Michael and Nanny McPhee

 I always wondered why the story of Nanny McPhee and the Patrick Doyle soundtrack always attached it self to my relationship with Michael. My brain is an interesting machine, damaged so badly by injury and trauma and rewired with an autistic slant. The brain always insisted in attaching Snow in August and Nanny McPhee to the penthouse and Michael. 

You see, the relationship between myself and Michael wasn't romantic, he unsurprisingly had no interest in me that way, I was overweight and looked pretty awful from homelessness and my teeth were broken and so on. Sometimes because of what he said and did, I was afraid his actions might be to do with trafficking. And I sometimes wonder if he was disappointed to find I was older than I looked. He did push me for my birthday, age and date of birth and when he stole my data, I presume he got all his info. 

Snow in August has romance and challenges in it, it begins with a widower and his troubled children. The widower is being forced into marriage, a choice between marriage to someone unsuitable and a miserable future but keeping his home, children and income, or refusing to marry and being left ruined and homeless and with the children taken away.

In a surprise twist at the end, Mr Brown and his children rebel, with a bit of help, against the forced marriage to the horrible woman, and he marries his scullery maid, who has been trained as a lady by the person forcing him to marry, it is a beautifully crafted story and the power of the snow in august theme music makes it enchanting as the snow falls. 

Michael was forcing me towards things that weren't a future for me. There had been so much sadness and loss and I was carrying so much, the same as Mr Brown. Three weeks after meeting Michael, I fled, but he got me to come back. I know now, after making a very difficult decision to leave college last year and subsequently doing outstandingly in my studies elsewherre, that when I decide to leave somewhere, that I'm right, and to trust myself, but I was homeless and scared and vulnerable, helpless, so I went along with Michael's agenda just as Mr Brown went along with Aunt Adelaide. 

It was at the very last minute Mr Brown and the children rebelled, aware that the consequences could be their ruin, but they couldn't go ahead with an uncertain and unhappy future. 

It was at the very last minute when Michael suddenly withdrew the tenancy we'd agreed HAP for with the council, and he tried to make me go into something unknown instead. And I rebelled, for my safety, well-being and future.

Just as it created an immediate crisis of uncertainty for Mr Brown and the children, it created the same for me.

In all the years that my brain made Michael and my story into Nanny McPhee while I puzzled over it and felt a bit embarrassed because Nanny McPhee has that element of romance and marriage and that isn't what Michael and myself were about, it has taken until today, as we go into the second Anniversary of the devastating end of my relationship, so to speak, with Michael, to understand why Nanny McPhee and Snow in August are relevant parallels.

Nanny McPhee taught the children a series of lessons, and Michael himself was a teacher, and tried to teach me, not entirely successfully. 

The story comes to a close with the unhappy forced wedding, Michael's attempt to force me into a situation which wouldn't work. The rebellion, mine the same as Mr Brown and the children's, and then the unexpected twist to the tale.

Mr Brown married the woman who he loved and who loved him and the children, so he did marry, he did meet the requirements to keep his income and family, while marrying for love, a woman who loved his children as well as him.

I took a flying leap, Michael was behaving bizarrely and making no sense and I was very lost and broken. I went to my home town to get direction. I won't ramble about what this means, but from there I went to Limerick, where Michael had intended me to live. 

I had moved my life to Limerick from Dublin due to Michael's pressure, but now had nowhere to stay but I chose to take the risk and try to find somewhere. It was very very tough, but I knew it was right, I knew I'd come home. I have had some of the happiest moments and days of my life in Limerick. I got my dream wedding, a marriage for love instead of forced marriage, I came home. The way my life has changed is little more than a miracle even though there is still a long road ahead and I'm still suffering.

I really only realised this this evening.

Next week I celebrate the second anniversary, two years in Limerick, two years since the night in the rain. 

One of my best poems, Monaleen church, has been scrutinised by a number of people, but people have trouble understanding what the abstract actually means. It's a bit like a dark mirror of Snow in August with a number of elements and voices. Only one person asked if 'The trees drawing the night in early' was about Joe Drennan, God rest his soul. I supported his family in the protests regarding the DPP sentencing of his killer. My voice is in this poem briefly, speaking of the easter vigil and the bonfire holding against the rain, and at the end 'I came home' but there are others on the stage in the poem, my lines are brief. I wrote this using our end of Castletroy instead of Annacotty. 

Monaleen Church

I remember from childhood,
the rain on the stone and earth of the walls at Castletroy.
I remembered—but couldn’t tell you—the feeling:
sitting in the day services, looking out at the rain.

I remember you.
I could read you, though you didn’t know.
You meant well. I miss you.

I remember Groody and Golf Links,
Dublin Road, home.
Music, dance, oranges.
Dancing Queen. I lived for my music.

I was with you
when you brought her home—
when you brought me home.
Answering God’s call without knowing.

A companion to dance, to laugh,
to love the music.

I remember the rain on the walls of Dublin Road,
the trees drawing night in early.
But most of all—
the Easter Vigil at Monaleen Church,
the bonfire blazing bravely.

May 9th.
December 25th.
Monaleen Church in full bloom—
the flowers, the beauty, the ache of it all.

So here I am.
Home.

A ghost made of ice crystals and fire embers,
soaring above Monaleen and Castletroy—
and in her, in her music,
in her dance with life...

I came home.

And don't forget to this is Snow in August: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-22iMl8BiI

Limerick. My last stop. My snow in August. I love you. 2 years!