Irish Conversations: Three

"What is it that you'll miss most about Ireland when you move to London?"

My question hung in the air for longer than a moment, long enough for me to think that Mark hadn't heard. I glanced around the room—we were in the cocktail bar at the Merrion Hotel. It was in the Georgian neighborhood of Dublin, just down the street from the No. 29 House, the restored middle-class home I'd visited on my first day in town, but this room was anything but middle class.

It struck the right balance of masculine and feminine: Rich leather armchairs but instead of the expected gleaming brown, they were in a warm cream. On the low tables were vases of flowers, arranged to look haphazard as if they'd just been brought in from the garden, although I suspected quite a lot of care had been taken with them. The napkins were cloth and monogrammed with an M, and you felt that your conversation should be hushed and about genteel things—about the kind of things the landed gentry would find interesting, such as hunting, garden parties, and who made the best dresses in town.

I wasn't talking about those things with Mark, of course, because we aren't landed gentry and because we'd only just met. I'd read in one of my guidebooks that you can set up a meeting with a real, live Dubliner through the group City of a Thousand Welcomes. They call themselves Dublin Ambassadors, and Mark was mine. You get a free drink and an hour's conversation with someone who can recommend a restaurant not listed in your guidebook and who can make sure that even if you don't talk to another Irish person the whole time you're in Ireland {highly unlikely}, at least you'll go home with one good story.

Mark was 30-something, a born and bred Dubliner. He was the kind of man that the word "slight" was made for. He wore a very correct three-piece suit, something you so rarely see now, and his wire-frame glasses made him look even more like he should've been a clerk in a bank in 1912, one who wrote poetry at night in his cramped apartment.

But for all his buttoned-up look, Mark was not about to be pigeon-holed by my overactive imagination. I learned in the first five minutes that he had, for a time, earned a living as a poker player in Las Vegas. He'd been a dealer in a casino in Buenos Aires, and he'd once ridden a motorcycle from Alaska to Argentina. After that, he worked with a non-profit that helped bring clean water to villages in Africa.

You could say he had a touch of wanderlust.

Mark had been back in Dublin for a couple of years, working at a museum and getting a lot of family time. But it was time to go again; he felt it in his feet, he said, and I understood—I empathized with—his deep love for his home but his inability to live there forever.

In two months, Mark told me, he was moving to London, and that's when I asked what he'd miss most about Ireland. It seemed like the right thing to ask someone who was an Ambassador of his culture.

He thought for so long, I wondered if he was reconsidering the move, based on how many things he thought he'd miss, but then he spoke, quietly but fervently.

"The pubs. I'll miss the pubs. I know it sounds expected—the Irish man missing his Guinness, but it's more than that. The pubs in other places, they aren't the same, you know. Your bars in America are made for hook-ups and for trying to outdo each other. And the pubs in England...they don't have the same feel. What I mean is—is that pubs in Ireland are made for conversation. They're made for getting to know each other, sitting so close because there aren't enough tables and chairs for everyone. And they're quiet: Have you noticed that?

"Pubs in England are places of distraction; the TVs, the piped-in music, it all gives you a place to escape. But our pubs here in Ireland, we go there to find a bit of home, of connection. So that's what I'll miss: the pubs."

Mark, who had been looking at me so intently, now looked away, remembering, perhaps, his favorite moments in his favorite pub. I let him sit in that memory as I tried to think of what place in America could provoke such feel-it-in-your-blood loyalty.

Our diners? But not everyone eats there. Not every town even has one.

Our cafes? We're not French.

The mall? Let's not turn into stereotypes of ourselves.

In a country as large and diverse as ours, it's hard to find that one defining institution, like the Irish pub that Mark will miss so much. It made me both jealous and happy: Happy that the Irish have somewhere they can so emphatically call home, and jealous that we don't.

Mark turned back to me with a smile. "And the Guinness. I will miss the Guinness."

Sneem: A Picture Postcard

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.

Irish Conversations: Two

The song rose while I was looking at the housekeeper's room in No. 29 Lower Fitzwilliam Street in Dublin: halting, not at all together, nowhere near on pitch.

"Happy -- hap -- happy birthday to --"

"Oh, shall we start again? We haven't made a very good go of this one." That was the older woman, Angela, I think, getting them to all stop. I could hear shuffling, and I wanted more than anything to dash out of the housekeeper's room and see what was going on in the little cafe/gift shop in the next room.

"But we've already lit the candles! I don't know if we want to go out and come back in again. It loses the moment a bit, don't you find?" I guessed that that was Fiona, the woman who'd welcomed me at the door to this restored Georgian house and had so carefully and quietly told me that I needed to put my bag in a locker. She had apologized three times for this, even though I told her it was all right every time.

