Is life one big “doing”?

an egg to the face or the letters after your name…

“And what do you do?” the old women asked. Leaning on her trolley at the Tesco checkout. Loud beeps confirming produce and baby crying in the distance. I screwed my forehead and observed her hunched frame, wrinkly skin and inquisitive (quite nosey, frankly) approach to our Tuesday morning supermarket sweep.

An answer loaded with expectation, the potential for hierarchy. The ‘doing’ word you didn’t expect to define you. I find myself spiralling in my head ready to throw words about my husband, my kids, my son’s feral cat. Not knowing the extremity of which to answer. Do I lead with my painterly hands and point out the oil on them? Gesturing towards vocation and a sense of purpose. Do I bore her with my Father’s death and the impact it has had on my life, my career…or, do I spit that question right back at her. Let her dictate the pace. The cheek of her.

It’s odd how we travel through all life’s “doings”? Each ‘doing’ launches us from one season to the next. Variation at the centre. Yet we cling onto and grapple with some more tightly than others. Significance placed by ourselves or, by society.

I grew up in a small holding in the Northern Irish countryside and the night before my wedding, 19 years ago, my brother and his farmer friends arranged a “doing” for me and my soon to be husband. It’s a marital tradition in Ireland where rotten eggs and farm deposits are re distributed from the shed onto the heads of two engaged persons . A sodden affair.

Somehow it is strangely satisfying and a hilarious experience commonly recognised as a right of passage. “Off you go to marriage now you’ve had your ‘doing’”.

As participants of “the doing” you sit up and shut up. There’s no escape.

On Wednesday the 28th June 2006 my then fiancé and now husband managed to, somehow, sit this one out. The “doing” took a turn for the worse. Blame age ( we were married in our early twenties), blame “fight or flight” (Michael is a self professed frequent flyer in an emergency).Put simply, Michael scampered and there was nothing we could do about it. No “doing” of which to speak.

It wasn’t his finest hour.

Picture the scene. Michael curled in his Daddy’s Audi estate clutching my laptop containing table plans in the hope that no farmers would drag him to egg yolk and manure. To this day, at family gatherings when the pavlova is served he rarely escapes a mention of the one time in Northern Irish history that someone escaped a ‘doing’.

This ‘ doing’ was a physical act and one put upon us- the bride and groom to be. I ,for the record , was one hundred percent on board with it. Excited in fact. After our church rehearsal I was clothed in my civvies anticipating the energy and smell of what was to come. Steep me in cow’s muck and let' the glam squad deal with the consequences on the morning of the wedding! It wasn’t to be.

In order for a ‘doing’ to go right you need a few things in order.

A willing team to carry out the act. Materials prepared in advance. Rotten unhatched eggs don’t fester themselves. The extra special smelly ones will have been set aside from production weeks in advance.

A capturer is required to catch the pair. Someone to tie them to a trailer . A date and time. A route to parade the plastered souls post “doing” before they shower off the evidence. You get the picture.

In short, a ‘doing’ is an operation and a call to action . Furthermore , it is also a temporal and frivolous act designed to break up the normality of life and order. Post “doing” all parties involved return to the familiar pace of daily life.

So maybe what we DO doesn’t have to be the defining scene. Perhaps our input on each given day is enough so we get the job done?

What you DO may not be the definition of you but merely what you enjoy, a place you find community and camaraderie ( like throwing eggs together at two people tied to a trailer ), a shared interest for the task at hand.

What was your answer the last time someone chimed at a party “ and what do you do?”. How did you feel when they tilted their head? Did you want to cling to laptop in the back of an Audi to avoid the question?Did the weight of your answer make you feel a bit sick? Worried that your answer was tied to your identity and you life’s worth.

“I am an artist” I smiled. The old lady gestured towards the paint on my jeans. “Yes dear , she said “ that’s why I asked” .

Her question was not that loaded after all.