Surprised by Joy

Let’s just be clear, I left an hour early, a whole hour.

Even considering my tendencies to misgauge city distances, underestimate travel time on public transportation, and overestimate my own navigational skills, I felt confident that I would meet my friends at the Grand Social absolutely on time, if not early.

I had considered taking the bus, but the sky was perfectly clear—a rare occurrence in Dublin—and the air was warm enough for me to wear only a tank top under my thin jacket.  I even left the scarf at home.  So I zipped up my walkin’ boots, stuck in my ear buds, packed my purse—wallet, phone, camera?—No—pub pictures never turn out anyway—and started a happy stride up Rathgar Road towards Dame Street, Westmoreland Street, O’Connell Bridge, and the pub.  A route I’m intimately familiar with, especially at that time of day, when the sun tilted west, casting honey glow on the sea-foam church dome, the Georgian chimneys in neat rows, the gardens of lilacs, holly and rose bushes.  Dubliners hurrying home for dinner, or out to meet friends, taking smokes under shop lintels, walking their foxhounds, Airedales, Yorkies.  I crossed the O’Connell bridge to the beginnings of an amber and lavender sunset, dusk already settling into the bellies of the faraway clouds, the color reflected in the chipped surface of the river.

Reaching the north bank, turning right, walking a few blocks before the faded green front of the pub came, tucked in a corner between a few restaurants and mid-level hotels.  The air cool against the long-shaded cobblestone.

I preemptively texted my friend—“I’m here, where are you guys”—as I walked through the door, passing one group sitting in a bay window, another knot of people at the bar, a couple making out in the corner, a group of Italians at a long trestle table.  The pub was big, dark and mostly empty.  Most importantly, empty of the friends I was supposed to be meeting.

Let me just say, my friends had said they would arrive at 6:00, I had planned to meet them at 7:30, it was now 7:15.  I was early.  Where were they?

I meandered around the pub for a few minutes, checking the beer garden on the roof, trying to ignore a teenage janitor who eyed me every time he went to the broom closet.  Mildly annoyed, I called a couple of my supposed drinking companions, only to get empty rings, voicemails and the ever-annoying, “The person you are calling has a voice mailbox that has not been set up yet . . .”

I was heading out the door when my phone rang:

“Hey.”

“Annie? Yeah, it’s Dan, sorry but we actually moved to a pub on Tara Street called O’Reilly’s, it’s right next to Trinity.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, sorry we went to the Grand Social but it was too dark.  We’re in Temple Bar right now, do you know where the Hard Rock Café is?”

“Yeah,” I had a general idea (over estimating navigational skills).

“Okay, yeah, it’s right by the Tesco, the only Tesco in Temple Bar, can we meet you there?”

“Well why don’t I just meet you at the pub, I don’t want us to miss each other.”

“You’re going to meet us there? Okay.”

Ending pleasantries and we hung up.

Back down the quay, over the bridge, I wasn’t sure where the Tesco and the Hard Rock Café were, but they were in Temple Bar, close to Trinity, and Temple Bar only has one long street crossed by small alleys.  I would start at the end closest to the university and walk until I found O’Reilly’s.  Seemed like a solid plan.

Through the crowds of photo-snapping, Leprechaun-hat-wearing tourists, through the fiddle and flute notes blaring out of speakers over ever door.  Past street musicians and rowdy knots of twenty-somethings, the bright-fronted bars—The Auld Dubliner, O’Donoghues, The Oliver, Gogarty.  Green, red, yellow, black with gold lettering.  Farringtons.  It started to rain.  Big cold drops splashing out of the sky onto my unprotected head and neck.

Remember when I packed my purse?  Was an umbrella on that list?

Like the true foreigner I was, I’d expected that if the sky was clear when I walked out my front door, it would be clear while I got lost in the city—incorrect.

Soaked, shivering and more than a little cranky, I still felt the righteous thrill of triumph when I saw “O’Reilly’s” painted on a buff colored sign, swinging up ahead.  My navigation wasn’t so bad after all.

But when I opened the door, a rather trendy restaurant full of modern furniture and high-end graphic wallpaper made me waver.  This was not a pub.  But there couldn’t be two O’Reilly’s.  Right?

As the well-trained waitressing staff eyed my dripping cuffs and soggy boot soles, I trudge in between the neat place settings, looking for familiar faces.  Found none.

One of the nervous waitresses approached with a map, explained that yes, there were two O’Reilly’s.  My mistake, however, was in thinking that the O’Reilly’s I was looking for, was in Temple Bar.  It wasn’t.  My friends had been in the Temple Bar area when the called, but the pub was actually farther down the river.

Now thoroughly annoyed with myself, my friends, myself and the weather, I trudged back out into the rain, back the way I had come, back up Dame Street, Westmoreland Street, to O’Connell Bridge, hung a right, this time heading towards the sea, when I happened to glance up.

 

The full arch of a broad rainbow curving up over the gray stone spires over Trinity College, under the clouds lit peach by the horizon-bound sun shining beneath them, over the river and into the white colonnade of the Custom House.  A second, duller rainbow hovering beneath like a colorful shadow or strange visual echo.  The whole world lit and glowing in the sudden sunlight.  The air flashing with the rain still pattering to the sidewalk.

 

I stopped and stood, stared.  People continued to hurry past me, ducking left and right around me in their hurry to get to wherever.  I could barely understand.  How could anyone not be staring at the sky right now?  How was the whole city not absolutely riveted?

“Deadly isn’t it?”

I looked up.  A kind-faced man flashed a smile over his shoulder as he continued on his way.  His eyes laughing good naturedly at my unabashed and astonished joy.

“Yes it is!” I cried, laughing.

He nodded one last time and turned down the street.

I marveled at his word choice, deadly, I supposed that if I’d noticed the rainbows mid-intersection, or mid-stair-step, then perhaps deadly.  Deadly to motion, deadly to focus on anything else.  Deadly to awareness of or desire for anything except a view of the atmosphere.

(Only much later did I realize he probably said lovely.)

I’m not sure how long I stood their, straining my neck when a tall man or a lurching bus obscured my view.  Taking a strange, mournful joy out of the slow fade of the spectrums back into clear.  Happy at the fleeting nature of it.

Remember when I packed my bag?  Did I bring a camera? Pub pictures never turn out anyway.

I’m happy that I didn’t.  If I’d had my little Nikon, I would have spent those precious seconds trying to cram a three-sixty vista of sky and city into circuits that could never hold it.  I would have wasted the view on an attempted memory, and thus forfeited the memory itself, the moment.

As the last greens and reds of the arches faded, I made my way to O’Reilly’s, shouting over the music, inhaling the cigarette smoke and beer fumes.

“Did you see the rainbows?” I called to Dan.

“No, I’ve been in here,” he shrugged.

I’d left an hour early, arrived half an hour late, and in the interim, I’d been surprised by a deadly (lovely) joy.