An End of Summer Summary

The Irish rain falls.

“You’re getting a taste of what it’s usually like here,” my host says. “This is just the beginning. Just think, it’s still light now, but when it gets dark. And then in January when it’s cold.”

With an air of contemplation, I turn my back to my host and gaze out the window. Mist obscures the Blackwater River and hides the Knockmealdown Mountains. Raindrops speckle the glass. The trees bend under the push of the wind. I imagine the rain, the dark, and the cold.

As I take my tea upstairs and sit back down at my desk, looking out at the grey skies and the still falling rain, I think, rather nonsensically, I’m glad to be heading off to Norway. I’m not sure I could live in Ireland the whole year. Not after such an amazing (and unusually dry) summer.

Then I laugh at myself.

When I’d told people my plan to spend the winter and spring in England and Scotland, I’d been given strange looks and asked, “Don’t you know it rains all the time there?”

When I’ve told people of my plan to spend the fall in Norway, I’ve been mostly met with an incredulous, “Why!?”

Well, for one, I’ve never been there. Two, I found an affordable-within-my-end-of-year-budget place to stay. Three, why not?

Besides, now that I’ve got my woolen jumper, I’m all set.

Even so, as I begin the packing process and work on all the details of moving on, of moving to my 19^th location for the year, this leaving feels like the end of a nice, long chapter. It’s a bit hard to turn the page. I think back over all that’s happened, all the places I’ve been, the things I’ve seen, the people I’ve met, the friends I’ve made, and all the adventures I’ve had.

I stand at the window with my arms crossed as the rain clears up for a moment and the sun peeks out. The Blackwater River turns from grey to blue. The Knockmealdowns reappear as purple.

How do I sum up the time that’s already passed?

How have I grown or changed over the past 255 or so days?

What have I learned from six months in the United Kingdom and three months in the Republic of Ireland?

That’s a lot to ask. That’s a lot to answer.

For one, I’ve learned that the literature and music and art from my childhood (and beyond) is so intertwined that I often don’t think to distinguish which is American and which is from Across the Pond.

For instance, to my sudden shock, I only found out last week that George Orwell was English. How I missed that, I don’t know. Maybe because Nineteen-Eighty-Four felt so American in its despair. Or, I simply hadn’t thought about it. I missed his placement of home the way I’d missed David Bowie’s. I’d claimed him as someone familiar to my place and time the way I did to so many of the bands and singers I’ve heard all my life. Part of my problem, part of my confusion is that I was Pop-culturally (and otherwise) clueless for the better part of my life and was generally oblivious (and mostly still am) in spite of having taken telling classes like British Lit and having friends more in tune with the world than I was. (I did know the Beatles hailed from England. I did know Coldplay was British even though I sometimes forget. I did know that Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle were British.)

But what is this? An American arrogance that claims all things come from home? An appropriation of all peoples and things? An astounding oblivion? Certainly, that. Or, is it instead, or maybe also, a willingness to accept that familiarity of shared culture as family, as neighborhood, as friend. Is it knowing that people are often much the same?

Anyway, whatever it is, I do have to remind myself and not be shocked to find out that so much of my childhood was shaped by writers and thinkers and dreamers and artists who call another country (different than mine) home.

For instance: Peter Pan was written by J.M. Barrie who was born in Scotland.

Alice in Wonderland, Winnie the Pooh, The Narnian Series, Peter Rabbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Jungle Book, The Wind in the Willows, Lord Peter Whimsey, and Tommy and Tuppence were all created by writers from the British Isles.

I wouldn’t be terribly shocked to find out that Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys were British. They’re not. But I wouldn’t have been surprised. (Those series along with The Bobbsey Twins, Rover Boys, and Tom Swift were created and/or published by the American publisher Edward Stratemeyer. Who very Americanly had a Syndicate which churned out these series in pure factory style. One person wrote the story outline, another wrote the book, and a third edited it. The books were then published under the pseudonyms Carolyn Keane, Franklin W. Dixon, and etc.)

Anyway, the West with its music, art, and culture is so melded together in my obliviousness that I forget the differences. Maybe that’s how it should be. For during all my time wandering, another thing has been reinforced, no matter where I go, people are essentially the same. They’re kind. They want their families and friends to be healthy and happy. They need community and connection. They crave love. And, they all have their own stories to tell.

For another, I’ve learned that I love listening in to accents and I wish I were a dialectologist or sociolinguist so that I could pinpoint with precision where an accent comes from. Or even keep the sounds in my head long enough to reproduce them later. That’d be a fun skill. It’s one I don’t have.

I also learned that I was highly flattered by the two Liverpool men who complimented my accent. Certainly, “You have such a lovely accent!” was something I’d never expected to hear.

