Irish Folk Songs (Part 1 of ?)

I'm here in Listowel, Ireland thinking about thanks and possessed of a sublime gratitude. Last night, my daughter and nephew sang in my sister’s living room, and Beth shared it on my Facebook wall. It was the next best thing to being there. After nine days away, and especially on the holiday named for the gratitude we all possess but lose sight of sometimes, I ached for home.

But my Thanksgiving was extraordinary, even by tourist standards. I awoke at 8:00 and cooked scrambled eggs and salmon for me and Carol, my perfect housemate for these two weeks in Listowel, and finished gluing my mosaic. At 3:30, I walked over to Mike the Pies, a well-respected music venue and pub, where I got to watch a Mannequin Challenge reboot—and see it filmed for live TV, meet the journalist and crew, talk to the bar patrons, and introduce myself to the band I am supposed to be shooting the next day.

An older Irishman sitting with friends tells me to smile, which I don’t tolerate well. I have been smiling and standing all afternoon and am just trying to comfort my back, which has ached from sunup to sunup since the start of my journey. I oblige with an exaggerated grin but joke about not smiling because I’m an American unhappy with the direction of my country. This leads to a good political discussion about the Electoral College and gives me a chance to accentuate the positive attributes of Hillary Clinton with the man, who doesn't like either candidate but says that our election of Donald Trump has made us the laughingstock of the world. Before we part, I snap a photo of him.

Carol and I have a quiet pizza dinner in the apartment, take-away from the always-crowded pizzeria next door (it needs sauce but is otherwise pizza) before heading back to Mike the Pies, where the band Wyvern Lingo is set to perform.

Random Mannequin Challenge participants

A few of the same patrons are still at the bar. One of them, an Englishman, is a Trump and Brexit supporter (they seem to go hand-in-hand); the other is an older Irishman drinking Coors Light with ice. Carol and I speak with the group, which includes the Englishman’s wife, for a long time, laughing uproariously at times, sharing stories about ourselves, and generally enjoying each other's company (I thought). We talk about geography and distance, favorite books and authors, English television shows, weather, politics—typical pub fare.

The Englishman says that he's found all Americans to be either Irish or Italian, wants to know if that’s true.

Because of who I am, I do what my mother might have advised against: I tell the man that I’m neither Irish nor Italian. “I’m Jewish,” I say.

"I don't like Jews,” says the Irishman.

His English friend rebukes him sharply in an instant, then implores him: “Tell her why. Tell her.” He turns to me and says, “He doesn’t like Jews because he was in the IRA, and they used to buy arms from Palestinians.” Whatever. I'm not having it. Whether you’re seven or seventy, you’re getting schooled.

“Were we not just having a lovely talk?,” I ask him. “Did we not enjoy each other's company and conversation this afternoon?” More than anger or sadness, I feel wounded, and I’m nervous, but not on the verge of tears. “I don't know how you can say that,” I tell him. Carol [admits, confesses, comes clean about] her Judaism, too.

He says, "I'll tell you why I don't like the Jews." He sits quietly for minutes. "I'll tell you why." He can't think of a reason. At least he can't say it. And he doesn't. More rebukes from his friend follow. (The Englishman's wife just shakes her head from time to time.)

“What a conversation killer that was!” I exclaim. “I guess it’s a good time to announce that I have cancer.” No one seems to hear me (for those who don’t know me, I do have cancer, but just a little), and the subject is no longer the horrible Jews.

A little while later, the Irishman asks if I believe in god. I have to laugh because I’m about to disappoint him yet again. He takes my hand and smooths it with his finger. "Are you blessing me?" I ask, laughing. He says, “Something like it.” He tells me that when something bad happens to me, like when I’m old and get sick, I’ll remember that thing he just did, and I’ll know that God will take care of me and keep me from harm.

I consider this his apology, his way of making amends. That’s at least how I’m going to think of it.

Hatred is a complicated concept. It’s a dislike beyond revulsion. Holding people in contempt because they have a god or a skin color or a language or a body that’s different from our own is almost always a question of preconceived ideas rather than experiences. How is it that we are taught to hate through words but taught to love through experience? I guess that’s the pussy of an answer, isn’t it? That we meet hate with love? I can’t do that, either.

