ETHEL ROHAN
1) Where are you from? Why?
I grew up in a terraced house in a working class neighborhood in Dublin, Ireland. Why? Because that is what I asked of the Universe.
2) Generate a relevant formula.
I would rather eat a formula, but here goes:
abuse – healing = prison.
3) On your blog, you left a comment on a post regarding passion and commitment and writing that says, “Hello, my name is Ethel, I am an addict. But I’m not checking out on life or love or people altogether. ” What’s a sacrifice you make by being a writer?
I think if you asked my family and friends the same question, they would respond that I am indeed addicted to writing and the writing life, and that I sacrifice a lot for its sake i.e. free time, phone calls, get-togethers, connecting, being present, the outdoors, pursuits with more concrete and lucrative results etc. However, I don’t feel I sacrifice a whole lot.
I love to read and write. How lucky am I that I get to pursue my passion every day? I do have to be careful though. I work crazy hard and sometimes confuse my PC for a third child. I think I could stay in my room forever and surf, read, and write. I’m blessed with a rich life outside of my writing and writing community that I know will dry-up if I don’t nurture it. I love my family and friends dearly. So I have to remind myself to stay in balance, and to regularly pull away from my writing room and to get outside, play with the people I love.
4) Are writers more concerned with publishing their own writing or reading the work of their peers?
I’ll answer for me and say that it’s a dance. When I first started going to the dance I mostly had eyes for me in the wall mirrors. I wanted to dance in the center of the circle. I’ve grown and matured and settled in. I trust every thing more now, especially myself. I have much more respect for my own writing and for that of my peers. I’m no longer panicked, no longer rushing to get my wares seen. Now I’m far more concerned with getting the work “right,” at its “best.”
At last I believe I belong at the dance; that there’s room for me; that I’ve earned my rightful space on the dance floor. I still have moments of weakness and rush work out, lose my head a little, but I’m aware. I’m trying. There’s lots of great talent all around me to see and enjoy and admire. I still want to be an incredible dancer. Because I’m surrounded by incredible dancers. I wouldn’t know that wealth of talent and writing if I didn’t stand still every so often and just witness my peers at their best, point and clap and cheer. Compete. Cherish. Read, read, read.
5) Is anything eternal?
I don’t know, and I don’t think it matters. That’s like asking is there a God? I’m not sure God matters either. I’m not concerned with any afterlife, but with the here and now. I believe not so much in God, but in living a God-like life. I try hard and do my best, strive at a God-like essence: love, goodness, joy, peace, and compassion.
6) What is there, and what should we do about it?
There’s a lot of suffering all about us. Some are in a position to play a major role in easing suffering, while most of us can only do something small. We should do that something small. We should do whatever it is we can. Moments present themselves, and we should seize them. Yesterday, my seven-year-old daughter painted our neighbor’s fingernails a deep purple. Our neighbor, eighty-three, fell last year and broke her hip. She is in constant pain, essentially house-bound, and deteriorating daily. For us to visit, hold her hands, and paint her nails was a small thing, but how proud and bright her smile when she held up her hands, how the polish sparkled despite the rest of the story those bruised, wasting limbs told.
7) This is the feeling question. Make us feel something.
I drive our daughters to school in a little red rental car. The bright rental screams: Hey, you, see me, I’m a red car. Sometimes my insides scream too: Hey, you, see me, I’m a red girl. Only I don’t say “red.”
My truck is back in the shop with more engine issues, some part needed, to be shipped from some distant place. I don’t even know the rental car’s make. It seems a happy enough contraption.
I drive along in this little red happy car and fiddle blindly with the controls at the side of my seat, trying to bring the back of the chair forward, so I’m not sitting at such a weird angle, exacerbating that pain in my lower back that comes and goes and causes that little voice in my head to ask in low, insistent tones “Who is giving you a pain in your back???”
At last I locate the needed handle; the back of the seat springs forward, whacks me. I cry out, startled, and immediately laugh. I mock-shout, still laughing, and pretend to fight off the seat. My daughters find this hysterical, cheer me on.
I drop the girls at school and drive away. At the lights, I mentally replay my seat wrestle, our fun. It felt so good to laugh that hard and long, that easily. I don’t think too much about how it also felt surprising.
Ethel Rohan’s blog, containing musings and published stories, is here.
