Róisín Ingle: Like Martin Short, I mostly try to maintain the merry theme of life

There is a wonderful documentary on Netflix at the moment about the life of comic actor Martin Short. It’s called Marty, Life Is Short. Martin Short is not somebody I’ve paid much attention to over the years. I never saw his film The Three Amigos, now a cult classic. I did watch and enjoy him in The Morning Show but I’ve never seen Short’s popular TV comedy Only Murders in the Building. It turns out Short, now 76, comes from an Irish-Catholic family in Canada. He has also endured a lot of tragedy. In a seven-year period, from aged 12 to 19, his oldest brother died in a car crash, he lost his mother to cancer and his gregarious Irish-born father died after complications from a stroke. His wife Nancy died of ovarian cancer in 2010 and his daughter died by suicide in February. Since watching the documentary, I’ve gone from not really paying attention to Martin Short to adopting him as an affirming, joy-making mentor. Some people have mottos for life. “Live, laugh, love”, say. Or “be kind”. In this documentary we are introduced to Short’s motto when one of his friends explains: “Marty likes to maintain the merry theme of life.” The notion of maintaining the merry theme of life resonated. While I can sometimes get mired in sadness or depression, sinking into what my 20-something friend M calls the “mud of life”, I realised I mostly try to maintain the merry theme. I’m also drawn to others who try to do that. I was thinking about this when I went to SuperValu to buy snacks for the snack bag I was bringing on a trip to west Cork. Dublin people often forget how far-flung west Cork is. We get to Cork city centre and are surprised that the west part is still quite a hike away. The snack bag, filled with popcorn and protein bars and crisps, was important. It would keep us going. It would help maintain the merry theme. Me and M were off for a 24-hour-trip to Schull for the Fastnet Film Festival. We didn’t see any films. We came a mortifying second-last in the festival’s famous film trivia table quiz, sharing some of the snack bag’s content with the team that came last. We got into a conversation with a woman who had several conversation-starting earrings: a Barbie arm, a cauliflower, a traffic cone and a skull. We stayed in a hobbit house on the land of a man who had actually worked on the Hobbit movies. We sat in the sunshine watching the world (and Robert Sheehan) go by. It was a day when all that west Cork supremacy felt more than justified. After our merry adventures we got a taxi to sun-kissed Skibbereen in plenty of time for the 3.45pm bus to Cork. At 4pm we were a little worried. By 4.10pm we were anxious. M rang Bus Éireann and was told the 3.45pm bus would probably actually arrive at 5pm. This would mean we’d miss our train from Cork to Dublin, which was not ideal because I had to be home for an early morning doctor’s appointment. M consulted the internet and found a taxi man who quoted €180 to take us to Cork. Meanwhile, I asked some west Corkonians for help. So averse to asking strangers for help was John that ‘an appendage would have to be hanging off’ before he’d consider it “I need some help,” I said to strangers in parked cars, explaining our predicament. John, the third person I asked, would have driven us but had only one spare seat in his van. He thought a fellow called Pavel might be able to assist but couldn’t track him down. Then John rang his friend Denis who confessed he’d had a few Sunday afternoon beers. Maybe, Denis suggested, his son Nikita might be free? Yes, Nikita was up for it and happy to take us to Cork for a fraction of the taxi fare. Eighteen-year-old Leaving Cert student Nikita arrived in his car shortly afterwards, saving the day. Later, as we plundered the last of the snack bag on the train, John texted to check we’d made it. He said he admired my ability to ask for help. He likes exclamation marks, which the Irish Times’ style guide says to “use sparingly or not at all”. John does not use them sparingly and sure why should he? “Not at all!” John texted when I thanked him. “To be honest, fair play to you! It’s not easy to ask a stranger for help! Especially help that is a fairly complicated fix! I couldn’t do it!” So averse to asking strangers for help was John that “an appendage would have to be hanging off” before he’d consider it. “So well done you!” John had one request. “If you ever tell someone the story about getting help from west Cork men don’t forget to tell them that one was an English man and the other was the Lithuanian-born son of a Russian couple.” I told English John it was quite likely that I’d be telling people the story in the spirit of maintaining the merry theme of life. Choosing help from strangers over despair. Choosing exclamation marks over anxiety. Making new/old mottos as we go: The snack bag of life is half full. Maintain the merry theme of life. And of course: life is short!