Courthouse Pub

The guitarist wandered in with two cases and what seemed a permanent scowl on his face. He had gray dreadlocks and sandals on his feet.  One of the first things he did was knock his guitar over.

"That's the guy who played at St. James last night," said a fellow pub-goer. "Only that night he wasn't wearing shoes."

Oh, man, I thought. What are we in for?

What we were in for was some of the most inspired, toe-tapping, goose-pimple-raising Irish music I've ever heard.

The dreadlocked and sandaled one was no other than Steve Cooney, who's played with the Chieftains, Altan and other primo Gaelic groups. According to barstool neighbor Tom O'Connor, he is the adopted son of an aboriginal chief who grew up in Australia and moved to Ireland in 1980. He was also briefly married to Sinead O'Connor.  A quick glance at Wikipedia confirmed all of this. (It also confirmed that no one is ever married long to Sinead O'Connor.)

That's neither here nor there, though. All that mattered was the driving rhythm, the concertina player (whose name I never caught, perhaps equally famous?) who added the melody ... and the end result, which was pure heaven. All in one night at the Courthouse Pub.

Past is Present

What would it be like to live where the past is present, where you can visit an Iron Age fort or a beehive hut, drive along ancient routes and savor timeless views?

It would feel like living here, in the west of Ireland.

Take Kilmalkedar, a 12th-century Irish church built with stones that had been around for centuries, some of them with the ancient ogham script. It was built on an important monastic site. After the roof caved in hundreds of years ago, people began burying their dead inside the church, a practice that practically guaranteed one entry into heaven.

Speaking of heaven, what would it be like to love the place you live so much that you give tours of it.  Makes me think about place and some people's devotion to it, which very much gets me back to why I started this blog.

To walk through the landscape and write about it, and in writing about it to belong to it.

Here, that process is not as labor-intensive.

Dingle Town

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.

The Isle of Inishmore

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.

Ends of the Earth

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.

Rainbow Fort

Yesterday we visited an 800-hundred-year-old fort where the wind howled and the heather bloomed and the views stretched out forever.

Inside the simple stone structure — made with no mortar — steps worked into the sides of the walls took you to the top, where you could walk along around the perfect circle (as long as the wind didn't knock you over).

At one point, a rainbow shimmered, not so much in the sky as in the air below the fort. It was like we had come to the end of the rainbow and found not a pot of gold — but a spot of beauty so rare as to make us not care we had been cheated out of a fortune.

The leprechauns always have the last word, of course. In this case, they've made it darn near impossible to upload the correct picture onto this blog. So the more classic rainbow photograph at the top (shot the evening before in Portrush) will have to do, and some imagination is required to see the view from the fort (immediately above) shimmering with color. Believe me, it did.

Bed & Breakfast

Is there any institution anywhere as civilized as the British (or Irish) B&B? The creaky, carpeted stairs. The prim bedrooms with small matching lamps and crisp linens. The parlors with bookshelves and game table. The cheerful proprietress, who "shows you the room." The keys are metal and the dimensions are small.

And then there are the breakfasts: Fried eggs, fried tomatoes, fried bread. Orange juice and cornflakes. Toast and marmalade and pots of hot tea.  China teacups with small spoons. Other guests who tell you that they're off to the Titanic Museum in Belfast today, that he's originally from Portrush but lives in Lancashire now. She that it's colder here than in England and she brought only t-shirts. The exclamations: And you're doing the whole country in two weeks? (Opposite from the States: You're spending two weeks just in Ireland?)

Actually, almost two weeks. We're spending a night and a day in Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom. Which means that we've been the recipient, once again, of the unique hospitality of the (almost) British B&B.

Giant's Causeway

Giant's Causeway is scenery on a large scale. If it was an opera, it would be "Aida," something with elephants and processions.

The rocks themselves were made from lava flows that quickly crystallized. But what captured my attention wasn't just the geology of the place; it was the beauty. The blue-gray churn of the Atlantic, the green of the low hills and the colorful jackets and parkas of humans clambering over rocks.

