Everything goes back to the beginning

Walking this morning on the ancient trails around Lough Derg (my very own “haunts of ancient peace”), I happened on an old memory. Right now the hedgerows and lanes are bursting with wild blossom of every conceivable kind but my attention was taken by one thing.  At first, I wasn’t even sure why it caught me so – this was one of those slow-dawning bolts from the blue (I mix good cocktails too, not just metaphors). It was a moment where I was afforded a rare insight into where it all started for me. It had never occurred to me that there was an actual starting point – but I guess all things have a beginning. So, was this my ‘musical big-bang moment’?

“Hi, my name is Kieron…and I am a collector” (there, I said it).

Whistle While You Work

What was it that sparked the insight? It was the sight of a simple “weed” (often referred to as Queen Elisabeth Lace) and it transported me back to childhood days at my mother’s village on the Dingle peninsula. It was haymaking time and I, along with my brother, was sent to “help” in the field (we called it help, they called it something else…. we were young). It was one of those hot, hazy and buzzing summer days as we set about gathering in the hay and loading it high onto the horse-drawn cart with long-handled pitchforks. Everyone in the field was busy with the work, everyone except an old man who sat in the corner, by the wild margins where the weeds and wild stuff grew. (I guess this was before the methods of intensive farming wreaked its havoc on the wilder aspects of farming. These were the days when we would squeeze nectar of sublime-sweetness from the hedgerow fuchsia bushes straight onto our delighted tongues. Then riding home atop the vast mountain of hay – my first natural high on grass I wonder?). The old man sat there in his flat cap and tweed jacket (it’s a thing in Ireland!) head down working intently on something in his leathery hands using an ancient knife.

You Talking To Me

I took little notice of him until he beckoned me toward him. As I reached him he stretched out his hand and offered me the fruits of his labours. I still struggle to find the words to describe the sense of amazement I felt when I saw what he had made – from nothing! From the stalks of the weeds growing in the margins, he had fashioned a fully working whistle. It’s the kind that has a plunger and piston inside it and, working it a bit like a trombone, you pull or push the plunger in and out and play a gliding scale of what to me was the sweetest of music – this was miraculous to me. I see now that I can almost certainly trace my life-long love of the weird and wonderful and homemade musical instruments to that one special, unheralded, unheeded moment. To this day I still don’t know who he was.

Looking For Answers

I have never tried to make sense of my passion (some say compulsion) to add to my ever-increasing collection of instruments. I will say this though; each one speaks to me (or for me) in a certain way, each one offers me a unique means of expression, a unique voice or a way to allow the song from the heart to find its way to the surface… And this collection has come to be a very important part of me and even defines the creative part of me. And once I “came out” as an inveterate collector, once I acknowledged to myself this was part of who I am – it was OK. Maybe the truth really will set us free?

I can’t adequately define why this insight has meant so much to me. Perhaps it is that sense of emotional time-travel one gets when connecting the dots of the past with the actions of the present? For now, I feel a bit more integrated, and that I have come to a greater understanding of what drives me. It’s like the last few pieces of the gigantic jigsaw puzzle revealing their place in the final pattern or image – there is some kind of satisfaction there. All I can say is, it is a very pleasant feeling and I will never look another weed in quite the same way.

And You Dear Friend

I wonder, can you trace a moment or a particular experience that was a trigger point or definitive starting point for a life long passion or interest? Something that defines you, something that is part of your very fibre? What was it for you? Does it change or complete the experience to identify the starting point? Is there a sense of homecoming?

And not knowing is ok too. But right now, I am enjoying the insight and the recognition of such a pivotal and pastoral starting point.

A small part of the collection

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