For another, as I’ve gone from home to home, staying in places from one night to up to 71, I’ve met people who open up their homes, who share their space, who invite me into their worlds, taking me along to concerts, shows, sites, on trips to the grocery store, and out for walks. Who seem to welcome conversations, give and receive book recommendation, and exchange stories (written and verbal) with me. They even have me over for dinners, lunches, drinks, and films. One host turned a dinner into a birthday party for me after she found out my birthday was the next day. Then everyone got up to sing Happy Birthday and give me a hug at midnight. While sometimes it can take weeks to settle into a place, to fit in, to find my own rhythm within the rhythm of others, in the end, up to now, I’ve left (especially my long term stays) as a friend and with new friends to keep. That’s the biggest gift of this year so far.

And while people are much the same all over the world and that sameness connects us, the differences are there as well, and I haven’t been completely unaware of them. Difference makes life and people interesting. There’s beauty in diversity. There’s creativity in difference. There’s growth in meeting people who live differently than I do.

But wait, there’s more. For another, because modern day America was hatched out of British Imperialism (to put it extremely simply and to, in most ways, sidestep the political, cultural, native, and damaging nature of that), I hadn’t known how I’d feel coming to England for the first time. I knew that I have Scottish and Irish ancestry, possibly Welsh, and figured that I had to have some English blood in there somewhere as well. After all, I’m just a hodgepodge of European and Americans colliding and creating offspring. But I was struck by how much I loved England. How welcoming and homelike it felt. How much I wanted to blend in. How much I wanted to be liked.

I wanted to blend in, knowing that the moment I opened my mouth I’d be found out as a foreigner. I was self-conscious of my accent (this was months before the compliments) and often rounded out my vowels to avoid having to repeat myself to bus drivers, waitstaff, and passersby. I wanted to be like a chameleon, changing colors to fit the scenery. I’ve often wanted that. But then, even as I’m awed by the history, enchanted by accents, conscious of my own origins, and confused by the fact that everyone is British (George Orwell!?) contrastingly, I found myself smug with the thought that America beat Britain in the American Revolution. I didn’t realize I held that pride. It was a little embarrassing to discover this in myself.

On the same note though, as I moved northward, I felt a strong familial bond to Scotland because of that same pride, that fighting spirit that cries for independence. In some ways, as they still debate whether to leave the U.K., their brash and wild and very Scottish attitudes feel familiar to my own ingrained American attitudes.

[I’m intentionally disregarding current political events and yet, will say that I’d like to believe that my ingrained American attitudes are ones that spell freedom for all, not just a few, not just for those lucky enough to have been born within the strange and arbitrary borders we’ve made over the surface of the earth. That my ingrained American values are for justice, equality, human rights, compassion, care for natural spaces and wildlife, and kindness all around.]

There’s still a beating rhythm in the Scottish earth beneath the abbey ruins, deep beneath the lochs, and beneath the bright yellow rapeseed fields that hums deeply of freedom, of country, of place, of people, of self. In the strength and resilience and emotion of the people, I recognized the strength of personality of my father. Ah, how Scottish he is.

In Ireland, I’ve had the hardest time pinning things down. For, after having felt so at home in the United Kingdom, I was surprised to find Ireland a different fish altogether. Not that it wasn’t what I expected, but maybe that I didn’t really know what to expect. And I’d gotten familiar with another place. I’d become friends with the British Isles. There’s always a shock in meeting a new country for the first time. There always is. Always that fear of will I say the wrong thing? Will I reveal my shocking historical ignorance? After all, what do I know of Irish history? To my shame, what I knew really began in 1845 and stopped around 1849 and is known as the Great Famine. Don’t mention The Troubles, I was told. But, again to my shame, I wasn’t exactly sure what was meant by that except that it had something vaguely to do with the IRA. Should I even mention the English? I wondered.

Still, like my confusion with pop culture, in Ireland sometimes I’ve forgotten the differences in American and Irish history. What I mean is, the countries once held out their hands to each other across the ocean. What I mean is, I forget that Irish American doesn’t necessarily equal Irish. But, it kind of still does. I’m not making much sense. One fact, my grandmother’s maiden name was McCrory – which is an Irish name. Maybe that’s what keeps the tether between the two places still taut in my mind. My own link to this land.

Once, when we’d come to the top of the cliff walk in Ardmore, the woman I’d gone with said, “I told my daughter that on a clear day from here you can see America.”

I gazed out into the mist over the ocean. I smiled at the woman and the daughter. “You probably can.” 

In a time when America promised some sort of hope for a new future, that imagined sight would have been something. Bring your own prunes and drinking water, only one carpet bag per person, next stop – America. 

   

As I close the book cover on the United Kingdom and Ireland, as I head off to a new place, as I am still intertwined with my personal history, oblivion, and real history, I know how lucky I am to have been able to have spent this time abroad. Even as I’ve brought in my own perceptions and opinions, I hope I’ve had enough sense to let the places speak for themselves too. To appreciate how each place has touched and changed me. For, how could I not have changed?

Anyway, it’s not as easy as you’d think to really sum the last nine months up in a nice nutshell. But if you have to know, I can confirm that the people from England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Ireland all have a gift for hospitality.

“Shall I put the kettle on?”

“Would you like to come in for a cup of tea?”

“Drop in anytime. No really, do. I’ll put the kettle on for you.

In some ways, it’s just like Southern Hospitality. Y’all come back now, ya’ hear.