I hesitate to respond, Frank. Your perspective of the future appears to have taken quite a turn in one week, since you published this diary. It's taken a turn about everything, everywhere that's lunatic and familiar, not strange or actually alarming bollox, but the negotiations at Stormont. That's a bit of a stress, isn't it. Persevere, nonetheless. Burns scar. Scars are mementos.

I myself have on my forearm a fifty-year-old scar from a tipped pot of scalding water. How it happened to be is beside my point. I don't remember anyway. My point is, I do remember it once ran nearly the full length. Now it's but a quarter of its own accord or rather the regenerative properties of life and imperceptible castings of its shell as I go about my business. That is what I carry with me.

Last week I took my daily constitutional to the corner grocer. The breeze was right. My new neighbors congregated on the stoops of those ol' rowhouses gossiping and nodding to rhythm and blues outa someone's car stereo. One  gentleman of a certain age snagged me 'bout my waist for a dance. And I blushed and tried my best. That is what I carry with me.

Time will tell. Some people will rise to the day. Not all will, this you may allow. Some people you've yet to meet may be just enough. Just as was to bring Ireland to this new day out of the last day, angst with the past, the "backwater", no? Some people will, because they must. And also there's no skin left to burn. Look there. You will not be abandoned.


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