Happy Easter ... it's not all bad

You know, it's not all bad, writes Brian Byrne. We're still in the middle of a kind of madness. Hyped up with coronavirus. Sometimes at odds with much of what's going on. Crabby with Government, work, community, and even our own selves. It's truly a mixed up, anxious, contrary time.

But it still doesn't get much better than sitting out early on an Easter Sunday morning in one of those unexpected sun-traps in the garden, beside the shed which the risen sun's rays are heating up to a radiator behind me as well as warming me directly.

Coffee, some remains of yesterday's Kalbarri pastries and that other surprise of the weekend, the sourdough hot cross buns from the Crean's Place Saturday pop-up shop. The guts of a couple of hours spent reading the Weekend Irish Times on real paper. I've had the time to take in the detail of news, politics, business, opinion, and obituaries. In a way that you simply can't do when flitting through a screen.

Scrolling and swiping through monitors and phones does tend to rob us of detail, of nuance, of depth. We're become a people whose knowledge is based on headlines, and the only stories we focus on are likely to be those which reflect our own beliefs and prejudices. The kind of information-taking that suits fake news so well. The days of spreading a morning paper on the kitchen table and going through page by page are largely gone, and we are knowledge-impoverished for that. The sometimes frantic pace that I allow in my own life even at its this stage means I am as guilty of all this as anyone else.

So, over a couple of hours beside the shed this morning, toasting in a sun that didn't dance in the Easter Sunday morning, I took the time to give myself a broader perspective on many of the issues and incidents that are current. I feel the better for it. I'm more relaxed by having absorbed the wider perspectives.

Also the better for the externals of the morning. The clicketing of the starlings busy preparing their annual nests in our corner eaves, a downside of which is already more droppings on the ground and outdoor furniture. Two of them on a wall, one closing up to the other and making advances that are firmly and noisily brushed away with a flather of wings. A wood-pigeon's call in the distance, answered from another faraway and a long conversation ensuing. A big bee bumbling by, checking on what sustenance might be opening with the flowers in the sun. One of the many cats which have usurped daytime spaces and travelling rights in our garden, sitting on a wall post and musing on potential opportunities for the day. Tiny flies flickering against the bright. The tree we planted last year as knee-high bursting its buds in a flourish and now almost as tall as myself.

Until I finally brought one out to write this, it was no computer, no phone, no Kilcullen Diary writing or podcast. Even a break from preparing the almost-finished April Bridge for printing on Tuesday.

I think there's time for another coffee. It's not all bad, you know. Happy Easter.

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