Dear Nana,
Here we are! 34, 940 feet in the air, going 516 miles per hour, 2, 748 mi to go…DESTINATION: DUBLIN!!
This plane is full of Irish Nanas by the way, with adorable short haircuts, all smiles, and hands like yours…
I can see the waxing gibbous moon out the window, and a spit of land outlined by a faint string of lights along its shoreline…
We only left Boston a few minutes ago, and are skirting up Maine before we cut across the Atlantic.
It’s chilling to think of how deep those waters are, how many lives they’ve swallowed…Whole boats full…planes too, but let’s not mention that, let’s think of the marvelous radiolarians on the sea floor…microscopic, architectural, so intricately “designed” by the patient hand of evolution…
Ah and all that work has led to me, in this metal capsule, propelled by more of those beautiful designs (dino bones, fossil fuel), about to eat a meal served in plastic…
Did evolution give up when it got to us??
~~
Nana! I’m in Dublin, drinking a REAL Guiness in a REAL pub that’s been here since 1833, and I swear this table I’m at is original- worn down to a sliver of its former self, like a bar of soap…
It was quiet when I got to this spot, then in walked a group of lads, ordered 8 Guinness’, I can barely tell what language they’re speaking, not quite Irish, not quite English…
The bartender has eyebrows JUST like Grandpa’s…for some reason the sight of it made me teary…
This pub is too much, I feel like I’m in a movie…these guys even have a kid with them, a boy about eleven, haircut and future hoodlum attitude…
{imagine Little Chris, the kid brother in Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels or Ashtray, the kid brother in Euphoria}
~~
I’m back at the same pub after a few hours of delicious napping in my bed at Egan’s Guesthouse… Just ordered prawns with smoked chili and garlic oil, plus garlic bread and a Guinness…
Every table here is full and everyone seems local, chatting, chatting, an indiscernible burble…I just hit record on my voice memos…something about the sounds in here made me start to tear up again, a feeling of being home…
I’m so full, but I just ordered a dessert + espresso — some type of cake-torte that had Nana in the name…
Oh it was delightful and now I’m properly STUFFED!
I feel happy + exhausted, woozy, buzzy, smiling to myself…
Ready to go back to my room, try to sleep despite the jet lag…
Tomorrow, I travel south to Ballydehob and my Artist Residency at Working Artist Studios!