in the company of women knowing that I'd learn life skills from women who would forever mother me

I'm almost 52 now and in the dark depths of night I want her, her scent, her laugh, her sigh when I mess up
I want it all so badly, so desperately but I'm lucky that the desperation only arrives for a short time. the pain is immense, but her love holds me tight and the memories make me smile and grateful for her, and women she surrounded me with....

Mammy loved me, at times probably wanted to strangle me, many times probably cried over me, and then she loved me all over again.

She taught me life, truth, heartache, disappointment and love.
She taught me to fight for dreams, to cry when others hurt, to realise that I can be myself and that it's ok if being myself isn't enough for everyone, as long as I'm enough for me....

She is fricking amazing, always was and always will be....

Tonight I really really want her to hold me....

She is my Mother.

Happy International Womans day and Happy Mothers Day Mam

Valerie Masters

When you wish upon a star....

2023-12-12T11:56:00.001-08:00

Dear Santa.....

It's been a while since I wrote to you and I hope you're well and unaffected by a world we both barely recognise anymore. A world that's changed forever. I cant even begin to imagine what life is like for you, trying to prepare for Christmas eve when you're not even sure who will be privileged to wake up Christmas morning under the twinkling lights of hope and promise. I'm sure every year you wear the pain of those gone but this year it must feel so needless.

I'm smiling a little at past letters I wrote to you, innocent handwriting begging for impossible wishes like rag dolls and periods. That memory brings me a giggle. Imagining your face at a nine year old child begging you to bring her a period. I really did think I would be so grown up like my sisters if I had one. Thanks by the way for ignoring me... not sure 9 is a good age to get one of those things. I got the rag doll though, pretty sure it was a knockoff, it stank a little but much nicer than the duck with wheels you brought me the year before that. Really Santa what were you thinking when you put that under the tree.....

I should let you know I've forgiven you for not making me good looking, I'm still disappointed but I know now that you're not a miracle worker or a plastic surgeon, you are after all just Santa.......

This year though I'm really going to ask you for the impossible. This year I have a couple of wishes. One of them is to please make sure there will be no more empty chairs around the table of families gathering together. Enough loss has been endured this year already and nobody wants to lose another loved one. Nobody wants the pain of seeing an empty chair that should be filled with laughter. Please let everyone try to protect each other between now and christmas eve so we can all have full chairs and contented hearts...

Maybe give Ballymahon and its surrounding parishes a little extra love this year. We've lost so many of our loved ones here that the streets are almost constantly weeping and Christmas is looking extra lonely this time around.....

I know you always pay lorraine and lee their usual visit and leave an invisible message from us but thankfully this year you've seen to it that we can be with them to embrace them. Cant fricking wait.....

Santa there is so many empty chairs at tables this year that I'm worried about those left sitting at those tables.... Give them strength in this ravaged world of wars and floods and hurt

Just one more wish Santa, give us strength to unite during this uncertain time, give us compassion for each other regardless of what we believe is happening and give us the chance to once again inhale our loved ones in a hug. Give us strength to remember those who raised us, the generation that taught us the values we now need to call upon to get through. I think human touch is becoming so alien to us that we are forgetting how to love each other and protect each other.

I'm afraid Santa, afraid for tomorrow and what it might bring, afraid that everyone will forget how to love each other... forget how to mind each other and I'm terrified that if we do forget we might never remember. And that Santa would be an absolute crime...

Thank you for reading my letter and I know you'll do your very best to grant me my little wishes

Give Mrs Claus and the elves my best regards and dont forget to take care of yourself while travelling through war torn countries and a tired Mother Nature....

Take care of yourself and I'll see you on Christmas eve in Germany please god

Because you coming on christmas eve gives us hope...

And we all need hope....

Valerie Masters

Rte... what have you done

2023-07-01T12:33:00.003-07:00

It's 1978 and I've just discovered Dallas. My father is sitting on his armchair, a ring of cigarette smoke rising between his fingers, his pioneer pin twinkling against the crisp light of the big box showing Sue Ellen throw ice into a large glass of water and smile as it drips down her lip. Jr is playing a game with a woman that apparently Sue Ellen doesn't like so I've decided not to tell her coz I'm thinking Jr shouldnt be playing silly games and Sue Ellen breaks a lot of glasses and spills the water she's drinking....

The house is silent, apart from my mother muttering about children and dishes banging in the kitchen and every now and again one of my sisters swing a kick at another sister and I'm grateful I'm under the chair hiding.. if Daddy catches me though I'm getting more than a kick. I'm getting sent into the middle of next week which doesn't sound like a good place.....

Oh the memories, and some of the best ones were watching the big box in the corner of the room. The new big box that promised us hope and comfort, gathered us to look at the same space in the house at the same time. The big box that cost money most of us didn't have, but all of us didn't care because we wanted that big box

It was Ireland, a country of feck all but we had feck all together. Having almost nothing meant we shared more, laughed more and when we cried, we cried in a houseful of neighbours and friends catching the tears....

It was Ireland... was...

What happened to us?

When did the big box become something that no longer connected us. When did those who could, decide that they would deceive us. When did they become so damn smug that we were forced to pay a licence for the privilege. What happened to our Ireland

Our little land of A hundred thousand welcomes has become a stranger to us. No longer we gather united, no longer we meet to connect over something we believe in....

The national broadcaster has chosen deceit and wealth, the rich have chosen to trod on the poor and the government has chosen to forget we ever had a happy ending in our poor fairytale of family life....

Meanwhile, in my memories, my father is sitting in his favourite chair twirling his half smoked cigarette while his children argue and laugh and half kill each other and my mother is wringing her hands in her apron wondering how the kitchen could ever look clean again, but it's 1978 and if you ask anyone they'll tell you that life can't get much better than this.....

RTE... you have well and truly shattered the memories of thousands of families in Ireland and I hope you spend your ill gotten gains well because you'll never again be part of our hearts or our past

You'll be poorer for having lost us....

Valerie Masters

What is a firefighter

2023-06-06T08:05:00.002-07:00

Have you ever woken up and tried to shake off the cloak of fear that's surrounding you? Ever been home alone and listening to a chimney fire scream down the walls? Ever answered a phonecall to cries of someone you love trapped in a car that's crashed? Ever just waited for help to arrive with loud prayers in case help doesn't show up?

The answer to all of those scenarios and so many more shows itself in the form of a firefighter. You know them, some of them, even one of them. You don't always notice them until you need them, but suddenly they're there and they're your uniformed saviour, there to support and save and comfort.

Firefighters don't just fight visible flames that destroy people and places.....

