blog (December, 2002)
home, home again
My house says to me, "Do not leave me, for here dwells your past."
And the road says to me, "Come and follow me, for I am your future."
And I say to both my house and the road, "I have no past, nor have I a future. If I stay here, there is a going in my staying; and if I go there is a staying in my going. Only love and death will change all things."
-- Khalil Gibran, Sand and Foam
this is the end, beautiful friend
I salvaged my time in Kilarney with an unreal bikeride through the National Park: lakes with dark yellow sandy beaches and craggy rocks. Forests where the only sound was water dropping from leaves and elf laughter (I was the Lord of the Ring of Kerry.) Mountains of orange, mountains of green -- so dark and thick green you know there are two kinds of lush in Ireland. -- the stuff big picture books on coffee tables are made of -- the ones you wonder how they can make the world look so magical and unworldly and decide it must be airbrushed or edited or something - no? No.
Tonight I'm in Dublin with "old"-friend Dave I worked with this past summer at camp. I fly home to the little island off the west coast of Ireland tomorrow: Christmas-Eve morning. Arrive in Rochester in the evening.
I began this trip with Thoreau -- sensible to end it on the same note.
I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one. It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves.
--H.D. Thoreau, Walden
It has all been incredible... but time to move on. First, though, some quality holiday chill with the fam and friends back at home, and lots on the to do list...
Slán, Gaillimh
The last few days have been goodbye after goodbye. Some of them have been nonemotional, and some difficult, without pattern, and for a bit I thought I was actually fine about leaving; said the trip had been incredible and people were important to me but I was ready to move on, then the last big night found myself having to leave the table at the Ròisin Dubh to hide the tears in my eyes, under the guise of getting another pint.
Emeline picked me up from the Salmon Weir yesterday at 1:00 and I left with hugs, waves and handshakes, and we drove to Shannon airport, where we'd pick up her sister, then head down to the Dingle Peninsula for the night. It was nice to be ending my trip with her, who was such a big part of its beginning. She would leave me in Dingle the next day, where I'd be on my own for a few more days, to head up to Dublin and fly back to the States on Tuesday. As luck would have it, our arrival at Shannon found her sister's flight from France cancelled completely, due to weather in Paris. All her weekend plans ruined, and not wanting to make the long drive from Dingle to Galway by herself the next day, Emeline decided she would head back that night. We had coffee and talked for an hour or two, then she left me at the bus station in Limerick and returned to Galway.
I bussed to Killarney last night, and planned on cycling the Ring of Kerry today and tomorrow, but, hearing heavy rain at the window upon waking this morning, I flipped the alarm clock off and rolled over, saying "screw it" to my plans. It's still raining and dreary now, and I'll see what ideas the tourist office has for me.
Dashed hopes.
undergrowth
It was supposed to be a party, but there were 7 of us sitting there in the dimly-lit living room, on couches and chairs, around a small table - in front of an electric fireplace with fake plastic glowing logs, and nobody had anything to say. Tom Waits' moaning in the background added an element of melancholy. It was Vincent's party and his house, so he kept making attempts at conversation, directing questions around the room as to how Rosana's job is, when Jeff is going home; the usual bull. Moments of uncomfortable silence seemed good times to look involved by taking another sip of wine. Jessica was annoyed with the boredom and artificiality and confided in me that she wanted to go to the pub. I was optimistic, though, and we stuck around. Slowly, another and another arrived, and each person brought warmth, and each sip of the drink was fuller and had nothing to do with an impulse of discomfort. The music changed from folk to rock to funk until a guitar showed up, and we made our own music. There were over 20 of us now, and representatives from half as many countries, and the room was vibrant and buzzing. The night took off, and didn't settle down for some of us until 7am, after a club, a climb up the cathedral, and a bowl of pasta topped with a bit of every sauce from the fridge and a piece of bacon.
wanderlust
I'm sitting in a small cafe pen sketching these thoughts -- some downtime tonight finally from faces, names, games and places that've been occupying my head and my time.
Rushing, swirling -- each day cascading into the next -- makes difficult to choose events to relate; none is so meaningful by itself, but a summary isn't possible either. Just a few, then...
