lights

Tonight, Meabh took out some colored pencils and a notepad, and wrote down all the good things she could think of about Thursday - her least favorite day of the week. After she was finished, she drew a rainbow and a bright sun at the bottom of her list and said she felt so much better. I think I'll take a lesson from Meabh the next time I'm feeling down.

afternoon in howth

I am determined not to stay in the house! So, this afternoon, I took the DART (oh, delightful DART) and visited Howth, a fishing town to the north of Dublin. It was very cold, which inspired me to keep moving. Despite the chilly weather, there were lots of people out sailing, and a couple people kayaking. I walked down both the piers, stopping for fish and chips and a cup of coffee along the way. On my way from the first pier to the second, I looked down into the water and was surprised to see three seals staring right at me! We watched each other for a while, and then they were on their way.

craic!

Today I traveled into the city with Kelly. We should have guessed, from the long line running out of the DART station, that it would be quite a day. Somehow, I’d forgotten that it was the first rugby match of the season – the game was held in Croke Park, Dublin – and the trip in was a crush of green-adorned rugby fans. I don’t know how we all managed to fit into the carriage, but we did, and everybody was extremely good-natured about having to share a very close space with a bunch of strangers. In fact, we nearly missed our stop because we were having such a good conversation with the fellow next to us, who was going in to watch the match with his young son.

We, however, did not go to see the match. We went into town to visit the National Gallery and perhaps get free movie tickets for an event that the Irish Film Institute was putting on.

Galleries are always difficult because there’s so much to see – and I could stare at one painting all day. This gallery is really large, with four floors and many many rooms full of paintings and sculptures. I wrote down my favorites, which were “The Wave”, by Nathaniel Hone (sadly, that website doesn't show you a picture of the painting, but it's good to see some of his other work), Walter Osborne's plein-air painting, "In a Dublin Park", Francis Danby's "The Opening of the Sixth Seal" and especially Chaim Soutine's "Landscape with a Flight of Stairs."

Back at the Irish Film Institute we got tickets for the only show not sold out, which was a look back at travel films about Ireland from the early to mid 1900s. They were so campy and fabulously restored.

We spent the rest of the day walking around town and seeing the festive mood manifest itself in street performances, balloons, flags, and friendly chatting. There were a lot of Italians in the city for the match, and although Italy lost, it seems like everyone was making the most of the opportunity to be in Dublin.

thoughts on living in a big family (1)

Today was the first really soggy day since the arrival in Dublin. ("Awful weather, just awful!" lamented my host mom at dinner, to which her sons shot back, "Isn't it always this way?") The photo was taken from the window at the SIT building. After class, I slogged to the DART station in the rain, and made it through the door just in time for dinner.

The girls are involved in school plays, and as a result, everyone has bits of songs from both Aladdin and The Wizard of Oz drifting through our heads. Fionnuala rehearsed her lines after dinner, and I taught the girls + Ronan (whose name means "little seal" - i'll get to this later) a card game. Following that, the younger sister rolled herself up in her mom's yoga mat and declared herself to be "a vegetarian sausage", and then decided to act out the meanings behind each of our names. When it came to Ronan's turn, she said, "LITTLE seal? More like BEACHED WHALE!" and flopped around the kitchen, being a beached whale. It was horrible and hilarious. At that same moment, the phone rang ("Oohh, it's your boyfriend!" was the chorus that followed). It turned out to be someone taking a survey. They oldest boy, Michael, grabbed the phone out of Ronan's hand, and said, in a very thick Northern Irish accent, "Aah, aye, I'm the man of the house" which led to a long conversation about the economic downturn and how it was affecting him, a rural homeowner. The girls dissolved into giggles and the boys egged him on. So the whole evening was very silly and wild.

This is the first of I'm sure many reflections on living with a large family. When I first heard that there were 5 children in the house I'd be living in, I was overwhelmed and unsure of how I'd fit in, only ever knowing life with one sibling. Now that I've been here for a little while, it's difficult to imagine this family with anyone missing, because each person - as trite as it may sound - helps to make it work.

connections

Before I left, Mom tucked a poem into my suitcase. It was by W.S. Merwin, titled

"One of the Butterflies." I'd only pulled it out to look at it this morning. Why did the poet's name sound so familiar? I realized that it was because, riding the DART the other day, I had copied down a Merwin poem that had been written on the side of the carriage.

One of the Butterflies

(Ma)

The trouble with pleasure is the timing

it can overtake me without warning

and be gone before I know it is here

it can stand facing me unrecognized

while I am remembering somewhere else

in another age or someone not seen

for years and never to be seen again

in this world and it seems that I cherish

only now a joy I was not aware of

when it was here although it remains

out of reach and will not be caught or named

or called back and if I could make it stay

as I want to it would turn to pain.

Separation

(DART)

Your absence has gone through me

Like thread through a needle.

Everything I do is stitched with its color.

a picture of the present

Courses have officially begun. I like the commute into and out of the city; besides giving me time to psych up for and decompress from the day, the DART takes me through a bit of country, out to the coast, into suburbs and finally into Dublin itself. From the train, it's about a twenty minute walk to the building where our studies are held. It's located in the inner city, among public housing projects. We walk past a demolition site and rows upon rows of apartments with drying laundry spilling out of the tiny balconies. Next to one apartment complex, there's a large sign that says ABSOLUTELY NO BALL PLAYING OF ANY KIND, placed near an incredibly inviting stretch of open grass. A few doors down is our building, looking quite shabby and unassuming, but sporting a bright red door. The building itself is very old - it dates back to the 1700s and as such has many idiosyncrasies (like - uneven floors, steep and narrow stairs, small hallways, and lots of twists and turns, the full effects of which make me feel a little bit like I'm on a boat). There's a kitchen in the building where all the students crowd into and grab our cups of tea and coffee before class and during breaks, and where we'll probably be making lunches for the next three months or so.

This afternoon we walked all over the city and ended up at a little Italian restaurant. It felt so good to sit and be still.

Trad!

Yesterday I ventured out of the house to try to find the sea and explore the town a little. It was bright but very cold.

In the afternoon, I met up with some of the others in our group, and we bumbled our way through the DART system (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) in search of the Trad festival which was going on in the Temple Bar area of the city.

We made it there, and followed the music to a clearing which opened on a crowd of people dancing and clapping and listening to

wonderful group that was performing on a small stage. Funnily enough, we ran into a volunteer from Glencree (and ran into her one more time, later) who was also out enjoying the day.

Eventually, we made our way to THE Temple Bar, in which a fantastic trio (accordion, fiddle/voice, and guitar) was playing. The accordionist officially has my heart. Ah. John and Kelly had a pint (or rather, a glass for Kelly) and Britt and I had sips of each, and just soaked in the sounds.