Carpe diems

Sometimes we need a push to do what we always wanted to do . . . CATHERINE CLEARYis mentoring 10 people who have 30 days to change their worlds

Taking up table tennis, writing a biography about a beloved wife, singing for a month and learning to drive: these are some of the plans of my group of “Somedayers”. They took their projects out into the watery light of January and got started on New Year’s Day.

We have 10 people who are spending 30 days this month trying to crack something, re-ignite an old skill or put an idea into reality.

In Dublin Edward Darcy is writing about his wife of 38 years, Ria, who died in September 2011. He spent New Year’s Day trawling photographs and pieces he wrote in the months after she died. He hopes to write every day for at least an hour and interview her sister and friends about the parts of her life he wasn’t in.

Librarian Teresa Carley is taking a short story idea she’s had for a while and trying to get the words down. “I’ve been around writing for a long time,” she says. “It’ll be a bit of an achievement to get it written.”

Our third writer is Christina Hession who describes herself as “pathologically disorganised and afraid of making a bags of things”. But “if I don’t start I’ll never know.”

Blogger Samantha Long has a very practical project in mind. “People know me as the girl [aged 40] who can chat to strangers, make a speech to a room, has strong opinions, is a busy mum of two, an aspiring local politician.”

But she can't drive. Lessons have been booked, a (third) provisional licence obtained and she is determined to pass her test before her next birthday. Day one involved "reading the rules of the road from cover to cover. A real page turner." She'll chart her progress on Samanthaelong.wordpress.com

Glynis Stanley hates January, despite it being her birthday month. “I’d love to face this year with renewed vigour and spirit.”

As a teenager she loved table tennis. Her dad was a Leinster champion, “but back then I had the patience of a flea and the attention span of a gnat”. So she stopped playing. A friend is going to help coach her and she’s starting sessions at the Dundrum Table Tennis Club. On the days she’s not playing she wants to walk to improve her fitness.

After breast cancer, followed by complications, she’s glad to be well and is determined to enjoy herself by doing something “purely for me”.

Sheila Robinson and Loyola Browne are hoping to dust down their piano-playing skills. Robinson’s mother gave her a piano as a wedding present over a year ago. “I learned to play as a child and did exams up to grade seven before my school exams got in the way.” She is a speech and language therapist in a hospital in Cork and work took up much of her time at the end of last year. Now she’s started 30 days of playing every day.

Browne started playing piano when she was four and got to grade eight but she lost the habit of playing and the music slipped away from her. On one of her first days she “played for 45 minutes and wrote down the name of each piece. There were mistakes but there were also times I was able to bang the music out or play softly. I will get my mojo back. Each piece brought back its own memory of happy or sad times, but then that’s all part of this personal project.”

We have two singers: Norma O’Meara wants to learn to sing, with the goal of joining a choir, and Nicola Elliott wants to learn a song from her sister’s favourite opera to sing at her birthday.

In Donegal French teacher Dolores Francis has a business idea she wants to get off the ground in the next 30 days. She has helped family and friends by doing mock orals over the phone. Her idea is to set up as a language coach via Skype and landline calls.

As the mentor who took on six “someday” projects for 30 days at a time in the space of a year, my challenge this month is to see if I can cajole, pester and support people through their projects when their energy dips or other demands get in the way.

An email support group is already up and running. The Somedayers are talking to each other.

Darcy has recommended a driving instructor for Long. We are applauding Francis’s progress through the world of virtual communication. The piano players are swapping notes and one of our writers, Teresa Carley, is going to share her professional voice training with the two singers. A sense of possibility along with a shared sense of humour is developing nicely.

“Good God,” our piano player Sheila Robinson emailed recently, “I’ve played for 20 minutes and I’m wrecked. I’m beginning to be glad Mozart limited himself to 12 variations.

“I hope it’s going well for everyone else too. It was back to work for me today, so the challenge will be to stay with it. It’s great feeling there’s a little group of us scattered around the country (I’m in Cork) all supporting each other. ”

Updates on the Somedayers are at amonthofsomedays.ie