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Posts Tagged ‘Ireland’

The Last Move

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on March 21, 2022| 4 Comments »

I hope this will be my last move.

I wasn’t destined to live in the same community for 50 years, surrounded by friends and family, secure behind a picket fence; a well-known, semi-serious journalist and Hadassah “macher.” Macher is a Yiddish word, a noun:

“Someone who arranges, fixes, has connections…someone who is [very] active in an organization” (Rosten) “important person”, “hot shot.”

n. Somebody who is successful, handy, dextrous.

https://jel.jewish-languages.org/words/325

I’ve always felt a sort of underlying derision whenever someone calls someone else a macher. But maybe that’s just me?

I guess the moment my foster parents picked me up – during our Year of Living Dangerously, with the Flapper in surgery and my big sister Kay in a coma – and brought me to Victory Gardens, my fate was sealed. I would be a little gypsy, traveling over the Delaware Water Gap, between NJ and PA. Uprooted at every turn.

I told myself I was happy to have two mothers, one warm and comforting, the other beautiful and mysterious. I was lucky to have two birthday celebrations, two Christmases, and two homes. Pulled between one set of siblings, half siblings and step-siblings and being an only child. I secretly longed to just stay put.

Now I know that longing for something you’ve never had can be a recipe for a depressive disorder. So instead I try to stay present. I’ve chosen to accept our nomadic existence, after all I married an Emergency Physician. Once he’d roll into an ER and fix it, he’d want a new challenge. I always told the kiddos their Dad wrote the book on Emergency Management, and he did!

Yesterday I asked Bob, “How many bathing suits does one woman need?” And like a good manager, he looked me straight in the eye and said, “That depends.”

Sorting and packing is different this time around. There are the clothes I’ll never fit into again, the clothes I’ll never wear again, and everything else. Pandemic fashion has turned out to be comfortable cotton yoga wear I bought at Whole Foods, along with an occasional Eileen Fisher piece on sale, online. Of course I’ll keep these things, and my boots and fancy shoes that stand watch in my closet, hoping I’ll need them again.

But why am I packing so many small rocks? One is from Ireland, and one is for our old neighbor’s dog Hodor, one is a crystal and one is a geode, and……..

Forgive my absence, but during this move I’ll be posting only once a week, on Mondays. By next Monday we’ll be in our new home – all one level with a big backyard. Bob designed the master bath for us to Age-in-Place. My beautiful master closet will be installed next month and the kitchen countertops are delayed because of a mix-up with the center island. No kitchen sink, no backsplash, so we’ll use Uber Eats for awhile.

One learns to pivot when you’ve moved as much as we have. And one learns that home can be a haven when it’s filled with the people you love.

Wish us luck!

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No Safe Harbor

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , on May 24, 2021| Leave a Comment »

The President signed a Covid 19 Hate Crimes Act on Thursday to address the rise of violence against Asian Americans. And before the ink could dry, we are hearing about more and more Anti-Semitic incidents from coast to coast. Biden Tweeted this morning:

“The recent attacks on the Jewish community are despicable, and they must stop. I condemn this hateful behavior at home and abroad — it’s up to all of us to give hate no safe harbor.“

@POTUS Twitter

Hate is a nasty word. It tends to turn itself around and destroy a person from within. It’s the opposite of love and compassion; but it can be just as compelling. The Flapper could certainly hold a grudge, and so did Grandma Ada. Both were positive, optimistic women but once aggrieved they would never forget. I am still a work in progress, still trying to let go of old wounds.

Both of my children witnessed a Nazi swastika drawn for their amusement – once in school and once on a school bus. That kind of hate I’d never experienced, although Bob was familiar with such tropes. The Bride was too young to know what it meant, and the Rocker knew enough to be angry. And that’s how it starts, the slow, insidious, incremental introduction of hate. This person is different, this person is less than, this person deserves to be mocked.

