Under Mad Wood

 

Figure 1 Does that wheel look bockety to you

Under Mad Wood

 

In winter the biting snow arrives early, heralding interminable darkness filled months, that the residents respond to by changing their tyres and wearing layers, using the barks of birthing birches for their kindling, and stocking up on Jagermeister  and  in summertime wild flowers in clusters of lilac and white clutter the roadside  hedging, the un-sprayed chemical free train tracks,  the meadows at the banks of iridescent skyblue lakes.

I know because I saw them.

What's a mad woman from Wexford doing in the middle of Sweden in July writing stuff?

How did she even get there or why?

I asked myself that same question as I dragged a case the size of a small apartment into and out of taxi boots, bus hatches, escalators, elevators, airport carousels, and murderously vicious slamming doors on high speed trains.

The case itself was purchased from a French street vendor in Cannes last week,

for the express purpose of conveying a maniac to Sweden,

to write at the Dylan Thomas Literary Residency in Tranås

stuff, you know just stuff.

It was all very vague.

To commemorate the legendary Welsh Bard, one would have supposed that I would be writing about him ...................... his work, his life, his legacy.

You would suppose wrong.

Of course there will be more than a passing nod to his Lordship in my piece, but I feel the back story here is as worthy of note as any other.

I stood on a station platform in the sweltering heat, feeling that my earlier self -congratulatory cigarette on having made it thus far may have been a tad hasty, as I realised I would have to run the length of a football field through polite Scandinavians dragging a bag with 2 bockety wheels.

Kill me now, Lord.

Ok, so I did that.

And then I did it again.

And then as I was such an old pro at the game, I did it again.

 

Figure 2 Still smiling 4 trains in #deluded

There was a welt on my palm the size of an able seaman’s rope by the time I got off the third train  - 2 stops before mine -  as I couldn't do the heat and the humanity, the swaying, the small poodle who looked up at me wistfully, pleading eyes of small black marbles.

Adele and her sister put me on the first train, having just flown in from a manic Terminal 2 in Dublin, where the combined customs officers  and staff were operating at a speed not usually seen other than a wedding when the bridesmaids are running for the bouquet.

"Move along there, yeah move along, pass the crates back, yeah, take off your shoes, yeah, they have zips in, yeah, yeah, no, NO , yeah, leave the silver bracelet on, be grand, "

says the woman hurling personal items and purses and handbags through the machine as if her life depended on it.

Which it does.

The internal hall is like the centre of a Willy Wonka factory, and the crowds are corralled, chivvied and chased like bulls in a gap.

In Stockholm everything is cool and calm and collected.

There is gentle incidental music being piped out of the ceiling and a smell of fresh coffee and black and white posters of famous Swedes on the wall -

Bjorn Bjorg,

a formula one driver,

Greta Garbo,

Abba,

and that guy from Wallander.

Therez charged my phone on the second train on her spotless Mac Book Pro while she researched hotels online for a jazz weekend and I marvelled at the comfortable carraiges with the dining car, and the perfectly behaved adults and children.

Irish people are mad.

You know what I mean.

We shout and sing and swear and would burst out laughing in your face at the drop of a hat and inform you that you are talking shite.

We heckle and harass each other and say give over and go way and you liar in the one breath.

 

Swedish people are reserved and polite and don't do sarcasm.

In the baking heat and with the aforementioned zips nearly combusting I look around the deserted platform to ask another stranger how to get where I am going.

Alan is 61, blonde and perma-tanned with a gold chain and a pink shirt, and smells of beer and aftershave and lucky strikes.

Oh, IRISH he says .

All my life I have wanted to go to Ireland, you need a husband maybe?

He claps his washboard stomach to indicate his fitness and his ability to be marraige material but despite the whiteness of his teeth, the goldiness of his rings and his similarity to Paul Newman, albeit considerably shorter, I realise my train is leaving and I am on the wrong platform.

Again.

The residency in Tranås is beside the train station so I don't have too far to fall and am heedless to the welcome, the instructions and the information as I need to stand under cold running water and lie down, or vice versa.



