Wed on Tuesday!
I got married on Tuesday. We’re just back from Killarney, in Kerry, Ireland, where we went for a couple of nights after the wedding. I’m letting the world know because I’m happy, and the world has too much sadness in it. My own field of study, research and writing is hard — and I get almost no pay, since I’m self employed — because I’m focused on the ecological emergency (climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, but also political and even personal fragmentation — systemic collapse at every level). So it’s wonderful to celebrate something truly joyous: love, and a deep appreciation of another human being, and the delight in being loved, and the pleasure of the commitment to honour, and to care for, another.
But the other reason I’m writing about the wedding is because it was unusual.
It’s not the first time for either of us, which is hardly news. N’s wife died in 2010. I didn’t know her. She sounds absolutely wonderful. My ex husband is still alive. I still love him! But I left him in 2015 when I finished my PhD and realised that even that wasn’t lifting me out of a terminal sense of depression and despair. The weather (in northwest Mayo) didn’t help.
I went to Dublin, tried to find a postdoc position, failed (because I hadn’t published anything at that point — I’ve now got three books to my name and I’m working on a fourth at the moment). Ended up working as…