We walked in and out of rain, but in between, the sun sparkled on damp heather and a rainbow shimmered. We walked a while on a high coastal path that took us by cows grazing with a million-dollar view. Didn't matter to them. They just chewed their cud and swished their tales.

Scotland is less than 30 miles from the slice of the Antrim coast we saw today. It feels like we're at the far northern tip of the world.

(Photos to come when wi-fi is more alert!)

Saving Civilization

To get ready for the trip I began reading How the Irish Saved Civilization, which describes how Irish monks sitting in beehive huts painstakingly and lovingly copied the great classical manuscripts.

When the rest of Europe was overrun with barbarian hordes, this rainy, out-of-the-way island was quietly making all the difference.

It's exciting that we're actually going to see some of these beehive huts on the Dingle Peninsula and on the island of Inishmore, two of the stops we're making.

But first ... there's more packing to be done.

Next stop, Dublin!

Emerald-Isle-Bound!

Tomorrow we leave for Ireland. The routes are planned, the car is reserved. It will be a stick shift (left -hand drive), which means an adventure from the get-go.

It's been decades since I visited the "auld sod" with Mom. We had more than two weeks on the road with plenty of time to look up Concannons, Longs and other relatives. We found a road in Barna, outside Galway, and a man who was the spitting image of my grandfather. He told us that the Concannons on one side of the road didn't speak with the Concannons on the other side of the road. We knew then that we had found the right family.

We also located two old bachelor second cousins once removed. Gerard and John Long lived down a long lane in County Clare. Their simple cottage had a tin roof and no plumbing. They took out their finest linens and china and served us a cup of tea with toasted brown bread. It was a moment I'll never forget.

It's a different Ireland now — but one I can't wait to explore!

Summer Sublime

On a walk Sunday evening, a last-minute stroll at the end of the weekend that wasn't, I reveled in the sheer perfection of the air. Neither too hot nor too cool. It's taken two months, but summer seems to have finally hit its stride.

The crepe myrtle are sending shoots of color along the lanes and the begonias have flourished with all the rain, filling pots with big, fat bouquets. Goldfinches flutter from coneflower to coneflower, hunting for seeds. The strange bird that we cannot identify continues to tantalize us with his song, which consists of a click then a tone.

Out by the street the flower box has produced one tall zinnia. Better luck next time on that score. But it's hard to complain with the weather I walked through last night.

It was summer sublime.

Sunday on the Deck with Work

I'm spending a large portion of the weekend working not on my own stuff but on Winrock's. This isn't typical, so I don't mind it occasionally, and it's for a good cause.

When I do things like this I'm taken back to my freelance days, when work and life were more of a piece. I interviewed people, wrote stories, raised daughters, cooked and took care of the house. These joys and duties were mish-mashed together in a sometimes glorious, often exhausting round of duties and responsibilities.

An interview, a carpool, a long writing session. Followed by another carpool and an after-dinner writing session. Somehow, the work always got done, the daughters got raised.

And this was accomplished with no cubicles, time sheets or meetings.

So now when I'm called upon to juggle free time and assignments, it doesn't seem strange. It seems like how things oughta be.

Look, Ma!

I feel like the kid in the old Crest toothpaste commercials: "Look, Ma, no cavities!" I just managed to survive a six-month dental checkup without any request for a pre-six-month return.

"You look good," said Dr. Wang, he of the "difficult extraction." Since the almost botched wisdom tooth debacle four years ago, I've been through three crowns and one root canal with the guy. He's grown on me.

When he suggested the root canal, a last-minute decision, I said, "Are you sure you can do this? Remember the difficult extraction."  He smiled. "No, really, I can. I did three just last week." This is how comfortable I am with him.

It's like anything else. We went through something together, several somethings. We survived. I've watched as his skill has caught up with his confidence level. His compassion, too. Now he will touch my arm in the middle of a procedure. "We're almost through. Hang in there."

And somehow, I always do.

Driving Home

Yesterday I drove past the house of the woman who watched the girls for a year or two when I was writing a book. Her name was Eva; still is, I imagine. She's moved back to Hungary and we've lost touch.