They fight our fear, our hurt. They guide us when they road is blocked, when a tree falls, when an animal traps itself and we dont know what to do. They speak softly and strongly to us while laying the groundwork to make sure we feel safe. We face grief with them beside us for comfort. When we arrive to pay our condolences to a friend or neighbour, they are there, standing in unison, with a nod, a friendly smile and a hope that we will get through whatever pain is pulling us down.

Yet someone has decided they won't pay them for their job and yet somehow we can never repay them for their kindness. Someone sits in a comfortable office on a fat salary and assume that these men and women don't deserve a fair wage for their hard work, their tears, their feelings, their time and most of all their sacrifice to allow us to live freely and safely knowing they will be there to answer our call. The call that comes everyday somewhere in this little country, when someone desperately needs them to save them.

Everyone, at some point in their life will connect with a firefighter, whether its because you need one or you're watching someone you love needing one and that interaction is priceless

Priceless, but you've decided you know what it costs.

The choice to pay these men and women a fair wage is a simple choice, a mark of a pen on a piece of paper. A mark of respect to firefighters we need and admire.

And don't for a second assume you speak for us, the people of Ireland who need our firefighters to be able to show up for us while feeling worthy.

Pay them what they are worth.....

Valerie Masters

Women ❤

2022-06-25T11:14:00.001-07:00

The meaning of life....

2022-05-29T13:02:00.001-07:00

Where does it end...

We no longer know where it started. The world is unrecognisable.

Growing up most of us cried coz we thought we were too skinny, or too ugly or too shy to get the one we crushed on. Fighting to fit into a bra, or football boots, everything was too pale, too expensive, too far to walk too.....

That playground group of pretty girls we longed to join, the boys we fancied who tripped us up and laughed, the nuns who silently murdered us with a look when 2 went into 8 seven times....

Nowadays we've forgotten the pain of not having, yet having enough. Starved we thought we were, useless we believed ourselves to be, and important we thought it all was. At 13 us girls prayed for boobs, while boys prayed the day would come they'd see them and not faint at the reality. At 15 we got the bra, the boys got the boots and at 17 none of us how any of it worked.... We wanted to fit in, fit into a world we didn't realise was simple, easy, unique...

Mothers cleaned and cooked, Fathers came home and put us kids in our place after a day of running mothers ragged. We raged against the system, safe in our beds, in our heads and slept content knowing it was all in our heads... and we didn't need guns or fury to belittle the parents that dared to care for us and smack our arse to pull us into line when we fashioned to cross it...

Today, we long for yesterday, for simplicity

Today we no longer know what will happen at every tick of the clock that winds our lives down

And the result.....

A child covers herself in the blood of the dead so she can live... and she has to live with that

A man declares war on another country and those displaced have to live with that in another country

Old men in suits decide the unborn have a bigger right to life than those hiding under tables crying to live

Flying to space is a privilege granted to those who can afford to watch those denied an honest living

Our beautiful elderly were watched as they died behind glass we should have smashed to hold them in their last moments

And everyday we forget each other, forget how to touch, how to love, how to forgive

And everyday we forget that we remember how things used to be, when life was simple, easy, unique

Will we ever remember to live like that again, before it's too late.....

Valerie Masters

Mothers day....

2022-03-26T14:45:00.001-07:00

Where would you be if where you were was lonely. Where would you be if you didn't have anything around you only the colour of lonely blinding you...

We've all had those moments of lonely, those moments of wondering why you're alone, those moments in your head or in your thoughts, moments of wishing you were anywhere else but alone...

Pandemics and war and suffering continue, full circle. It didn't start today or two years ago, its a journey that we all have to walk. A repeated journey.

Life hurts and sometimes we forget to heal the hurt of each other, as each other suffers....

Tonight I'm eleven years old and wishing I was fifteen, you know that feeling... the lack of boobs and the skinny ass wondering where the rest of you is...

And your mother shaking her head and shaking her apron and wiping her brow in exhaustion at you,..

And all she wants to do is to finish cooking dinner for about twenty five children.. there's actually eight of us.. but let's give her the pain because we were loud in multiples.. and all I want is her full attention and I couldn't give a hungry childs cry for anything other than having her listen to me...

I'm eleven... then I'm twelve and sixteen and suddenly I'm forty something, about to hit fifty and she's no longer here, and the world stops suddenly...

The woman that dressed me in ridiculous clothes, and told me I was being ridiculous when I thought I was being sane about ridiculous things is no longer shaking her head and shaking her apron, and I'm no longer covered in the flour that dared to grace the apron she's shaking....

That woman, my mother, is no longer here and I watch children shaking their heads at their mother.... and mothers proudly cry at their childrens achievement while those children wonder why their mother is shaking something invisible...

That something invisible is an apron string we're tied to... it's called a heart... a mothers heart and we don't ever try to cut the strings, we don't ever want to lose that tread...

We can never lose that tread of belonging...

For losing it means we no longer get to scream for attention or cry for a hug....

Losing it means we forever fall wanting a hug we wish we could fall into...

I'm forever eleven, twelve, sixteen and forty something wondering where the rest of me is, then remembering the best of me is in my mothers arms forever...

Within a mother...

Where we all belong......

Valerie Masters

Isolation... The reality

2021-12-17T11:31:00.001-08:00

Apparently it's a thing now.. like a trendy quote

"Isolate yourselves"

Say it slowly and it will sound like a hip young thing we all need to try but say it very slowly and it becomes a painful blade that's destined to bleed you out and with more than a whimper..

Funny though I used to think of isolation as being sent to my room when I was very young because I misbehaved or my little big mouth had let me down once again and I swore and managed to jump fast enough away from the back of Mammys hand reaching my arse... speaking of funny I always thought I was quick as lightening but it turns out soft Mammy was never going to land her hand across my arse... soft Mammy just let me believe the threat enough to put manners on me

She was right

A little older, isolation became serious when your very best friend smiled at someone else... jesus life was over and tomorrow was a distant future you'd never see. Best friends were everything and you never changed them except twice a week when you arrived late or pissed them off. Yeah they always stayed the same just like socks, until you couldn't find one of them..

You get me, don't you... childhood and survival was vicious, lack of haircuts or bad haircuts and never knowing you could actually shave the forest that grew on you suddenly and why is there hair everywhere, you couldn't even lift your arms without hair spouting....

Isolation is when you don't know you can shave that hair and be like everyone else. Isolation is wanting head lice because everyone else has it and wishing you had died because you farted out loud in front of the boy you were destined to marry if only he knew you existed in the first place

Yes we all knew isolation.....

