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.

First Lamb, Fresh Love

Last night we headed to O’Neill’s—my housemate Amelle, her colleague Aurelius, and I—for diner, drinks, and some traditional Irish music.  Night fell misty blue over the cobbled streets, speakers over every door spinning out whatever fiddle, flute or guitar sang inside, street lights coming on, little roads filled with the usual mixture of students, tourists, revelers.  I wanted to enjoy the hand-shaking, shoulder-slapping fellowship of the streets—so different from the carnival-feel of Spain, the sweaty-clubs of Tel Aviv or the drunk boredom of Ohio.  I wanted to have people to call out to across the street, to meet and mingle with, travel in a pack that goes rolling down the street.  But I was—am—still so knew to this city, and last night I was hungry from a pricey afternoon at the Guinness Storehouse which left me no money for a snack between “black stuff” and the pub.  I was cranky, and Amelle—in the measured quietness of her dark French curls and impeccable Paris fashion—did most of the navigating.

We wandered about, asking directions, getting contradictory answers, shuffling down side streets, realizing we were going in circles; I would have thoroughly enjoyed being so lost if my stomach had been a little less vocal.

Finally we asked a man taking a smoke outside the bright red façade of the “Auld Dubliner.” He seemed to know what he was about—“O’Neill’s?  Yeah, O’Neill’s,” he leaned into the pub to ask the bouncer, then he turned back to us, rubbing his shiny bald head with his free hand.  “Yeah, it’s not far, it’s not far.”  The bouncer joined, “You’re gonna turn here, yes, right here, turn right to Dame Street, an’you’ll see Ulster Bank across the way? Yeah, it’s in the same building, jus’ on t’ot’er side.”

We thanked him and set off down a road we’d walked at least three times, crossed over Dame Street with it’s towering bronze statues, heading for the bank.

“There it is,” I said, pointing to a green and brown storefront complete with square-paned windows and glossy gold-on-black lettering.  Green vines draping down from the flowerboxes.  Going inside, we realized that the modest façade visible from Dame Street concealed a wide maze of dark wood paneling and leather benches, complete with two buffet lines and at least two bars.  The warm, hearty smells of gravy, meat and stuffing pulled us in until we were seated with menus in our hands and our wallets on the table.  I mentally luxuriated in the list of goodies—oysters, bacon-wrapped chicken, salmon, turkey—until the promise of food no longer satisfied. I ordered a steaming lamb shank with red wine and mushroom sauce over two scoops of mashed potatoes.

“What is that?” Amelle asked.

“Lamb, this is the first time I’ve ever had it,” as I sat down with my steaming plate.

“Oh it’s so good,” said Aurelius, “You’ve never had?”

“No, it’s not very popular in the states” with my fork poised over the food, wondering how to attack the hunk of meat.

“Y’ve never had lamb?” a fair-haired man leaned over, speaking thick Irish brogue. “You’ll love it, especially here. An’what’ve you got?” leaning over Amelle’s plate, “Just’a plate’a veggies?” Sounding appauled.

“There’s salmon hiding in there,” I said as Amelle delicately picked at the lemon slices covering her fish.

“You may need to help her, I think,” said Aurelius.

“Well, th’a’ won’be a problem.  I could start righ’ na-ow,” laughing with his companions.  We subsided back into our separate conversations.

The lamb was delicious, warm and heavy with enough fat in the meat to make a dieter cringe, but the muscle underneath so much better for it, the pink and brown meat falling of the bone if I held the knife too close.  I carved it down in fifteen minutes, then wolfishly considered the bone.

After dinner we headed upstairs for the music, squeezing between among a knot of young men enthralled by a televised boxing match and a group of French girls sharing drinks.  The band was tuning up on the small stage—a square-jawed man whose dark hair and beard matched the patina on his flute, a russet haired woman sitting aloof with her concertina, and a ruddy blond guitarist acting as spokesman.  He introduced “d’band” and “d’tunes” with the flute player throwing in jokes—“T’is’s what y’get folks, when I don’drink durin’ a gig,” toasting us with his McCafe cup.  They spoke low to each other under the pick-up of the mics.

The first song—Star of County Down—fingers flashing over frets, flute holes and button keys, the guitarist singing—I’ve travelled a bit, but never was hit since my roving career began—my eyes wandered to the light-fingered flautist, down to the French girls having a drink, a young man with honey-colored hair coming to sit on the stage steps, his long frame languid on his makeshift seat, but his shoulders and attentive face turned towards the group’s beauty—a heart-faced blond.  I’d a heart to let and no tenant yet . . . But in she went and asked no rent from the star of the County Down.  I couldn’t hear their conversation, but gradually she turned more and more from her tittering companions, barely even noticing when several stood to go.

Several more songs I—When off Holyhead I wished meself was dead, or better of instead on the rocky road to Dublin—then an instrumental reel, and I lost track of the music, too engrossed in the slowly shifting posture of the pair across the way, like watching a flower track the sun.  They sat apart facing each other, then leaning in, then further, then holding hands, then touching shoulders.  A slight feeling of jealousy at the sudden simplicity of their lives, of the two-point system they had found tucked within the whirly chaos of music, crowd and pub, their sudden simplicity across from my own life trying to make new friends in this new place, of trying to keep in contact with those back home, of trying to not keep in contact with some back home, balancing, balancing—send that email, not that text, have coffee even though you’re tired and want to go home, laugh even though you’re nervous, look interested even when Amelle and Aurelius speak only in French, go home and blog before falling into bed, connect, connect, fight you’re introverted tendencies, connect, connect, balance.  And here, for these few hours, these two cut themselves from the chatter, scaled down from the light noise of a galaxy to a binary-star, orbiting, orbiting, both around the other.  I was pleasantly envious, the way we envy fifty-year couples sitting on park benches or children chasing geese across the lawns, hand-in-hand parents behind.  Envious of things I might have.  Seeing them makes me hope and sink at the same time—not yet, by maybe.  Watching them lean together, slightly sad at their unawareness of my distant admiration, relieved that it was so, that my watching didn’t break the double gravity of two, for tonight, orbiting.

When the band closed, the flute player played the last song, a breathy baritone, like a wave pulling back to sea, or his wooden flute on its lowest notes.  I was glad to leave my bar stool, descend the steps back out into the Dublin streets, the mess of taxis and wobbly, high-heeled girls already four beers deep.  Flashing headlights, whining streetlights, the colored lights of dance clubs, sudden brightness of late-night snack bars.  All the fluorescents, neons, incandescents so much more confusing than the single, steady light of day.  Turn your face to the sun, become one to one, remember them as they were, forever in that corner of the bar, as if they never left, would never leave, honey and wheat on the steps below the flute, one and one, oribiting.