Home Again, Home Again...

And so it ends, this epic three and a half month journey.  Having arrived safely back in Seattle late on a Tuesday night (after a pit-stop for a quick lunch and margaritas with my friend in NYC), I've now had a few days to reflect on everything that I've seen and done, and to get over some of the jet lag! I'm not going to bore you with all that reflection here, but suffice it to say it's been a weird "homecoming".

Typically, returning home from a trip like this is pretty much a giant bummer. Sure it's nice to see family and friends again, and I always looked forward to some serious dog snuggle time when my two were still around.  It's also undoubtedly one of the great joys of life to slip into your own familiar bed for the first time after months and months of questionable sleeping situations on the road.  Beyond that, though, all it meant was a return to drudgery. Back to the grind.  When I was in LA, the post-adventure blues were particularly profound, inducing an "I hate everything here" funk that could hang around for weeks.  Further proof that that city was all wrong for me.

This time around it's been... well... different.  For starters, I didn't have a "home" to come back to! Thankfully most of my old bed is still intact in my friend's spare room (minus the frame) so I did have the luxury of that first night back among my own pillows and blankets... and it was amazing.  I have also already gotten in some serious "auntie time" with my soon-to-be 1-year-old nephew, who is so big, bright eyed, and happy! Additionally, I'm in Washington state...a corner of the world that I fell in love with upon arrival two years ago and which I still have a good deal of affection for.  All of this (even the not having a home part) has gone a long way toward staving off the post-adventure blues.  It's almost enough to make a girl want to stick around for a while...ALMOST...

As much as I sometimes wish I was the type of person who was content to carve out a place for myself in the world and stay put (wouldn't everything just be easier that way?)... that's just not my nature. I'm always plotting, always planning, always thinking of the places I've never been and wishing I was there. I'm a restless spirit and I can't see ever being content to stay in one place until I've spent some time really indulging my wanderlust.  This trip wasn't ever intended to be a one-off like all of the others. It was a beginning; an introduction into a new way of life, and knowing that has made all the difference.  I'm not returning home to the drudgery of a nine-to-five existence. I'm passing through on the way to another adventure. I have no home of my own here anymore. I have no job, no routine. I'm in familiar surroundings, but I'm looking at them through different eyes... the eyes of a traveler...

And so, to that end, I've begun plotting the next phase of my journey off-script. A cross-country drive is something that's been on my bucket list for quite a while now. I've got a wedding to be at in Boston in a few weeks, lots of friends and family scattered all over the states and a couple months before I head off to the Far East.  I don't know how long it'll be before I come back stateside again, so what better time than now to really explore this big crazy country of mine and get in a few hellos and goodbyes along the way?  And so my Farewell (for now) Tour of America kicks off in just a couple short weeks: Seattle to Boston and back again. Game on!

Ireland in Pictures

You've done a lot of reading...time for a photo break! Sit back and enjoy the natural beauty that is Ireland:

Learning from the Past

From the far South to the far North, I made the journey from Cork to Belfast.  From the moment I got off the train and walked into the city centre, I was hit with a wave of familiarity.  One of the first thoughts I had was "man, this place reminds me of Boston".  The old red and brown brick buildings, the maze of confusing streets, and just the general energy of the place all felt strangely like home.  I was sold immediately, and the next two days of wandering around and exploring didn't disappoint: the Titanic museum, City Hall, St. George's Market, the Botanic Gardens, Crumlin Road Gaol...I haven't enjoyed being a tourist this much in a long while. 

City Hall

Albert Clock

 

 

The Titanic Museum

The Old Courthouse

I also had to do laundry, as I was down to my last "clean" pair of clothes (well, at least they WERE clean three days earlier when I first put them on). As I was sat in the laundromat waiting for my clothes to dry, I found a brochure lying on the table for a walking tour of the city centre called "A History of Terror" that was focused on presenting an unbiased account of "the troubles".  My interest was instantly peaked.

One of the four jobs I worked while in Seattle was as a script reader for an international screenplay competition.  Each week they would send us scripts via email, and we were to read them and write up an analysis, telling the writer what we liked about the story and what we thought could do with improvement.  Most of the scripts I read were not good...REALLY not good... and I spent a majority of my time coming up with creative and un-hurtful ways of suggesting that maybe they find something else to do with their lives. Every now and then, though, there was a good one.  One of these was from an Irish writer, and told the story of an Ex-IRA member who had turned in his fellow IRA members in the aftermath of a bombing gone wrong.  He was then sent to live the rest of his life with his wife in England, under assumed identities, never to have contact with their family or friends back in Ireland again.  When his wife dies, years later, her final request to be buried at home in Ireland is enough to convince him to go back, despite the danger, and reconnect with ghosts of his past. It was a great story, and very well told, and it provoked in me a great interest in understanding what really went on during this time in Northern Ireland. In the States, we hear about the IRA being a bunch of bomb-happy terrorists and not a whole lot more than that.  I could tell from this story, though, that the reality was much more complex.

