| Looking
Down the Barrel of My Second Irish Winter.....Page 1 |
| by Lori
Alexander |
| Looking
down the barrel of my second Irish winter, it is impossible not to
ruminate on my first frozen season. I can't help but wonder if this
second winter will be as tough on my reserves as the first.
Even while
reminding myself that I survived it, a trial by ice, I can't resist
questioning the defining moment when the passage from misery to acceptance
slipped past me, or which specific event prodded me into believing
I stood a real chance of settling here in Dublin.
Last year,
we arrived in early autumn, and the brutality of winter was soon upon us. |
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| Living on
the Irish Sea, we have storms of epic proportions, full-fledged gale force
howlers. Battening down the hatches ceased to be a clever phrase and became
a grim reality.
If our phone
lines go down, it can be a week before they’re repaired, and the warmth
of electricity can abandon us from fearful hours to bone numbing days.
Sand whips through row upon row of our seaside homes, and passing
ships seek refuge in our white-capped harbors. This bronzed and barefoot
Californian took the harshness of the Irish weather particularly hard.
When I wasn't
chopping fire wood and splitting peat, or wrestling with the impossible-to-kindle
coal, I was scurrying through the lashing rain, head down, weaving unseeing
through my fellow scurriers. I was far from alone in rushing through errands
to avoid the inevitable soaking and the subsequent lasting chill, but I
didn't glance up often enough to realize it. I was too busy reflecting
on my isolation and the fact that an autumn arrival hadn’t been the
best choice for building a social network. |
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| On those cold
and rainy days, days like today, when I'm feeling tired and
a bit under the weather, I was utterly homesick. I spent much of the winter
emailing home. I ached for people who automatically understood me.
Car-less, I
missed being able to hop in my Mits and fifteen minutes later be sitting
on my sister's couch. I missed deep blue skies. I missed the luxury
of being able to pick up the phone and babble to people used to deciphering
my rapid fire speech. I missed trying to steam roll my nephew into
baby sitting, and my mom's one of a kind macaroni salad.
I missed guava juice, lazy, heat saturated afternoons with friends, and
summertime barbecues. I missed being warm all the way down through my bones.
I missed things being familiar, things that made complete sense.
My husband,
a veteran of three international, long term moves, tried to console me
with the doctrine that the first full year abroad is the toughest. |
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| That was small
comfort to someone who considered herself lucky to last a year anywhere
before getting thoroughly sick of the place. He reminded me I had come
through Belgium a stronger and better person, but I defiantly countered
that Belgium had come packaged with an expiration date of, surprise, a
single year.
That winter,
it never occurred to me to look for comforting substitutes here, in my
new home. I felt too different, far too out of place. Besides the obvious
option of being a professional tourist, I was fuzzy about what my niche
could possibly be in this sleepy seaside village. I had no interest in
coffee mornings, Thursday mother and toddler play groups, or church
socials. The most I managed was keeping myself busy, mainly on tedious
household chores and home repairs.
Perhaps if
we had arrived in the Spring, during more forgiving weather, I would have
felt differently, more open. Maybe I would have been more inclined
to linger at the school gate, chat, make an effort to get to know my neighbors.
Instead, I considered being a self-contained unit a matter of personal
pride and self-preservation. |
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| In my
heart, I have accepted that I'm a “mover,” a person who lives
and breathes changing friends, locations, and lifestyles. It’s how I was
raised, and all I had ever known. I smirk at permanence and cower
under the threat of the long haul. My closest friends behave in much the
same way. We can go for years without meeting, and then pick up as though
we've never been apart.
Over the years,
I have wondered, deep down, if perhaps our lust for the new is merely
a disguise for being quitters. Ireland has solved that dilemma.
I had arrived
in Ireland with my trusty side-kicks, my tried and true set of personal
minimums. Acutely aware of the luxuries I had left behind, I instead
focused on what I could not do without: food, a roof, heat and hopefully,
some happiness along the way. |
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| I have traditionally
relied on these standard expectations wherever I have lived, and consider
them a reasonable set of necessities. I found Ireland testing even
these simple demands.
In short order
soda bread lost its novelty. Our kitchen was leaking, and we were loosing
slates from our roof during every storm. I couldn't get the coal
to burn and the peat smoked constantly. I had happiness here and
again, but my hands were too numb to write about it.
Despite all
my idealistic intentions, and ambitious fantasies for my children’s storybook
upbringing, my inborn urge to pull stakes had me by the throat. My internal
Moving Clock had always been jammed in an early-interval gear, but Ireland
had managed to kick start it ticking within mere months.
Every day
in my new home was a struggle against die hard habits: I have never
lived anywhere longer than five years. I'd only managed to
stay put for that seeming eternity for my first born’s sake.
I was determined he would have the security of falling asleep under the
same ceiling every night, of knowing all the creaks in his staircase, having
the same school mates year after year. My brain knew Ireland was capable
of providing all of that and more, if I could only be patient.
Still, the
notion that this was it, this is where we live now, for better or worse,
enemies or friends, sent fear into my heart. The notion of staying
put was more foreign to me than any foreign country.
I was cautioned
by another American emigrant, a long-timer, that if I ever wanted to fit
in, I would have to start using the local terminology. She told me
this in an accent more Irish than that of the locals.
The question
then, and even now is, do I have to want to "fit in"? I like trying
to squeak by on my own unique merits. I expect it is a function
of the frequent mover syndrome: I find I can almost fit in anywhere,
but feel at home in very few places.
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