On a southbound Irish bus, I couldn’t open the bathroom door and looked up to see a red-haired man laughing at me. I missed his name, and he repeated it, and I missed it again, and I was too embarrassed to ask a third time. He had been a dancer in Germany but had come home a year or so ago to care for his mother, who’d developed dementia. Over the blue bus seats, we talked for two hours while my traveling companion slept beside me. We talked about the woods he had been in for the last five days and the shaman he had visited there, about his hometown, about his mother and his father, about breaking and repairing.
As I watched the road signs, and his tiny town grew closer, I thought of asking for his name, for his Facebook, anything, and nearly did. But it didn’t feel right. It felt instead as though it were supposed to happen the way it eventually did: he got off the bus, and as we slowly pulled away, he looked back and waved goodbye twice. He smiled the first time, treading heavily with his hiker’s backpack and heavy boots. When he looked back the second time, I laughed through the window, and he laughed back. The bus rolled on, and my friend woke up, and I thought about the red-haired man.
We came to Killarney, a town like a 50’s film, much of it pristine and colorful, and stayed the first night in a last-minute hostel both grim and garish. To escape, we wandered to St. Mary’s, a cathedral tall and stoic, made of thick gray stones. It was the kind of place I might not like at noon. But in the gray almost-evening, I saw it, quiet and firm, and wanted to build such a life for God as the cathedral the people of this town had built Him.
A national park hid behind ornate gates across the street. We crossed into it later than we should have, speed-walking across the fields and into the woods, and startled a few red deer, so different to the ones at home. Uprooted trees lined the path and stream, their root systems exposed and curious. At the end of the long trail, Ross Castle sat on the lake’s edge, in front of low peaks with night clouds swirled above them, and its lights shone on the dark water. We stomped around its strangely light-colored stones for a rainy moment.
Then the showers stopped and the castle settled into further uneasy evening, and we returned to Killarney almost faster than we had gone away from it, stopping only to see St. Mary’s from across the first fields of the park, glowing as warmly as Hogwarts in the almost-night.
Coming into town, the only restaurants open then were the pubs – which we were too sleepy to consider – and Apache Pizza, a plasticky place where we ate sad pizza with music videos playing right above our heads. A video from one of my favorite musicians came on shortly before we left, the nicest surprise in that anti-climactic place, and we trundled home into clean and cold beds in our new Lord of the Rings-themed hostel.
Early the next morning, almost missing the bus (but of course: that was much of what we did in Ireland), we crossed the country to the most famous of her beauties, the Cliffs of Moher. They were spectacular, of course they were. But before we came to their drama and grace, we swung by our hostel in a nearby village curled around a little bay. The hostel was clean and the people were kind, and we locked our proudly lightly-packed backpacks into metal bins like cages before running across the street to await the shortly-anticipated bus to the cliffs.
And we waited. I began to sing the same eight lines from the newest Sia song over and over: “C’mon, c’mon, turn the radio on; it's Friday night and I won't be long. Got to do my hair, put my makeup on; it's Friday night and it won't be long." I kicked dirt around and repeated.
About five or ten minutes after the bus was meant to have left, a man came running up hard, flustered. “Has it come?” I believe he asked. We sympathized with his panic and assured him it hadn’t, although not so assured that we hadn’t ourselves somehow missed it. We three sat on a low stone wall with small, simple flowers growing out of the top, and he whistled a dirty, happy dog over, and we talked as we waited and pet the dog’s dusty ears.
For Liam, gray hair starting in full force even though he was, at latest, in his early 30s, my major was pronounced “filum,” and he enthusiastically declared it “fantastic” twice. In fact, he said several things twice. As he only half-ashamedly confessed the reason for his tardiness, we realized he was still a little drunk, having come back from a shift at the pub that had started yesterday, ended in drinking last night, begun again with waking at the pub this morning, and continued by drinking more until he had fallen asleep again and woken up just now, at 5:00 p.m., to catch, hopefully, the last bus home.