I wound up staying in the city an extra day so that I could take this walking tour and I'm so glad that I did. It was guided by a Belfast native who has also worked as a professor of history, and who currently works in conflict resolution with both republicans and loyalists, former prisoners and surviving family members, helping them come to terms with what happened and find a common ground.  It delivered exactly what it promised: an unbiased and fascinating history of the events that transpired in the city centre and beyond, filled with personal stories from our guide's own family and friends.  It was meant to last two hours, but stretched on to nearly three. No one minded. I could have followed him around all day listening to his stories. It really shed a new light not only on the script I read (which I intend to read again when I get back to my computer in the States), but on the city of Belfast in general.

This was the energy I was feeling... that life, that vitality, that heightened awareness
that buzzes electric around a city that's seen things. That same passion that once drove the place to ruin is still there, but focused now in a different direction. It hangs in the air and on the battle scarred walls as a testament to the ability to distill unbridled rage and injustice into knowledge, compassion, artistic expression. Lessons can be learned here, for those open to listen.

 

Kiss Me I'm Irish

Growing up in New England, a part of the country steeped in tradition and very proud of its history and, in Boston's case, its predominantly Irish and Italian heritage, I always felt a little bit bad that I never really knew anything about my own family ancestry.  As I've got a pretty ambiguous surname, the question would come up a lot, and I'd always meet it with a sheepish shrug of the shoulders and an "eh, I don't know.... American? Ha-ha..."  My naturally blonde hair, blue eyes, astoundingly pale complexion and propensity to burst into flame under direct sunlight assured me there must be a hefty dose of Northern European influence in the mix... English, Irish, German, Scandinavian (and maybe a bit of vampire as well)?  A long weekend spent in Amsterdam back in 2005 convinced me there was absolutely a bit of Dutch in the mix, as all of the locals looked incredibly like the members of my father's side of the family. Still, this was all conjecture.  I never had any direct information to go on. No names. No dates. No stories passed down through the generations.  It always seemed a bit of a shame.

When I was in Norway, I was constantly asked by the locals if I was there "looking for my family", as apparently this is a common thing for Americans to do there.  I wasn't looking for my family when I set out on this trip, but as it turns out, I found them anyway... well, at least a piece of the puzzle.  For starters, there's my cousin in Sweden who I never knew a thing about until a few months ago. She's American, so no ancestral ties to Sweden there, but still, who knew? Staying with her for a couple nights I heard a lot of stories about that branch of the family tree that I'd never heard before, and confirmed that I do, in fact, have Irish ancestry.  Weirdly enough, it does NOT come from the New England side of my family, but from the Southern side.  My cousin in Sweden pointed me toward other cousins who had more detailed information about our Irish ancestry, some of whom had even gone to the family reunions that are held every summer in the tiny southern village of Baltimore in West Cork, where the O'Driscoll clan hails from. I had been to Ireland once before this trip, and had gone down to Cork, so I hadn't planned on heading south again this time around, but the allure of finally exploring a place that I had definite family ties to was too great to pass up, and so after a couple nights in Dublin, it was off to Baltimore.

First order of business... visiting the family castle. Yup, we have a castle. Well, we did have a castle, anyway, until it was given away to the English by a less scrupulous member of the O'Driscoll clan.  At any rate, the O'Driscoll name is still very much tied to the castle, and to the village of Baltimore in general.  It was kind of neat walking around, seeing the name on everything from cafés to mechanics, to flower shops and knowing that it, in an admittedly very indirect way, was a part of MY family.  But wait... the story gets better....

Turns out the O'Driscolls were a bunch of bloody pirates! So much so that our family castle hosts an exhibition on the history of Irish piracy in which the O'Driscolls feature prominently, mostly for their continuous plundering of Waterford.  It's all starting to make sense now... and this photo that my friend took of me just a month earlier in Copenhagen suddenly feels weirdly prophetic:

So... the first bit of family I find outside of the US and Canada turn out to be pirates.  Irish pirates, no less. I didn't even know there was such a thing.  This may be one of my favorite discoveries to come out of this whole trip, and it makes me want to find out more about the rest of my family ancestry. I was told by a friend that I made in Norway (conveniently AFTER I'd left Norway) that my surname is actually the name of a very small village in Lofoten.  I had been within 10 miles of the place, and hadn't even known it!  Maybe there is a bit of Scandinavian ancestry in there after all?  For now, I'm happy to have gotten to know a bit about the Irish side of my family, and that I can now celebrate St. Patrick's Day with at least a little bit of legitimacy... and maybe an eye patch...Arrrrgh...