Except we never actually knew isolation. Looking back on yesterday we realise that what we thought was isolation was just life, and childhood, and poverty mixed with love pure without money. And wanting the boy who didn't see you and wondering why the feck watching Dallas was such a huge crime. In fairness Sue Ellen never worried about isolation when she was drunk and wasn't sober long enough to be able to spell it.

Our isolation was childish and innocent and yet it was the very thing we assumed would end our life and leave us virgins buying cats for company. We like cats and we weren't overly concerned about being left a virgin, sure our lady got by... they made a statue for her....

But today, since 2020, isolation has paided us a visit, tapped us on the shoulder, introduced itself with an evil smile and sat down uninvited. It waits there while we try to catch our breath, compose ourselves and it waits there cynically looking at us. Isolation has a mirror and if you choose to look in it, you will see time. You will see your past, your future and every person you ever loved or lost. Isolation is the young, the old and the sometimes always forgotten.

It's the child you were, the parent you strived to be and the cradle you long to climb back into so someone else takes charge

Isolation is the youth being blamed for everything....

It's the old that longs to just reach out and feel skin and feel home

It's the vulnerable wondering why they were marked to be vulnerable

It's the you that suddenly looks different in the mirror, wondering when did your reflection become different to you.. so aged to you

When did people forget the moments they became isolated in a million different ways throughout every step they took from the moment they could walk

When did the world become so frightening that even familiar people have become strangers

Why aren't we all realising that isolation isn't here just because we are in a pandemic. Isolation has sat on our shoulder most of our lives but now as we turn against each other it's become the monster resurrected to haunt us

Is there any way we can return to reaching out to each other, return to remembering each other, return to realising that all we have is each other.

If we do then we can kill isolation.... because isolation has only one way to kill you...

By lonlieness.... it kills everything pure

And isolation has only one cure....

Love... it kills everything evil

Valerie Masters

#bekind.... a 21st century weapon

2021-08-24T16:26:00.001-07:00

#bekind...

That isn't a trend anymore, that's a lethal weapon. That hashtag has become as dangerous in the wrong hands as a loaded gun is, it's as dangerous as a sharpened knife in the hands of someone who believes a knife is a tool to survive, to fend for oneself...

If I cut you, do you not bleed.....

#bekind has become vicious, almost like a defence tool when deciding to attack. It's used so much it should come with its own warning instructions. Almost everything is on social media nowadays and whether you choose to follow a thread about love Island, or Joe Biden, or Afghanistan or covid vaccines or crowds in Croake Park verses live theatre not being allowed, nephet verses freedom, masks verses no masks, you will inevitably come across that hashtag #bekind loaded and ready to fire, used as a justification to say whatever the hell you fell like saying, and hurting however cruelly you feel like hurting, you feel you can lessen the hurt by ending it with #bekind

That hashtag became a trend after a suicide, a rememberance, a kindness, a way to explain the unexplainable....I don't need to go into who's suicide, or why they committed suicide, because I've been there. I'm the statistic of knowing someone wo knew someone, I'm the hashtag of a hashtag of loss, the pain of holding someone in pain, the wounds scarred deep, the outcome of the torture suicide inflicts....

And I promise you noone ever needed to #bekind to us, that kindness came naturally. It came from love, and truth and honesty and the need to just help...

That kindness was our town, our community, our family....

That kindness remains unforgettable and helps us sleep to this day.....

#bekind started in a kind place but got misplaced in a now fucked up world. A world we all seem to struggle in and its become so easy to lash out and lay blame and drop our opinion on everything and it is easy to justify what we say as long we end that opinion with #bekind

But are we being kind, or are we just scared and using anything we can reach as a weapon to defend ourselves. Defend ourselves from the terrifying prospect that we dont actually know whats right or wrong, or who will end up right or wrong.... or who will survive this unrecognisable messed up world....

Are we being brave enough by trying to make the difference between pain and joy obvious or is it easier to lash out as long as we hashtag a kind word at the end of our hurt so we can argue we were being kind so to convince the world we didn't mean to hurt.....

But eventually we all end up hurting and the circle of pain continues... never ending

Valerie Masters

Irish mothers and badly needed memories

2021-07-17T13:08:00.001-07:00

Thats a lot to cry about lately... the world is weeping and it feels like a tsunami. Tidal waves of crazy crashing over us and its never ending, and doesn't even cover whats going on in reality.

We are killing each other. Forget everything, forget the world and the pain its in, forget the floods and the apartment complexes collapsing, forget the fires and the burning of everything we knew. We are literally killing each other.

Its become a vax war, a mask war, a who's right war.

A petty war of who knows more than the other war and the saddest thing is we won't know who's right until the history books are sitting on library shelves unopened and unread by all of us in them but too dead to be able to read them....

I've spent a lot of time recently just reflecting... a lot of time in my hands through what they call a hidden illness, an illness I have to breathe though and live through and remember my mother going through. I'm ok going through it though thanks to a family who love me, siblings who see me forever as their little sister and friends who stay every minute these days to remind me that I'm not going through this alone. Children who always surround me with love and reminders of my motherhood and a husband who deserves all the respect and love he gets because he is a soul that the world doesn't deserve, and he lives to protect me from the pain he doesn't want me to feel....

But last night I saw a picture of a woman who pulled on her amaze pants and headed to the bog to prepare for the winter... a woman we all recognise and acknowledge, a woman that represents our past, our present and our future. A woman we sometimes try to avoid in the mirror when life hurts, a woman that raised us, protected us and helps us to remember that we can be amazing too, if we just let ourselves believe it...

She made me cry that woman because she was my mother, your mother and a mother to all of us. She was the country shop women, the mart women, the neighbour women, the women who never had money but had a deeper value, the Ballymahon women, the worldwide women who woke us up, dragged us out and sent us to school hoping we would learn something. She is the woman who cried when we were hurt, cried when we cried and the woman who fell to her knees every night to pray for a dawn to greet us. She's the woman who today would sit us down and listen to our every fears and wipe our tears and whip our asses when we got out of our box and thought we knew it all. She's the woman who vaccinated us so we could fight on, vaccinated us against pain, against hurt, vaccinated us with love knowing we would feel pain but maybe not feel it too hard and vaccinated us against anything that would leave a scar on a child she loved

For those of you who know the picture I'm on about, you will know the mothers love I'm talking about, for those of you who didn't see it, I know you can picture it in your heads and you feel the love.

For those of you vaccinated against covid 19 and for those of you not vaccinated, the same love applies. Your mother is either hugging you or watching over you with a hug but her message is simple. Her message is love and for gods sake stop god damn trying to get one over the other in a war we don't understand....

