If you look closely at the bench, you will see a phrase etched into the stone face. I start with this bench because it is actually the start of my story.
“Where’s Galway?” I asked my cousin when he returned from his own semester abroad.
Before I even considered which college I wanted to go to, I knew I wanted to study abroad. I don’t know when I decided I wanted to go, I just knew I would travel somewhere old and beautiful. My cousins had gone abroad while I was a freshman in high school, and as they were the closest thing to older siblings that I had, I thought they were pretty bad-ass to travel across an entire ocean alone.
It was never a question of where, either. Ireland is where my roots are (as you can see by my ghostly pale face and mane of red hair), and although it rains seventy-five percent of the year, I knew I wanted to see the country of my ancestry. That anticipation grew when my cousin, Kevin came home from Dublin. He told me about the rolling green landscape, the street corners with James Joyce quotes, the brogue spoken by the natives, and the multitude of pubs and their locals.
So, “Where’s Galway?” I asked.
“Galway is like the real Ireland,” Kevin answered that following summer. We were sitting out on the back porch of Nana’s house on Cape Cod. “It is in the western part of the country, but it is where there are people who still speak Gaelic and there’s traditional music all the time in the pubs and out on the streets.”
“Did you not like Dublin?” I asked. Katie, Kevin’s sister came out onto the porch in her bikini top and jean shorts with a beer in hand. “Dublin is too touristy,” she scrunched her nose and shut the screen slider behind her, “I mean, you still have to go, but Galway was so much cuter with its little shops and pubs and the cobblestoned street that run the length of downtown. It’s not a huge city, but it is big enough and there are tons of cute Irish men.”
“Well, sorry I wasn’t there to scout out the cute men, Katie,” Kevin retorted. He turned back to me, “But, yeah, if you want the authentic Ireland, go to Galway. It is also closer to the Dingle Peninsula in Kerry which is where our family is from.”
“In Galway, you have to find my bench!” Katie exclaimed. She pointed down to her bare feet which had perfectly polished toes and a tattoo going across the side, “See that tattoo, it says: ‘Life is for living.’ I found that quote out on a bench in the middle of a field in Galway. If you go you have to find it. It became my moto for travelling. Even though I was in London, I tried every week to go to a new country so I could live up to that quote. And then, my last weekend in London, I got it tattooed on me so I would never forget.”
“Yeah, and now you can never give blood in the States,” Kevin chimed back in. Katie rolled her eyes and picked up her Cosmo magazine.
As I sat there in the summer sun, my mind raced about what Ireland looked like and how I would fit in. I couldn’t wait to see how many people believed me to be a native because of my red hair, freckled skin, and blue eyes. Maybe the fact that I had an American accent would give me props with the Irish men and I would fall madly in love with one of them (not, turns out my Prince Charming was waiting for me back home right under my nose). But still, I dreamed of learning a bit of Gaelic so we could have secret romantic conversations while strolling along the Salthill Prom. I had to at least master the brogue so that I could one-up mom on Saint Patrick’s Day every year when she insisted on speaking it.
I leaned back in the lounge-chair and closed my eyes. Images of rainbows and leprechauns frolicking through green fields danced in my head as I began my patient wait of six years until I could see this beautiful country for myself.
I found that bench. I didn’t come back with it tattooed across my foot much to Mom’s delight. She still sounds way better speaking with the brogue on Saint Patrick’s Day, but I love one-upping her with my responses in Gaelic these days. Brí na beatha, an saol a caitheamh. “The meaning of life, to live.”
