two hundred. thirty one.

When will we know all the things we've learned?
I wish I could remember it all.

I spend every Monday in the city now. I have a Yeats poetry class in the morning, which is better than you could imagine it would be. It's filled with older people, and I get along so well with older people. Pat is a woman who's been to Ireland too many times to count. We stand in the hall and talk during our bathroom break. The teacher walks by and grabs my arm, telling us that she always likes the hall-lingerers the best because they are always the most interesting.
Then I have a break, where I'm prone to wander around the Art Institute with Pappy, or find new places to eat and sunny places to sit.
Then it's my creative writing class at night. It's only successful, educated, young folks, which is the worst. The first day, I walked back and forth in front of the door several times, then walked back downstairs to stall/verify that I was indeed in that classroom. I tried to pretend I was a different person, a confident person, and kept giving myself pep talks. Eventually I made my way in and it's not been too terrible. Only mildly terrible.

I've also inadvertently begun working again. I was supposed to just go in for a few training shifts but now it appears I'm on the schedule every week - like a real job or something. I already miss early retirement. Long, lazy mornings working my way through multiple cups of coffee, stacks of books or pages of writing. I miss the walks and bike rides. I miss cooking all of my meals. Volunteering at the retirement home.
Now it's rushing to and fro, eating old nutella croissants and drinking lukewarm coffee.
[Ok. I suppose it could be worse. Because an old nutella croissant is still a nutella croissant.]

Oh, these summer days are flying by so fast.

two hundred. thirty.

I can see the lilacs blooming outside my window. 

In the mornings we open the doors to let them in. The kitchen smells the best - like coffee & lilacs.

I'll never tire of lengthy mornings. 

Went for a bike ride today. 

Grateful for reminders, strong reminders to be planted. 

We can be moved without being uprooted. 

I, too, sway & raise my branches

[as the wind rushes where it wishes]

but trees,

you know,

they are rooted.

And so I must be too. 

delighted & grounded all at once. 

P.S. It was an aspen.

Remember how those sound?

two hundred. twenty nine.

The books I'm reading are big
[I mean - the things I'm reading are bigger than my brain box]
so it's nice
to talk
slow.

I like when we have time to linger.

We don't use our words
as hasty triggers
[bang]
and hurt the one at the other end.

two hundred. twenty seven.

These past few days I've spent holed up in Chris & Steph's apartment as they're on vacation.
My aim was to get some real writing done, to finish several projects that I've just been blankly staring at, lock myself in a room until I emerge triumphant and all that. Whenever I have these lofty goals, real problems start to arise.

For one, when I spend a lot of time writing, I begin to ask myself: "Who are you kidding? What are you playing at?" Because it feels like I'm pretending to be a writer sometimes, but instead I'm just sitting on the floor going through huge mugs of black tea and jars of Nutella, and saying things like "plot holes" as if they mean something.

For the blessed moments where I forget about myself completely - it's good.
Little things spur me on, like the artist I had just met and she asked if I was an artist as well.
When I said no, she responded with: "You're a writer," and nodded her head.
She knew. I wanted to hug her and ask her how she knew.

Anyhow. I've thrown the Nutella across the room so that my laziness will override my need for hazelnut, sugary goodness. I've refilled my mug. Turned Kim Janssen back on. Ready for another round. Cheers.

two hundred. twenty six.

i walk often and i'm reading three books, and one of them is about walking. it's excellent. all of my journal is filled with quotes from others recently, i've nothing of my own.

In Ireland no one ever really asked me what I did. As in, just after meeting someone your next question is: "So what do you do?"

If they did ask me, it was after several moments of preliminary conversation, establishing a base for who I was before asking what I did.

Does this make sense?

It was so nice not to be asked that, to have to tuck that question away as I was over there. People would call me out for using it: 

"You Americans, always asking people what they do, you all have to know what people do. It's a status thing for you. You have to know where I rank."

I've known that I hated that question, but never realized what life was like without it.
I'm so accustomed to feeling forced to ask that question to form any sort of initial relationship with a stranger, and so accustomed to feeling forced to answer that question in a comfortable, impressive way. 

You know what I mean by comfortable?

:: In order for our interaction to proceed in a usual fashion, I'll need to answer the question in a way that puts you at ease by leading off with an aspect of my life centered around my education or work at the time. 

Heaven forbid I shun convention and make you uncomfortable by giving you other sorts of information about how I spend my time, information that won't immediately compute. You might not know where to file it and how to respond. 

Here, we are all so task-oriented that we value the lives of others based on what they do.
If they spend their time in efficient ways, doing "worthwhile" things, like maintaining the pattern of a busy life. 

Ex: in a speech for a graduating class recently: "Get out of the slow lane, get into the fast lane."

Once, I had met this guy and like a good conversationalist asked him what he did. He said he was a financial analyst. 

I asked him if he enjoyed it, because that doesn't seem like the kind of job that someone IS, in the way that an artist or writer is usually both a job description and the defining essence of a person. 

He stopped for a long moment before saying, "You know what, no one has ever asked me that before."

