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Altogether, I’ve been across the pond to visit Ireland 14 times. This manuscript covers my first two Irish sojourns. The first segment (MY IRISH LASS) covers the events, impressions and feelings of 17 quick but meaningful days in the early autumn of 1993, falling in love with the country and my traveling companion at the same time.
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> To this day, despite the potent pull it had on me, I might never have followed my bliss to Ireland, if that sparky young woman had not sashayed into my place of work and ordered a garlic bagel with hummus. (Sometimes it’s the littlest things whose repercussions rock your world.)
It was spring of 1993 in Santa Cruz, California. I was in a typically dour mood. At the time, I was growing increasingly frustrated with myself for having never made the sojourn to visit my family in Ireland. I hated my job at the bakery. It kept me too poor to go. I was severely irritated, scowling at everybody unlucky enough to cross my path. I hated my life. And then- she burst into the store, radiating her characteristic buoyant good cheer. People smiled in her presence. Her alluring charisma was unmistakable. She was intelligent. Witty… I disliked her immediately. What did she have to be so blithe about, I wondered. It was a shitty world. I was miserable. What right did she have to be so happy? I began to find fault with her: She walked funny. She was… odd-looking. She had a big butt. Frankly, I found her unattractive, even homely. None of this seemed to bother her. In fact, she fearlessly took me right on, looking me dead in the eye and asking what made me so miserable? Caught off guard, I told her the truth. (I have a problem with that. Withholding messages seems like dishonesty to me. It’s gotten me into plenty of trouble.) This unexpected confession ultimately changed my life. Telling her about my loved ones in Ireland- I confessed to being consumed with the burning desire to go visit my mom and her husband Paul, but felt so hopelessly trapped by my many problems and illusions, I was just fed up with it all!
Amazingly- my effervescent customer blurted out, that she was a travel agent- or her mom was anyway, and maybe if we could save money by staying at my mother’s house, she might be able to book us a really cheap flight.
As soon as she spoke, regret clouded her face. I sensed that, were it possible to reach up into the air and catch her just-uttered words, she would snatch them back and push them down her throat from whence they came. After all, she didn’t know me from Adam. For all she knew, I was a closet maniac- a seducer, killer and cannibalizer of trusting young lassies. After all, we hadn’t even been introduced, really. (Later, Tina told me that she had a problem with bubble-gum brain syndrome: drop a metaphorical coin into the machine and out rolled a thought, completely unencumbered by reason or intent. Her unpremeditated invitation was just such slip.) Reading this on her face, I suggested we slow down and back up a bit- maybe get to know each other a little before we explore the travel possibilities. Relieved, she concurred, and we agreed to meet soon to discuss the matter over a meal at my favorite restaurant. That weekend, Tina joined my dear friend Shannon and myself at Mobo Sushi- her first encounter with the joys of raw fish.
We sat at the bar and began to talk. I was a tad taken aback, to find out that my new friend was only twenty brief seasons young. I had sixteen full years on Tina, but she didn’t strike one as the inexperienced youth she was. The more we talked, the more calm and mature she seemed. I would never have guessed she was such a pup. Having suffered since birth with severe rheumatoid arthritis, Tina had been wheelchair-bound for much of her early life, causing her to spend an inordinate part of her childhood in the company of grown-ups, so it was not surprising that she had the bearing and manner of a much more seasoned adult. Conversation came easily. The more we shared, the more my long-nurtured cynicism melted away, and I began to really like the girl. Tina was smart as a whip, not in a schoolbook learnin’ sense, but in more of a common-sensical way. She seemed very present in the moment. I liked that. Having only recently returned from a bicycle tour of the German Rhine, which whet her appetite to see the world, she was quite serious about making the Emerald Isle the next stop on her itinerary. After this, I felt much more confident about Tina. I began to imagine that our dream-trip might actually come to fruition. I thought our first meeting went great. Before Tina left, we agreed to hook-up again soon.
Our second rendezvous was a group affair. I had an entourage of friends and visiting family, and Tina brought her friend best pal Lisa, who seemed much warmer towards me than she. As we parted that night, Lisa gave me a big bear-hug which seemed to say: “Today, I accept you as part of my extended family.” Tina offered a weak, half-hearted embrace, that spoke volumes of ambivalence, by comparison. Then… Nothingness.
I jumped through the necessary hoops to get my passport, so I would be ready should the call come, but Tina, as far as I could tell- went into full-retreat. She stopped lunching at the bakery. She didn’t return my calls, seemed uninterested in taking our plans any further when I dropped by to visit her at work, as she suggested. The grumpy me reemerged. Fuck it! I thought. I’ve been jerked around enough in my life. I decided it was healthier for me to just give up on the beautiful fantasy and go back into mope-mode. Weeks passed without a word from Tina, verifying my instinctual pessimism.
That’s why it was a stunning surprise, when one remarkable afternoon later that month, Tina sauntered into the store and marched up to me grinning a self-satisfied grin. Slapping a computer-generated itinerary on the counter between us, she cheerfully chirped: “Write me a check for two hundred and eighty-five bucks, and we’re going to Ireland!”. You could have knocked me over with a feather. This was unimaginably cheap! My research had led me to believe I’d be lucky to find a fare in the seven-hundred-dollar range! Tina explained that her mom got the tickets as a special travel-agent perk. They were intended to be for her use exclusively, so we would have to dress up a notch, posing as travel industry professionals. This was no problem whatsoever.
And so it was, that a twenty-year young girl/woman and a thirty-six-year-old misanthrope/would-be-storyteller, found themselves flying from San Jose to L.A.- and then across the vast continent of North America and over the mighty Atlantic- fabulously non-stop to Shannon Ireland, despite being only the most rudimentary of acquaintances…
Next up in MY IRISH LASS: “Going”
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