"Oh, I suppose you're right," said Angela. "We'll just go again like that first try never happened, shall we?"

"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you..."

The second attempt wasn't any more in tune than that first, but at least they made it all the way through this one. I've heard that if you want to wash your hands for the properly hygienic amount of time, you should sing "Happy Birthday" in your head; it takes the required 20 seconds. But not when the workers of No. 29 are singing it. Your hands would be extra clean by the time they were done with their timid version.

But Richard—it was his birthday—didn't care. "Och, you all have outdone yourselves, and you didn't have to! It's just my birthday. And Angela, you've gone and made your caterpillar cake."

MY GOSH, why was I still in the housekeeper's room reading about how it was a coveted position in a household because you got your own room? I knew all of that from Downton Abbey anyway, but there was caterpillar cake in the next room. I don't even know what that is, but just hearing Richard talk about it, I knew it was special, and I knew he was most likely turning red from all the attention.

"But it's your 22nd birthday, Richard! That's something to celebrate!" Fiona said, and I laughed because the 22nd birthday is never one I've heard as something big to celebrate, but in the few moments I'd spent with Fiona, I had guessed that she was eager to make people feel both special and comfortable. I had also guessed that she would apologize to an inanimate object if she felt she'd gotten in its way.

Take her introduction to the video about No. 29.

"Now, I'm just going to turn on the little video we have here about the house. There's a long version and a short version, but the long version is only 15 minutes. That's just 5 minutes longer than the short version, but I guess if you're all done after 10 minutes, you could just get up and leave. There isn't anything too important in the last 5 minutes anyway. Not that it's bad if you want to watch the whole thing! No! The whole video is quite good, I find, and I do hope you think so, too, but it's all right if you don't. Well, I'll just turn it on now..."

And then Fiona backed out of the room and apologized for how her shoes scraped on the stone floor.

Even before the happy birthday singing, I had decided that this group of people at No. 29 were ripe for a sitcom. It would be called simply No. 29 and would be about the foibles and victories of this small, mismatched group that had become like a family working at the least visited site in Dublin.

No. 29 Lower Fitzwilliam Street

I don't know if No. 29 is in fact the least visited site in Dublin, but it makes the show more touching and full of hilarious possibilities if they're the least visited. Imagine them trying to mount a Twitter campaign. Angela, the cook for the cafe, would most definitely use all the words related to Twitter wrong and say that "tweetering" other people seemed invasive and that you might as well be shouting at people on the streets, it was that rude. Eileen Atkins would play Angela, by the way.

There'd be an ongoing joke about how often Fiona apologized, and in every episode, there would be at least two moments that would make you cringe as the staff overwhelms the rare visitor and tries to get them to stay longer.

"Perhaps a cup of tea, then? We could take it in the housekeeper's sitting room, if you'd like. Or! If you'd rather pretend to be the lady of the house, we could go up to the morning room! That was quite fancy, wasn't it? You seem like you'd've been the lady of the house. We'll even let you sit on the furniture, even though the sign says you're not to."

That's not what happened to me, though—I should be clear that the nice, earnest group at No. 29 wanted nothing more than to make sure I had a good visit to their little museum.

When Fiona learned that I'd just flown in that day, she did offer me some coffee and a chair in the cafe, and then Angela came over with caterpillar cake, which, by the way, is cupcakes arranged to look like a caterpillar and decorated with toothpicks for antenna and gum drops for eyes.

When I told them that I was running a half-marathon on Monday, Angela exclaimed, "But Richard is doing that, too! Why, maybe you'll see him! Richard, come talk to the little American about the race you're doing together!"

Then more softly to me, Angela said, "He's been training for months. Eating all healthy and running in Lord knows what kind of weather. But he's nervous because he's never done anything like this before, so maybe you could have a word with him. Encourage him, like."

This is who would play Richard.

Richard, the recently turned 22-year-old, sprang across the cafe and shook my hand. "So, you're running, too, then? You look ready to go now!"

Fiona jumped in, "And imagine, she just got off the plane from America this morning!"

She would be the perfect Fiona.

Richard looked at me with new admiration and I just looked embarrassed. What should I say to "have a word with him"?

"How's your training been for the race?"

I've learned that with runners, they always want to talk about their training—usually complain a little about it, but I think that's often done to ward off anything bad happening {we runners are a superstitious lot}. As in: if the running gods hear you aching a little, they'll make your next few runs go smoothly.

Richard looked out the window at the rain that was coming down in sheets now. "It's been a lot of running in the rain, so I guess if I can do that, I can make it through the race. Don't you think?"

Here was reassurance I could easily give: "Oh, if you've put in the hours training, if you've been committed even when it's been raining, you'll be better than fine on Monday. All those hours running will be worth it when you cross the finish line."

