“To be honest, I am tired about Gaza. Even those outside Gaza, they only speak about us. I want to talk about books, music, love, food and work. However this is a privilege I cannot enjoy.”—Ziad, diary entry, 30th of October 2023

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A list, if nothing else:

—A great tit hangs off the top of my bedroom window, nipping at insects.

—Mullaghmore pier: empty lobster pots piled against the high sea wall on which a cormorant peers down at me while young lads fish for crabs with rashers, disposable grill at the ready.

—The Palestine solidarity session/fundraiser at the castle cafe, for the Women of Hebron, a textile co-op, whose livelihoods have been threatened after settlers hounded and destroyed their workshop in Hebron. After Gerry reads his story about sense of place, he notes that the swifts nest in Gaza in the spring, just as they do in Ireland; he wonders, who will see them in Gaza next spring? Aoife sings a keen, a prison song, a song of death, all in Irish, for the people who aren't allowed to decide for themselves when they can die.

—On my walk this morning, I pass the sign pointing toward the grounds of the famine graveyard and former workhouse, sites of an age when the Irish did not die on their own terms.

—From my friend Tara: hawthorn tea and a jar of homemade hawthorn tincture (equal parts hawthorn berry/leaf/blossom, vodka, honey), for the heart.

—On a windowsill, a small tortoiseshell butterfly beats its wings frantically against the glass. I open the window, and it flutters its way to freedom.

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