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Eireann Today I listen only to Irish music. Digging appropriate CDs out of the incredible mess of seven or so boxes in which I'd thrown them all was a bit of a challenge this morning, in my still rather impaired state. I managed to find seven that suited me: The Chieftains' THE LONG BLACK VEIL; COMMON GROUND, a compilation of music from Irish artists that was released back in '96 while I was in London; The Cranberries' TO THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED; Sinead Lohan's NO MERMAID; Loreena McKennitt's THE VISIT (Okay, so Loreena's a Canadian lass, but she's very much Irish in spirit and extraction, so she's alright by me); Sinead O'Connor's latest, SEAN-NOS NUA; and perhaps ironically, U2's WAR. Many of the songs on these discs make me cry for no apparent reason, other than a strange resonance of memory, a feeling intangible, inexplicable. Today I reflect on my travels throughout the world and regret that I spent such little time in Ireland; to be honest, I do not think that any amount of time could ever be enough. Today, remembering the number of times I was pinched in elementary school by foolish children who failed to notice that in my eyes, I ALWAYS wear a very distinct shade of green, when I'd forgotten to wear green on St. Patrick's Day, I wear a green plaid shirt. Today, I think of my family and realise with some degree of pride that the traditions in which I was raised, on closer examination, do not originate in the American South, but were brought there centuries before by Irish immigrants, that the accent with which the majority of my family speaks, particularly on my father's side, is not the standard diluted soft and nondescript vaguely Southern speech of the people who have come recently to the area, but a sound of old Tidewater, something that might once have been an Irish accent that's been slowed by summer's heat, pinched into the nose from squinting at the sun and pushed forward in the mouth by the tobacco in one's jaw. Today, I celebrate my bad habits and my jagged, rocky psychology. Today, I've a boot in the face for anyone who'd dare to tell me, as some fool ass at Yale once did, that I'm "not ethnic" or that my ethnic background isn't valid because it's too pervasive and because some take watered-down elements of it for granted as nondescript "whiteness". (No, little boy, my culture is anything but boring. Try to come for a drink (which is never just one, somehow) with better company for a laugh (even often at our own expense, mind, 'cause we know ourselves well) or to find songs to soften your heart and tear at it so viciously or a fucker who can sing it better than the Irish.) Today, I pray for peace and liberty for EVERYONE, with a catch still in my throat from yesterday afternoon as a war veteran passed in the parade carrying a sign which read, "Freedom is not free," and remembering that the Irish, despite their unfortunate tendency to occasionally blow each other up, are quite probably the most peaceful and friendly people one could ever encounter. Today, I look at the tattoo above my left ankle and am reminded of those things it was put there to prevent me forgetting. Today, I think on who I am and how I've been shapen by a culture which has maintained its strong identity, both despite and as a result of pain and troubles, even across oceans and centuries. And I know beauty, and I know love. r
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