All the staff seemed to have been waiting for me to say something just like that, and they all let out of a sigh of relief and started talking over one another, all telling Richard that he'd be just fine and to listen to me.

It was closing time, then, for No. 29, so I told Richard good luck for Monday and headed out into the rain. As the door shut behind me, I could hear them all above the clattering dishes as they cleared up from their party. They continued to reassure Richard that he had nothing to worry about in the race and that even if everything went wrong, they'd still be so proud of him.


PS I saw Richard in the half-marathon on Monday and ran with him for 1 1/2 miles or so. He was going to make it just fine.

Irish Conversations: One

After the half-marathon ended in Phoenix Park, I needed to work my way back to Dollymount, out by the sea where I was staying. {And as I said "Dollymount" over the few days I was in Dublin, it started to sound more and more like a place out of Ulysses that I should know, but after awhile, I think everything in Dublin sounds like it belongs in Ulysses.}

The race ran a shuttle to the city centre—packed with sweaty, smelly runners, all clutching armloads of food from the finishers' festival and all wearing our medals proudly. I sat next to a girl from Manchester, who was impressed that I knew where Manchester is, and who was also in Dublin alone. We discussed the difficulties of selfies—how you want to get something interesting in them besides your face but how you feel a little silly lining it all up and trying to figure out where to look and my gosh, has my chin always been so prominent?

In the city centre, I walked to the 130 bus stop across from the Abbey Theatre. Away from a pack of other runners, I realized how out of place it looks to be wearing a medal, as if you've awarded yourself just for getting up and being fabulous. At the bus stop, an old man was looking nervously down the road.

"Do you think the bus is running today? It being a holiday and all?" He had on a blazer with elbow patches, and white hair stuck out haphazardly from under his fedora.

"I saw other buses out, so we should be okay. I'm sure it's coming soon," I reassured him.

"I've been waiting and waiting, and it still hasn't come. Do you think it will, then?" If this conversation went on much longer about waiting and hoping something comes, it would become a scene from Waiting for Godot.

"I do think so. I'm sure the bus is running on a Sunday schedule since it's a holiday, but it'll come." How was I speaking with such authority on the Dublin bus system? I'd only just figured it out the day before.

But he seemed satisfied with my answer and turned his eyes from the road to me. "So you've got a medal on, then."

"I do! I ran the Rock 'n' Roll Half-Marathon this morning." I resisted the urge to add: "Thanks for noticing."

He leaned back on his heels and gave a long "Ohhhhh!" as if he recognized what I was talking about, but I suspected he didn't. "A half-marathon, then. So you won and they gave you a medal. How nice."

How to explain participants' medals to a man from a generation that would never hand out awards just for showing up...And I think, too, that participants' medals smack of an American invention: We don't want anyone to feel like a loser, so we all get trophies, medals, and bragging rights. We all get to feel special, which you'd think would take away from our specialness, but it doesn't.

"Well, in a half-marathon, you get a medal just for finishing because it's a big accomplishment, running 13.1 miles."

"Yes, you are quite accomplished if you've won, then. Good job, girl. You're fit as a fiddle." He reached out for my hand, and I felt that we were having a private medals ceremony. Should I hum the National Anthem?

Or should I try to explain one more time that I didn't win? Heck, I didn't even have my best time ever in a half-marathon, but that's no matter: I spent the morning running through Dublin—past Christ Church, the Guinness Brewery, and a herd of perplexed deer in Phoenix Park—and if this man wanted to believe I'd won, I'd let him. I'm American, after all, despite my Irish roots, and we do love winning.

I took his hand, smiled, and said, "Thank you, and look, the bus has come!"

What I Remembered about International Travel

On Friday night, I got on a plane in Chicago, bound for Dublin. It's been three years since I've taken an international flight. Oh, wait, I went to Canada. Several times. Canada, I know you're a different country, but I can fly to you in an hour, and that feels like cheating.

It's like when I came back in July from my trip to Stratford, Ontario, to visit my parents' new condo {and to see four shows in three days at the Stratford Festival}. It was, technically, an international flight: I needed a passport, there were forms to fill out, the announcements on the plane were made in English and Funny French. But it was on a regional jet, one of those tiny planes you think could double as your nephew's toy plane.

When we pulled into the international terminal at O'Hare, we were parked in between two double-decker British Airways planes. I imagined them maliciously laughing down at us, Goliaths against our David, as we got off the plane by stairs onto the tarmac. {Yes, the plane was that small that even a jetbridge would've overpowered it.}

When I say "international flight," then, what I mean is "transatlantic flight." It has indeed been three years since I've taken one of those, and Friday night, I remembered a few things about international travel.

