Pardon me for being so verbose today, but I’m waiting around, and what am I’m to do while waiting but to blither on and on to a faceless void known as the Intermanet?
So today is St. Patrick’s Day. All day long on the radio and TV have been historical documentaries of the Irish plight past and present and interviews with Irish or Irish-American women and men who’ve overcome adversity, made a success of themselves, or just have an opinion they’d like to share in the thier giddy sing-song brogue. And, of course, there is the territory of the Sitcom Special.
Okay, so I guess this is a little out of date. I took a sidenote excursion with my brother and met my sister along the way and I got sidetracked myself and now it’s after midnight. Regardless. If any of you have seen the Mad Men episode in which Don Draper pitches an ad for the new Kodak Carousel (sorry, I couldn’t put it here-Curse ye, Embed Disabled by Request She Devil!!!), you know what I mean when I say that St. Patrick’s Day makes me feel nostalgic.
In truth, it probably always has. At first, it was the ache to be there, to go there. And now it is much the same. I miss that land, the greenness, the freshness of it. Sitting on the windowsill with one of my legs dangling over the two story drop to the ground at my off campus flat, I could almost make out the outlines of Belfast Harbor, where the Titanic was built. Rainbows were no rarity. And from Simon’s family home, there were feilds where sheep grazed nearby and daffodils his father planted overtaking the front lawn, as well as running up and down Straw Road. A few minutes walk would take you to the windiest place I’ve ever been, up a hill where my unzipped jacket almost blew off my body, or to a small stream where local fishermen in hip-high boots lazily dropped their lines in. I think of the cliffs in Portodown where I threw Simon in the grass to show off my mighty American wrestling moves, where we rolled dangerously close to the edge and could have quite easily fallen to our deaths and from the top of which on a clear day, you could see all the way to Scotland, or so I was told since it was cloudy. The streets were full of so many people whose whole idea of the world had been shaped by this little island that they grew up on. And they were happy to ask me where I was from, was it near California, New York, or Florida?
I miss it. It sounds probably vain and overreactionary. But it’s true. I do miss it. And screw this St. Patrick’s day for reminding me!