Let the history books decide this virus war and allow our children to remember that we loved like our mothers loved....

Eileen Mcloughlin thank you for giving us a moment to see our mothers... that moment will keep us warm forever...

Valerie Masters

The end of the world we once knew

2021-06-29T10:53:00.000-07:00

There is a world falling apart, a world full of people full of hurt, full of anger, full of pain... A world so hell bent on destroying itself that we know longer know how to react, how to breathe, how to live in a world that no longer wants us, a world that is rejecting the viciousness we are intending on plying into the world and onto each other. What world can survive the darkness we wish upon each other.

What happens next, we can't go back. If we could sure we would all be living in a world of blue eyeshadow and poor perms and boys with mucky haircuts and monobrows in tight jeans we secretly wanted to run our thoughts along the seam just to see how seamless they were while knowing we wouldn't know what to do if we got the chance.

No... ah yes admit it.

Isn't our memory or yesterday a lot happier because we remember it the way we do. Mothers wiping aprons with flour filled hands and sighs of wishing we would get up and actually tie our own shoe laces for once, the same mothers who wiped a furrowed brow with flour that lay there amongst the sweat of wondering if that damned child fell into a well and drown. The mother who cried quietly into her hands because she finally had a minute to cry, the mother who wouldn't sleep tonight because that crying wouldn't put money into her purse for the six mouths that needed feeding again tomorrow.

Or fathers, those men who get out of bed every morning and put on their suit of armour, the suit that meant they would be responsible for feeding the little army that slept under their roof, the roof that housed the women who didn't realise they knew she cried, how could they tell her. Their armour would never allow that, they had mouths to feed, bills to pay and a roof to hold up the hunger and tears that echoed through every crevice and haunted them.

It was a virus, yet the cure was that child who skinned its knees and pretended not to feel the pain of shoes ripped and blisters bleeding on ankles too dirty to clean, the cure was the mother who boiled the water that poured the bath that ran cold before the last child had to be scrubbed because cold water didn't clean the marks of the day, the cure was the father who straightened his shoulders before the day ended and he came home to pretend he didn't have a hard day.

The cure was love, and truth and honesty. Honesty in having nothing but love and knowing no matter how hard life got, the house with the cracks and cold kept out everything else because they had each other. Like every neighbour on every road in every village they had nothing, yet they climbed into bed every night knowing they had tomorrow and hope and no virus they ever experienced would change that, or allow themselves to hate on another. Because back then they fought every virus together, and never apart from hope

Valerie Masters

The sound of safe

2021-01-03T13:44:00.001-08:00

I had a fight with Mammy last night. I went out when she warned me not to and I didn't wear a jacket after she always tells me to, and now I'm sick and she said she has no sympathy for me because I never learn to do what I'm told. And now I'm crying because I'm cold and I'm hungry too but I darent go down to the kitchen to ask for something to eat in case her sympathy never returns. I'd rather be hungry than see her disappointed face....

Except that was a dream and Mammy is gone and I'm cold because I woke up lonely for her and Daddy and it's dark except for a chink of light through a crack in the curtain and the world is gone to hell and I'm wondering what they would make of it all. As a child I'd lie awake and catch a little of their whispers floating through the house and I'd be falling out of the bed trying to hear them. And sometimes I'd hear them having a moan about the many children they have that never do a thing they're told and sometimes I'd hear laughter about something I didn't understand. But always I'd hear safe.

Safe... that's a sound you know. If you listen real carefully you can hear it dance with the silence. I loved the sound of safe as a child. Looking back my biggest problem in life was never doing a thing I was told, and the consequences of that were soft, except Mammy had a disappointed look I'd have to wear and Daddy had a certain voice he'd use when you disappointed Mammy.

They had many of their own pandemics. With eight children everyday was a new challenge I reckon, a new battle, a war to protect us from seeing.

And we were protected from it. From all the trails they went through we were tucked up in bed before they got the chance to draw breath and decide their next move, because we could hear safe dancing with the silence

Today though safe is lost somewhere in the wilderness of covid. In the crazy of what's upon us, we cant hear safe with the loud torture of the world suffering.

And yet we still wont do as we're told. We blame everyone and yet we choose to ignore the fact that we simply won't do as we are told.

Mammy and Daddy are sitting in the kitchen shaking their heads. There are many Mammys and Daddys there too, huddled around, a whispered howl fills the room, the sound of silence drowned out by their pain of knowing that they can do nothing to help. Nothing to guide us and nothing to allow us to hear safe again

I miss it, the sound of safe

I miss it, the disappointed face of Mammy sending me to bed hiding a little smile knowing I'll be safe there and when I open my eyes tomorrow she'll be showing me that amazing smile and all would be right with the world until I once again fail to do what I'm told.

I close my eyes and the chink of light fades and I let a soft prayer fall into the silence that maybe tomorrow, a new day will begin and we will wake up and do as we are told

Valerie Masters

A letter from Santa

2020-10-20T04:52:00.001-07:00

Dear Valerie

How nice of you to take the time to write to me. It seems the art of letter writing is dying much like so many traditions there in Ireland. I'm lucky I get so many letters to read though and often I reopen them during the year esp these days as there is so much time to enjoy them.

I must admit you gave me many emotions to deal with when I read your letter. Dear girl you made me laugh at the memories of your childhood wishes. The period one made Mrs Claus almost choke. That request is one of her favourites and so many children naively want that one but we would never deliver that particular present.

The rag doll young lady was brand new I'll have you know and took quite a chuck out of your Mammy and Daddys food money. They struggled a lot that year but still managed to put enough aside so that you could all enjoy Christmas. If it stank it's only because I had to deliver a few things early and with eight nosy children in the house they had to get pretty creative hiding the presents. Poor rag doll was in the boot of the car for that long I'm surprised she didn't come out as a spare wheel. But I know you loved her a lot

The duck on wheels was not my fault. It was a mix up between what your sister requested and the cuteness of her sneaking out of bed to switch the presents. To be honest your face was priceless and your sister wore a lot of guilt over that for about five seconds. I still laugh at the indignant way you dragged that poor duck all over the garden telling it how useless it was. Ah great memories

But Valerie you're older now and it's time for a little honesty. The truth is never nice but sometimes people need to hear it. Valerie I cant promise you your wishes for empty chairs to stay full or for people to be all together this christmas day, I cant promise any of that because that power is not mine. Yes I have magic and what you're asking for is there to be reached. It's just I cant reach it for you.