Eva was reserved and all business when we met, but she proved loving, dependable, creative and quirky. The girls loved her rice pudding and began pronouncing words with a slight Hungarian lilt. "Quintan" (the name of a little boy she also watched) became "Quintone."

Suzanne was in second grade then so she didn't got to Eva's, but most days I would drop Celia off in the morning and Claire mid-day, after picking her up from the kindergarten bus. It wasn't a perfect system, but it's what I had.

What I was remembering yesterday, though, was how it felt to be driving the girls home in the afternoon. Suzanne would ride with me to pick up her sisters, and as we chugged home in the ancient blue Volvo wagon, I would have moments of perfect contentment: a good day of writing behind me, the promise of another to come, and most of all, the girls and I together again. Dinner was yet to be cooked, homework yet to be checked, bedtime stories yet to be read. But even then, I knew — told myself — hang on to this moment, it's as good as it gets.

Floating to the Office

I'm back on the Pentagon bus for a couple weeks, cruising into Crystal City on the early side, hopping off before my stop, hoofing it through south Arlington before 7 a.m. It's pleasantly cool this morning, and already a hustle-bustle on the streets.

Joggers, yoga-goers with mats slung across their backs, the caffeine-starved piling in to Starbucks and, of course, the dog walkers.

I notice a new restaurant, a crane where there wasn't one before, an empty lot with an abandoned grocery cart. The smell of croissants or French bread baking. Traffic noise, especially on East-West Highway.

It's a 15-minute stroll to the office from the first bus stop, and I listen to the same piece all the way, Sleepers Awake, Bach's cantata, times five. By the time I got here, I was floating.

(Photo from another city walk, in Philadelphia)

Historical Aroma

One of the fringe benefits of working at home is catching little household emergencies before they become big household emergencies.

I'm stretching the term "household emergencies." Today, while pulling cereal out of the pantry closet, I was met with an aroma that was only slightly less putrid that a decaying animal. It was a rotten potato. This was not a problem last night, but it would have been an even larger problem by 6:30 p.m., which is when I usually roll back in here. Today, though, I could remove the offending vegetable and compost it before too much damage was done.

The point of this post is not to highlight my less-than-stellar housekeeping skills, but to ponder whether there is such a thing as an ancestral aroma sensitivity.

This potato smelled so noxious that I wondered if it had something to do with my Irish ancestry, with the fact that Mom's relatives mostly came from the west of Ireland and were driven away by the potato famine.

Could I be especially sensitive to this because my great-great-grandparents smelled it all too often?  Putrid potato PTSD?  You never know.

Park Avenue Beat

For the last week or so, I've been watching old "Perry Mason" shows while exercising. It's a fun distraction. The show has enough twists and turns that the rowing machine minutes speed by. I find myself comparing legal justice then and now, marveling at the cut of the men's suits (which they wore at all times) and the women's skirts (and white gloves), pondering the world that produced this show as much as the show itself.

There's only one problem: I can't get the Perry Mason theme song out of my mind. It's with me when I walk, when I cook dinner or empty the dishwasher.  It's even with me in the office.

It has a lot of moxie, this theme song. It's decidedly tabloid, with a detective-magazine feel. Called "Park Avenue Beat," the song was written to exude sophistication and toughness, Wikipedia informs me. It was composer Fred Steiner's most well-known work.

All I know is ... I wish it would go away.

Smelling the Roses

In the last few days, summer has caught up with itself. Mornings have been cooler with that steady thrum of insect noise that you don't notice until it goes away in the fall.

To be able to work outside with the heat building, cicadas crescendoing and every so often a stray idea making its way into my brain ... well, it's very good indeed.

When I need to take a break, I dead-head the roses, lean down and sniff the ones that are still blooming. Then I let my gaze shift to blank and stare out at the green and oh-so-weedy backyard.

Nothing is perfect, it seems to say, but look what less-than-pefect gets you.

Swallowtail!

