Tucked into a recliner, staring out a frosted window, I look out on an unexpected Irish view. The heavy grass glistens white, coated like a tree branch across the neighboring green space. Frost coats the moss on the stone wall bordering the little neighborhood where I’m staying. The foggy air bites when I step outside in it, enough humid cold to give me an ice cream headache without the calories. I use one of my cloth COVID masks to keep my face warm. The Doc Martens come in handy now as the black ice is a sheen over every flat surface, and I am blessed with the opportunity to curl up under a cream-colored knit blanket and settle in with a good book. This is the first time in weeks I’ve had a moment to just be. Be still, be calm, be relaxed.
When the alert for an arctic front came through the weather app, my son and I laughed. Really? We come from Colorado. What’s a bit of a cold snap? But Colorado is dry and the cold doesn’t linger. It may have a similar bite, but moisture saturates everything here, making the freeze deeper and bone-chilling. I think I saw a spider-web turned to ice on the eaves. “They” assure me this will pass.
My son, who is going to college in Belfast, was supposed to travel to England over the weekend for a 36-hour whirlwind tour of London. He took the bus from Belfast to Dublin airport only for his flight to get delayed. Reports came in from friends trying to go home for the holidays that their flights out of Dublin were delayed or cancelled altogether. Apparently Dublin only has one deicing vehicle, so this kind of thing must not be all that common.
While waiting for clarification on his flight, he stopped in the pub for a Guinness (as one does). He planned to only stay for one before heading to his gate, but before he could put his empty pint glass on the bar, the bartender asked if he wanted another. With a shrug, he said sure, and found a seat at a pub table with two Americans from Seattle on their way to Portugal, or at least hoping to be on their way to Portugal.
They swap “what brings you to Ireland” stories. They buy a round, then he buys a round. There’s a tradition of standing a round for your mates, and it would be rude not to return the favor, so they while away the delay in a pub at Dublin airport. Around them, it’s a bit of chaos. As people wait out the uncertainty of their flights, they grab a pint at the pub and watch the World Cup. He sends photos of a couple people sleeping against the nearest wall and masses of people milling about like holiday shoppers minus the stores. It’s a surprisingly jocular experience, so different than the US where travel delays are met with visible frustration, anger, and occasional belligerence. Eventually, my son and his new mates part ways after sharing phone numbers and Instagram handles.
His flight is cancelled, so he grabs a bus and then a train, and when he can’t get a cab, he walks the rest of the way in the bitter cold, arriving home after midnight. Not the whirlwind trip to London he envisioned.
The unexpected
Things not going as planned is a common theme here. The only thing that’s gone according to plan is studying Irish writing at Trinity. Everything else has been a shitstorm* of “not as planned.” In so many ways these differences are disappointing, but the reality offers different landscapes, different connections, different opportunities. We can either accept what is or pout about it.
After my divorce, the only place I could find work after ten years away from the workforce was at Walmart. During the week long onboarding, we had a roundtable discussion along the lines of who am I and why am I here. Not nearly as glamorous in the austere backroom as in a hopping Dublin pub. We went around the table, each of us lying about how great it was to work for the soul-sucking monument to capitalism, when one guy, mid-twenties introduced himself. I don’t remember his name, but I’ve never forgotten his next line:
“I went to college, and then… Life didn’t go as planned.”
Ain’t that the truth. My mom used to say “we plan and God laughs.” I’m sure she’s quoting some historical or literary figure, but it was a Mom-ism that endures.
My life didn’t go as planned either. I didn’t get married imagining I would get divorced, but if I hadn’t married, I wouldn’t have my kids. If I hadn’t divorced, I wouldn’t have gone back to college, published novels, and taught in higher education. And if COVID hadn’t pushed us into isolation, I would have stayed on that path and worked myself to an early grave.
COVID lockdowns and subsequent remote work gave me the time and space to reflect. My work-life balance had shifted to the point I was working more than 50-60 hours a week. I was taking on side jobs to pay the bills, which left little time to write, and all I’ve ever really wanted to do in life was write. It sucked six ways to Sunday. If life wasn’t going as planned, I could keep living that life and pout about it, or I could flip the script.
Flip the script
We often forget that change is an option, that we can alter our trajectory, that we are not at the whim of some capricious and cruel fate.
We are not pawns on some cosmic chessboard.
We don’t have to march one square at a time in a single direction. We can move wherever the hell we want without arbitrary rules telling us otherwise.
I choose that option. I still don’t know what I’m going to do after this year, but I know I won’t keep doing the thing that made me so damn unhappy.
In the meantime, I’m learning about the Irish culture, their history and their literature, and I’m writing again. I have time for that in the here and now, and I’m not going to waste it, because around the bend, something tells me that life won’t go as planned.
Join me on my journey. I have no idea what I’m doing or where I’ll end up. The unexpected is where life happens.