We sat across from each other on the bus. Blue eyes happy, he cheerfully played us YouTube videos on his phone of a cover band that drives around in a van. I only remember that he showed us a cover they did of a Grateful Dead song; I told him my brother would love them. As we drew nearer, he admitted that he had never seen the cliffs and hinted slightly at being invited to join us. We imagined him slightly swaying back and forth at the tops of the great cliffs, cheerfully thinking of foolish ideas involving the edge, and said nothing.
We reached the cliffs and said goodbye. We walked them, staring at the cows pasturing nearby and questioning the truth of the "electric fence" signs. We returned to town (only catching the last bus back by sprinting across the parking lot, of course), ate at Fitz's, the pub where Liam worked, and I thought about him over bites of my friend’s veggie curry and my own excellent fish and chips. I always make a point of eating fish when I’m close to the ocean.
He was a bit of a mess, I thought, this man with floppy graying hair and childlike blue eyes, this man who drank and slept and drank and slept some more, and I thought, “I’m glad I don’t live here,” because he was exactly the type of man I would half adore and half try to save, in a bit of self-righteousness. He was kind, that’s all right, but I’d just try to change him. I imagined myself living there, loving him. I'd be a mess, I’d be a fool, I’d be consumed by trying to love him.
There were other places we went on that trip. We went to Galway, a city where students sat by the river and ate burritos and curry while swans swam beneath their dangling feet and buskers slammed drums and sang lustily down the streets; where the cathedral looked interesting and ancient but had only been built the same year my mom was born.
We went to Dublin, where we were mostly lost and tired but went to nice church meetings and ate baked brie at a pub with my uncles, who serendipitously were in the city on their first visit as well. In Belfast, our home base for traveling to the Giant’s Causeway (a pure place), we stayed in a hostel close to the cheapest, loveliest, best burger place I’ve ever been to – Maggie Mays, and don’t you dare go to Belfast without going to Maggie’s.
But that southbound bus and the late bus stay with me. Somehow I learned, as that red-haired man waved goodbye twice and I wanted to jump off the bus and stay, that some things cannot remain. And somehow, in Liam, in how I longed to be part of that messy world, I saw that some things I have to change. I wore no makeup most of that trip, explored till 10:30 when the sun went down on those late days. I had strange, sincere opportunities to talk about my beliefs. My world became wider, richer. My heart became sturdier, kinder. I became more.
As I watched the road signs, and his tiny town grew closer, I thought of asking for his name, for his Facebook, anything, and nearly did. But it didn’t feel right. It felt instead as though it were supposed to happen the way it eventually did: he got off the bus, and as we slowly pulled away, he looked back and waved goodbye twice. He smiled the first time, treading heavily with his hiker’s backpack and heavy boots. When he looked back the second time, I laughed through the window, and he laughed back. The bus rolled on, and my friend woke up, and I thought about the red-haired man.
We came to Killarney, a town like a 50’s film, much of it pristine and colorful, and stayed the first night in a last-minute hostel both grim and garish. To escape, we wandered to St. Mary’s, a cathedral tall and stoic, made of thick gray stones. It was the kind of place I might not like at noon. But in the gray almost-evening, I saw it, quiet and firm, and wanted to build such a life for God as the cathedral the people of this town had built Him.
A national park hid behind ornate gates across the street. We crossed into it later than we should have, speed-walking across the fields and into the woods, and startled a few red deer, so different to the ones at home. Uprooted trees lined the path and stream, their root systems exposed and curious. At the end of the long trail, Ross Castle sat on the lake’s edge, in front of low peaks with night clouds swirled above them, and its lights shone on the dark water. We stomped around its strangely light-colored stones for a rainy moment.
Then the showers stopped and the castle settled into further uneasy evening, and we returned to Killarney almost faster than we had gone away from it, stopping only to see St. Mary’s from across the first fields of the park, glowing as warmly as Hogwarts in the almost-night.
Coming into town, the only restaurants open then were the pubs – which we were too sleepy to consider – and Apache Pizza, a plasticky place where we ate sad pizza with music videos playing right above our heads. A video from one of my favorite musicians came on shortly before we left, the nicest surprise in that anti-climactic place, and we trundled home into clean and cold beds in our new Lord of the Rings-themed hostel.