{These are in no particular order.}

Delays are the end of the world as we know it, and no one feels fine. We all know that air travel is a risk—I mean, there's the obvious risk of zooming through the air at 35,000 feet, but also the general risk of logistics. Given the tight scheduling of most airlines today, it takes one thing to go wrong in one airport to throw off the whole schedule, particularly if that airport is a hub. I think this is the modern version of a butterfly flapping its wings in California and causing a tsunami in Japan: one plane has mechanical difficulties in Chicago, and suddenly, no one can get out of Denver.

Given the possibility for all that can go wrong, we should be applauding every time we are able to make it anywhere by plane. We should applaud humanity that we got our acts together enough to be able to put all the right people in all the right places—and then got those people to a new place.

But no one thinks about humanity when they hear the words: "We're so sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but the flight has been delayed. We're now showing a two hour delay."

When those words are uttered in an airport, the reaction is disproportionate to the cause. It's the equivalent of getting your hand amputated when you've scratched a finger.

When a delay is announced, there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. There is anger and indignation as everyone seethes that this could happen to them, as if they had fairies weave a magic spell around them in the crib that they'd never be delayed. On Friday night, my plane was delayed because the pilot wasn't there yet. One guy—with a walrus mustache and high-waisted jeans with a t-shirt tucked into them—told the gate agent, "Heck, how hard can it be to fly a plane? Give me a manual and 20 minutes, and I'll get us to Dublin in no time. The computers do all the work anyway."

I'm sorry, sir, we are not in the world of HAL or Star Trek just yet, and I'm sorry for saying this, but I don't trust you or your mustache. I'd rather wait here in the gate, patient and trusting that the pilot will arrive—and we'll make it to Dublin safely.

And we did. We ended up being 3 1/2 hours late, but in the scheme of life, is it worth getting worked up over 3 1/2 hours? As my mother very wisely pointed out: my first day in Ireland was shorter, then, so I didn't have to try to push as hard to make it through the day and to a reasonable hour before I could go to bed.

You can indeed sleep in the craziest positions. I thank my years of gymnastics for my flexibility every time I sleep in coach.

We demand so much from air travel. This should go up closer to the first one about delays, I guess—but it's that my plane was old and sad. The TVs were the small, grainy monitors spaced every few rows or so, and the buttons on my armrest for the lights had been ripped off. I once flew Aeroflot out of Russia, and this plane felt like it might've belonged in their fleet. Everything about it seemed to sigh with resignation, and I spent some time on the flight thinking once again about how far we've come in our expectations of what we "deserve" on a flight. I thought longingly of the one time I flew Air France: care packages, hot towels, in-seat entertainment, and china—in coach.

That flight has been my standard for transatlantic travel for more than 10 years now, but even without that ridiculously high bar, we have a belief that while travelling, we deserve to be pampered. In some ways, it's like we think that when we pay for the privilege of flight, we should get treated like dukes and duchesses on board. Only the finest food, the best movies, and the most overhead luggage space will placate us, but you know what? We should just be happy that we can cross an ocean in the equivalent of a workday. That is amazing, so I'm sorry if the TV wasn't nice or if you thought the chicken was chewy. You were in the air. Above an ocean. On your way to Ireland. Take a moment and revel in how lucky you are.

{This part of the tirade owes much to Louis CK, who has such funny things to say on how we approach air travel now.}

As much as I love speaking French, there is something to be said for not having to speak it as soon as I get off the plane. And that something to be said is: C'est si bon. Most times when I go abroad, I'm going to France. Just off the plane, jet lagged and confused about what day it is, it takes all the brain power I have left to make sure I collect all my bags, let alone trying to conjugate verbs and give addresses to taxi drivers. Here, though, when I got off the plane, I understood everything! And they understood me! The taxi driver and I bonded over his desire to see Chicago, and I was able to clearly communicate concepts and even be funny without needing to pause and say, "Wait, wait, I know the word. Just give me a minute and the French will come back up from the deep recesses of my brain. Wait for it..."

I love it. This isn't actually something I needed to remember about international travel; it's an idea that's always with me. I love that one day, I can be at work, concerned about office gossip and finishing that project, and the next morning, I can unwind myself in coach, eat a quick breakfast, and step off the plane into a whole new country where possibilities await.

how do we ever get used to this?

Last weekend in Seattle, I couldn't stop looking at the water.  It's what always happens when I get near the ocean, perhaps because of my landlocked Midwestern sensibilities.  Even though I grew up on the Mississippi {or, more correctly, on the river bluff above it:  I was not Huckleberry Finn, floating down the Muddy Mississippi and hoping for a better life around the bend} and therefore saw water every day, it simply is not the same as seeing so much blue stretch in front of you.

From my parents' house, I could see Illinois and more farmfields...with a ribbon of a brown river in the foreground.  And though I knew that that river fed the farmfields and had inspired stories and songs, it was also just the thing I saw every morning when I ate breakfast.  

