Throughout the Level 5 restrictions, I have been categorised among those deemed as essential workers. It's not been a status I've completely made my peace with.
Sure, I am a reporter, a brief which regularly requires me to be physically out and about and it’s probably the element of the job I derive the most satisfaction from.
And don’t get me wrong: far too much modern journalism nowadays is conducted at a desk, in front of a computer, away from a person’s expression, let alone their words. Away from the world.
As far as I’m concerned, an editor should rarely see his/her reporters from one end of the week to the other. The work being filed on time is what really matters as opposed to where the physical work of assembling the story is conducted, as the current pandemic has suitably demonstrated.
It may well sound the death knell for the old-fashioned Monday to Friday newsroom as we’ve traditionally known it but that train had, in many cases, largely left the station before most of us first heard of Wuhan.
But my purported essential status in the context of the past 13 months is a far cry from what’s been demanded of medical front liners, funeral directors and the men and women keeping our supermarkets open.
And while I’m on this, any teacher I know - and I know a few - wants to teach in a physical classroom in front of their pupils, despite the text messages received by talk radio over the past year which suggest otherwise. That some people still fail to distinguish between teachers and teaching unions is something which has been a lengthy source of bemusement to me.
Anyway, the point I am unnecessarily labouring over is that a piece of paper verifying my employment has granted me the ability to drive anywhere in the country, let alone the county I live in, over the past year.
And while I’m conscious that I have been more mobile than most since March of last year, being one of a handful of people who attended both the Munster and All-Ireland Senior Hurling Finals, I have not packed my picnic basket for a day trip to the Inishowen Peninsula, for example. I’ve not abused the privilege my job creates for me.
When I have travelled, it has been for professional or family reasons. I’ve seen swathes of Munster and the Midlands minus the imposition of traffic build-ups. I’ve never exchanged greetings with so many Gardaí in such a concentrated span of time. In fact, I’ve never enjoyed driving so much in the absence of so many other motorists!
Deep sadness has befallen several people within my sphere over the past year, which in turn has led me into the cavernous space of empty churches, bar the 10 mourners, celebrants and undertakers.
I’ve both sung and said my goodbyes, in one case to a great woman who, a quarter century ago, regularly took my change for the newspaper I’d read when I could during the school day.
In the past year, I’ve written more obituaries than I have in any other corresponding 12-month window since my career began in 1999. In the process, I’ve learned more about people I knew well, several I was vaguely familiar with and some I didn’t know at all.
The parish I grew up in – Portlaw – a 20-minute drive from Waterford city, has lost a few more of its characters, people we knew in some cases exclusively by their nicknames. Few men my age have nicknames which supersede what’s printed on their birth certificate. Old ways are literally dying out.
That so many have been denied the chance to say goodbye to a loved one or lifelong friend has been one of the greatest cruelties of this past year.
“A lot of people didn’t even know he was after dying,” a woman told me last week, referring to her father who passed away last April. In a big village like Ireland, where a county boundary is more like the lip of your neighbour’s door, it’s hard to believe we’ve found ourselves speaking to each other like this.
A global virus has triggered events and conversations of an altogether different and unanticipated hue. Who will do the home schooling? Who goes to the shop? Who will call to Mam and Dad? Who gets to go to the funeral - and who doesn’t? Who is running the country?
It just so happened that I’d a week’s holidays I was required to take before the end of this month, a week I happen to be currently in the middle of.
And given that the days didn’t require me to be sat at my home office desk, scribbling away during regular working hours, I decided to do something I’d not done in seven years: a lengthy trek of the section of the Comeragh Mountains I know best.
And in so doing, the uncomfortable realities of the past year evaporated, even if both of my Achilles tendons were left feeling a tad more strained than usual since creaking out of bed on Thursday morning!
The range’s highest point is Fauscoum (792 metres/2598 feet), and, as summits go, it’s quite unremarkable from a scenic perspective, routinely enough reached via a narrow path beyond the more scenic Knockaunapeebra (724m/2375ft).
Granted, the steep trek which awaits having initially crossed the spectacular Mahon Falls requires some patience as it’s hardly a straightforward walk, at least not for a relative novice which I remain in mountain hiking terms.
But what lies on either side of Fauscoum made my four-hour trek so worthwhile, underlining for me the magic on my own doorstep: the aforementioned Mahon Falls and the magnificent Coumshingaun Lake and the 1200-feet high cliff which towers over it.
I made my way between waterfall and lake via the table’s soft plateau, forcing me to somewhat zig zag across the thick, squelchy blanket bog before reaching the wall above the cliff edge.
A mountain hare briefly caught my peripheral vision, while two finches, I believe, appeared partly interested in my movements until they darted away. Those minor aural interruptions aside, there was not a sound to be heard for most of my time on Waterford’s roof. It proved as calm a day as anyone can have spent in these astounding parts.
And for someone who has rarely struggled with the concept of one’s own company for hours on end, it was as happy as day I’ve experienced over this past unusual year.
To avoid repetition, I made my way down a rocky trail with a narrow stream which ultimately feeds into the still infant Mahon River. With no obvious path to pursue, I picked out the trails established by the sheep which graze on the slopes to make my way onto a less arduous descent, again zig-zagging through rock and heather to make it into the heart of the astounding valley, crossing the Mahon and finally returning to the car park.
My long, soul nourishing walk, marking the week in which we were all permitted to stretch our legs a little bit further, taking me across scree, stream and bog, had reached its conclusion.
I dried myself off, changed my tee-shirt and jacket before slowly setting off down off the mountain, back towards my more regular experience of reality. But that wasn’t in any way a disappointing prospect given the most regular company life has provided me with in more recent years.
My good fortune doesn’t require 60-feet high neon lettering for me to see it for what it is and for me to recognise and appreciate the value that has been added to my waking moments. I know how fortunate I am.
“It is ruinous for the soul to be anxious about the future and miserable in advance of misery, engulfed by anxiety that the things it desires might remain on its own until the very end,” wrote Seneca. “For such a soul will never be at rest – by longing for things to come it will lose the ability to enjoy present things.”
How best we spend our time, be it with ourselves on a mountain top or at home with those we love, making the best of a less than ideal window in our own shared living experience, is to revel in the best of what’s available to us now. And it sure beats arguing with a stranger on Twitter.
Life ought to take on a more recognisable reality over the coming months. But in the meantime, it’s worth pondering who and what is truly essential to you. Let’s face it, we’re not here for all that long.
Worrying never leads to anything other than additional worry. Control the controllable. Enjoy those present things. Stop sweating over the small stuff. And hey, why not climb a mountain or two along the way? Right then, the dogs downstairs need walking. Then it’s off to bed. Who knows what tomorrow may bring?
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