MY MOMENT OF LIGHT IS MY DRIVE TO WORK - Helen McClements

My moment of light is my drive to work in a college in Belfast where I am currently teaching. It is a 12 minute drive, door to door, and I am thankful for my short commute. I feel I ought to take a bicycle, but I have books to carry, and I am not a confident cyclist. Besides, I love my drive and always try to be open to something illuminating.

I open the passenger door and load in my bookbag and my lunch basket and pop my keep cup in the holder. I nod to the neighbour who walks his schnauzer Betty around this time. If I miss him, I know I’m late, but today he is there, and Betty wags her tail. I could, if I wanted, drive along the carriage way, past the takeaway shops for fish and chips and pizza. But instead I turn left, taking the route which meanders over the hill. With its sharp turns, this road requires focus, hands at ten and two on the wheel. Sometimes untamed branches from the bushes scuff the side of my old family car, if other drivers aren’t paying the same heed they might veer over the non-existent divide.

But when I swing left at the top, the road widens, dipping sharply before rising again and the vista unfolds. To the east, Belfast lies in the valley, where even on the greyest mornings, tenacious rays of sun break through and glint off the town centre buildings. At the shipyard at the mouth of Belfast Lough, Samson and Goliath keep their watchful eye over the city. 

Glancing west over undulating fields, I see the Castlereagh hills from which C.S. Lewis took his inspiration for Narnia. On winter mornings, when the watery sunlight catches frost dancing on the tips of trees, I feel the stirrings of something magical—this is fertile ground for a writer’s imagination.

Soon I approach a crossroads and here I swing left again to head to school. I squash the urge to go straight, to drive through the town of Comber to Killinchy village, until I reach Strangford Lough. I want to drive on, over a bridge to Sketrick Island, on which is perched an inn, where I could look out to what Heaney calls “the glazed foreshore” and watch “islands riding themselves out into the fog.” I want to spot the dappled grey of harbour seals basking on iridescent shores. Today, I want to replace the chattering of children and the bells which sound 22 times to signal the start and end of class: 11 more times than usual to allow for a quick cleanse during transitions. I want to close my eyes and let the strange gurgling call of the Brent Geese, newly arrived from Canada, wash over me, and marvel at their creamy bellies, their speckled rippled feathers, the distinctive white streak on their collars. I want to taste the salt on my lips and hear the billow and bustle of main sails and the chug of the fishing boats, heaving with their catch of mussels and scallops and prawns.

But today is a school day, and I must get there before the first bell sounds. Beside the college is a primary school, and as I wait at the zebra crossing, I see a flurry of bobble hats and flying scarves and small gloved hands encased in bigger ones. Sometimes I see my friend’s daughter as she skips through the gate, flame-haired and porcelain skinned like Queen Meabh of Connaught. I see a father and son perform their goodbye ritual: an exaggerated fist bump which ends with a salute. They take their leave of each other, smiling. The boy must be ten or eleven and I love his lack of self-consciousness. I wonder if they know how much their exchange warms me. 

I love my city. I love the ebullience of its people. I love how, even in the bleakest of times, there are moments which lift the soul, if I allow myself to be open to them.

Helen McClements is a mother, writer and teacher from Belfast. She can often be heard on BBC Radio where she shares her musings on “Thought for the Day.” In contrast to this, she writes a blog called www.Sourweeblog.com, where she unleashes her frustrations at juggling parenthood with work and the vagaries of life.

Image by Lee Osborne from Pixabay.