What you want lies in your heart and in the hearts of the people on your beautiful island. What you want is wrapped inside of you and all you have to do is dig deep. Stay inside, stop the crazy shopping and the gatherings of people celebrating nothing for the same of celebrating something. Remember once more what the meaning of christmas is. Strip it back and burn the wrapping of unnecessary trimmings you've all become accustomed to.

For the next six weeks turn to love and patience, take the time to unwrap memories of how your parents lived. The honesty, the pureness that somehow has been replaced by greed and money

Take the time to wonder how they would deal with this crisis. Stop seeing the restrictions as some kind of punishment and embrace them as a chance to get this right, dont arrive at December 1st with a mission to run to shops and houses and parties just to drive yourselves back into yet another lockdown.

Take your time. And wish instead for everyone to do the same. For everyone to remember where they came from and celebrate the lives of your past family and upbringing. This year everyone has a chance to return the Christmas past to our present. Those chairs will not be empty if you all just take your time

Valerie I know you miss your children but for every wave of loneliness you feel you will feel a wave of pride at how amazing they are. For every gut of pain felt by their absence they too feel that gut of pain that they wont be around your table Christmas day. But they have a table and they have people they love sitting at it and on Christmas day you will all share in each others love, together just apart.

Valerie for the next six weeks wish that everyone there will stay together apart and maybe, just maybe a little of my magic will have worked in this message

And maybe there will be no more empty chairs, just full hearts and memories made.....

That is my wish for you all

My best regards

Santa claus

Valerie Masters

Who will mind our children

2020-10-10T15:47:00.001-07:00

Kids eh... they break your heart and break the bank and when they've half the house broken up they'll sit there swinging their legs wondering where the hell is dinner. Love them or scratch your head why you bothered your ass becoming a parent in the first place it wont make a blind bit of difference, they're here and they're hell bend on turning your hair grey and your mind to mush....

Let's love them for a minute. They've fallen asleep and they silent, inhaling and exhaling. That furrowed brow is smooth and those rosy cheeks are edible and the world stops long enough so you can inhale and exhale their scent and the sheer weight of your love for them. For a small moment they are safe and untouchable from the worlds pain

But just for a very small moment these days because the world has grown teeth and become vicious and all of a sudden there are million reasons you can't watch your children sleep... or even touch them

Can you remember their scent? I remember the scent of my children until I forget and then I'm fighting a loud war of silent pain because they're so far away and I want to collapse with grief, yet I cant grieve because they're safe and happy and even though they long to come home the world is holding them, protecting them. I'm always praying and begging other countries to mind them, the precious gifts I've lent to other places, the precious gifts I need protected

And then I see Mammy and Daddy in the 1980s just simply living, furrowed brows thanks to children breaking their hearts and the bank, worrying while us children sleep unworried. I see Daddy driving us to school at 5 mile an hour and us mortified as what felt like 20 children were piled into the car and we look out the rear window at Mammy waving us off, Mammy looks tired....

And Daddy gets us to school after a journey that felt like 4 hours and we pile out desperate to escape and we look back and Daddy looks tired...

Looking back we spent our childhood like we looked as we slept forever safe. Unfurrowed, unworried and safe in the knowledge we were protected

Today Mammy and Daddy are gone and I now drift between waves of longing for them and grateful I dont have to see them through a window, at a distance unable to touch them, unable to hold them or watch them sleep, silent as the world stops for a minute

Today I am a Mammy living with a Daddy who hasn't seen their children in 7 months because a virus has taken over our job of protecting those we love and those we love are relying on us to protect ourselves so that we can see them soon to inhale and exhale them

For every parent locked behind a window, every child wondering why human contact is so forbidden, for every human dying because their mind is killing them, every human choked by loneliness I pray... for every parent who can't feel their arms around their children for a silent minute I pray, for humanity I pray because when everything is lost we will have nothing. It will be too late for blame, too late to wonder what we could have done. Time will have run out....

The sad thing is we dont realise that we still have time... for love, for touch, for survival....

And for every Mammy and daddy still living to get that one damned hug, for every child that assumes a hug is their god given right I will forever pray tomorrow is better...

We still have time to find time again....

We still have time

Dont wait until al we have to remember is that we had time...

Valerie Masters

Let's Isolate.....

2020-10-06T15:30:00.001-07:00

Apparently it's a thing now.. like a trendy quote

"Isolate yourselves"

Say it slowly and it will sound like a hip young thing we all need to try but say it very slowly and it becomes a painful blade that's destined to bleed you out and with more than a whimper..

She was right

You get me, don't you... childhood and survival was vicious, lack of haircuts and never knowing you could actually shave the tress that grew on you suddenly and why is there hair everywhere, you couldn't even lift your arms without hair spouting....

Yes we all knew isolation.....

Except we never actually knew isolation. Looking back on yesterday we realise that what we thought was isolation was just life, and childhood, and poverty mixed with love pure without money. And wanting the boy who didn't see you and wondering why the feck watching Dallas was such a huge crime. Sure Sue Ellen never worried about isolation when she was drunk and wasn't sober long enough to be able to spell it.

But today in 2020 isolation has paided us a visit, tapped us on the shoulder, introduced itself with an evil smile and sat down uninvited. It waits there while we try to catch our breath, compose ourselves and it waits there cynically looking at us. Isolation has a mirror and if you choose to look in it, you will see time. You will see your past, your future and every person you ever loved or lost. Isolation is the young, the old and the sometimes always forgotten. It's the child you were, the parent you strived to be and the cradle you long to climb back into so someone else takes charge

Isolation is the youth being blamed for everything,

It's the old that longs to just reach out and feel skin and feel home

It's the vulnerable wondering why they were marked to be vulnerable

It's the you that suddenly looks different in the mirror, wondering when did your reflection become different to you.. so aged to you

When did people forget the moments they became isolated in a million different ways throughout every step they took from the moment they could walk

When did the world become so frightening that even familiar people have become strangers

Is there any way we can return to reaching out to each other, return to remembering each other, return to realising that all we have is each other.

If we do then we can kill isolation.... because isolation has only one way to kill you...

By lonlieness.... it kills everything pure

And isolation has only one cure....

Love... it kills everything evil

Valerie Masters

Have a seat

2020-10-03T14:26:00.000-07:00

One bench... I always ask this question... who would you sit beside.

I've chosen a few lately. Mam and dad I want but I've decided against either of them once again

Selfish a little on my behalf but I'm afraid of many things. What if they're not safe together dancing in heaven like I imagine... what if...