In Ireland, the first question would most often be a "why" question, which is so revealing.

Instead of asking what it is that you do, ask why you are doing it. 

So, in the context of a traveler, they would ask me why I was traveling. And since I was traveling, why Ireland? 

Then more questions: what had I seen, what had I loved? 

They asked me if it was different than I thought it might be, if it was my first time out of the country. 

They asked me where I lived, if I enjoyed it there, if I would come back to Ireland. 

They asked me where I was going next, and proceeded to fill in any and all gaps with their own personal experience of Ireland, giving me suggestions and so much history. 

I love this way of being introduced to a person because you gain all sorts of insight into their character before peering into the mechanics of how productive they are. They knew what I ached for before they knew what I did for a paycheck.

And maybe it's too idealistic and grand to put it that way, but it did alter how I view introductions. Ask more "why" questions. Ask why when someone tells me they're a student or a teacher or artist or financial analyst. 

I asked a man in a pub why he was a teacher. Without missing a beat he said because it was important for him to preserve the language. He grew up on the West Coast, where people still spoke it in their homes, and it was a way of life that was too crucial to let go. 

It occurred to me then that if I had asked the financial analyst why he was a financial analyst, I don't know if he would have had an answer.

This is so much later than I meant to stay up tonight. Tomorrow we're building raised beds and planting lots and lots before running to find some water to sit by. These days. 

two hundred. twenty five.

Just like that it's all changed.
I've left the dear coffee shop for other things, and this blog will suffer, I'm sure, without stories about nose-picker Joe and such.
Tom the farmer gave me some daffodils before I left.
I clutched them tightly on the drive back home.
They nodded their sunny heads encouragingly because it's going to be ok.

To mark this transition I found a hill and sat on it for a bit, because when it's all altered I need good space and good sky, as if a clear view from horizon line to horizon line would lend me clearer sights into what was coming next.
I over thought a lot of things and then began simplifying them.
Living now in gracious uncertainty.

two hundred. twenty four.

I've been stalling from making a post about Ireland because, you know, it's only the place I've spent my life dreaming about. 

I can tell you that I did a pretty terrible job of taking pictures if we add up the moments I could have taken pictures and then look at when I actually did take pictures. 

But if there was music, I was too busy dancing and clapping. 

If the hills were nearly mountains, I was too busy driving (or nearly crashing). 

If the pub was quaint, I was too busy chatting. 

If the food was superb, I was too busy eating (minus the one picture I got of my stew. Mmm, and what stew that was).

I did a decent job documenting the trip in crazy bullet points scribbled across journal pages, words sharing space with random bits of flowers and moss that I would find too dear to leave behind. 

"What was your favorite part of the trip?" I've heard so many times. 

Usually I end up sputtering, making a lot of noises that signify deep thought and ending in a hopeless, shrugging silence. 

The silliest question. 

I can tell you a few things, only if you promise to understand that this is not the half of it, not the half of the half of it, and we'll talk more later. 

It was strangely surprising to me how real it all was when we first were driving (and lost, incidentally). Worried I had built it all up in my mind, I wanted to stop and kiss every low stone wall, every pasturing sheep, every old home with simple, clean lines. The music in the pubs, the stories we heard until too-late hours, the beer, the brown bread and smoked salmon - it was all really and truly. I kept saying stupidly "This is real life!"

Here, anyhow, are some of the answers I give to the impossible question of favorites:

The people dancing in the streets to the gypsy band in Galway.

The music in the pubs. So much music, everywhere.

The Guinness. Friends, it's real life.

That time we lifted some pub glasses. 

The one dear librarian with the glasses on her nose. She had to look over them to see the computer, and she moved so slowly that it took her a half hour to look up directions. Once we got there we discovered it still was not the place we had been looking for. But you've never met a dearer librarian.  

Speaking of poor directions...the hilarious amount of poor directions we received.

The ruins we crawled around. 

Talking to Stephen about the ruins he crawled around growing up. We also discussed Irish history and economics and language. 

Receiving maps of Sligo from the John the map guy, the cartographer who carries a bag of his maps with him.The man was an absolute gem, and has a website: johnthemap.co.uk 

The smell of the Long Room at Trinity College. 

The chills I got at Newgrange - partially from the wicked cold, partially from the incredible structure. So much to say about this!

The pub in Slane where the owner played us the U2 DVD from the concert he went to at Slane Castle. We all sang along. 

Speaking of singing along, I'll always associate "Ho Hey" now with the time we sang it with a room full of Irish folks at the top of our lungs. 

Ronan, one of my very, very favorite. He regaled us with tales of the pub he'd owned for the last 22 years, then walked us to our car to make sure we got out alright. 

The tea with milk. Always tea with milk in cups. 

The woods. So alive and eerie at the same time, what with the moss and ivy and crumbling ruins you'd find.

The rivers. 

Every perfectly delightful friend we made. 

There, that's enough for now. 

Now that I'm back I'm bracing myself for the future, trying to find signs of spring and remembering to love this land as well.

[And, of course, planning an extended return.]