Have you ever been lying in bed at night, waking slowly to hum of a distant car and the possibility of where the driver might be headed? It could be someone on their way to work, a husband making his guilty way back or even home or worse, a murderer hiding a curled up body in the boot. It could be anyone, doing anything. That’s the beauty of the imagination - it gets to go anywhere it wants. This sprawling canvas on which we get to splash our dreams and entertain our darkest desires, endless with possibility. This place where our hopes and fears collide, stirred up by the little bit of crazy in all of us that we do our best to hide. This quiet neighbourhood that holds the sacred part of the spirit we were born with, the part of us that school does its very best to bury alive.
Are you one of the lucky ones who managed to retain the magic?
If so, you’ll know what it’s like to daydream, your thoughts wandering down the streets of cities you’ve never been, the conscious and the unconscious reconnecting in beautiful synchronicity, a glorious communion of what was once and what is now. It’s here, in the folds of the imagination, that the real shit happens. The rock star waiting to sing, the writer chasing the words sprinting across the page, the poet lost in rhyme or the dancer spinning a lonesome pirouette.
The imagination is where we go to find solace. It’s a nice cup of tea or a slice of toast covered in melted butter and your mother’s tasty home made marmalade. It’s the first and last kiss. Some days it’s everything you own and some days it’s the only thing you have left. It’s wild and untamed and it has a habit of running off with itself, leaving only the silence of its absence to remind us that it was ever here in the first place. It’s as big and wide as a Tom Petty song when it’s in the mood. Sometimes it’s hard to explain. It brings me back to kicking ball against a wall, it might as well have been Wembley, my mother’s voice calling us home late on a summer’s evening. It gets excited easily. It brings us up. It drags us down. It’s scratches the itch below the skin. It’s the smile behind the frown. It’s the hurt before the pain and the pain before the hurt. It’s the girl about town. Often it’s the days we will never have and the ones we will never forget. It’s the girl next door. It’s beauty and it’s innocence. It’s the end and it’s the first sentence of the first chapter. It’s the reason why we are destined to begin again.
Always.
It’s full of never ending doubt. Sometimes we dive right in and other times, we tip toe around it, like it’s a bomb waiting to go off. Sometimes we like to let it drift. It’s a U2 song. It’s chorus. It’s melody. It’s what’s in between. It can be something you’ve forgotten. It’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. It’s Bonnie and Clyde. It’s Johnny Fuckin’ Rotten. You decide. It’s a familiar stranger. It’s the guilt that makes us remember the things we want to forget. It keeps us safe and when the time is right it pushes us towards the cliff edge. It’s risk and opportunity, and it’s wisdom too. If we didn’t have it, there would be no reason to exist. It’s our beating heart. Otherwise, the car passing in the middle of the night would be just another car. There would be no Hollywood. No Nirvana. No Einstein. No Sully Breaks. It’s sexy and erotic. It’s a tease. It’s filled with every kind of hoodlum from the exotic to the sleaze. It’s holds our destiny. It shoots the breeze right out of its comfort zone. It’s our final thought before we go to sleep and our first thought in the morning when we wake up. It’s freedom or prison depending on the view.
It makes us feel lonely.
It’s a romantic dinner with Scarlett Johansson, the conversation sweet and running wild. It’s Arsenal winning the European Cup. It hasn’t happened, yet. It might, it might not, I might never know. It’s Dublin doing five. And when it starts to run it doesn’t know how to stop. It’s the winning ticket. It’s everything you ever dreamed of. It’s every painful regret you want to forget. It’s happiness. It’s misery. It holds back the tide. It’s winning and losing. It’s the thoughts you cannot hide. It’s it. It’s a rebel. It’s now and it’s then. It’s a , it’s a hoodlum, a clown and a loyal friend. It’s knowledge. It’s understanding. It’s kiss and tell. It’s the beginning and it’s the end. It’s the finger in the dyke that holds us back from the abyss.
It exists somewhere between heaven and hell.
It doesn’t give a fuck. It’s the person we are when we’re born and it’s who we are when we die. It’s pure, unblemished joy. The emptiness of nothing in a clear blue sky. It’s live and let live. It’s good and bad and it’s dangerous when it wants to be. It’s why we choose to say goodbye. It flows, and sometimes, it stops, until it starts to flow again. It’s head and it’s heart. It’s something lost and found. It’s Freud and Fairbairn. It’s Melanie Klein. It’s a lord or a lady. It’s no ordinary man. It’s the down and out picking himself up off a Dublin pavement on a cold November morning. It’s humour with a heavy slice of Dublin wit thrown in. It’s ‘Deffo Heffo’ on Hill 16. It’s the final note of a lonely busker’s song waiting patiently for the coins to drop on Grafton Street. It’s the passer by lost in thought. It’s everything or it’s nothing at all. It’s the little boy writing his first sentence. It’s ten feet tall. It’s a clever teacher’s hook catching the class before they fall. It’s ‘Wonderwall.’ It’s the old widow looking out at the first specks of rain falling onto the street below. It’s a Christmas card covered in snow.
It’s the things we’ll never know.