And when I hear Republican Marjorie Greene compare the Speaker’s admonition to wear a mask on the House floor, to Hitler’s use of Jewish stars during the Holocaust, well it’s easy to dismiss her as a lunatic sitting out on the fringe. But she has about one third of the country listening to her every word, sitting out there with her on the extreme right fringe. People who believe January 6 was a normal tour day on the Hill, that there are good and bad people on both sides of Charlottesville – you know at Lee Park, where white supremacists were shouting,

“Jews will not replace us.”

When we visited an elderly aunt in County Mayo, Ireland years ago, I could tell the Troubles were not completely forgotten. She told me about a visit to a shoe store up north, and how poorly she was treated. I’m wondering now if things may percolate after Brexit. Will the simmering subplot of Catholic Ireland vs Protestant UK start to unravel? Certain foods must now go through checkpoints creating paperwork and confusion.

“Despite a government promise that there would be no impediments to trade between Northern Ireland and Great Britain (GB) after Brexit, new checks have been causing disruption to supplies of food, plants and online deliveries.“

https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-53724381

Fear and hatred of a race of people or a religion has created conflict from the beginning of time. Parents teach their children to “hate” people because three generations before the Turks murdered Armenians…. or just add any and all different wars to that equation. One would never wear orange on St Patrick’s Day. Ada would never buy a German car. Who would dare to fly a Confederate flag in the People’s House?

If I were Christian, I might say I was called to love Marjorie Greene. That I should turn my cheek to my enemy, I should pray for her. But my adopted religion tells me to never forget, that my children would have been stolen from me in Nazi Germany. And that silence and indifference will not quench hate speech, it will inflame the rhetoric. I can’t exactly say that I hate Greene, and Republicans like her, but I do have a severe case of contempt.

Here we are with our Left Coast cousins, can you tell the Jews from the Christians?

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Food, Glorious Food

Posted in an expository essay, Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, Memoir, Roman Catholic Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 10, 2020| 2 Comments »

I saw a meme the other day that went something like this, “There will be 2 types of people on the other side of this quarantine: great cooks and alcoholics!” Let’s all strive for the former.

While Bob and I were chopping up nuts and apples for our virtual Passover Seder, I started thinking about food and our relationship to it – do we live to eat, or eat to live? Now, our days revolve around meals like never before. What kind of traditional foods would we need at this year’s Seder table? What could we do without, since it’s just the 2 of us?

What could we even order on Shipt? Horseradish? Would grape juice be just as good as Kosher wine?

Then I started to wonder if people were going to cook a big ham, studded with pineapples and cherries for Easter? Is everybody still coloring eggs even if there are no little children to hunt for them? Today is Good Friday, and as far back as I can remember it was always pretty unremarkable. The statues and the crucifix at Sacred Heart Church were covered in purple cloth, the mood was always sombre. At home, we gave up meat, so I either ate shrimp or fish sticks!

In Ireland, people will plant root vegetables, especially potatoes today:

“…most had a custom of setting their scealláin, or seed potatoes, on Good Friday when it fell in March. This was termed “putting down the early pot”, and the people worked each day from Good Friday until they had set all the potatoes.

If Good Friday was late, and fell in April, it was seen as the point up to which such work should focus. In any case, it was imperative that all the spuds be covered before the cuckoo was heard. Nobody wanted to be a “cuckoo farmer”  https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/10-good-friday-traditions-you-ve-never-heard-of-1.3864889

My foster mother Nell was never a great cook, admitting that if it didn’t come in a can she didn’t know what to do with it. But her one reliable, home-cooked, go-to, comfort meal was pork chops and applesauce, with a side of french fries. This was always a special treat, along with her once a year “Haloopkies.” Pork stuffed cabbage simmered in sauerkraut accompanied by rye bread and butter, nirvana for me in the 1950s.

But I inherited my love of cooking from my mother, the Flapper. Almost every weekend I’d watch her chop, cook and bake delicious meals for her diverse family of Catholic and Jewish kids. She abhorred waste, like many Depression-era women before her, so she’d always make a soup out of leftover pot roast with barley or a mulligatawny stew out of whatever was left in the refrigerator.

