Week Two: Quick, write about it!

Week Three: Rehearse . . . Ouch

I’m not a farmer. I’m a city girl born in Brooklyn, NY and never more at home than in the middle of Manhattan.  My roots are the northeast of the US, my family story that of many Americans in our nation of immigrants.  I am of hot city streets, car horns, tall buildings and the Hudson River running like an artery between my heart and soul.  I live in the midwest in  Illinois  now because of work, but I say to anyone that asks “I am not from here.”  Manhattan is not my home any more, but neither is Illinois.

If home is a feeling of belonging, a place where you feel at rest and at east, a place where you are among friends and able to be yourself unguarded then I come home every time I travel to No. Ireland.  There is no reason for this – I’m not Irish American or British or even a viking.  My genetics or my family line don’t trace back here.  But here I feel at ease and at peace, here I live with  friends as close as sisters, here we build a small community together in summer and follow our passions of teaching and of writing.  I step off the plane into the damp, sweet air of this island and feel like I should be here.  I see the sheep scattered on the green hill and know I’m home again – for the summer at least.

The dream was never exactly identical but the outcome always the same.  I am about 5 or 6 and my brother 4 and we are playing together and my mother  needs to go shopping.  She drops us off at a neighbor’s house.  I beg her not to, because I am instinctually afraid of the lady but she won’t listen and leaves us there to play. Invariably I explore the large house and come to a heavy door that I can push open just enough to get into the room.  Inside the room are long tables laid out in rows and on the tables are giant, white silken cocoons.  Dozens of them.  I walk carefully around the room and find one that is not fully formed – looking in, I see a child inside.  I look up and  the raftered ceiling is filled with spiders.  Terrified, I run out, grabbing my brother and fleeing the house.

Things of the dream would change here – sometimes I would run straight to my mother, sometimes a neighbor, or a police officer, or a teacher.  I would have to take more and more complex escape routes as I grew older (although I stayed a child in the dream), but still always running and always with the need to protect my brother from the witch.  Eventually I would find some adult and tell them that there was a witch who would kill us and ask them to bring us back to my mother.  Sometimes they did or sometimes they didn’t – but no matter which adult I told they would listen, and promise me it would be alright, and put us in the police car, or their car, or my mom’s car to take us home.  We’d get out of the car and as we walked up the path the door to the house would open, and there would be the witch, smiling and waiting for us.  And whatever adult we were with, even my mother,  would just hand us back over and tell me it would be alright. My brother aand I were going to be killed, and no one would listen.  I woke up at that moment every time – at the moment of ultimate betrayal.

 I woke up crying in desperation and frustration every single time, tears pouring down my face, sometimes sobbing.

The last time I had the dream I was in my early 20s, living in my first apartment with roommates but on my own, as an adult.  I woke up in the same panic stricken terror as I had every othr time. I was sobbing and I swore I was never ever going to have that dream again – and I never did.

To this day, I am terrified of spiders. To this day, I don’t have nightmares – ever.

And yet, I’m different, the town is different, my bed is different. The hostel has been refurbished an the walls and blankets gleam clean an white. The mattresses are new, the linens inviting, the staff full of new faces. I have 8 new students from different regions of the US who I am just getting to know. I have a small hole in heart where the students from last year belong. Kimberley and Joan are here to teach with me and all is right in the world, but now Jack has joined us to teach journalism and I’m excited about how the Armagh Project is already changed from this new aspect.

It’s the same and it’s different. It’s then and it’s now. It is and it isn’t. So glad to back in this place that I never truly leave.

Students – check the list below to see what part(s) you are reading.

Donal Davoren – Chris Warman
Seumas Shields, a peddlar – Joan Weber
Tommy Owens – Jonathan King
Adolphus Grigson – James Koblenzer
Mrs. Grigson – Kelsey McGrath
Minnie Powell – Allison Epstein
Mr. Mulligan, the landlord — Chloe McDaniels
Mr. Maguire, soldier of the IRA – Savanna Maue
Mrs. Henderson – Terri Ciofalo
Mr. Gallogher – Katie Bratcher
An Auxiliary – Jonathan King
Stage Directions read by the impeccable Ms. Kimberley Lynne

This year, I did get a bigger suitcase – 29 inches and I’m worried I will over pack.  There is a 50 lb weight limit on all bags – and they take it very seriously – so I bought a luggage scale at the Wamart so I can weigh my bag. Also you can only carry on one bag for an international flight (not one plus a purse or backpack like the US) so I’m trying to judge what to put in that too.

My packing list is here – it worked really well last time.  The weather can range greatly, so be sure to bring layers you can take on or off.  There was a heat wave in the US last summer with temps in the high 90s and we were cool (and rained on!) and in the 50s many days.

If you have any packing tips, please post them here.  We can all use all the help we can get.