With the purple coneflowers in bloom, the garden is not just a static creation but a marvelously alive place, with birds and butterflies flitting about to sip nectar from the seeds.

Last weekend I captured this swallowtail, which hovered for more than 20 minutes over the flowerbed, landing and feeding and opening and closing its wings.

Where did it come from? How long will it live? I don't know much about butterflies, but seeing this one made me want to learn more.

To the Corner and Back

After weeks of wimpy walking, nursing a case of plantar fasciitis, trying not to go too far or too fast, supplementing the strolls with 20 minutes on the basement rowing machine, I've realized something I've known all along but recognize more clearly with each passing week.

And that is ... I'm not just walking for my health.

Even a slow stroll stimulates thoughts and ideas more than the most energetic rowing session. When I'm rowing, all I think of is, when can I stop. When I'm walking, I never want to stop.

This link between mind and feet is something I've written about often, and I'm not the only one. A New Yorker article lists fact after fact about how and why we think more clearly and more creatively when we're ambling along a city street or woodland trail.

So if I have to raise my heart rate on the erg, I'll do it. But walking will remain — even if it's just to the corner and back.

Gaudeamus Igitur

At last night's rehearsal we played Brahms' "Academic Festival Overture." It's an expansive piece of music, a war horse, often played, and one of my faves. It ends with the tune known as "Gaudeamus Igitur."

I looked it up this morning and learned that in addition to an academic processional, Gaudeamus is also a rowdy drinking song with a "carpe diem" flavor. It's also known as "De Brevitate Vitae," or "On the Shortness of Life."

Here's an English translation of the Latin:

While we're young, let us rejoice,
Singing out in gleeful tones;
After youth's delightful frolic,
And old age (so melancholic!),
Earth will cover our bones.

I like to think that while I was sawing away at those eighth notes and dotted quarters, the hair rising on the back of my neck as it does when I play, a chorus of ghosts was hovering around us, chanting these words.

Fear and Trembling

The rain has stopped and the crickets are singing. A crescent moon winks between the trees. I've just lured Copper up from the basement, his sometime home this rainy summer. He spent the night in a thunder shirt, which keeps his trembling at bay.

Watching his fear of rain and storms intensify with age has taught me a thing or two about fear, about the way it takes a body over and will not let it go.

Easy enough to say, "Don't worry, little guy. Nothing's going to hurt you." But harder to prove, and he knows it.

I keep all this in mind for my middle-of-the-night wakings, tell myself what I tell him. I don't believe it, either.

August Greens

Who would think it possible that in this typically dry and dusty time of year we would have such a bounty of green?

On today's walk I tried to revel in it, appreciate it. I tried to ignore the light rain that was falling even as I ambled.

It's not the kind of summer I'm used to, but it's the kind of summer we've got.

And so are the August greens.

The Walk Talk

Yesterday, a walk through Arlington. A walk while talking, which is one of the best kind of walks, though you wouldn't know it by the kind of solo walks I often describe here.

The walk talk is wonderful when it's done with someone with whom one is simpatico — even if that someone is on the other end of a phone line, which was the case yesterday.

The walk talk makes the miles vanish and the heat dwindle. It's not until you find yourself in a cool Metro station that you realize that yes, it was a warm afternoon for a charge up Clarendon Boulevard.

But by then it's too late. The walk is over and the talk is too and though you are indeed rather wilted you are also super-charged by the movement and the conversation.

(Scenes from an Arlington walk, in another season.)

Kiss and Ride

There are quick pecks, long hugs and brief chats. There's that final rummaging in bags for keys or other items that must be exchanged. I see all of this and more as I wait for the Arlington (ART) 43 bus each morning on Clarendon Boulevard.

Without an official "Kiss and Ride" lane, as there are at suburban Metro stations throughout the system, commuters must make do. So, there are last-minute maneuverings, swerves to the curb, double parking in the bus lanes.

But there is always that moment when passenger and driver turn to each other for a word or an embrace before heading off into their separate days. It's a ritual I never tire of watching, the human element of the commuting drama: kiss ... and ride.