I just looked up the word “mulligatawny” since I thought it was a word she made up, but no. In fact, it’s a curry stew! The Flapper loved to embellish the truth, which I hated at first, but came to enjoy with my siblings. If someone dared to ask her if a dessert was homemade, she’d proudly say “Of course!” But you never really knew.

The first dish I cooked last month as the pandemic was looming large was chicken chili. It was the last night we had our Grands sleepover, before we were told to shelter in place. I added whatever vegetables I had left in the refrigerator to the pot, plus 2 cans of beans. I chopped up a poblano pepper for a slight whiff of heat, and served it beside sliced avocado and of course, bread and butter. It was a hit with the Bug and the Pumpkin!

Bob’s got his raised bed planted and we have already picked spinach. We ordered food from Shipt online and were delighted, I may never set foot in a grocery store again.  Never thought I’d ever have someone else do my grocery shopping, but here we are in this brave new world. Searching our pantries for lentils and flour, or matzoh, and remembering how cooking can nourish the soul.

I sent Bob over to Ms Berdelle with some chicken soup last night. Maybe I should start a chicken soup food truck when this over? He ran a pretty great Zoom Seder for our family and friends, from 3 years old to 95! It’s time to clean out the cobwebs in our homes and our minds; this is the season to declutter, to wash our patio furniture, to renew our lives, to plant and welcome fresh air and sunlight into our cloistered homes.

This is the season to stay at home and save lives.

I hope that cooking brings you joy during this lonely, holy week, and that your pantry stays stocked with your choice of beverage. Below Bob is setting up the Zoom Seder, while I prepare the Seder plate.

IMG_7445

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Privacy Watchdog

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on May 25, 2018| Leave a Comment »

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) law will be enforced in the EU beginning today. It gives people “The right to be forgotten,” which I assume means you could wipe out all online information about yourself. Wouldn’t that be nice?

It is also quite a nuisance for American companies, since some of the biggest tech giants have their European headquarters in Ireland. But let’s face it, in an age when our Facebook data can be sold to Russia for their treasonous purposes, we’d all like to see “Privacy” right up there with Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedoms.

As we were driving home yesterday, Bob said that some electronic billboards will be set up to read your car’s license plate as you meander by, and then custom design ads for you! If you’re driving a Beemer, you’ll get a Tiffany ad – a Jeep might get an Orvis ad. Remember that Tom Cruise 2002 sci-fi movie Minority Report, where he plays a cop who gets the data about an intended murder, and so he arrests the guy?

I remember a scene in the movie where Tom’s walking down a street and the ads are changing as everybody passes them, it’s like that. Now.

But back to Ireland and the soul-searching companies like Google are faced with, here’s an answer: if the Irish vote to repeal the 8th Amendment that bans abortions in the country, then stay and change your privacy laws. Today is the vote. It’s that simple because women’s rights are human rights. Disney told the state of Georgia they would move production to another state if they didn’t comply with LGBTQ rights. Why can’t ethics become a major component of big business? When our governments fail us, capitalism may be able to right our ship.

And in other news about Tom Cruise, the Rocker just finished scoring original music with the theme song for Mission Impossible 6 Fallout. As a kid, I loved Mission Impossible, it was exciting and you never knew if someone was who they say they are. They might rip off a face mask and ta da! Like our Pumpkin tearing off his Hulk mask and showing off his muscles, transformation is a big part of the American Dream. But let’s face it, we are all changing – retiring, traveling, downsizing, aging – transforming our empty nests to at-home gyms.

“This message will self-destruct…” now that was one good privacy feature.

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La Familia

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on October 18, 2015| 4 Comments »

Last night I met a stranger at a wedding. In the midst of glamor and cocktails,

We stood our ground and spoke profoundly about our journey.

Maura arrived at this spot, beneath the mountains via a sandy beach.

Still it wasn’t the sand that held us captive here.

