spirituality & the city The Little Things
Tomm Moore Oscar Winning Director The last little thing that made my day was at ComicCon in San Diego. It’s an amazing and bewildering event with 150,000 attendees every day for four days, usually dressed in everything from the standard comic nerd gear of t-shirts and shorts to full blown costumes of favourite characters. I was there to promote our new feature film Song of the Sea which is opening in the US in December and also to sign our new book about the design work that went into our first feature film, The Secret of Kells. It was a pleasure to see a long queue each day waiting to get a drawing from me and the producer Paul Young. But the highlight for me, the little moment that made me smile was that in the queue was a young woman dressed as the character Aisling from The Secret of Kells. It was so nice to think that our work had inspired someone to dress as one of our characters at such a huge event usually dominated by massive multimillion dollar franchises and properties. That really was a nice little smile for the day. secretofkellsstore.com
“Sometimes,” said Pooh, “the smallest things take up the biggest space in your heart”. I have just returned to Dublin after a beautiful, refreshing weekend in my parent’s home in Co. Cavan – a weekend where I took the time to appreciate the ‘little things’ in life – quality time with my parents, long walks in the countryside, connecting with nature, my Mum’s home cooking, playing hide and go seek with my niece, hugs, chocolate, basking in the warmth of the evening sunshine – these are just some of the things that made me smile this weekend. All too often I notice that I move through life at full speed, forgetting to appreciate the ‘little things’ and not remembering that these are in fact everything I need to be happy. Instead of getting caught up in what I don’t have and striving to achieve something or other, I know I must really make a conscious effort from now on to remember that I already have everything I need. I must appreciate ‘the little things’, for they are in fact big.
Lily Walton, Mother of the Creators of Voya, Aged 93 My motto in life is, “You have to keep going to keep going”. I love my garden and my son Michael visits to help with it. He’s a champion vegetable grower. He’s always winning prizes for them. I went with him to some of the competitions and even won Glamorous Granny at two of them! I’m 93, but I don’t class myself as old. I have a young outlook. I go to the over 60’s club and did a lot of charity work with them. We were on the TV twice for all the work we did. We liked to put a smile on people’s faces and so would go around entertaining in the old people’s homes singing songs. It was a giggle! I love to have my Voya seaweed bath. When I tell my friends, they say, “Seaweed! Lillian!” And my little treat - a glass of Bailey’s. voya.ie
PHOTO: (EMMA COOPER): EMMA BRERETON
Emma Cooper Student Development Advisor