But the ocean... 

I drove to my bed & breakfast in the dark and so it wasn't until the next morning on my run that I saw the water.  The town I was staying in, Port Gamble, was tiny and had about four main streets, one of which was called NE Walker St.  Of course I interpreted that as a sign that I was in the right place.

I had to make about seven loops around the town, running up and down every street over and over, in order to get in my 31 minutes.  {Several years ago, I decided that the minimum time I could run would be my age.  This plan will, at some point, backfire, but for right now, it's working well.}

On my fourth lap past the espresso stand {this is the Seattle-area, after all}, the woman working waved at me and laughed.

I stopped by afterwards and said, in that way that lone travelers have, too much too quickly, as if I was concerned that this espresso woman would be the only person I'd talk to all day:  "I live in Illinois, so I'm really excited to be able to run outside and not have to worry about slipping on the snow and ice.  Look at me!  I'm in shorts! I also can't stop looking at the water and smell that!  It smells so fresh and clean here, like industry and inspiration are just waiting for you.  But the water:  Do you ever get used to seeing it?"

More than anything--more than the babbling and the talking of my shorts--that last line betrayed me as a foreigner.  I suppose it would be like someone asking me, "But the Mississippi: Do you ever get used to seeing it?"

And of course I did.  It was just there with barges going up and down it every day.  

Sometimes it smelled like rotting fish.  

The Mississippi mud can hide clams that slice your toe before you even know you've stepped on anything.

When we read Huck Finn our sophomore year of high school, no one once stopped a discussion to say, "But did you ever think that this river that seems so mythical and magical is literally two miles from this classroom with no windows?" 

The Mississippi was just there, just like for that espresso woman in Port Gamble, the Hood Canal is just there.  It's amazing what we can get used to.

But I'm still convinced that I would never get used to seeing so much water every day.  I would never get used to breathing in deeply and feeling like I was taking in life itself, which I suppose I do every day anyway, but it's hard to remember that when you're in the suburbs of Chicago.

Whoever you are and wherever you live, I think we all need a Port Gamble-like place to escape to when our normal lives and normal view start to feel like drudge and sludge.

We need to see something else for a few days, and then, most importantly, come back to where we started and say:  Here is good, too.  

What is it about being away that makes you see the beauty of here?  I don't know, but I'm willing to spend years figuring that out.  It means, after all, more trips to more Port Gambles.

still not tina fey

It came from FedEx just the other day: my opportunity to be Tina Fey.

It was not glasses like hers because I will admit: I already have glasses like hers—not because I bought them to imitate her but because she and I have such similar taste {we're like best friends who haven't met, but that sounds creepy and more than a little odd to base your best friendships on glasses choices}.

Nor was it a job offer to be a head writer for Saturday Night Live because 1) I've never applied for that, 2) pretty sure, having never done improv, I'm not qualified for it, and 3) I bet Lorne Michaels doesn't use FedEx for job offers.

In that FedEx envelope was an American Express card—a corporate American Express card, FedExed from my company's corporate headquarters in New Jersey.

As I ripped open the envelope, the 30 Rock theme start playing. In my head, but then I sang it so that everyone in my office knew I was having my Tina Fey moment.

Finally, I can re-enact this commercial the next time I go to the airport and run into Martin Scorsese {which, for the record, has obviously never happened because trust me, you would've heard about it by now. This corporate American Express card is going to bring so many stories into my life, I just know it}.

Another Way I Will Be Like Tina Fey: Commercial Proof


I will be able to get into the Admirals' Club! Where I will be able to discuss unique opportunities! * {See explanatory note below, in case you're wondering if I just accidentally put in an asterisk.}

This corporate American Express card, combined with my great love of hot dogs and organization/schedules—just like Tina Fey {okay, really, just like Liz Lemon}—will cement my Tina Fey-ness.

But then, at the end of the commercial {which I immediately googled after opening my FedEx envelope}, I noticed something: Tina's card didn't look quite like mine. It looked—better. More silvery. Less like a corporate card.

Next stop on the Internet: the American Express site, which expressly told me that while I'm privileged to be a cardholder {and thank you, Corporate Office, for giving me this card! I do appreciate it!}, I'm still not Tina Fey.

My card will not get me into the Admirals' Club. Or any of the other airline lounges.

If I went to a place that was called, by some bad idea of marketing, The Airline Lounge, I could use my card to pay for the food, of course, but that's not nearly the same thing as being Tina Fey.

And to that I say: BLERGH.




*Confession about the Admirals' Club: I've actually been in the Admirals' Club, several times even {not to rub it in, but did I mention that it was several times?}.

I know there aren't a whole lot of unique opportunities being discussed in there. It's mostly business-y people talking on their cell phones about mergers and stock performances and blah-blah-blah other business-speak words.