It was our heritage, our ancestors from Ireland. She wanted to go back,

That longing was our introduction, so I told her about Deirdre;

Who runs a hostel on Achill Island, and Deirdre’s beautiful, old Mother

Who once taught Irish – the real Gaelic tongue – to schoolchildren

And their black and white working sheepdog howling at the TV,

Eating leftovers from the table, who must be gone now.

Maura’s two girls were Irish dancers, but without the wigs.

Caitly I must bring you there, to meet our family, your family,

To be surrounded by the warm and loving cousins

My Great Grandfather left behind in County Mayo “God Help Us”

When he was 19 years old in 1854 with four pounds sterling.

Can he see where we are now? Are the fields of Ceide missing his bones?

Last night Maura became a friend, and we hold a small piece

Of each other always in our hearts     IMG_3384

This is the poem I’m submitting to the Library of Congress’ Juan Felipe Herrera’s Poet Laureate project La Casa de Colores! You can enter too, just write about your Familia:

Theme for Oct. 15-Nov. 14, 2015
“Migrants: Portraits and Friendships”
Every inch of this land is woven with migrant trails. These are pathways from family to family, country to country, and most of all heart to heart. For this month, find a trail and travel through it to a new dream. What do you see in your travels? And how do you make friends along the way? Describe for me in the language of poetry—migrate into new words, use new landscapes of images.

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Kiss Me I’m Irish

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , on March 17, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Happy St Patrick’s Day to you and yours. It doesn’t matter if you make corned beef and cabbage tonight, or soda bread – recipe for the authentic loaf here: http://www.finecooking.com/articles/how-to-make-real-irish-soda-bread.aspx

And it’s OK not to wear green, or drink a green beer, or eat a green bagel either.

Just pucker up and kiss me if you see me today, cause I’m Irish and worthy of a little smooch!

The priest at Sacred Heart Parish told me I had “The map of Ireland all over your face!” One of my first memories in fact, after Sister Mary Claire in 1st Grade smacking my knees with a ruler for chewing gum in Mass, was being singled out in class for my looks. Nobody laughed, thankfully. The priest’s comment was meant as a compliment I’m sure, but it left me wishing I could blend into the woodwork.

With my red hair, and the freckles all over my nose…I prayed for dark hair, to be like everyone else.

But that didn’t work, and so I grew into my Irishness. After all, it’s rare today to find anyone 100% anything, we are all a conglomeration of ethnic genes in this country, a rainbow of assimilated cultures. Our diversity is what makes us strong. And my wish has come true btw, we have a little ginger grandson! Who is so handsome, the Bride will need a shillelagh to beat the girls away from him (this was a saying in the Flapper’s house about my brother Michael, (let it be said I’m against domestic violence of any sort)!!

And for the first time ever, this year the LGBT community could march in the Boston parade. So let’s all celebrate today because we’ve got a great Pope, the crocus are up, and Spring is right around the corner. Because it’s good for the species to be different. Yesterday it was 80 in Cville!

And I’ll raise a glass of tea to Bob, who is like a saint. He can single-handedly remove poisonous snakes from our yard and find anything I happen to lose.

Here is a picture of me with the Lynn matriarch in Ballina County Mayo, “God Help Us.” I was just getting over West Nile on my first trip to Ireland, and this is our family’s ancestral home on 600 acres. The barn is bigger than the house, and like the Irish people, our hearts are bigger than anything!  Chris and Mary Gilboy Old Homestead 20150317 BIf you’d like to follow my Kiss Me I’m Irish Board on Pinterest, I’m @mpjamma

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Of Poetry

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 14, 2014| 2 Comments »

I am going to sit on a rock near some water

The Ivy Farms Book Club has asked its members to bring a poem to share at the next meeting. I chose to bring a poem by Billy Collins, our ex-Poet Laureate, who will be a keynote speaker at the KilKenny Arts Festival in Ireland this year. http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/billy-collins-when-i-start-a-poem-i-assume-the-indifference-of-readers-1.1891332?page=1

“When I start a poem, I assume the indifference of readers,” he says. “That there might even be a touch of hostility. There is a line from a Patrick Kavanagh poem that really resonates. It goes: ‘Tomorrow’s Wednesday. Who cares?’ Well, the reader can’t be expected to be interested in your life, the life of a stranger. The job of the poet is to seduce the reader, to make sure they are interested, to make something happen for them that is unexpected.”

