Tonight I am in a little town in County Kerry called Sneem. It sounds like a dwarf's name, and perhaps Sneem was the eighth dwarf but got lost on the way to the diamond mine one day and ended up by the sea here in Ireland.
Settling in, he found that he liked the fresh sea air, the touch of rain every day, and not being just another face in the crowd of short, hardworking men. Away from Grumpy, he became increasingly more cheerful, and far from Doc, he started to look like the smart one. People were drawn to his smart cheerfulness, and the town grew up around him and so they decided to name the town after him. Sneem.
I could see why my mythical Sneem the Dwarf liked this place when I biked into town this afternoon. It was the first day of my three-day Ring of Kerry bike tour, and I'd made it to Sneem by 5pm after a day of seeing scenery so achingly beautiful, I couldn't stop smiling. At one point, I found myself humming "How Great Thou Art," a song that came unbidden but that was right for those bright green hills, the mountains rising, the sheep gathered by huge boulders. The works Thy hands have made, indeed.
The bike tour company had given very clear directions for this self-guided tour, and as I descended into Sneem {thinking about how I'd need to ascend that hill tomorrow}, I read the directions to get to the Sneem Hotel: Turn left at the one stop sign in town.
The one stop sign—this was going to be my kind of town.
The stop sign was at a corner of the South Square. Sneem is cut in two by a river—the River Sneem, in fact—and on each bank, there is a square. It's as if the town wanted to pretend that it was bigger than it really is, what with their North Square and their South Square. Each square has a church, so in my mind, one side was for the Catholics and one side was for the Protestants, but even such a divided country as Ireland, I don't think that was the case in little Sneem.
Sneem is called An tSnaidhm in Irish, which translates to "The Knot." It's been called the Knot in the Ring of Kerry, a romantic and charming idea for a town that gets its lifeblood from the tourist trade—from all those tourists pouring in busload after busload during the summer to see Ireland as it was.
I'm just as guilty of that, even if I didn't come on a bus. I came to Ireland to see a slower paced life, one that still feels tied to the earth and to the traditions of centuries. The first thing I thought when I biked into Sneem was, "I'm sure this village hasn't changed into years upon years," a rather unfair thought to aim at a town that's simply trying its best to keep tourists and residents alike happy.
But looking at the tidy green in the center of the South Square, I could see little boys in knee britches chasing each other and women in sensible shoes and warm coats gossiping—because I wanted to see this place as stuck in the past, as a slice of Ireland that's just as it was in some mythical past out of Brigadoon.
Without even needing to try, I insinuated myself in the midst of it all, imagining what it'd be like to grow up in this town of colorful houses and slate roofs. The fair would be the most exciting thing to happen every summer, and I'd have a job waiting tables at the pub D O'Shea's, the one that's painted bright pink in the North Square.
It's not hard for me to make up a whole new life in a place that feels as familiar as Sneem, a place that seems set up to make you want to stay. At the pub tonight—I went to D O'Shea's—I sat on a wooden bench next to a fireplace, and it wasn't hard to believe that people had been sitting on that bench for more than a hundred years, meeting neighbors and ignoring enemies. The waitress called me "love," and told me that I'd made a very good decision in ordering the Irish bacon with colcannon {mashed potatoes and cabbage}.
Everything about this town feels like a memory you'd forgotten about, one that you've only just remembered and now get that long, slow delight of reliving something that was so special to you once.
Sneem. What a name. What a town.
It's National Bike-to-Work Week, and as I so like to do, I'm celebrating appropriately: by biking to work.
Saying that, I get an image of Audrey Hepburn biking—perhaps cycling {a much more refined, Audrey-type word} through a field of tulips. Skirt flying, big sunglasses, laughing into the wind as she speeds down the lane, careful to not let her baguette, cheese, and wine spill out of her basket.
There's the Audrey Hepburn version of cycling:
And then there's the reality of me biking to work:
- My bike has no basket.
- Even if my bike did have a basket, I doubt Little Pug would sit in it for very long—and she certainly wouldn't look as content as Miss Hepburn's dog with her little bow. Little Pug is an explorer and has a scrappy side to her that may compel her to jump out of the basket, just to prove that she can. Then she'd land on the front wheel and become the tumbling pug.
That sounds like a very good beginning to a very bad children's book: The Pug Who Did Not Like Biking.
- I don't wear a headscarf so much as a big magenta bike helmet. This replaced the old Bell bike helmet I had when I was younger, an ugly travesty of a thing that brought me much embarrassment. So much embarrassment that I wrote about my Bell helmet once.
- My bike doesn't have an Audrey Hepburn nameplate, for obvious reasons—the most obvious being: if someone thought my bike belonged to Audrey Hepburn, they would steal it.
- I wear bike-appropriate clothes—wait, not spandex. Don't get that idea. I just mean that I wear clothes I don't mind getting sweaty, and then I bring with me—in the backpack I carried in college—my work clothes.
In other words, I don't have an adorable cycling outfit so much as a practical approach to the realities of sweat.
It's a 20-minute jaunt to work, and I have to admit, I feel very European as I bike through downtown Wheaton, by the cafe that opens for breakfast at 6am, and past schoolchildren.
I have to hold in the urge to sing-song "Bonjour!" to the train, the commuters, the cafe, the schoolchildren, the people out walking their dogs.
Biking to wrk can be associated with a sower, more charmed pace of life—a pace we Americans often think, in a dreamy, idealized kind of way, all Europeans have.
If only I could bike to work like the Dutch {even their Queen bikes!}, we think, then my life would be hale and hearty. I'd stop at the cafe for an espresso with friends after work, and I'd have enviable leg muscles.
And it's true: these 20-minute bookends on my day do bring a sort of charmed airiness to the workaday world.
The gravel crunching under the tires, the archway of trees over me creating patterns of sun and shade, the fresh edge of the morning air, the pulsing of my legs as I peddle fast at the Main Street railroad crossing: it all combines into a kind of intense gratefulness for the day.
Lest I get too wrapped up in this idealized version of biking to work—and then fall down the slippery slope into thinking I'm Audrey Hepburn—I've made a list of Things to Keep in Mind While Biking to Work.
Things to Keep in Mind While Biking to Work
- You're not actually Audrey Hepburn.
- You're also not Dutch, not even the littlest bit.
- Seriously, just because you rented bikes in Amsterdam that one time doesn't make you a Dutch biker.
- Drawback to biking: It's challenging to drink coffee on the way to work.
- Another drawback: I hope you don't have to run any errands at lunch today, such as getting an oil change.
- You are your own pack mule when it comes to bringing lunch, so consider what you'll be hungry for at noon carefully.
- You should get a little bell to ding-ding-ding. That can be your precursor to shouting out, "ON THE LEFT!" every time you pass someone.
- After getting to work, it takes 15ish minutes to cool down enough to feel like you're presentable enough for actual work. Keep this in mind should you have any meetings to run as soon as you get into the office.
- I hope I never forget my brush or my deodorant while biking. I bet everyone else in the office really hopes I never forget my deodorant.
- On days you bike to work, for the love, do not do the legs portion of your weight lifting routine. Not necessary. And later, when you have to bike home and your legs are already sore, you will be upset at your overachiever morning self that tried to be all exercise-y.
- If you can fit in a swim and a run before you bike to work, you can start bragging about doing a triathlon every day.
This is my bike. See how it's not at all like Audrey Hepburn's? It's older than I am, actually, and at one time, belonged to my older brother. Yes, I have a boy's bike. Yes, it is slightly too large for me. Yes, once when I stopped at an intersection, I fell over because my foot didn't reach the ground very well. No, I will not demonstrate that for you.
