Erin, by Thomas Moore
Erin! the tear and the smile in thine eyes Blend like the rainbow that hangs in thy skies, Shining through sorrow’s stream, Saddening through pleasure’s beam, Thy suns with doubtful gleam, Weep while they rise. Erin, thy silent tear never shall cease, Erin, thy languid smile ne’er shall increase, Till, like the rainbow’s light, Thy various tints unite, And form in heaven’s sight One arch of peace! Thomas Moore (28 May 1779 – 25 February 1852) © Willeke Van Eeckhoutte and Ireland, Multiple Sclerosis & Me, 2011-2013
Personal Space
My reason for blogging started as a lesson in writing. I was a blogging virgin trying to find my way around some of the issues living with a chronic and degenerative illness brings. Soon I felt that writing could be more than just that; it would also be a lesson in creating a web page with backgrounds, pictures and widgets, something I had never really done before safe from creating and updating SharePoint pages at work. Therefore, while my mind was slowly becoming at ease about my illness because of the therapy writing seemed to be, my creativity became paramount because I found out that I actually could create something that others might like. Most bloggers would lie if we said we only want to write for ourselves. If that…
Forgiveness
Being diagnosed with a chronic illness often leads to self-examination of your mind. You think you made mistakes somewhere down the path of your life and now karma has come to bite you very hard. You want to know why this happened to you and ‘why not someone else who deserves it far more than I did’ and others will comfort you, saying that ‘bad things happen to good people…’ However, does it comfort you? What do you do? Do you really believe that you are a bad person because something bad happened to you? Do you feel the world now owes you because of this? Often existential questions go through my mind after issues arise and not just since my own MS diagnosis 8 years ago but ever since…
Why blog?
Have you ever heard of bibliotherapy? Wikipedia describes it as ‘a therapy that uses a person’s relationship to the content of books and poetry and other written words and it’s often combined with writing therapy.’ Where other people might need bibliotherapy, I consider writing a help to ease past issues like being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2005. However, when I started my blog, I didn’t think writing would become some sort of therapy I would find useful and it was not the initial goal. That goal only became clear after blogging for about a year, and realising it helped me settle my relationship towards my illness and eventually, seeing things in a more realistic way.
Ten Irish quirks
Ah, the idiosyncrasies of Ireland… they are everywhere if you open your eyes. After living in Ireland for 10 years and almost 6 months, I still find new ones! Pedestrians waiting to cross the road and staring at the little red man to go green… only tourists do so. You can spot who is a tourist by the look on their faces when they see Irish people dodge the traffic and jump in front of oncoming traffic. We’re a risk-taking kind of society! The sad and confusing look on the faces of said tourists when, upon arrival in Dublin city, they spot a tall building bearing the name ‘Heineken’ instead of ‘Guinness’ on O’Connell Bridge. Despite the huge economy Guinness brings to Ireland, you are confronted by ‘Heineken’ first and…
The imperfection of books
An old book is lying next to me, and it begs me to pick it up and read it. The imperfections of it make me feel as if this book has lived, and that it wants to be cherished for a long time to come. The cover is wrinkled, the pages discoloured and I sense that a lot of time thinking about the content has happened. It is beginning to have that old book scent, the scent only loved by true bibliophiles. It makes me want to revisit my old library, imperfect because all available space has been filled by other books, yet cherished because I know every corner of the library and what hides in them. The old, creaking seats I used to sit in, to fall under another book’s…
The road to diagnosis
It was a cold, dark February morning and once again, my eye and facial pain were back. The antibiotics my GP gave me the week before did not work at all, and he seemed clueless about what could be wrong with me. I had been on several rounds of antibiotics, I had seen a dentist, went to the Eye & Ear Clinic and I had seen a homoeopath, yet nobody was able to give me a clear answer. The only person somewhat clear on what was wrong with me said that I needed to have my immune and central nervous system checked out. Fast. She was an intuitive healer and turned out to be 100% correct. Go figure. On my way to work that morning, sitting next to a cold…