Come to think of it: Unique opportunity is a business-speak word, and whenever I hear it, I immediately judge the person using it and mentally note that their opportunity is probably either 1) run-of-the-mill, or 2) expensive and unnecessary.

But the Admirals' Club does have good snacks; I will say that. That in and of itself is a unique opportunity in an airport, unless the airport has a hot dog stand, in which case, that stand is the best unique opportunity. {See?? Just like Liz Lemon: so into food that is bad for me / potentially isn't even food.}

french enough for me

A few weeks ago—no, over a month ago now—when I was in Quebec, I picked up a French book at the airport. This may have been a desperate attempt to keep my French self happy as I left a cobblestoned, francophone area, headed back to the suburbs and the dare-I-say-it harsh tone of our wide-mouthed American English.

{If you disagree with me on this harsh tone point, please just watch any period piece from England and tell me if you don't wish you had a mellifluous accent like that.*}

I found a book by Philippe Delerm and snatched it up immediately, as if there weren't 10 other copies. Philippe is one of the French writers I can understand without too much thinking. He is, I mean to say, a writer I can read as if he were writing in English, and when I read his books, I sometimes have to stop to think: OMG, I might be bilingual. {If I'm really immersed, that might even come out in French.}

But really, it's Philippe Delerm bilingual, but I'm okay with that. I live in the middle of America and go to French-speaking areas, on average, once every year. In other words, my French brain doesn't get much use, although I'm forever telling myself that I should watch more French movies or read more French books or join a French conversation group.

That doesn't happen, though, when I get caught up in my very English life here, and so I use Philippe Delerm to make my French self feel better: At least you can still read this, I tell myself.

The thing about Philippe Delerm {besides that he's from Normandy, where I used to live} is that he writes in French about stuff I like to write about in English: brief snatches of every day life. Little descriptions of how the sun played off the roof on a walk. What the first sip of a coffee is like.

We are surrounded by insignificant-seeming moments, but Philippe Delerm shows them to us and gives them a glow of great significance. That's what I try to do in {some of} my writing and maybe that's why I can understand him so easily: we speak the same language, of a sort.

My new book by him is Le trottoir au soleil: The Sidewalk in the Sun.

Just listen to this:

On arrive là en fin d’après-midi, on fait une grande balade autour des champs qui encerclent le hameau. Le soleil commence à fléchir quand on revient vers la voiture. Il y a une petite terrasse de café. On ne resiste pas au plaisir de s’y installer. […]

La lumière est en vous aussi. Chaque seconde qui passe vous rive advantage à ce miracle. Un soir d’été. Comment partir?

Beautiful, n'est-ce pas?



*My gosh, I am so classist, but I'm trying to hide it in a footnote. When I watch English shows—Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility or of course Downton Abbey—I wish for the mellifluous accent of the upper classes. I would also like someone to bring me tea in bed every morning, but I would be demanding/unusual and request coffee. I would also be unpredictable and sometimes want it from a French press and sometimes from an Italian press.

on the corner of 8th Avenue and Possibility

On the corner of 8th Avenue and Possibility, a girl sits on a bench.

Oh, she knows that there's no such street as Possibility, but that is how she's come to think of this corner.

From here, the Possibilities are—well, as innumerable as the people flowing past on this Manhattan evening.

She comes here most Wednesday evenings, just to sit and watch, although she supposed that'll change when winter comes.

Already, she has her scarf wrapped tight against the October breeze, but maybe her Wednesday evening tradition won't have to change, she says to herself. With the right warm clothes and a hot cocoa to look forward to, she could still come here to take in the Possibilities.

She hasn't lived in New York City very long—a few months—and it wasn't long after she moved here from Mishawaka, Indiana {"What a name!" people always say, as if she might've invented it} that she started coming to this corner.

It started quite by accident one Wednesday after work: she had a pebble stuck in her shoe. She was in her heels and always worried about catching the heel in a grate on the sidewalk, but here she was with a pebble.

And so she sat down on this bench on 8th Avenue to get it out. Annoyance gone, she looked up and suddenly realized how tired she was.

It had been a long day {up by 5am!} and sitting, just for a moment, made her feel that her day had been full of pebbles, little annoyances, and that she'd spent all day pulling them out of the metaphorical shoe.

But sitting down, she could slow down.

She could take in the world marching past on the gridded streets of New York City, and that day, she actually said out loud—before she could stop herself—"It's a sea of humanity, it really is."

What a true and obvious thing to say, she had thought then, and watched all the people with all their lives.

Tourists: always looking up, as if they've never seen a building more than three stories high.

Couples on their way to a Broadway show, both of them dressed up.

Other workerbees making their way home, perhaps just as tired as she was.