I cant even bring myself to wonder how I'd deal with the consequences of that what if... for them and me. But I also know that together they would be devastated at what is happening in the world... in Ireland, in our own little home town

They would not hold back at telling me what entitled little fuckers we've become. I can see them now on the bench close to me almost quietly shouting over each other to get their voice heard.

In 2020 We've steadily attacked each other, blamed our children, refused to be there for each other, judged each other and allowed a simple piece of material we were asked to cover our mouth with to become the gun we shoot each other with.. instead of asking ourselves where we came from....

We watched people suffer, people die, old people, our fucking people...

What would our parents say about that after all they survived.....

"You're in a pandemic Valerie.... stay at home Valerie. What the fuck is bringing you to Penneys valerie to buy fecking knickers. Jesus child you barely had a knickers as a child, and now you're running through a shop of hundreds to buy a fecking knickers. Dont pee in this one child coz we're not here to wash it for you....."

Sounds like I'm joking but I hear them, I see them trying to make food stretch for a week. I see them trying to breathe when we've exhausted them and I see them catching each others eye and exchanging a silent wish that they could lock us in a cupboard and sleep with a further exchange between them that they're serious but really joking

And now I can see them sitting in that bench quietly tortured that they raised us to be happy and amazing and rich in memories but they're watching and wondering why the fuck they killed themselves working, why every pound was stretched to the limit to feed us. Why every bone and scrap and crumb was poured into a pan with every vegetable in the garden and turned into dumpling stew to feed 8 of us just so we could end up praying for a tomorrow lost in the crazy entitlement of arrogant people losing the values they were raised with

The arrogance of us forgetting that....

Irish. We are Irish born and raised. Raised with feck all but raised with everything because we were raised with love. Every day a battle. Starving and grabbing at the fresh bread and praying for jam.... freezing and trying to grab the last dirty duffle coat to cover us. Crying coz we didn't want to swallow the ache of walking to school, head lice in tow, long socks pulled down to our ankles and a hungry stomach having a full blown row that was winning against us.

The arrogance of us forgetting that...

We didn't go home and weep against the system that left us walking to school and leaving us struggling to understand the prose and poetry thrown at us. We didn't dare because being able to learn prose and poetry we didn't understand was a privilege. Walking to school in clothes that didn't fit and long socks we were ashamed of was a privilege. Having your mother tear the head of you to kill the life sized lice living there was a privilege.... spending your while life wishing for a different life, a richer life, a life other than the life you had was a god damned fucking privilege...

And yet those days are gone.... and that life is gone and the world is now fighting because a privileged fucker doesn't want to wear a mask and they dont want to stay at home and the world is gone to hard for them. How dare anyone ask them to protect others.... how dare anyone take their privileges away from them.... in the small hope someone else might live

The arrogance of us doing that.....

And the bench is there... within reach of me, and my man and dad are there, together holding hands and I want to be with them so bad. I'm crying so hard I can barely see them and I need them but my feet wont move.... my arms wont reach and I know why

Because how do I tell them that the poor ireland they lived through, the poor Ireland they raised us kids in, the poor Ireland they boiled bones and scraps and bread in and offered to us as dumpling stew is now only a memory, the war they starved through, lost their loved ones through and the gravestones they've cried at are now assigned to history books never to be repeated.... and our history books will ink forever how we lived apart in a war we could have fought together but we were too busy fighting each other over who knew best

We were asked to simply stay safe apart.... instead we stayed apart forgetting to wish ourselves to be saved together

And my Mam and Dad are still there together holding hands on that bloody bench and I want so badly to run to them....

We were simply asked to live.....

We are very simply failing our forefathers who saw more destruction that we can imagine..

And we're failing by the minute.....

Valerie Masters

From the cradle to the grave

2020-09-17T15:43:00.001-07:00

From the cradle to the grave....

That's an old quote.. an age old quote, a sometimes used quote and a sometimes used to much quote but it's a quote that kinda sums up my thoughts a lot these days

I write a lot about life and childhood and my thoughts at the moment I'm thinking them and I wear my heart on my sleeve a lot, and then leave it on the page a lot, then most of the time I regret it but the page never refuses ink so I refuse to erase it and the circle continues.... around and around

Pandemic year eh.... theres a circle and a cradle to the grave conversation. Where do you start.

At the beginning... sure none of us know where the beginning starts. One day we're living and fighting and wishing, the next we're fighting to live and wishing we never discovered that fighting to live would see us fighting each other about how we live.

Kinda sad to be honest. Things I thought were important have faded in the background and things insignificant are haunting me. Little things like words and deeds....

Oh aren't words torturous little fuckers. Simple letters form together to line on a sentence that we say, that can hurt and hurt deeply

And lately it seems so easy to use words to hurt....

I'm a child suddenly and memories of words take on a different meaning. Mammy is standing in the kitchen covered in flour and dirty dishes and all of us are wrecking her tired head and all she can see is the house needs cleaning and dinner should be already half cooked, and all we can see is the chance to push our luck with her, and daddy is home and all we can see is attention, and we cant see that he's tired and hungry and it's been a long day and why isn't dinner ready, and mammy sighs because we're tiresome and soon Thank god we'll be in bed and the pandemic of having eight children causing strife will be over and her and daddy can actually catch up on their life and day after a bedtime story closes the night down.

We won't always be in the cradle and dinner wont always be the battle we believed it to be.

And suddenly they're gone, and visiting their grave is a sombre, what if, occasion. What if we sat quietly back then and ate slowly and enjoyed the simple task of eating together, the simple moments of inhaling and exhaling and catching up was just that, simple moments of non madness and quiet silence....

I'm at the grave now in the middle of a pandemic and suddenly I realise we did.

We just didn't know it. We enjoyed the safe warm madness of childhood and it was amazing.

And now the cradle and the grave unite while I sit here and I realise those moments we thoughts were madness were the best times of our lives.

And those moments are gone and I'm grateful my kids got to see what I saw. Those little moments at the table. Dinner coming and going, sometimes ruined.. work ending, uniting in quiet madness of a messy house, sighs, exhaustion and finally a bedtime story to close the night down

I want it back... for everyone I want it back. The simple horror of yesterday. The forgotten rows, the unpaid local shop you have to deal with on Saturday morning, the worry over how you will get them to school unbattered by life and fed enough to last them till three o clock. The basin that you beat the bread in until you had beaten your thoughts to dough. The wringing of floured hands in an apron that needed a wash a month ago with the last of the flour leaving a tiny cloud shape on your forehead as you sighed because the last child to go to sleep was snoring gently and you back out of the room because you'll die if you wake them and you'll kill them if they wake up.

