IRELAND CALLS ME BACK! (aka. I am in love...)
How can I concentrate on french homework, on writing syntheses, on returning to daily life in the Strasbourg-fashion, when I’ve just been seduced by the smiling beauty, the emerald wonder, the dancing music that is Ireland? I can’t stop listening to all my celtic compilations (as well as my newly-acquired “The Best of Irish Pub Sing-alongs”)... I can’t stop my mind from planning a way to get back to this inviting land... I have fallen in love. Hard. And I can’t help but feel I need to go back... and soon. Part of me wants to ditch out on a month of travels this summer and just go back and live. Another part of me wishes I had more summers sandwiched between undergraduate years when steady work doesn’t matter quite as much, when a future career is as of yet unformed, when I’d drop all plans to hop a plane to Ireland for a summer of emersion in the music and dancing, of soaking up the culture, the accents, the smiles...
I had it all figured out (well, tentatively at least)... I had an idea that started to form when at Derek’s in Amsterdam about what I could do post undergrad (assuming I could get the grant money)... I had an empassioned notion about how I’d go about doing it... vague, but empassioned nonetheless. And I was going to come back and get online and research potential opportunities... and then Ireland turned everything on its head. Now my mind is spinning with all the different instruments I want to learn to play (celtic harp, guitar, drum... fiddle would be on the top of the list if I had faith and time on my side... accordian is also damn cool, if played well), all the dancing I want to learn, all the live pub sessions I want to attend (while taste-testing the selection of local brews, of course), all the hills I want to wander, wrapped up in the beauty of it all. I don’t think I’ve been so seduced by a place since my first visit to Sedona, seven or so years back... and even then I felt it was a place of empowerment, of beauty, a place to come back to... but not to live. Ireland, on the other hand, calls for roots.
In the airport on the way out of Cork, I bought a little hardback book on Irish History (as well as some duty-free Bailey’s.... mmmmm....), intent on learning more about my new seductrice. As it turns out, the book was less than five euro for a reason... it’s rife with typos and very poorly written. However, it does have accompanying photos to help flesh out the written accounts (welcome to my visiual dependency) and it outlines each major detail, figure, subject, etc. in a swallowable dose, so I’m at least getting an overview that perhaps I’ll bring myself to expand upon at a later point. In any case.... going back to the subject of roots, turns out a good deal of Ireland was taken over and settled by the Vikings (if this an extremely obvious historical piont, please bear with me... I never got a very good education in the historical realm... or at least my porous brain has a difficult time recalling what I did learn). Seeing as how I have some Viking in my heritage, perhaps I have a valid tie to this celtic-based land. I think Gretchen and I are going to make our way up to Norway this summer, so we’ll see if I find another love associated with potential heritage... not that I need an excuse to love the places I visit...
Okay... I’ve spent the last while gushing about my new-found love without really describing her (countries are usually considered female, right? Ah, genderization... the bane of my existence). I’ll get around to that within the next week... if only I didn’t have frickin’ homework to do or classes to go to, I’d be spending all my waking hours gushing about the trip... more to come!!
PICS TO COME AS WELL, NOT TO WORRY! (more pics than you’d ever want to see, that’s for sure... I promise to pair down the 1,000 + that were taken... promise...)
I had it all figured out (well, tentatively at least)... I had an idea that started to form when at Derek’s in Amsterdam about what I could do post undergrad (assuming I could get the grant money)... I had an empassioned notion about how I’d go about doing it... vague, but empassioned nonetheless. And I was going to come back and get online and research potential opportunities... and then Ireland turned everything on its head. Now my mind is spinning with all the different instruments I want to learn to play (celtic harp, guitar, drum... fiddle would be on the top of the list if I had faith and time on my side... accordian is also damn cool, if played well), all the dancing I want to learn, all the live pub sessions I want to attend (while taste-testing the selection of local brews, of course), all the hills I want to wander, wrapped up in the beauty of it all. I don’t think I’ve been so seduced by a place since my first visit to Sedona, seven or so years back... and even then I felt it was a place of empowerment, of beauty, a place to come back to... but not to live. Ireland, on the other hand, calls for roots.
In the airport on the way out of Cork, I bought a little hardback book on Irish History (as well as some duty-free Bailey’s.... mmmmm....), intent on learning more about my new seductrice. As it turns out, the book was less than five euro for a reason... it’s rife with typos and very poorly written. However, it does have accompanying photos to help flesh out the written accounts (welcome to my visiual dependency) and it outlines each major detail, figure, subject, etc. in a swallowable dose, so I’m at least getting an overview that perhaps I’ll bring myself to expand upon at a later point. In any case.... going back to the subject of roots, turns out a good deal of Ireland was taken over and settled by the Vikings (if this an extremely obvious historical piont, please bear with me... I never got a very good education in the historical realm... or at least my porous brain has a difficult time recalling what I did learn). Seeing as how I have some Viking in my heritage, perhaps I have a valid tie to this celtic-based land. I think Gretchen and I are going to make our way up to Norway this summer, so we’ll see if I find another love associated with potential heritage... not that I need an excuse to love the places I visit...
Okay... I’ve spent the last while gushing about my new-found love without really describing her (countries are usually considered female, right? Ah, genderization... the bane of my existence). I’ll get around to that within the next week... if only I didn’t have frickin’ homework to do or classes to go to, I’d be spending all my waking hours gushing about the trip... more to come!!
PICS TO COME AS WELL, NOT TO WORRY! (more pics than you’d ever want to see, that’s for sure... I promise to pair down the 1,000 + that were taken... promise...)
posted by Melia at 12:14 PM
1 Comments:
Ah Melia, You definitely do have the Celt running in your veins. From the 4096 plus mothers on my father's side, you have not only Vikings, but Scots-Irish, French, English including King Arthur, and knights in the Norman Conquest and among the hapless defenders. Suffering peasants and manored peers, greatness and goodness as well as blatent evil, those burned at the stake as well as hated burners, there's all the family quarrel & war, dance & music of Europe's history in your DNA, as well as the rhythms and clashes of Eurasia from your Mom. You are resonantly connected to the history, art and tunes you are experiencing. Enjoy the dance. Love, Papa
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