Nothing has made me feel more American than being abroad, and since I consider this trip a kind of self-exile, that American-ness has been a cudgel beating against me.
Friday night, driving on the opposite side of the road, I had a tire blow out. While I am not perfect by any means, I didn’t hit the curb or make any typical tourist mistakes, but the blowout was real and instant. One concern with driving here has been what to do in this kind of situation. Would my right-side driving instinct help or hinder if I had to correct from a skid? Honestly, I still can’t answer that, but I survived.
Shaken, I immediately called the rental company, who called a tire company, who were already closed for the night. They would meet me the next day at 9AM.
One interesting aside is that most people don’t work all day every day like many of us in the states. People leave work at work. They don’t bring work home or work weekends, which complicated my home search, but I digress.
My taxi cab app wouldn’t work on this dark stretch of road, so I had to—wait for it—get out of the car in the middle of nowhere where I noticed lights from a nearby house.
I grew up in the 80s. I assume everyone is a serial killer until proven innocent, but necessity demanded I get out of the car. I approached cautiously. I lived in a relatively unpopulated forested area in the US, and most of my neighbors would shoot first and ask questions later.
But this isn’t America
This woman took one look at me, heard my stammered “I broke down” story, and said “Come in. We’ll call a taxi.”
There were three generations in the room, several of them under the age of seven, and they exuded energy that bounced against my still-shaking adrenaline letdown, and we’ll just say it was momentary insanity.
“Sit, sit. Would you like a cappuccino?”
A toddler in diapers showed me his T-Rex and climbed all over me. His sister, maybe a year older, paid me no attention, but the rest of the family made up for it. There were no men in sight, and I learned that they were with the seven-year-old who had too much energy and needed boxing lessons. The fifteen-year-old brother and father went with him. The seven-year-old Angelina, like Angelina ballerina, was mild mannered and would sit and wait for me to talk to her or ask questions.
The oldest woman they called Sister, but she was gray-haired and hard of hearing, so I’m guessing an aunt of some sort. The mother, Barbara, had kids from age 15 to 2 and wanted more. She mentioned several miscarriages, to which Sister said it was God’s will, and then the girl I took to be high school age (who said she didn’t go to school), asked how old I thought she was.
This is always a hard question for me. There are kids and there are adults, but where someone fits on the spectrum is bound to get me into trouble. So thinking, I guessed older, 17, thinking it wouldn’t be an insult like making a young adult feel younger.
She was 12. In my defense, she was nearly my height and didn’t seem particularly childish. I found out that Barbara wants this young girl to marry her 15 year old son (only 4 years until it’s legal), so they could have babies and take care of Barbara’s younger children.
Are you an American, then?
This from the 12 y.o. whose name begins with M. Her father is Scottish and her mother English, but they’re living in Ireland for the father’s work. I now know more about them than most of my American co-workers, so M begins to ask me questions.
What part of America are you from?
Colorado.
Oh, I would love to go to Colorado.
I move closer to show pictures of my forest back home, my deer, and the mountains. She tells me she’s seen deer while visiting her grandmother in Scotland. I show her pictures of my children, 20 and 23, and my phone makes the rounds in the living room.
Where would you like to visit in America? I ask M. She says, Colorado, Texas, New York, and L.A.
Have you been to New York? she asks
Yes. I’ve been to all but 7 states.
Have you been to L.A.?
Yes.
Have you met anyone famous?
John Wayne.
This one draws surprising gasps of recognition. I was Angelina’s age or younger I tell them. My father was a horseman, and he brought us to a horse sale to meet John Wayne. The Irish have an affinity for cowboys. While I was in Dublin, they packed in the Dublin hotel wearing cowboy hats and boots, to see Garth Brooks in concert. John Wayne was probably the best “famous person” I could mention, aside from Garth Brooks.
Somewhere along the way, Barbara notices my hands shaking. I’m still shook up about the blow-out, it’s cold, I don’t have a coat, and I’m in a stranger’s home in the middle of rural Ireland. She makes me a cappuccino with two sugars. My hands thaw, and they begin to question me in earnest.
Why are you in Ireland?
I’m a college English professor, and I’m learning about Irish Writing.
What about your husband?
They know I have kids, so that’s almost always the next question. In fact, nearly everyone I’ve spoken to here has asked the same question. What about my husband?
I tell them what has become my pat answer. He decided to spend the second half of his life with someone else. I have received a variety of responses from these. One taxi driver in Dublin said that I must be rich if I’m in Dublin on my own. Little did he know I was living day-to-day trying to find housing. I told him, no, I’m going broke, which was the truth.
Barbara’s response thawed me the rest of the way. “You’re better off without him,” but it was the second half of her statement that just endeared her to me. She said that maybe I would meet a nice Irish man and fall in love. This woman has more than five children, and she still believes in love and in the power of an Irish man.
Soon thereafter, the taxi arrives. Barbara and her family wish me well and send me on my way, and yet, they know more about me than many of my American coworkers.
The taxi driver helps me move the rental all the way off of the road where it will be safe for the night. The next morning, the tire guy picks me up on his way to the car. He tells me a story about a neighboring house painted purple that chills me so much I vow not even to walk past her house. As he takes me back to the car, he brings the neighborhood to life, explaining his ex-girlfriend lived nearby. He fixes the flat and exits stage right.
While I have had many experiences since arriving in Ireland—many more to write about—this was perhaps the most intense and unexpected sixteen hours here. I’ve learned that the Irish are generous and open and questioning, all things I value. And they’re kind, or at least these people were kind to an American stranger. Blanche DuBois in “A Streetcar Named Desire” says the infamous line
I have always depended on the kindness of strangers. (Tennessee Williams)
But I am not like Blanche. I am skeptical of the “kindness” of strangers, but here, I often have no choice. I am the proverbial fish out of water learning to accept help, out of necessity, but I am finding that it doesn’t hurt. Or more accurately, that it doesn’t have to hurt.
None of these adventures would have happened if I had taken the well-traveled road. These experiences, these people, even these questions are reason enough to venture out into the world. As John O'Donohue writes in “For the Traveler”
Every time you leave home,
Another road takes you
Into a world you were never in.
New strangers on other paths await.
New places that have never seen you
Join me on my journey. I have no idea what I’m doing or where I’ll end up. That’s half the fun. Ok. Sometimes it’s fun.
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Love it! Keep these stories coming!