When I write I rarely think about the reader, about cajoling her or him to like me or the content. I admit as a journalist I sometimes did, but today I write to make sense of things, I write to flex a muscle in my mind. I figure if the reader doesn’t like what I’m saying, he’ll stop reading! I hope this doesn’t seem cruel dear reader, but I’d rather not presume anything as I begin to write. That’s why I won’t check email or social media when I sit at my desk – later for that. I like to leave that morning space open for the muse of inspiration which will sometimes take hold of my fingers and take me in another direction.

Still I understand poetry may need a bit of a nudge. I like Mr Collins simply because he abhors obscurity or obfuscation in his verse. If he happens to be chopping parsley while listening or thinking about something else, it will find its way into his poem. And he is not writing for someone in an ivory tower, he feels the need to “seduce” us, the general public, with his words. And who doesn’t like to be seduced?

and I am going to stop talking

Last night Bob and I were laying out on the deck in total darkness, we were moon bathing. We wanted to see some shooting stars because it was time for the Perseid meteor shower. It was a perfectly clear night; we stopped talking and watched the enormity of the sky and its brilliant stars. On cue, stars began streaming from one spot in the solar system to another, in the constellation Leo, lying northeast of our ridgeline. I began to understand VanGogh. images

Then Bob said, “Do you hear that?” It was the sawing, symphonic sound of tree frogs chittering away at the edges of our star show. And the silence was broken as he told me more about his boyhood time at Four Bridges, and how much he loved that sound in the midsummer night.

I Love the sound of your voice

like a little saxophone

telling me what I could never know

unless I dug a hole all the way down

through the core of my self 

That was a verse in Collins’ poem “Orient. The other snippets are from “A Question About Birds.”                    Everyday Moments Caught in Time  

Sitting on a Bench to Watch Geese

Sitting on a Bench to Watch Geese

 

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The Irish Connection

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , on December 17, 2011| 1 Comment »

We’ve been to Ireland twice. The first time right after I survived my bout with West Nile, and the second time was to take the newly graduated Bride on a trip to our ancestral homeland. It was my brother, Michael E, who dug up the Lynn Family tree. The original Michael J Lynn has his portrait on a wall in some bank in Pawley County, PA. It is said he was a “…Democrat, broad and liberal in his views, …filled the offices of collector, an overseer of the poor, and overseer of roads.”

He was a son of a cattle dealer in Ireland, who came over from Mayo to Scranton, PA in 1854 with “…four pounds sterling.” Or about $20. Starting out in the coal mines, he built a mini-empire of farming, lumbering and a butchering business; he owned over 200 acres of land. Michael H Lynn was the second born son, one of 15 children. My Grandfather took over the cattle business. I believe it was frowned upon when my Father, Robert, decided to study pharmacy instead of the meat business. And it was doubly frowned upon by his family when my Father married the Flapper. A widow with 2 children. She may not have been born high enough for their Irish Catholic tastes.

The Irish Cousins


Mary Gilboy is our remaining cousin in Ballina, Ireland; she is a beautiful woman, a widow in her 80s. She was a teacher of Irish who lives on the sheep farm her Husband worked with her son, John. They have a black and white border collie who likes to wind down a day of sheep herding by watching TV in the evening. She has 2 daughters, Deirdre and Fiona. Deirdre owns the “Wild Haven” youth hostel on Achill Island, and Fiona’s family make rugs in the Gaelic way: http://www.ceadogan.ie/.
Mary has brought us to see the Lynn Family Homestead and been wonderfully hospitable on our visits.

The Irish Christmas package is speeding along across the ocean with my long letter and a few CDs of “Dogs” for the kids. And now I can feel the ancient pull of family, the tidal yearning for belonging. No matter the separation, we Lynns are a strong and brave breed.

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