Celebrating diversity in all its forms

The first of May and the air seems to change instantly. Maybe because it’s a Bank Holiday and everyone is off work! But in reality it is more than that, particularly for us here in the west. The light comes back, with a vengeance. I personally try to slow down time in my head while I relish the next three months and watch nature all around us, bound back into life after our long winter.
Right bang in the middle comes Pride Month in June, a great month to celebrate and champion inclusion and equality for all. And a chance to commemorate the years of struggle for civil rights and the ongoing pursuit of equal justice under the law for the LGBTQ+ community. Mayo Pride was launched in 2017, marking an incredible twenty year journey from when the support group Outwest was started in 1997 to a parade through the rainbow decorated streets of Castlebar in 2017. Their goal is to “create unity in the community without losing our individuality, to encourage diversity without focusing on our differences, to promote our beautiful county and above all to celebrate the wonderful uniqueness in everyone”.
This week my two books take us on a journey to do just that; celebrate the wonderful uniqueness in the characters we meet.
'The Sleeping Car Porter' by Suzette Mayr is being published on May 18 by Dialogue Books. It tells the story of Baxter, a closeted queer back man who works as a sleeping car porter on a train in 1929. He travels the breadth of Canada on journeys that last days and nights. He attends to the passengers every needs, day and night and he himself is not supposed to sleep. On one journey out west the train is stalled and in the waiting scenes, we see the passengers and their lives through the almost hallucinatory filter of sleep deprived Baxter. While desperately trying to get some sleep eye in a hidden nook of the train, he finds a postcard of two gay men. It reawakens memories and desires in him and threatens to put his job in jeopardy if it is discovered. He smiles and tries to be pleasant to all the many difficult and quirky passengers. He relies on the tips they give him when they disembark. He is saving to go to dentistry school after discovering a book about such on one of these journeys. To alleviate the terribleness of his job, he takes sanctuary in studying the mouths of the passengers even when and especially when they are rude to him. The story rocks us back and forth like the slow almost meditative motion of a slow train. A wonderfully quirky and hopeful book.
'How to Build a Boat', just released by Elaine Feeney, tells the beautiful story of Jamie whom we understand is neuro-divergent. His mother passed away when he was born. Through a video of her; a prize winning swimmer wearing a red swimming hat, he connects with his mother and the world. At 13, he is attending secondary school for the first time. He calls his dad Eoin.
He wants to build a 'Perpetual Motion Machine'. School is a challenge for him in ways beautifully portrayed, if I can say that by Feeney.
He excels at Maths but another boy is constantly favoured above him. When bullied and beaten at school, Jamie channels his upset, instead at being locked out the of woodwork room. We get to understand the power of language and the ways we say things and not say things and how Jamie navigates this. Alongside Jamie’s story, we share in the stories of Tess and Tadhg, who are challenged in their own lives but when moved to help Jamie settle into school, they find ways of navigating those challenges. Jamie’s 'Perpetual Motion Machine' becomes the building of a currach, a project that brings together the community in surprising ways.
The book, though tackling the difficulties of neuro-diversity, is a joy. It does feel strangely like being on a small boat, rocking back and forward, progressing slowly but definitely on to the horizon, seeing things in ways we haven’t seen them before.
Mayo Pride is being celebrated from June 1 to 4 this year with many exciting events and a contribution from Tertulia on Queer Literature.