Wendell Berry wrote the following poem with a dedication to his granddaughters, who'd visited the Holocaust Museum on the day Yitzhak Rabin was buried: 

Now you know the worst
we humans have to know
about ourselves, and I am sorry, 

for I know that you will be afraid.
To those of our bodies given
without pity to be burned, I know there is no answer
but loving one another,
even our enemies, and this is hard.
But remember:
when a man of war becomes a man of peace,
he gives a light, divine

Karen Cowley—vocals, bass, keys

though it is also human.
When a man of peace is killed
by a man of war, he gives a light.

You do not have to walk in darkness.
If you will have the courage for love,
you may walk in light. It will be

the light of those who have suffered
for peace. It will be
your light.

While I don’t stand fully in that light, I know that Carol and I have made a small difference tonight when both the Englishman and the Irishman tell us they hope to run into us again before we leave Listowel for good.

Saoirse Duane—vocals and guitar

But we are here at Mike the Pies for the music from a talented trio called Wyvern Lingo. I’d first heard of them a few months ago while I was looking up the solo work of people who have been associated with Hozier, whose first album is probably the best thing recorded in the last 20 years. When I learned that I would be coming to Ireland, I looked into the bands that would be playing and was shocked to learn that Wyvern Lingo would be in the very town where I was staying, and on Thanksgiving night. I literally jumped up and down in the kitchen when I discovered it, then wrote to Aidan, the bar’s owner, begging for tickets, then wrote to Carol to tell her she had Thanksgiving plans whether she liked it or not.

And she loved it. We loved it. 

Caoimhe Barry—vocals and drums

We are still high from the singing angels who are otherwise known as Karen, Saoirse (say SIR-sha), and Caoimhe (say QUEE-va). For a little over an hour, they perform most of their own songs plus three covers, which include an Alt-J mashup, Prince’s “When Doves Cry,” and Joni Mitchell’s “The River,” which finally does me in. Something is bound to make me cry this trip besides getting clunked on the head with my comb in the shower.

Since I’m here to be an “artist” of some sort, my goal with this trip was to make art—to write, to mosaic, and to shoot. I especially wanted to hone my portrait skills, so I had messaged the band before coming to Listowel to see if they could accommodate me.

(Aside: I know what you’re thinking: I thought you don’t work for free. Correct. Something of value must be traded for something of value, usually product for money. This is, for me, an equal trade.)

After the show, I make plans to meet the women by the church in the square, and I buy two CDs and a t-shirt, which I wear to bed. I sleep and dream that I am singing.

I am.

Check out their acapella version of their song "Used" from last night.

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My daughter is a great person. I admire her for many reasons, her breathtaking beauty the least of them. She is kind. She is concerned. She is conscientious. She recycles.

As a little girl, she used to plug worms back into the ground so they wouldn't burn to death on the sidewalk. I used to call her Serena Bambina, Worm Saver, and drew pictures of her with a W on her chest.

When she was a young teen, she would see homeless people as we drove her to school or School of Rock, and she would make us roll down the window so that she could give someone her own money, out of her own wallet.

Last night, she was shocked and upset. She has felt a little panicked all day today, and she asked me what she could do now. So I gave her a few ideas—start a club at school, make pamphlets, spread information so that people know the email addresses and phone numbers of their senators and representatives. But the thing I think she should do is the thing she does best: write. (And when the song comes, you can bet I'll post it here. And then I will ask you to buy it for a dollar, which will go to Planned Parenthood. They will need it.)

As for me: I make a relatively good living. I have health insurance. I am beyond childbearing years. I am white. I am straight. I live in the city. I came from parents who had nothing at first but became well off. My husband and I are both college educated and have no college loan debt (I have two master's degrees, and my husband has one in legal and ethical studies, plus bachelor's degrees in history, philosophy, and education.) My daughter is at college on a scholarship and will have no debt, either.

I do not need special healthcare from my government. I don't need an abortion (but I did twice and was lucky enough to be able to get them). I am not worried about being sent back to another country. I am already married to a man, so I don't have to worry about the freedom to marry a woman.

I voted so that you could have these things. I voted because what I enjoy as a citizen should be yours to enjoy. I voted for you. Because you should get to decide to marry the person you love, and you should get to decide how to handle your own healthcare. And you should get to escape poverty and terrorism and pursue the American dream, you being our tired, our poor, our huddled masses.

The three of us proudly voted for Hillary Clinton, and we did it early because we couldn't wait to do it, and we celebrated with sushi afterward. In four years, I would vote for her again. In eight.