Pandemic over for another day until tomorrow when you put your apron back on and battle life once again

I want it back.... the simple horrors that meant everyone sank or swam together and nobody bitched publicly about everyone else who was in the same sinking simple boat. Everyone just rowed quietly together and nobody was ever allowed to drown...

Those days, from the cradle to the grave everyone was united.

In memory of Mammy and Daddy who made every pandemic seem like we were beginning another adventure and I can never find the words to thank them for always rowing together......

Valerie Masters

2020

2020-09-03T14:29:00.001-07:00

Welcome to 2020. Before we go any further we would like you to fill in a questionnaire. There are many questions to answer and many answers available but please think carefully before you answer. Its January 1st and usually our questionnaire is filled with bubbly questions.... questions like what is your new years resolution... how many stone would you like to lose this year... and is this the year you find the love of your life or have the best sex ever.

We like bubbly questions... we like to keep it light... keep it airy and open... we cant fail that way. Everyone has hopes for a new year so we can generally figure out the answers before we write the questions

This year however the rules have changed. Take a seat because I can assure you by the time we get to about question 5 you'll be either laughing at the ridiculous things you hear or you'll be crying for us to stop... to halt the questions and rewind a year

This year all the rules have been fucked out a window and the questions are written by god knows who....

Question 1

Did you mean it when you said you wanted the weekend to last forever. Answer slowly....

Question 2

How many times have you cursed under your breath when invited to a family event trying to find an excuse not to go. Answer slowly....

Question 3

Weren't you lately lying in bed wishing you didn't have to go to work tomorrow. Answer slowly.....

Question 4

Did you ever lie in bed unable to sleep and imagine how you'll die... you know the scenarios.. fast, slow.. with family... suddenly... and then lie imagining the grief you leave behind. Your funeral. The music. The people there supporting your family.. crying for you... remembering you...

Answer very slowly....

Question 5

What if I told you every illness... every suicide... every breath you take as a last breath will go unrecorded. Every pain, every ache unrecognised. Every last conversation you have, forgotten.

Wiped out by a virus, a virus that leaves everybody you know and those you dont torn apart and left sinking in an ocean of pain they cant swim in. Choking in a vial of uncertainty and ache. Shredded in the doubt of the person beside you. Those who wear a mask, those who dont. Those vulnerable and those who see the vulnerable as those who'll pull them down. Those who reach out to help and those who smother that help while trying to just simply survive. What if this goes on for months, and we struggle and worry and fight and pray that this will end and we can once again go back to wishing to lose a stone or get the best sex ever.... answer ever so slowly.....

That was question 5... I dont know if you're laughing or crying but I'm pretty sure neither of us are mentally prepared for question 6.......

January 1st is now a memory, a reality and it's gone. We cant go back...

So maybe let's take a breath together and pray that question 6 is the one question we can answer, that we are asked to reach out and survive together, that we suddenly find ourselves in sinking waters ready to save each other from certain drowning....

Maybe just maybe all hope is not lost...

Valerie Masters

Pandemic

2020-08-22T14:15:00.001-07:00

Looking back on my life I think I've spent a lot of it being afraid. The silly things as a child that scare you... am I pretty, will I grow into being pretty, am I popular, will people like me. Hey as a child I even spent some time wondering if i smelt bad....

But we all went through that stage, then as I got older I worried about boys, if I'd ever be kissed, if I'd ever grow boobs... lord boobs were so important to me I even prayed to god to give me some. Then older still and boys were still boys and I worried less but still worried. But then life kicked in and I fell in love and there were babies and life was amazing but life kicked in and death knocked on the door and I realised that childhood problems were real problems but not life threatening now I had life threatening problems. But i got up and got dressed and held onto the fact that people were kind and a hug was never too far away from any problem.

And life went on, and memories were made, and people laughed and people cried and people died and memories stored and no matter how hard life got, a hug was still to be found everywhere. A kind word was always offered, even from strangers. Someone was always there to reach out in good times and bad.

And your parents die, and friends die, and family dies, and you watch your children spread their wings and fly and every day there is something that scares you to your very soul....

And just when you think you've lived through everything, lived through the pain and sorrow of loss, lived through the joys and highs of happiness, you wake up and realise you haven't seen anything.

That morning you wake up to a global pandemic.

And during lockdown we saw everything. The zooms and the tiki toks, the tears and the laughter, the quizzes, the random videos.

We saw the lowest of the lows... the sick the dying. The locked nursing homes where silent cries screamed with sorrow. The lonlieness, the weeping, the bitter ache of need for company, for anything to feel normal.

We saw it all. We were convinced of it. Amidst the loss and pain we saw humanity. The people who reached out despite the hurt. The people who worked, who saved lives, who delivered our needs to shops, those who wiped tears and virtually hugged the hearts of those who needed it badly.

And a hug is a hug no matter how you offer it to someone. Love is love no matter what....

We saw it all. Or so we thought. But we haven't seen the half of it. We havent seen anything yet. Somewhere there is a virus growing more lethal, more dangerous and more deadly than anything we've seen yet. That virus is us. Yes us. Us judging everyone. Judging for wearing a mask for not wearing a mask, for going out, for not going out, for working, for not working. For attempting to live regardless of the world that's dying around us. Humans judging humans, hurting each other. Killing each other

We're living in a pandemic. But covid 19 is not our biggest threat. Losing kindness from one human to another is.....

Valerie Masters

Mother storm

2020-06-16T06:41:00.000-07:00

The thunder and lightning yesterday brought back great memories for me. Having lost my Mam I love it when I get flashes of her and times gone by. The storm brought back funny memories. She used to run around throwing holy water on us to protect us from Satan and sure I thought it was a great chance to get bathtime sorted. There was me with my spindly legs running for the Carbolic soap and trying not to break my neck running and my mother screaming that I was going to kill myself and me running under the holy water trying to get clean. Sure you couldn't wait for actual bathtime in this house. 7 dirty fecking kids in that water before me, you'd need life insurance to get into that filthy cold water and she actually expected me to come out clean. I've come out of bog holes cleaner than coming out of that water. You'd hear my hail marys all over the house as I'd pull the scummy top back looking for the water underneath. Twas a shocking sin expecting poor me to bath there. So I improvised and waited patiently for the thunder and the holy water to appear and there I'd be waving my arms around and trying to stand up in the now soapy little puddles on the floor and me poor mother blessing herself and Bernie and Gina waving a shears sized razor at me telling me that now I can become a woman if I start shaving myself. Was I growing a beard... what was I supposed to shave but I'd grab it to impress them and hair would be flying everywhere and the hail marys would now be bless me fathes and the blood would be begging for tissues to mop it up. But we're poor and only have docket leaves to wipe our arses which I have to go outside for and now I'm outside and my mother is wailing that the lightening will strike me and the good lord will take me and my only thought is where the feck are the damn docket leaves when you need them......

lockdown lovers

2020-05-27T08:35:00.001-07:00

The excitement is real. First morning of lockdown awake and we stir at 8am.. a slight stretch and sleepy grins we realise we've no work. The day ahead looks promising. Will we sleep in or get up nd grab the day.

