Cottage Dreams

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.