Flew to Brussels, Belgium on Saturday with friends, Makram & Javi. Jolly were we three, and our language a mixture of French, Spanish and English, but mostly consisting of "Que fuerte", "¡No sea!", "To-tal", "I mean..." and "Prrrrrfect!" We checked in at Makram's friend's house for the first night, and she took us out to a pub, then a stroll around the city center the next morning. Beautiful, though I'm not sure we got a real feel for the city, but the three of us took off again the next moment in our red rented Fiat Punto -- "the B" -- on the road to Amsterdam.
Of course Amsterdam is more in-your-face easier to dig, and we dug, spending most of our time in the coffee shops and just walking about, and some time in the Van Gogh museum. Super sketched we were on our nighttime jaunt through the super seedy red light district, where women beckoned from behind glass doors. They wear little, and look like they should look (raunchy TV whore?) or like they shouldn't (girl-next-door?) but it is all strange and wrong and sad, and there are people asking us if we need ecstasy, dangerous looking guys talking quietly and shifting eyes, a short black woman walking next to us, petitioning us or yelling at us or -- please leave us alone, you're distracting me from the small alleyway scenery and this strange man in front of me that just - yes - just did a line of coke from a little tobacco tin.
And then there's Esther. My only reservation in leaving for Brussels (and leaving her behind.) She is Swiss-German and magic. She told me not to cut my hair because I look like jim morrison, and we walked along the edge of where the ocean meets the land meets the stars, and then were curled up, each on a shelf in a small pitch-black closet, and shared fears and hopes and secrets for awhile, and she told me about color-meditation, and then she would whisper something like "think of green -- like the grass" and I tried but her gentle voice plucked each blade of grass out of my mind and blew them all over the place and I marvelled this breeze instead. But she is magic, magic and beautiful, and (though I begin to think I have a sign on my forehead: "non-single girls apply here,") she gave me her travel stone and hopes it leads me to Switzerland and I assure you I am not obsessed; only amazed.
why lie? it's for beer
Four of us were sitting in Taylor's Tuesday night when two nearing-middle aged women enterred and stood in the doorway that separated two rooms of the pub, facing our direction. One looked to the other and, gesturing at my long-haired Italian next to me, asked "what about this one?" I, thinking she was drawing attention to his somewhat unusual appearance, retorted her question right back to her, with a bit of a sneer.
The two looked at me and I smiled, and the second said to the first, "he'd be perfect."
"What are you doing tomorrow?" She asked. She couldn't pay me, but she would have me in the short film she was making the next day, if I wanted the part.
Of course I agreed, though I have no experience whatsoever at acting. Her name is Samira and she is a small-time director/producer making the film for a Berlin festival/competition.
We shot from ten in the morning to three in the afternoon the next day, finishing with 18 minutes of footage to be edited for the one minute short.
I should have the film in a day or two (and can hopefully post it here,) but to briefly describe it, I am a busker on the street, (in Galway,) with a guitar, a basket to collect change, and a sign that says "Why lie? It's for beer." My success with the passerbys' charity angers an evangelist opposite me, whose sign says "Peace Week: Donate for Peace," and who can't seem to collect money or pass out flyers, and he comes over and puts me on the ground with a punch to the gut, and kicks me for a bit, (that was the fun part.) Anyway, I discovered I'm crap as an actor -- couldn't seem to do a simple part where I smile and cheers the evangelist naturally enough... I shouldn't expect to be good, but it was just frustrating to be unable to please the director, and I felt inadequate. But it was wild just to take part in the whole ordeal, and I'm excited and nervous to see the finished product after today's editing.
a few words i enjoyed
And as far as I can see the world is too old for us to talk about it with our new words - We will pass just as quietly through life (passing through, passing through) as the 10th century people of this valley only with a little more noise and a few bridges and dams and bombs that won't even last a million years...
-- Jack Kerouac, Big Sur
Resolute contemplation of the terrifying object is the only possible treatment.
-- Bertrand Russell
You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstacy at your feet..
-- Franz Kafka