Early the next morning, almost missing the bus (but of course: that was much of what we did in Ireland), we crossed the country to the most famous of her beauties, the Cliffs of Moher. They were spectacular, of course they were. But before we came to their drama and grace, we swung by our hostel in a nearby village curled around a little bay. The hostel was clean and the people were kind, and we locked our proudly lightly-packed backpacks into metal bins like cages before running across the street to await the shortly-anticipated bus to the cliffs.
And we waited. I began to sing the same eight lines from the newest Sia song over and over: “C’mon, c’mon, turn the radio on; it's Friday night and I won't be long. Got to do my hair, put my makeup on; it's Friday night and it won't be long." I kicked dirt around and repeated.
About five or ten minutes after the bus was meant to have left, a man came running up hard, flustered. “Has it come?” I believe he asked. We sympathized with his panic and assured him it hadn’t, although not so assured that we hadn’t ourselves somehow missed it. We three sat on a low stone wall with small, simple flowers growing out of the top, and he whistled a dirty, happy dog over, and we talked as we waited and pet the dog’s dusty ears.
For Liam, gray hair starting in full force even though he was, at latest, in his early 30s, my major was pronounced “filum,” and he enthusiastically declared it “fantastic” twice. In fact, he said several things twice. As he only half-ashamedly confessed the reason for his tardiness, we realized he was still a little drunk, having come back from a shift at the pub that had started yesterday, ended in drinking last night, begun again with waking at the pub this morning, and continued by drinking more until he had fallen asleep again and woken up just now, at 5:00 p.m., to catch, hopefully, the last bus home.
We sat across from each other on the bus. Blue eyes happy, he cheerfully played us YouTube videos on his phone of a cover band that drives around in a van. I only remember that he showed us a cover they did of a Grateful Dead song; I told him my brother would love them. As we drew nearer, he admitted that he had never seen the cliffs and hinted slightly at being invited to join us. We imagined him slightly swaying back and forth at the tops of the great cliffs, cheerfully thinking of foolish ideas involving the edge, and said nothing.
We reached the cliffs and said goodbye. We walked them, staring at the cows pasturing nearby and questioning the truth of the "electric fence" signs. We returned to town (only catching the last bus back by sprinting across the parking lot, of course), ate at Fitz's, the pub where Liam worked, and I thought about him over bites of my friend’s veggie curry and my own excellent fish and chips. I always make a point of eating fish when I’m close to the ocean.
He was a bit of a mess, I thought, this man with floppy graying hair and childlike blue eyes, this man who drank and slept and drank and slept some more, and I thought, “I’m glad I don’t live here,” because he was exactly the type of man I would half adore and half try to save, in a bit of self-righteousness. He was kind, that’s all right, but I’d just try to change him. I imagined myself living there, loving him. I'd be a mess, I’d be a fool, I’d be consumed by trying to love him.
There were other places we went on that trip. We went to Galway, a city where students sat by the river and ate burritos and curry while swans swam beneath their dangling feet and buskers slammed drums and sang lustily down the streets; where the cathedral looked interesting and ancient but had only been built the same year my mom was born.
We went to Dublin, where we were mostly lost and tired but went to nice church meetings and ate baked brie at a pub with my uncles, who serendipitously were in the city on their first visit as well. In Belfast, our home base for traveling to the Giant’s Causeway (a pure place), we stayed in a hostel close to the cheapest, loveliest, best burger place I’ve ever been to – Maggie Mays, and don’t you dare go to Belfast without going to Maggie’s.
But that southbound bus and the late bus stay with me. Somehow I learned, as that red-haired man waved goodbye twice and I wanted to jump off the bus and stay, that some things cannot remain. And somehow, in Liam, in how I longed to be part of that messy world, I saw that some things I have to change. I wore no makeup most of that trip, explored till 10:30 when the sun went down on those late days. I had strange, sincere opportunities to talk about my beliefs. My world became wider, richer. My heart became sturdier, kinder. I became more.