He rises first, him... not anything else so the first smile fades a little, maybe later I'm hopeful.

I get up when I hear the first rousings of the kettle coming alive, it's the only thing rousing so it'll have to do. Slippers on I yawn as I silently count the steps down the stairs. Old habit, there's 14. I don't know why I need to mention that but there ya go.

Oh whf... He's waiting in the kitchen, sombre looking holding up what seems to be plastic overalls and trying to persuade me into them. Not likely boy. But he's actually serious. If I'm in the same room as him we need to wear plastic overalls to protect us....

Protect us from what? Each other? I just got out of the damn bed he was in all night. I protest loudly, the kettle switches off. First argument on day one. Lockdown looks more sombre than his face when I refuse so I agree for the sake of peace.

He wants my clothes off... mmm ok a little rousing in the kitchen. Maybe he's getting kinky. Im going to play along. Ripping my clothes off I stand bare arsed and smile. He hands me the plastic overalls and turns away to the kettle.

What? I'm naked, only us here and he's making tea. Ok maybe I can tease him a little. Play it coy, move seductively and let him make a move when he's rigid and unable to resist. Sitting down at the table I cross and uncross my legs letting my eyelashes flutter, crap that plastic is chaffing places, places i don't like being chaffing thanks very much. I move around trying to get comfortable, he's looking at me funny. Wait maybe he's getting roused. His eyebrows furrow, he's scratching his head. What the hell is wrong with you woman he says shaking his head.

I'm starting to sweat, lots of places are starting to sweat. Holy shit it's only day one, if lockdown lasts for months I'm going to be found melted under the kitchen table.

I rise and walk towards him, shashaying my hips and locking his eyes. He hands me the tea and walks away to turn on the news. The damn news, I'm naked underneath plastic and he wants the news.

Breaking fecking news I'm gonna burst him....

But what the hell will I do on day two.....

Valerie Masters

What is the meaning of war...

2020-04-09T10:01:00.001-07:00

I had a really weird dream last night... scary at times and at other moments in it I was wrapped up in a warm memory that reminded me of summer drives and tins of biscuits at Christmas.

I was about 7 in the dream and Daddy was my first image but it was as though he belonged there and I didn't. I felt like I was eavesdropping and could get caught at any minute which would leave me with a red arse and no tea at bedtime. But he couldn't see me, in fact I don't even think I was born.

I giggle at the thought of a red arse, daddy was too soft to do that but I'd def get no tea.

Leaning against the block factory office counter, a ring of cigarette smoke drifting up to an already brown ceiling and he wasn't happy... neither were the circle of men around him chatting. Jesus I knew most of them and there's more coming in and they're all united in disbelief. Talk of war and hunger and the need to keep people safe. Talk of people lost and dead and presumed dead... wasn't sure what presumed dead meant, sure you're either dead or you're not. Talk of anger and sorrow and suddenly I don't like it here. I don't feel safe and I always felt safe with daddy but he can't see me and the men are shocked and almost devastated. The calender on the wall is faded and it's years before me. It's years before all of us and I shiver.

I'm in the country shop kitchen and the soda bread has just come out of the oven and I'm safe again but I'm now surrounded by Mammy and so many others and they're buttering the bread and putting jam on it but when I reach for it I can't get it. The smell wafting is amazing and I'm hungry but I realise I'm not really there at all.

They're upset, really upset and that devastation I felt with Daddy is there and I'm not safe here either even though I'm always safe with Mammy. They're worried about money and jobs and life and when they'll see the men in their lives again. I shout that they're safe in the block factory but they can't hear me.

I have nowhere to go. The calender on the wall is faded and it's years before me. It's years before all of us and I shiver.

And then I'm home and Daddy and Mammy are there and they look so much older but calmer and they're talking about a virus and how we all have a chance. That it's not like the war or the famine. We don't have to go out to fight. We have to stay home and protect those who do. The nurses and doctors and carers and shop staff and drivers and i wonder what kind of war it is that means we can stay at home safe, warm and protected within our own walls. And I look out the window and all Mammy and daddy's friends are there and they're all praying for us and when I look away Mammy and Daddy are gone to them. But I'm inside and safe. Missing everyone, longing for my kids, longing for a hug from people I love but I wake up and for a long time I watch the night drift by me, shadows fading with the light rising and morning peeking in the window and I say a little thanks to those who left us but haven't forgotten us and I make a little promise to stay inside as much as possible and make those who lived through hardship proud of me and all of us

After all, all we have to do is stay at home....

Valerie Masters

Did you ever... forever remember....

2020-01-19T12:49:00.001-08:00

Did you ever get caught between two places... two decisions.... two lifetimes...

This week every year I get caught between memories. Mam has her birthday on the 17th Jan.. Dad died on the 24th Jan. So since she passed I kinda fall strange between those days... strange thoughts and vivid memories.

Mam was 55 when Dad died... I tend to need to let that sink in sometimes... she was so young but we were too young to notice and too young to care enough to notice

But the memories sink deep and make me laugh as much as I cry

I remember Mammy shouting coz Daddys balls never matched hers and Daddy shouting coz she wouldn't let the lions out and I was too young to realise they were talking about bingo and tea and way too traumatised to admit I thought the sexual games were a bit extreme for the 80s... I blame watching Dallas from under Daddys chair coz he'd have shot me if he caught me watching it... reckoned I was too young to witness adultery... I was 7... i was too young to climb the trees I fell out of, surely adultery wasn't going to kill me...

But once I realised Mammy wasn't Sue Ellen and Daddy wasn't going to run off with some shoulder padded bimbo I settled into childlife and sank into being the queen of annoying children and found my true calling...

Spying on my siblings, writing it down and reading it back to my non Dallas boring beautiful parents and sat back on a little baby wicker chair watching said siblings get killed....

It was a soap drama waiting to happen and I was the only one in an empty cinema with surround sound watching and waiting excitedly for the next episode of real life...

I was the youngest of an amazing family with non dramatic parents forever captured in front of the range bitching coz balls weren't called and lions are still captured... and siblings loving me while secretly wondering how the feck they can shut me the f*** up....

Valerie Masters