A Pocket Is No Place For a Smile Anyway

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family, fear, health, love, panic, parents, siblings, support, travel

Family is funny. Take mine for example. We are small and powerful and tend to overreact to most situations. We can bicker over politics and then laugh over drinks. We involve ourselves in each other’s business, whether we want to or not. And personally speaking, although being told what to do and not to do by siblings, parents, and even aunts and uncles can be frustrating at 35, it comes from the truest, most sincerest parts of all of our hearts; we care. We probably care too much.

This past week, I just wanted to see my parents. I wanted to catch up with them and just spend time. SPEND TIME. And we did just that.

My trip to Ireland a few weeks ago did not go as planned. I was traveling with my uncle who had two major health issues while we were there. The first was he was super sick–pneumonia sick. And the second was he collapsed on me twice in a Tesco in Killarney, and was rushed via ambulance to Kerry General Hospital in Tralee. I followed in the rental car for 30 minutes, debating whether I should call my parents. The only time I lost it in front of him (and fortunately, he was completely passed out) was when he collapsed, and I was screaming, yes screaming for someone to help me.

We were checking out and had water and crackers, and he looked at me, said he was dizzy, and that was it. He’s a big guy, and somehow I managed to catch him–sort of,

And I Will Know When it’s Time to Go when All the Love’s Been Made

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Dingle, family, Ireland, love, Mundy, peace, place, writing

I’m in love with the southwest of Ireland. i have been since 1998. Phew. I finally got that off my chest. I was on the Dingle Peninsula today, and it just smells like home. I wish I could explain it.

When I saw the Atlantic and all the green, I welled up.

The song that popped up tonight and resonates most with me is Mundy. The last time I was on the Beara Peninsula, heaven on Earth, I rented a car. This was 2004. Every time I would travel, I’d go to an HMV or Virgin Music and buy the local top cd, and that was Mundy.

They never made much in the States, but it reminds me of what I was ten years ago–more lost than I realized.

So here’s to Ireland, making a writer of sorts out of me a decade ago. I’m still going strong, and even wrote about the comfort of burning peat in my novel.

I have spent time in the south with friends, my Dad, my Mom and Dad, and now my uncle. But most importantly, I spent it with myself–something I didn’t recognize was important at the time, but now realize its significance.

Southwest Ireland, I will always love you. Until the next time we meet again.

Ps–sorry about the generic photo–real pic in my big camera.
——-
Listen to What the Man Said–Paul McCartney

Sloop John B–the Beach Boys

I Love You But I Don’t Know What to Say– Ryan Adams

Red Hill Mining Town–U2

Rip This Joint–Rolling Stones

All the Love’s Been Made–Mundy

They are Tangled Up in the Light

Tags

DPchallenge, Dublin, Guinness, Ireland, love, travel

It’s my 8th time to Dublin. I’m a snob, I know. I’ve seen Bloomsday in 1999, seen U2 at Croke Park in 2008, and know the Irish Punt. Ireland is like a second home. And as I am here once again, with a fresh set of eyes with my uncle who is a first-timer, I know why I love it here.

In my 7 previous times, I have missed two important things in Dublin–the Guinness museum, and the National Library. As always? I’m here when the Library is shut, which is unfortunate because the two missing links in our geneology is when my great great great grandparents came over in the famine. I guess I’ll have to book another trip 🙂

But I did get to for the first time go to the Guinness factory and let me tell you–amazing!

Guinness is one of those iconic figures in my life. I love IT. The beer, what it stands for, and now the brewery. It is gorgeous. Anyone, including those who don’t drink, will find themselves in awe .

Glass, barley, water–it has all.

To steal from the Jayhawks line, “I never knew how it should be”.

So here’s to Dublin. Here’s to the place that keeps reinventing itself. Here’s to the place I never thought could once again impress me. It has.

—
Moonlight in Vermont–Willie Nelson
Love Don’t Wait–Michael Franti
Hide Your Colors–Jayhawks
Elderberry Wine–Elton John
Orphan Girl–Emmylou Harris
The Finer Things–Steve Winwood

Until the Rainbow Burns the Stars Out of the Sky

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change, happiness, job, rainbows, spring, teaching

I love when change is in the air. Last week, we had on-again, off-again rain, and this week, the blossoms are starting to pop out. I drove to Santa Barbara Friday to stay with my cousin and her husband and precious 6-month old daughter. Snow was falling on the foothills, but the flash of mustard greens and beginning pops of daffodils contrasted the road. And it hailed.

After driving through a rainbow (I really mean it), the weather perked up, and I pulled into Santa Barbara. And fortunately, driving home today, I could have the roof open.

I have spent the past 26 of my 35 years in school. People don’t get this. Of course, it was full time until I was 22. Then it was on and off. And I don’t want to jinx it, but it looks like I am going back part time again in August. If someone asked me the minute I finished my teaching job in Connecticut if I would consider a career in special ed, I would have laughed at them. My job was intense. Don’t get me wrong–that was the job that

You’re In Need of Something You Can’t Find

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charm bracelet, dreams, gift, Gram, Lenny Kravitz, lost things, mom, postaday, San Francisco Giants, searching, start again, World Series

I seem to have lost my sense of time in the past few weeks. I don’t know where it has gone. It’s kind of like I am in a hamster wheel. Perhaps it’s not the worst place to be, but this annoys me. To my credit, this fall has been intense. For starters, once again, the San Francisco Giants, the baseball team I grew up with, moves on to the World Series tomorrow night. I have been watching a lot of baseball, which is usually the case in the post-season, regardless of who’s still in. Well, with the exception of the Dodgers and the Yankees.

Since I was a teenager, I have had a reoccurring dream where I am searching everywhere for something I have lost. Sometimes it happens when I really have misplaced something I care about, other times when I am overly tired. I tend to lose everyday things for a few hours–a day or two tops–but for the most part, I am able to have reconnaissance missions to locate them. Except twice.

In high school, I lost a gold and sapphire birthstone ring I received in 3rd grade. It was for my birthday, and I had scoured the Best Catalogue over and over. With enough nagging and proving to my mom that I wouldn’t ever lose it, there it was on the fireplace hearth, ready for me to open after dinner and cake. I bent the hell out of the ring over the years, and had it straightened with my dad’s pliers, broke the shank in half, and even had to have it resized. This ring survived endless abuse, but it was loved. Until I lost it, and then it was adored and revered.

I was in high school, maybe college, and the ring went missing at some point. I didn’t wear it daily; it had a permanent resting place in my jewelry box. But then it didn’t. I stewed, and searched, and got teary. I mentioned it to my mom, who was as baffled as I was. It came up in conversation that Sunday when my Gram came to dinner. The next day, she called our house and asked to talk to me. She told me that she had a dream the night before about my ring, and I should check behind my nightstand, under my bed, anywhere near where I could have taken it off in my sleep. Low and behold, I found it underneath my nightstand. It was the last piece of jewelry I lost. Until 2007.

When I graduated from 8th grade, I received a 14 karat gold charm bracelet from my Gram, with a charm on it. It was a gold filigree cross. That same day, I received a shamrock from my parents, a “13” from the family I babysat, and I was slowly on my