Babies in strollers.

Men dropping the restaurant garbage bags on the corner.

Homeless people with their McDonald's cups out, jingling for spare change.

A sea of humanity and a world of possibilities.

That day, as she looked down the street at the hot dog man {just $2 for a meal! This is living!}

and as she looked kitty-corner at the fancy ice cream place {artisanal is probably the better word}

and as she was bathed in an orange glow like a Technicolor dream from the digital billboard across the street,

she had decided to come here every Wednesday evening to remember that the world is bigger than small pebbles and little annoyances. It's bigger than a desk job and buying new shoes and the day-to-day life we can get so focused on and it's even bigger than Broadway.

There are Possibilities all around us, if only we'd sit down to take them in, as she does every Wednesday evening on that bench on 8th Avenue.

quebec in pictures

Place Royale on an early morning run: It got that name when they installed the bust of Louis XIV there. It apparently wasn't enough for him to have Versailles and to be called the Sun King; he also needed this square—considered the cradle of French civilization in North America—to be named after him.

Samuel de Champlain saying to Quebec, "I totally discovered you and claimed you for France. Why is Queen Elizabeth on your money now?"

He's probably also, from his perch on that plinth, thinking: What, the governor's house I built back in 1620 on this ground high above the St-Lawrence River wasn't good enough for you? You had to build the Chateau Frontenac, a fancy hotel, here instead?

Un bol de cafe au lait, s'il vous plait: Coffee in a bowl. I'm going to start offering this to people when they come over for coffee: Would you like an espresso, a Waffle House mug, or this bowl from Ikea?

In France, you can have cafe au lait in a bowl with breakfast—the better for dunking your bread and jam in, you see. But here in Quebec, I discovered you can get it any time, even with lunch, and they won't look at you funny. Bonus points for Quebec.

The only fortified city left in North America: Quebec has also left its cannons out and pointed in various directions. They are ready, should anyone ever try to take them back from the British.

Unless it's themselves: there is a separatist movement here in Quebec, much like how some people in Texas would like to secede from the United States. I'd say if the Quebecois want to be their own country, they can all just hole up in the fortified city, drinking their bowls of cafe au lait, and putting those cannons to good use.

Problem with my plan and why I'm not in charge of countries: The cannons don't work any more, there are no longer doors on any of the gates into the city, and even though the French had the high position and the fortifications, the British still beat them on the Plains of Abraham in 1759.

I would most definitely go to church there, assuming it's an Anglican church, which is a big assumption here in what was once the seat of a Catholic diocese that stretched all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.

Actually, there is an Anglican church in Quebec—Holy Trinity. It was the first Anglican church built outside of the British Isles, and did you know that it has a section set aside specifically for members of the British Royal Family? No one else can ever sit there, which makes it even more exclusive than the Royal Box at Wimbledon.

Un autre bol de cafe au lait: This one at brunch at Le Clocher Penche in the St-Roch neighborhood. I'm reading the book The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food by Adam Gopnik, and should you ever want to really enjoy eating alone {as I often have to do on work trips like this one}, bring that book.

You can read about the glorious social history of the restaurant and the recipe, all while eating. It will make you appreciate where you are, not feel like the odd (wo)man out in a restaurant of people enjoying conversation and each other.

Later, when you're back with people and you don't have to eat alone, you can dazzle them with trivia about what the French Revolution has to do with the restaurant.

Le Sang des Saints: My meal at Le Clocher Penche, and fyi, that translates to "the blood of the saints." It was boudin noir, a poached egg, pears, and caramelized red onions served over naan with a balsamic reduction. If I purposely forget that "boudin noir" is blood sausage and if I purposely forget how it's made, I love it so much. It makes being forgetful worth it.

The most photographed hotel in the world: That's what they say about the Chateau Frontenac, so I thought I'd add another picture to the count.

quebec: so french and yet

Quebec City truly is a slice of France in North America, although there are these—almost jarring reminders that I'm not actually in France.

I can be walking down a cobblestone alley and it seems so much like I'm back in France, from the just-washed streets in the early morning to the sidewalks that never seem to give enough room for two people to pass each other.

And then I can turn a corner and run into a shop selling hockey jerseys or even football jerseys: this is not France, I have to tell myself. Not France, not France, not France. Repeating it helps me remember.

Seriously. Outdoor cafe. Flowers. Cobblestones. How is this not France?

Plus, the cars are all wrong for this to be France; French cars are smaller, and of course there's the whole different makes/models thing. Here, it's all the same cars as in America on streets that look very French.

This morning on my run, I passed a Jeep Liberty, a Ford F-250, and a Land Rover. Where are the Opels and Renaults? How does an F-250 navigate the back alleys? Not France, not France, not France.

