Walking through Dublin is like a marathon. Everyone wants to lead the pack, so they clump together at the crosswalk. Lean back slightly as buses pass with their mirrors inches from the faces staring ahead. When the green walk light flashes, they’re off. Some are impatient, they get a false start when they see the oncoming traffic’s light turning red. They’re in the lead and don’t look back. The unwise or unaware cross in front of bikes. Curses are exchanged.
In the mornings outside Connolly Rail Station, the commuters weave in and out of sidewalks, bus stops, and the LUAS mass transit to get ahead of everyone else who just got off the train. Cross the River Liffey via their favored bridge.
Outside of Trinity College is a different kind of traffic as students and tourists squeeze through the narrow front corridor into or out of the walled campus. Or worse, they gather out front clogging traffic. Waiting to cross like a modern day Frogger jumping from concrete island to concrete island amid the manic movement of cars, buses, bikes, scooters, and the like. That these vehicles don’t collide with humans at a greater frequency is something of a miracle.
Today there are no classes, and no rain, so I’m out “doing my messages” meaning errands or shopping. The key to doing my messages is planning ahead as I have to haul it back to my temporary home. I make sure I have all the right kit: Doc Martens (weatherproof footwear), a waterproof coat preferably with a hood, an umbrella, canvas bags for the fruit and veg shops, and various reusable totes for the pharmacy, Tesco, and the butchers. Alcohol is sold in an “off license” store or in the grocery.
Here, doing messages is a process. There is no big box store where you can find it all (although a larger Tesco comes close). At first I found this frustrating. Why can’t I just go to one store? But now I see it as an opportunity to experience more and meet more people. And while my money flows into the hands of large companies like Tesco, it also flows into small businesses like the fruit and veg shop or the local butcher. And I get to observe the city around me.
I like walking in and around Dublin. While I have finally figured out the trains and some of the buses, the walk gives me time to look at the architecture, the ancient against the modern, stone against glass and metal, the graffiti, the bridges, the canals. Spires and skyscrapers. Houses of brick or stone or flint. Business people, students, workers, homeless people all clog the busy streets. Each route something new to see.
A flaneur is someone who saunters around observing urban life. Charles Baudelaire, the French poet and writer, wrote of the flaneur in his essay “The Painter of Modern Life” (1863) as the dilettante observer. Some uses of the word imply laziness, a lounger or loafer.
“Baudelaire’s flâneur, an aesthete and dandy, wandered the streets and arcades of nineteenth-century Paris looking at and listening to the kaleidoscopic manifestations of the life of a modern city” (via PsychoGeographicReview).
In modern terms, the flaneur had the privilege to simply walk without purpose. Must be nice to do nothing.
The flaneur is at odds with the American work ethic. You’re just walking around… doing nothing? We have that very hard-headed need to be productive or active or constructive. So I combine my flaneur-like tendencies with doing my messages. Because then I am doing something.
But that misses the point. What is often missing in the American day is the time to do nothing. To relax without television or phone or laptop. We’ve even turned mindfulness into “doing something” by using an app and doing what we’re told (deep breath in… and out) or running to find a yoga class. But sometimes all we really need is time to do nothing. To be present in the moment.
Baudelaire’s flaneur gathers the sights and sounds of his city wanderings and transmutes them into poetry. While no Baudelaire, I hope to transmute these sights and sounds into prose, so I walk and observe and take pictures and listen to arguments and passions of the people around me. And I don’t have to be productive while doing it. I just have to be present.
With my bags overflowing, I made a final stop to get flowers for myself. Like “doing nothing,” doing something for yourself is often what you need to stay sane.
When I unpacked my totes, I realized that I didn’t have a vase, so I ran back out and went into a gift shop, another kind of shop I haven’t explored here. The owner was lovely, noticed my American accent, and told me about her Auntie and Uncle who live in Seattle now. She views America the way I viewed Ireland. A little hazy with the glow of imagination.
What the flaneur does is lives in the moment as the moment really is. No haze of nostalgia or glow of future hopes. The city is what the city is, and the flaneur simply records the truth (which is why some of Baudelaire’s poetry is quite dark).
As I walk back with my vase, I concentrate on taking smaller, unhurried steps. I remind myself that walking in Dublin isn’t a race. It’s a journey.
Join me on my Irish adventure. I have no idea what I’m doing or where I’ll end up, but I promise it won’t be boring. More pictures of The River Liffey are up on Instagram.
How ironic that I read this while I was eating lunch in my car (in a parking spot)...it was nice to get a little "away time" and read this post.