Soul searching


street musicians

With Ireland teetering on the brink of economic collapse, it’s hard to stay positive around here. Some worry, others blow it off as a phase and a few actually want the ax to drop. At least then we can all stop holding our collective breath in anticipation for the worst.

Still, people around here are surprisingly cheerful and it seems there is a concerted effort among folks to keep their chins up. I think for a lot of Irish there’s just really nothing else to do but be optimistic in the face of overwhelming negativity…it’s just how they’re made. All of this reminds me of a story I wrote about New Orleans, which I visited shortly before moving to Ireland, and I thought now would be as good a time as any to re-post it here.

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obaachan and clare 2

It seems in Ireland, grannies play a pretty important role in the lives of their grandchildren. For a lot of my Irish friends, their Granny was an integral part of the household, living with them and their parents and helping with everything from cooking to homework. And for a few of my friends here, especially those who were the first-born son, Granny was more a mother to them than their Mammy. She took them into her home and essentially raised them from infancy to adulthood.

Although I didn’t grow up around my grandmother or Obaachan, as I would call her (that’s Japanese for “grandmother”), I have great memories of the brief period I lived in Japan as a child and of the visits we’ve had over the years. I’ve been thinking a lot about her lately as last Saturday she turned 101 years old. It’s really mind-boggling to think of all she’s experienced in that time: her marriage to my grandfather, which lasted for 73 years until his death; giving birth to five children, two of whom she has outlived; witnessing the transformation of her beloved city of Osaka from a quiet town to a bustling, modern city; leaving her house of 50-something years to move into an elderly-care facility and learning, later, that it had been torn down.

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btown1

Few things are more humbling than moving to another country on your own. After the novelty wears off and the dust settles and you realize just how far away you are from home, it knocks you back a bit. And God knows I needed to be knocked back a bit.

To be honest, I’ve never been the humble type. When I was younger, I said everything that came to my mind and put my foot in my mouth on a regular basis. I often think about an incident from back when I was a lowly newsroom assistant in my early 20s. My editor, a wiry, pencil-thin woman named Jondi Ward, was someone I decided right away I didn’t like. She was good at her job but was absolutely stone-cold to me no matter how well I performed my duties and was fiercely critical when I fell short of her expectations. I never approached her about my concerns, because at that age being right was more important than a resolution. I chose to talk smack to anyone who’d listen, particularly to the night-desk crew. This was the group of guys who’d stumble in for their 2 p.m. shift, bleary-eyed from another late night of putting the paper to bed topped off with a few (or several) nightcaps. The night-desk chief, Grant Condy, a slightly gruff, mid-40s man with a soft-center of a heart, was my go-to ear for my Jondi b*tch-sessions.

clouds shelbourne18

I always went for shock value when speaking of my ill-feelings toward Jondi; I’d pepper my rants with the “c” word and other colorful insults. In my immaturity I felt very punk rock about the whole thing and was convinced I was a crusader, the Brave One, someone willing to speak out (though never to Jondi herself!) about the mistreatment I had to endure – oh how the world revolved around me back then! Grant always responded with empathetic nods and a few neutral yet wise words of wisdom like “Just hang on in there!” Though he never partook in the sh*t-slinging, I felt he understood. He just got me.

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