It’s nothing and it’s everything. It’s love and hate. It’s the rush of blood to the head and that makes us wait. It’s wonder turning to boredom. It’s a turn of the head. It’s when we stare into space and see clearly what’s dead straight ahead. It’s that moment when you hear the teacher’s voice calling you back from the window. It’s the child settling down to play. It’s the sound of the city waking up and the mist rolling across a shy countryside. There is no difference. except everything. It’s Sherlock Holmes sharing a needle with Mister Mojo Rising beside an early evening fireside. It’s endless possibility. It’s a wedding ring waiting to be bought. It’s where thoughts collide. It’s love me two times baby. It’s glad tidings of joy. It’s a cigarette. Heroin. Crack cocaine. It’s LSD. It’s opium. It’s California dreaming. The tablet dissolving slowly on a moonlit tongue. It’s used to destroy. It’s often inappropriate. It’s Soul Asylum jumping onto a runaway train on Jools Holland. it’s that key that could use a little turning. It finds the ordinary and drives it insane. It’s what makes us count to ten and go beyond. It’s possibility. It’s infinity. It likes to get down and dirty. It’s a girl called Elsa who’s into Alka Seltzer fizzling up in Noel Gallagher’s over active brain. It’s Jesus and it’s Judas. It’s a city street washed clean of all the demons that went before. It’s your ticket out of here or it’s your ball and chain.
It’s the something inside us that we can’t explain.
It’s Brendan Kennelly. It’s Beckett, Yeats, Kavanagh or Joyce. It’s John B. Keane and Brendan Behan and every stranger’s voice. It’s the sweet melody of a street violin sweeping all before it and when it’s edgy, it stirs the calm within. It’s topsy-turvy turned inside out and upside down. It’s a shock to the system, a gasp, a sharp intake of breath, a shout and a scream that comes with a frown. It’s perfectly obscene when it wants to be. It’s the easy on a Sunday afternoon. It’s a heart attack. It’s a break down. It’s a tumble to the ground. It’s the humble genius, waiting patiently to be found. It’s Bono writing that first song that will lead to One. It’s the Edge quietly strumming along. It’s beer and vodka and Capri Sun. It’s the bitter taste of whiskey on the run. It’s liberte, egalite, fraternite. It’s history and it’s now and it’s what lies in between.
It’s what made a man of me.
It’s yesterday running into tomorrow. It’s the softness in a lover’s touch. It’s the sadness in a teardrop, before it falls to the floor, exhausted, spent, it turns to rust. It’s never too much and it’s never too late. It’s lazy when it wants to be. It’s heaven sent. It’s middle name is anxious because it always expects to win. It’s Freddie Mercury saying a prayer to Saint Francis. It’s a daisy chain. It’s a flick of cigarette ash. It’s déjà vu. It’s love me do or love me don’t. It’s insane when it gets bored and it rarely pays the bills, unless you’re name happens to be Steve Jobs. It’s Beatrice Dalle in Betty Blue. It’s hurricane laughter. It’s the devil looking down at you, as God stares up at the moon. It’s painting outside the lines. It’s a moment on a beach, when the ocean pauses for a moment, caught in a washed up seashell. It’s a piece of driftwood waiting to be found. It’s style and funky fashion. It’s Kate Moss in designer jeans, flares or drainpipes, it’s doesn’t matter to sixties cool. It’s younger days filled with Alias Smith and Jones and Robin Hood. It’s hippy fool. Memories filled with Dracula and Frankenstein or Robert De Niro in Angel Heart. It’s Al Pacino. It’s where we start. It’s man. It’s woman. It’s the innocent child who hasn’t yet forgotten what it’s like to be wild, yet. It’s Italian. It’s Irish. It’s whoever you want it to be. It’s the Bronx. It’s Brooklyn. It’s Harlem and the whole damn lot of New York City. It’s rich and it’s poor. It’s the homeless bum who never wants to go home, because the streets are too much fun.
It’s the bright stars in the night sky.
It’s a famine or a feast. It’s the desert sun coming up and going down. It’s Colorado and Wyoming rolling into Tenesee. It’s Inchicore and Ballymun. It’s the restless piece in all of us that’s full of fun. It often gets ignored, but for some reason, it still keeps on coming back for more. And if you stop, it’ll give you a shove. It’s everything you could have been. It’s never too early and it’s never too late. It’s McEnroe and Borg. It’s a higher state. It’s Ali and Frazier trading blow for blow and pound for pound. It’s George Best skipping round dastardly Chopper Harris on his way to goal. It’s Martin Luther King Junior’s dream. It lives underground. It’s gritty and hard to throw off. It’ll catch you unawares when you’re about to fall asleep and often when it’s over, you won’t remember it, unless you write it down. It’s Obama and it’s Trump. It’s opposites attract. It’s Marilyn singing Happy Birthday to JFK, now that’s a fact. It’s Nixon dissolving into Watergate. It’s Hitler. It’s Stalin. It’s Maggie. It’s May. It’s Iraq. It’s Iran. It’s Jewish. Muslim. Hindu. Buddhist. Christian. It’s black. brown. white. red, pink and yellow. It’s Vietnam, followed by Iraq and Afghanistan.
It’s everything you still have left to do.
It’s all those plans that have fallen through. It’s our hopes, our dreams and our darkest fears. It’s the girl next door or the prettiest guy you’ve ever seen. It’s as close to home and as faraway as you can get. It’s the here and it’s now. It’ll look you straight in the eye and stare you down. It’s the reason why the sun rises and falls. It’s a cry. It’s a sigh. It’s a cheesy laugh out loud. It’s lying in a park listening to Bruce Springsteen whilst watching about a cloud float overhead. It’s a kite surfing on the summer breeze somewhere over Cairo captured in a friend’s photograph.
It’ll tell you were it all went wrong and it’ll set you free when the time is right. After all, it’s where beauty lives and dies. Or maybe it’s just another lonely car passing in the middle of the night.