As a family and on our own, we looked into Secretary Clinton's record (her real, actual, true, factual record, in case you're wondering) because we are grownups, and when someone tells us something, we check it out for ourselves. It's our responsibility to do that, to inform ourselves, rather than to take the competition's word for it. (Seriously, do you take Coke's word for why Pepsi isn't good, or do you taste them for yourself and decide?) We know how Hillary Clinton investigated private schools as a law student to see whether they discriminated against black people. We know that she was the first employee of the Children's Defense Fund, which was started to help disadvantaged children. We know that she has spent her entire life and career trying to help other people, especially women, children, and minorities. She has supported the LGBT community, women's rights, and human rights around the world. She expanded the Family Medical Leave Act. She graduated from Yale Law School at a time when few women did that. And she won a fucking Grammy!

You know that parable about the squirrel who eats all his nuts while another squirrel stores them away, and then it's winter, and the squirrel who ate his nuts is starving, but the other squirrel has all of his nuts saved up, and he ain't sharing? That's not a true scenario. All squirrels store their nuts. But some squirrels don't get as many because they don't have the same opportunities. (People still do not get to see apartments because their voices "sound black" when they call.) Some squirrels just don't have the same opportunities. It's in my best interest to share. And it makes me feel good to help someone.

In this election, as in every election, I voted for other people. I voted for black people—for a black man to not get shot while doing his job protecting an autistic white man who is having a meltdown. I voted for my daughter to be able to marry a woman if she is in love. I voted for your neighbor to have affordable health insurance. I voted so that the veterans panhandling at the JFX and Cold Spring Lane could have some nuts.

I'm going to cry for a long time. I'm sad. I'm frustrated. I'm worried. I'm afraid for our future, about the messages we send to our daughters. I'm worried about the messages we're sending our sons!

But I'm not shrinking. And I will ALWAYS live by the motto that I espouse here and there and everywhere: "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?" (That's Rabbi Hillel, who also implored us to follow the Golden Rule:  "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn." That is the whole bible, too—the whole Koran (Qur'an). The Golden Rule is the foundation of almost every religion on earth.

Friends, let's do something good. Let's do something useful. Many of us remember eight miserable years under George W. Bush. We know how that felt, and it's going to be harder this time. We can't let that stop us. So as soon as we're finished grieving, let those poems and colors and notes flow, flow like the liquid analgesics many of us will need for a few more weeks.

maybe someday you

"Suck Voice" illustration by Jennifer Sarah Blakeslee

The worst part about mental illness is not simply having it. It’s not the waking up some mornings in such a state that you wonder if you can get out of bed or, if you can, make it to the end of the day. It’s not unplanned crying or the deprivation of lasting joy, nor your aiming for, yet always missing, cloud 9. It’s not the heaviness or feelings of uselessness and inadequacy or the fear that someone will discover you to be the fraud you just know you are. It’s embarrassing that you continue to do what you do. You’re embarrassing. At least today.

The worst part about mental illness is not others’ misunderstandings about it. It’s not their quizzical stares or musings or third degree about your great job, your talented children, your loving friends, your comfortable home, your talents and skills, all of which form one tour de force of a life, so how dare you? It’s not even their presumption that you’re somehow ungrateful for all these magnificent gifts, that if you just woke up and recognized every morning how goddamned lucky you are, the despair would melt away. It’s not that as you write this, you know they just want to shake you or slap you or, best, snap you out of it. (Snap. Snap.) Nope, sorry.

The worst part about mental illness is not all the memes about positivity that blame you every day for not being able to make lemonade out of all the lemons, primarily because there are no lemons (see above), and life is beautiful. Sorry, all of you attitude-is-everything believers. Attitude is only everything when there’s nothing else in the way of it. It’s why some people who get cancer are cheerful and positive and others aren’t. That’s who they are. It’s a pretty lucky way to be born (cheerful and positive; nothing lucky about cancer).

The worst part about mental illness is not that you know what to do about it but can’t summon the energy to do it. That sleep eludes you. That elusive sleep leads to poor choices and bad habits and eating for serotonin and energy, which leads to weight gain, which leads to sluggishness, which leads to lethargy. That waking up at 4:45 after 4 hours and 45 minutes of sleep can, if you struggle with depression, kick the whole day’s ass.

