sketching, story-keeping, noticing
E195: When is an AI prompt like kissing the Blarney Stone? Crows Writing Retreat in Ireland, "Ripples" preview, Blarney Castle
Slán go fóill, Crows
I’ve had a riotous time writing with the Crow sisterhood - in Ireland. The linguistically accurate way to refer to us would be as a ‘murder’ of crows, but that sounds sinister, and not at all reflective of the experience we are enjoying.
I will share more detail on what I have learned in a future “Crow” edition.
I brought along my favourite project of the moment - a travel memoir with a twist. [Working title Ripples …] tracks a journey through sixteen countries taken over nine months with three children all under the age of eight … and the ripple effect this adventure has had on our family in the subsequent twenty years. Move over AI — these amazing writers have been helping me play with the content, flipping the lens as I consider alternate ways to present my work.
I borrowed one vignette from the collection of stories for this week’s edition. This story continues last week’s look back on our journey to Ireland in 2005. Having my Dad along when we visited Blarney Castle “Made Great Memories” for my children.
The Portugal meetups are organized. Are you based around London, UK? Fancy a meetup? If you are near London between July 1-3, 7 let’s organize a 1:1, or a bigger WoP meetup. I’m in Sheffield for the July 4-6 weekend if you happen to live that way!
This re-write was inspired by the very Irish writing style of Niall Williams, author of This is Happiness. Thank you for that book recommendation
.at what price, this gift of the gab?
The moist green Irish moss clung to the roughly hewn stones, settling into the crevices between the mortar, letting you know that this bridge had been standing on this spot for many years, many decades, many centuries.
Standing on that bridge, a respectable distance from the famed Blarney Castle, my father watched his grandchildren. After hours folded into the back seat of the minivan, you could hear their peals of laughter ringing like little bells as these young children played catch, productively releasing that pent-up energy, finally stretching their elongated limbs.
Sitting a little ways away, I watched him pull out a little sketchpad and pencil from the pocket of the peaty green raincoat that allowed him to blend into the hues of this Emerald Isle. Then, he slowed down, right down, to the speed of sketching.
slowing down to the speed of sketching
Dad set to work, quietly capturing the outline and shape of the buildings on this hallowed ground. Not clean bold lines, but a series of dots and dashes that allowed him to be mindful as he took mental photographs and rendered the wisps of magic into permanent memories on paper.
The contradiction in activities makes this one of my favourite photos of my Dad and his grandchildren from our visit to Ireland in 2005. For others, the trophy photo of a visit to the Blarney Stone would be the traditional hanging by the feet, kissing the stone. But this tells a different story.
Is our obsession with AI the current day equivalent to the hack of ‘Kissing the Blarney Stone’?
For centuries, orators and amateurs alike have made a silent pilgrimage to Blarney Castle, climbed the cold stone steps to the very top. Each was searching for a short cut to eloquent and persuasive language … much the way some people today hope that a recipe black-box relationship with an AI chat bot will turn them into an viral Substack sensation.
Today I see our increasing reliance on AI chat tools as the modern parallel to the ancient ‘magic’ of kissing the Blarney Stone.
In each case we are hoping to walk away with the gift of the gab.
Dad had little need for that. As a school principal, he enjoyed playing with words - puns were his happy place. He was a well-respected orator - often asked to raise the toast at the multitude of weddings in our community as many were either his students, his relations or his friends. But he waited patiently with us as we kissed the Blarney Stone, hoping for our own touch of magic!
Instead, I believe he wished there was a stone he could kiss that would give him more skill with his sketching. Was the Blarney Stone only for speaking with “great eloquence and wit”? He had friends & relatives who were accomplished artists and I think he harboured a secret hope that somewhere the skill would rubbed off on him! Here he stood contemplating if rubbing this famous stone would work as effectively for an aspiring artist.
Sketching was his way of stilling the moment and preserving a memory in his mind. The dots on the paper may not transfer pixel for pixel as the 300 photos taken that day on celluloid. But his mental memory captures more than the 2D visual. It holds the signals of the day - the sound of the children, the roughness of the stone, the speed of the wind.
his room with a view
In the days after his passing, I cleared my father’s desk. I found it hard to pack up a space so intimately associated with the fold of his body. His desk nestled in a bay window that gave him a view of the pond across. The graceful willow tree and its resident three swan - this pond had provided us with a precious glimpse of nature in a city made of concrete and brick. The water in the pond tracked the wind and the seasons, reflecting the colour of the sky and the leaves in the reflection in its shallow waters.
As I trailed my fingertips across his desk, I accidentally brushed against his pencil. Ahh! He had been sketching again. He had frozen the moment with a light pencil drawing of the pond, the willow, the fence, in his particular style. These sketches littered the house.
Wait! There was something familiar about this paper. I smiled as my fingers found the familiar perforations on the sides of the large white sheets. Yes! It was my graduation dissertation. I had written an accounting package to run a small business, and here were the endless yards of paper with the perforated edges and dot matrix print. Never one to waste anything he had put his sketch on the back of my programme! I pulled out my computer program, flipped it over and smiled at his “painting” in pencil. A little bit of Dad. A little bit of me. Thanks, Dad!
ripples
On this journey to Ireland, twenty years later, I find I am the one with a small sketch book in hand:
The detail of a Celtic knot embedded in the Celtic cross marking a Cardinal’s grave in St. Mary’s Church of Ireland cemetery in Limerick. Beyond the intricate design which I struggle to capture, I recall the white gravel in the pit of the tomb across marked “Catholic grave site of the Clancy family in a cemetery that dates back to the 12th century.
I sketch (sketch is too generous a word, more like scribble) the trailing ivy on the lamp post on the ramparts of the Norman era castle, a little skiff on the River Nore. Immediately, I am transported back to my walk through Kilkenny with
, and my photo of her sitting by the canal within view of the Carnegie Museum.Two swan necking in Galway Harbour. That visual would become the basis of the Claddagh ring design so popular around the world. As I review my sketch, I can taste the sweet strawberries I shared from the little market by the Spanish Arches, and feel the cold wind whipping my hair.
Each picture is incomplete. Some can only be deciphered by me. Each stroke of the pencil is an enforced slowing down to capture the magic of that moment, to read the signals, to ‘notice’. They become the essential elements, the building blocks of story-keeping, waiting for an opportunity to shine again in a new story on a different day.
Maybe I’m twenty years older and twenty years wiser.
Maybe I want to slow time right down and trace the moment—the whole moment—incompletely through my fingers, instead of perfectly through my lens.
Maybe I want to set the example of ‘being present’ for my own children.
Maybe I want to ripple a little of my Dad forward in time.
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See you again next week.
Karena
Dateline: Dublin, Ireland
Thanks to the Crows sisterhood (now gathering on Substack!)
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Beautifully written Karena and thanks for sharing your sketches. I’ve always shied away from drawing because it never quite looked right but I love the idea of using it to capture a moment in time.
I often take photos of places that look so well-framed they could be from a postcard or tour guide - and each time I think how they lack anything personal. I dislike selfies or being in the picture myself. Scribbling images and prompt words is a much better way to bottle the memory!
As AI produces even better finished products I think we will find more and more value in our imperfect attempts at writing and producing - because in the end the one thing that AI can’t replace is the pleasure of the actual lived experience.
Oh, Karena....
You brought me to tears (again) with your beautiful story and the way you've so intimately woven it into today. Your language is so lush and fragrant. This may be my favorite essay you've ever written.
Thank you--for your talent, your generosity, and your endless search to learn and be all that you can. You're an inspiration and I'm deeply grateful.