Also on my run this morning, I saw the Chateau Frontenac and plotted ways to move there permanently. This is a diverting way to spend a run when you're doing more hills than you, a person who lives in Illinois, has seen in awhile.

I go back to France every other year or so and the French part of me gets to come out. That's the part that knows what it feels like to have my powers of language stripped down. It's the part that feels triumphant for making it through small talk and the part that knows that if you need help, you have to ask for it, even if you don't know how to say it.

The French part of me knows that loneliness will hurt but it won't destroy you.

And my French side is, in some ways, my writer side because I did so much of it when I lived there—perhaps a by-product of having lost my main form of communication.

That simultaneous feeling of panic {what if I can't get the words out?}, triumph {I did!}, and a need to document it all {what a world we live in!} is something I very much associate with France because that's where I was the foreigner and that's where I tried to make a life, if only for a little while.

To come to Quebec, then—where it looks so much like France and where they do, indeed, speak French {with an accent, although I, of course, also speak French with an accent}—but to have so many things double-signed in English and to hear English so frequently...well, it feels a little topsy-turvy to my French self.

It feels like I've stepped into a blend of France and home—but maybe that's a good place to be.

Chez Temporel: where I had dinner tonight. There was quiche, red wine, chocolate cake, and espresso. I chit-chatted with the people sitting next to me, and they complimented my French, saying I sounded more French than American in my accent. I then asked to be their best friend/if they could call my friends in France and repeat that.

esso: les parapluies de cherbourg

I am in Quebec City at the Hotel Le St-Paul on rue St-Paul. So many things about writing that sentence make me happy:

• getting to use a "le"
• hyphenating St-Paul
• saying "rue"
• trying to remember how to make the circumflex {you know, the accent that looks like a roof} over the "o" in "hotel" {I was clearly not successful}

I am somewhere where they speak French, and I am happy—no, more than happy. In French when you want to say, "I am happy," you can say, "Je suis contente." Contente. Content. That's what I am, here in this place that reminds me of France and what it feels like to be there.

Even this hotel, Le St-Paul {Le! Hyphen!}, looks like it was transplanted from Europe: barely a lobby, twisting staircase, and oh, my room.

My room has an exposed brick wall, no closet {but it does have an armoire}, huge windows, and a radiator. The bed takes up a good portion of the room, and if I purposely forget that it was just a couple hours in a plane to get here, I can trick myself into believing that this is France, I'm far from home, and I get to reconnect with that French part of me.

Isn't it amazing how simply being somewhere else—away from the known and the normal—can feel so alive? I realize, looking back at that sentence, that it's a rather obvious, silly sort of thing to say. I've essentially just said: Isn't it cool how, when you go somewhere else, it feels different?

But do you know what I mean? As soon as we step away from the day-to-day cares of the place where we pay the mortgage or the rent—as soon as we get away from the place where you have to go the grocery store and then put the groceries away and then figure out what sort of meals to make with all that food—as soon as we leave, there's a little more room to breathe.

And to think, and in my case, to write. Even though I'm here on business {I'll be spending most of my day at sessions for the American Thyroid Association Annual Meeting. If you have any questions about your thyroid, now is a good time to ask me}, the mere fact that I can run down a cobblestone street in the early morning and have a glass of wine with dinner in a tucked-away restaurant gets my heart and mind twitching with words to write.

Even this room makes me writerly. Not a word, I know, but in a room like this, in a place that feels like France, I can do whatever the heck I want.

I read a review of this hotel on TripAdvisor from someone who was clearly very displeased and not inspired by their room. They complained that the paint around the windows was chipping and that their view was of an Esso gas station. How banal! How ugly! To be forced to look at a place where people have to go to make sure they can get somewhere else! The symbolism of it all!

I see chipping paint and think: How full of character!

And I see the Esso station out my room here {I think I have the same room as the dissatisfied person on TripAdvisor} and think: Les Parapluies de Cherbourg.

That's a musical I watched in my film musicals senior seminar class at Truman. {How good it is to be an English major: my capstone project involved musicals with friends and then dissecting them, in the way that only 22-year-olds can do.} Every word—from hello to yes to important speeches—is sung, and it's in French.

It's quirky and beautiful in that way that movies shot in technicolor are: intense colors, deeper tones, and you think watching it that you've stepped into Oz and that nothing in our world could look so rich.

The last scene of the movie takes place in an Esso station in Cherbourg, and a gas station never looked so enticing and romantic. You see it and long to be part of the scene, of Genevieve and Guy's lives, of a world where you believe youthful idealism and passion will always reign.

Just see for yourself in the clip below {unless you want to watch the whole movie and not be spoiled by this from-the-end clip}.

Watching this, you may want to come hang out with a view of an Esso station, too, but I suggest you find your own Esso station: this one in Quebec is currently taken by me.