The worst part about mental illness is not anything that happens to you, frankly, because you can take care of yourself. You know that tomorrow or the next day, you can stop swimming and take a breath that doesn’t choke. After all these years, you have some coping skills. You know there’s a bird called hope who might yet perch at your sill. Could be tomorrow. Could even be this afternoon, when the sun suddenly comes out, giving you enough energy to pick yourself off the floor.

No, the worst part about mental illness is passing it on to your children.

First, there’s the guilt: that driving a mile back to the house when she was three to make sure you turned the stove off (you did; you always did) or locked the door (you did; you always did) set a bad example for your child. That those times she saw you crying or heard you weeping in your room at night or pacing the floors in the morning’s loneliest hours when she was four or six or twelve were indelible. That your worry about money or crime or time or work was so palpable that she soaked it in and caught the disease. Guilt, even, that you had a child at all.

And then there’s the worst part about the worst part about mental illness, which is knowing that your child is suffering. Knowing that someone you love is in despair is hard enough, but when it’s your own kid, it is like a balloon trying to rescue an anchor or an anchor trying to rescue a balloon. It can’t go anywhere, but it can still pop.

A person who doesn’t understand that despair is no luckier. That person can look at her child with that quizzical expression (you have everything, dear! What is your life lacking?), missing the gravity of it, a blessing and a curse. But a young person’s hopelessness is a crisis. Because young people have not learned, like you have learned, that hope will perch at your sill, even come in and crap on your head, bringing such good fortune that it will be enough to make you keep that window open.

Not only do so many young people not know about this thing with feathers, but they don’t even open their blinds, which is, I have learned, the simplest thing you can do physically to alter the direction of a day. (It doesn’t work alone, but sun can sneak in, literally and metaphorically.)

So when my daughter and I argue, it’s in the back of my mind. When she apologizes to me, it’s in the back of my mind. When we leave her home, it’s in the back of my mind. When she takes the car, it’s in the back of my mind. When I don’t see her come home at night, it’s in the back of my mind. And when I wake up at 5:45 a.m. to discover that she has not yet been to sleep, it’s on my mind.¹ Once you know what it feels like to be in a very bad place, you know what it’s like for someone else to be in a very bad place. And sometimes—this is the worst of the worst of the worst part—they don’t tell you.

One day, your daughter is the captain of the volleyball team and a straight-A student, and the next day, you are calling 911. I know too many (one is too many, and I know more) parents who have come home to find their children unwell in a way they never knew was possible and that cannot ever be forgotten. Those children can be the hardest to save.

Though I've had it all my life, I was formally diagnosed with “high-functioning depression” shortly after I had my daughter. It’s characterized by over-achievement in the face of serious anxiety, OCD, depression, or other mental illness. My daughter, a talented songwriter and musician, has it, too. (Read more about it, please, here: "The Danger of High-Functioning Depression as Told by a College Student.")

It’s why I go into my daughter’s room in the morning and open her blinds. She complains every time, but if she wants them closed, she has to get up to close them. It’s why some days I make her (as much as one can make an 18-year-old woman) go outside or start the day with something other than sugar. She is a new person and doesn’t know yet that these habits will help her when she is 40 and 50 and 70. Living should be, soon, an unbreakable habit.

Why am I telling you this? It's not because I want your sympathy. I never want that. I don’t want pity or sorrow or a shoulder or even empathy (though empathy’s not a bad thing to have for others’ circumstances). I tell you about it because I want you to know, and I want that knowledge to lead to understanding. Eventually, I want you to stop believing that the only problem depressed people have is ingratitude or a bad attitude or that they can overcome their own misery by smiling more (because even if all the science in the world says that it helps, depression is an impediment). 

But I’m not sure I want you to let us off the hook entirely, either. Sometimes we do need to let some of that shit go, and if you tell us that with some accompanying bad jokes and good puns and laughter and friendship, we might.² And a pep talk every now and again can't hurt.

No matter what you’re going through in your life, the best thing I can wish for you is that you have someone to open the blinds, even when you think you don’t want to let any light in. I will be that for you. You be that for me.

¹Why wasn’t my daughter in bed asleep after coming home from her friend’s house after I was already asleep, after having texted me a sincere apology for our misunderstanding earlier in the evening before she left? She was recording this, “On the Shoulders of Giants (Maybe Someday You).” I sat listening to it at 5:15 a.m., tears streaming down my face and landing on my lap with a splash.

The last time she stayed up all night, she recorded this, called "Leather Jacket Art."

²Just not, please, with a meme. Enough with the memes already.