48 hours later I see a bed



At some juncture in the evening proceedings were enlivened by the addition of 2 more residents.

Males, authors, one Swedish, one Indian.

Oh how we laughed.

If I tell you the Swede was the inspiration for the Scandinavian dude in "Midnight Express" and is a published poet and author as well as journalist, musician and all round good egg, and the Indian gentleman writes up a furore in numerous languages and runs up the stairs to compose another ode after he finishes his soy milk shakes, and makes off with a carton of hard boiled eggs as quick as Johnny wrote the note and is a non smoking non drinking vegetarian who cycles around the gaff wearing his laminates as the key holder, you still won't get the actual crack.

Somebody who shall remain nameless - Anthony - wrote "Why are we locked in?"on the blackboard.

Figure 3 Out getting locked at a lake

I suppose it could have been worse, we could have been locked out, or just locked.

I will spare the blushes of all concerned and draw a veil over some of the more outrageous pursuits of our debauched weekend, but suffice to say if you put a number of writers, poets, artists and musicians in one beautiful gigantic house over an extraordinarily hot weekend, in a town where one feels like an extra in a Coen Brothers movie with all the Gunderssonns and Sonnersonns and Gustavsons and the parade of American Cars,  when they can barely find their way back to their room as the gaff is the size of Hampton Court Maze, leaving in random groups of 2 or more ,following  each other  to get back to the kitchen, and wondering where on earth there is an open offie selling more than domestic  beer, then you can hardly be surprised to know that I encountered a number of the aforementioned writers and poets still drinking rum at breakfast time the next day.

Well, it was the first night.

 

 

Figure 4 Is that back door locked?

Writers are tortured souls, who inhabit a strange nether world, out at the edges, lost in thought or anger, frustration, ennui, guilt and self analysis/sabotage. They are prone to stress related illness, alcoholism, mental health issues, and depression. They are always broke and wrecked and living on their nerves wondering where the next shilling will come from.

This lot however , were having a ball.

Writers would walk a mile over hot coals and knock you down sideways to get at a pint, or a fag, to stand under dripping balconies on wet decking watching mist rise off   hot roads in a torrential deluge that came with sound effects, thunderclaps  from a Cecil B. De Mille movie, lightning by Disney.

And in that way we may be more similar than we think to the man we have come to this beautiful Swedish town to honour .

Dylan Thomas, a genius from my old stamping ground of Swansea, who re-invented language and humour, a man who was as unstable as he was gifted, prone to swings of mood and lovers, whose long suffering wife was heard to exclaim is he dead yet when she arrived in New York after he lapsed into an alcoholic coma, the man who is one of the most legendary poets and writers to  ever come out of any literary circle, never mind the beautifully ugly town at the base of the hills whose waters flow out to Caswell Bay and the Gower, where I once ran a pub  called The Plough and Harrow.

Dylan drank in many a pub, and got up after a short sleep to keep drinking appointments. He was too ill to celebrate his own birthday and a day later died. He was 39 years old.

I laughed out loud to read tonight that he had to be locked into a room by his agent to write the final  draft of “Under Milk Wood” and the lines for the last scenes were handed to the actors as they were waiting in the wings. As someone who has been known to write her own shows on the actual DAY  I feel his pain.

There’s the locking thing again.

So, apparently I was actually going somewhere with this.

The Swedes could not be nicer and have been their gentle quiet respectful selves, driving us all over the place, taking us out and showing us off, telling the press the mad writers are in town and to turn up to the performances, theatre events, poetry slams, workshops and appearances we will be making over the next 2 weeks as we collaborate in the house where I have already taken over the cooking and being the little boss of all bosses.

The jury is out on whether we will  all make it to all the performances because as Caitlin said of Dylan and of their tempestuous volatile relationship, “The Bar was our Alter" and one of our number has "Do not go gentle into that good night" tattood on her thigh.

Ahem.
Watch this space.


MDM July Monday July 7th 2014