Tomorrow we head back to Dublin for our last night in Ireland. It’s hard to pick favorites from five weeks of travel. The
flow was great. A week in study, a week
travelling with a girl-friend, three weeks adventuring with the family. As a
student and practitioner of peace and reconciliation, the time exceeded my
expectations. This blog was dedicated predominantly to those experiences, as
a way of sharing with folks back home something of what I am learning, and selfishly,
helping me record my learnings. But as we wind down out time here, here’s my top
10 favorite things about this trip (at least the ten that come to
mind at the moment), unrelated to peace and conflict.
1. Being called “love.” There’s something so
endearing about a fellow that will approach someone standing a little lost on a
street corner, map in hand, and ask, “You all right there, love?” It happened often enough, and I always instantly felt better.
2. Dancing in Derry. I mean, yes, the countryside
and coastline and fields of sheep are all incredibly beautiful, but when you
live in Montana, everything is sort of beautiful all the time. The Derry “club
scene” was incredible in its own right. Perhaps because the island is mostly
rural, folks go all out in the cities. Think giant hair, copious makeup, los of
skin, excessive sparkle. I was sure half the women were drag queens; I was
wrong. I found a woman from my program, Sarah, who - in addition to being a
rock star anti-racist/queer/feminist educator in Sydney - loves to dance as
much as I do. We had a blast rocking to an eclectic pulsing dance mix that
spanned Gaga to Paul Simon, and somehow worked. The men in Ireland aren’t known
for their skills on the dance floor, but one boy from Belfast more than made up
for that.
3. Tea everywhere. It’s such a sweet ritual,
really. And I learned that it’s always tea time: when you wake
up, arrive somewhere, meet a friend, return home, need a pick-me-up, are
gearing to go out at night, before bed...
4. Jared and the calf. I had heard from Josie, our
B&B host in Cushundall, that they had a calf the night before. I had yet to
meet her husband, Jared, but when I saw him drive in as we were heading out I went
to ask him about the calf, hoping the girls and I would be able to visit. As it
turned out he was just returning from saving the calf from the river, and
though we were meeting for the first time his eyes filled with tears while he
described the harrowing rescue of the newborn, punctuating (as I learned was
his way) every few words with my name. “I’ll tell you Amie, the wee calf was
down in the river, Amie, and I didn’t think I could get there Amie. The water, it was
rushing all around me, Amie, and I was sure that calf was going to die in the water and rocks, Amie,
but, Amie, I got to it, and, Amie, it’s just grand.” I too was crying by the
end of the story.
5. Wee. In the North, everything is wee. It often
appears several times in the same sentence, as in, “you’ll just take the wee
road to the right, and you’ll see a wee caravan park with a wee sign for your
B&B…” It’s also used to describe things of giant proportion, like the
largest meanest scariest mama cow I have ever seen who was described by farmer Jared as “a wee bit cross.” Every time I heard it, it made me giggle on the inside,
even while trying to avoid eye contact with the mean scary mama cow.
A wee poster.
Meeting John Hume.
7. Being taken home by Maria. This is really a
placeholder for the amazing generosity of everyone we’ve met. I was walking
along a coastal path, set to meet my family in a couple hours, and came upon
Maria and Zhi-Zhi, her sweet greyhound cross. We walked for an hour, Maria
telling me about growing up in Ireland and the troubles and her politics and
then she took me to her little house - in process of renovation after a
mudslide flooded the place - served me wine and we looked at paint chips and
talked about Mexico, and about being women travelers. What a gift! And everyday
had someone like Maria.
8. Jersey Shore. This is a placeholder for all the
cooky pub experiences that might have been gross/weird/scary had I not gotten
to share them with Jenae...and because I DID get to share them with her, they
were hilarious. Jersey Shore was the name
we gave to a young man in Portrush who was very excited to meet two Americans –
especially one from New York. He said, “You know Jersey Shore? I love that
show!” while he started sort of swaggering and pelvic thrusting and grabbing
his boy parts and trying to put them on the table (someone will have to tell me
if this has something to do with the reality TV show). It went on and on…“You
know Snooky? I’m going to do her…” He
was easily confused, thinking I was married to a much older man sitting near
us, then relieved that I wasn’t, and then taking me aside and in a serious tone
and asking, “why did you do that to your hair?” He thought I had streaked it grey
(there are no grey haired women in Ireland, and I think just three colors of dye:
platinum, red, and black). He was just one of the characters that particular
night in that particular pub, and there were many characters (a rowdy crew of
aging lesbians; an old man who only said “fuck off”, and said it often; a
raucous hen party; etc.) – it is so special to experience these characters with a
close friend!
Jenae on the bus.
9. Roisin. I have written elsewhere about the
affectionate cow. The girls and I sort of fell in love with her, named her
Roisin (Row-Sheen), and visited her several times a day for the few days we
were staying near her pasture. She would lick our shoes, thrust her neck
forward into our faces and roll her eyes back when we scratched behind her
ears, rub her head up and down the entire length of our bodies. I am certain
now that my Rottweilers are part bovine.
10. Sean’s Bar in Athlone. It’s apparently the
oldest pub in all of Ireland, dating back to 991 A.D. For real. It’s long and narrow, with various
rooms, creating several different pub experiences in the same locale. The night Lauren and
I were in, the front of the house had an “open set” going. Folks wander in with
instruments, join a circle of musicians, and take turns leading songs. Everyone
- from young punked out vocalists to old traditional flutists - accompanies one
another, and we heard original tunes, old Irish folk songs, Poison, Delta
Blues, James Taylor…It was my idea of heaven. In the back of the house was a 20
piece brass band, median age about 80, playing swing. Also incredible.
Throughout it all, the most significant experience for me
personally was the gift of unstructured time. Particularly these last three weeks with my
daughters, my husband, and myself. I have built a very full, rich life, a life
which I am so incredibly grateful for. And, I rarely have significant stretches
of unstructured time. What an amazing thing to settle into such a different schedule:
to take whatever detour we wanted, to get lost, to walk without destination, to
stay in bed on rainy mornings and read, to fall into conversations with
strangers and take them to their natural conclusion, to patiently wait for sheep to cross the road. I am so thankful for all that made this
possible, particularly the board and staff at NCBI.
The trip has been inspiring and restorative, and I am ready to come home!
Sheep crossing.
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