A Walker in the Suburbs

Jet lag has finally had its way with me, waking me at 4:30 and sending me spinning out into the day. Luckily, it’s Friday and the office is still empty, the only sounds are of blowing air and my fingers tapping the keys.

This weekend I’m hoping to let all of this sink in: the green hills and friendly people, the toe-tapping music (which I’m reliving in my car thanks to a CD by the sons of a man who ran the B&B on Inishmore). All of that mixed with what awaited me on return: lots of work and crazy national news to catch up on.

I’m trying to keep the “above-it-all-ness” of travel, the feeling of joyful skimming it can give you. The cessation of normal routine; the quick, bright glimpse of a world you thought you knew but can still surprise you — your own.

I noticed the difference the minute we left the plane. The lilting voices were gone. I clung to the last few of them, people standing around the luggage carousel waiting for their bags. Maybe I’ll have to hang out in Irish bars, though there’s no guarantee you’ll hear a brogue.

It’s not just the Irish accent that I love, it’s also the expressions they use. “Sure and you wouldn’t be” or “just a wee bit of that now.” That Ireland produces more than its fair share of writers is no surprise given the number of talkers Ireland produces. Our cabdriver to Dublin Airport yesterday was one Rodney Robinson. Told us most of us life story in 30 minutes.

Today as I make my way to work on Metro, I’ll think of Rodney already driving. He lives in a little village in County Kildare. At 5 a.m. it only takes him 40 minutes to reach center-city Dublin. Seven hours of driving his cab (which he owns) and he’s back for a late lunch in the village, picks his kids up from school (two daughters and a son), and has the rest of the day with them. Four days a week like this and the other three his wife works in the village pharmacy and he stays home.

It’s a good life, a simple life, and it’s one of the Irish lives I’m thinking about today, on New World shores. Wouldn’t I love to find a cottage and try living in the Old World some day? Probably won’t happen, but it never hurts to dream.

Home to the ancient kings of Ireland and reputedly the place where Saint Patrick baptized one of them, the Rock of Cashel looms above the fertile green fields of Tipperary. Though it  has been an important site since at least the fifth century, the buildings that remain are “only” from around 1101.

Ten days in Ireland has made me less likely to use quotation marks around that “only.” The old ring forts of Dingle are 2,000 years old, for example. But I don’t want to become an antiquity snob.

So I stood today in the ruined cathedral and looked up at Saint Patrick’s cross, the round tower and and the blue sky through what’s left of the cathedral windows. I let my mind run free, back to a dimmer, grimmer time, one of stone and chisel, blood and smoke.

We arrived here last night, driving through the Connor Pass. It was not for the faint of heart and definitely not for the faint of heart during a driving rain — although one advantage of the driving rain was that we couldn’t see the extent to which we were hanging off the side of a mountain.

All was forgiven when we reached John Benny’s Pub, with its Guinness beef stew, Irish cider and traditional music (guitar and concertina played by a young woman who closed her eyes in rapture as her fingers slid across the keys).

Today dawned bright and clear, an Irish rarity, so we could see the Blasket Islands and even Skellig Michael off the Kerry Coast as we drove around Slea Head.

Beehive huts, ancient monasteries, baby lambs and so many facts from our tour guide Michael Collins that my fingers were flying just to take it all down.

Afterwards, lunch in the Strand upstairs tea room with a local vibe that felt like we’d gone back in time at least 50 years.

Dingle Town: Sign me up.

There are a few cars on the Aran island of Inishmore, but biking seems to be the preferred mode of transportation, that and the occasional pony cart.

Whichever you choose, the best way to travel the lanes of this rocky island are the slowest ways, ones that let you stop often to snap photos of rock-fenced fields and empty beaches.

The sea is everywhere here, visible from both sides at once. The cold, gray Atlantic crashing on cold shores.

Could this be what people have in mind when they say “the ends of the earth”? For two days in a row now I’ve stood on clifftops and washed the sea churn and crash below.  Next stop, North America.

Yesterday it was the Cliffs of Moher in County Clare, home to my Long relatives. (I saw the old road to the house of the bachelor uncles Mom and I met so long ago.) The Cliffs of Moher were being buffeted by what felt like 50-mile-an-hour winds when we arrived. I was afraid they’d blow my phone out of my hands or me into the drink.

Today it was Dun Aengus on the Aran Island of Inishmore, a fort that’s perched atop 200-foot cliffs and loses a bit of its real estate to the sea every year. This place was inhabited in 800 B.C., and has been a fort for at least 2,000 years.  That’s two thousand.

Everywhere you look here the earth looks both new and old at the same time: rock walls, lambent air, sky a mottled combination of clouds and sun.

Cattle munch grass between the stones. Cyclists (including us) zoom from town to the far reaches of the island, searching for ruined churches and other ancient sites.

It’s a companionable mix, and a magical place. And it feels like the ends of the earth.