A Grand Irish Metaphor

Here's a funny thing. You can retrace my recent life steps by looking at the places where I've interacted with Ireland. So let's do it. Buckle up, lads and lassies.

Music
So I still work at Chester's (score), and last night while pouring lattes, as the same Sleeping At Last songs and Jukebox the Ghost songs played on repeat for the millionth time, I realized I needed a musical upgrade. And recently I found it in The High Kings. They're folksy and melodic and fun. You've probably heard "Galway Girl," but guys. There's so much more.


(I've selfishly played this one in Chester's a couple times, and when the bagpipes kick in I get really wistful and patriotic without knowing why.)


(In case you haven't heard it, have fun.)

(This one isn't a recent find, but I'm pretty sure this singer is Irish. It's also from one of my favorite shows. It's the best song to listen to on rainy nights. Whenever I listen to it I cry a little. Including while I'm working.)

Chester's is a good segway into Sweaty Tooth (improv troupe) because this past Monday we actually did a free blizzard show during my shift (Is there a word for 100% stressed because there's a line for drinks out the door but 100% amused and joyful because you're simultaneously doing a scene from behind the counter? Because that was me.), so it's kind of a link to improv comedy. We have the College Comedy Festival coming up in a week! Tons of colleges from the greater Boston area bring their teams to compete in different categories and I like to think that it's where the next SNL stars are formed, or something. We've been doing zany drills and different games to prepare for it and build our confidence, and it's super intimidating, but then I go listen to bits of Amy Poehler's audiobook again and remember that just maybe I can do anything. Maybe?

Romance
I saw the movie Brooklyn recently. First of all, wow. Go see it. Second of all, go listen to the film score. Thirdly, I saw it with Josh. (Who's Josh?) For those of you who don't know...

We're dating. I call him lots of things, but one title I'm trying out is boy-o because it sounds (you guessed it) Irish. That's pretty much all you need to know. 

But also, the Brooklyn score is fantastic and beautiful and I listen to it while walking to class in the mornings and trying not to slip on the ice and snow. 

Oh, the snow! Yeah, that's a super awesome thing that I'll probably never tire of. 

I have better boots this year. They make me feel beautiful and powerful. I've made a couple distinct, non-invasive paths across the quad that gets me from my dorm to the library or the arts building, and I step in the same boot-holes every time I use them. I like to think that the reason the rest of the lovely field of snow hasn't been disturbed yet is because others are using my path too (not just that I'm the only dork who wants to trek through the snow).

The U.K. in general

This one's kind of a big deal. I'm thinking about going to London for the fall semester of junior year. (Yikes!) The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts (LAMDA for short- Benedict Cumberbatch went there, as did many notable performers) has a classical acting semester program that I'm applying for. There are many wonderful things that doing so might entail (Ireland and Scotland are literally RIGHT THERE, for example, and I'd have my own small apartment in freaking LONDON), but one possible con is that it might mean I can't do a double major in English. 

Because I recently became an English minor! (Whaaaaa-?!) I know, right? It's amazing. For my intro class, we just read poetry and short stories and journal about them. Then we go to class and our professor reads us children's books and we have amazing discussions. I wish I was kidding. (No I don't.) It's too good to be true. 

Meanwhile, I'm updating my acting resume for my application (and Gordon's spring show that I just auditioned for- another life event for you) and staring at pictures of the Cliffs of Moher trying to imagine what it would be like to actually be there.

So there ye have it. Some of it, anyway. I'm still working on figuring out if I have a spirit animal, but if a person can have a spirit culture (is that a thing? and is it offensive?), mine might be the Irish.

To the Cliff-Jumping Wildflower

The shortcomings and inadequacies of the written word are abundantly clear to me this morning, because Sarah Labanc got engaged yesterday. The world has shifted on its axis a full degree, I think.

It finally happened. The blue, brown, freckled wildflower with windy hair and perfect teeth and an afternoon sunbeam spirit found a friend for life. She made it, and that means we're all going to make it in our own way. As she tumbles into the unknown, gazelle-bounds into the grandest adventure she could possibly conjure, leaps off the oceanic cliff of all cliffs, she takes her dreaming, filled-to-the-brim, kaleidoscopic mind with her, and that beautiful gleaming pinpoint of hope will glimmer deep within my consciousness for eternity.

When I saw the small, declaratory rectangle on Facebook, the fuzzy edges of sleep were blasted like lightning from my head, and when my imagination had caught its breath, all I could hear were these words:

http://sarahlabanc.tumblr.com/post/39498753289/dear

http://sarahlabanc.tumblr.com/post/41561090655/dear

http://sarahlabanc.tumblr.com/post/37098669447/dear

http://sarahlabanc.tumblr.com/post/28557215230/dear  (this one.)

I read them and wept without knowing why.
I remembered what she'd wished, and feared, and hoped. I remembered how I'd studied her like a painting and hoped those things too. And suddenly, inexplicably, I was terrified and needlessly protective. I scrutinized his Facebook page, this future Mr. Sarah. I was suspicious and hesitant to give in, like a child that has been given a puppy it didn't get to pick out at the pet store. Two things made me do it. One was a single shot in their roadtrip montage video. They were eating ice cream cones in the car, and he looked over at her impishly, and there was her girlish, whimsical dimple. This told me he too had a child heart, that he knew and loved the girl. The second was the ring. Plain, gold, elegant with a humble white opalescent stone, it embodied her spirit in a way no physical object will probably ever personify. This told me he knew and loved the woman, and in her entirety. I stared at the picture of them together- snow dusting their shoulders, beaming, her left hand curled against his sweater- and I could see their dimpled, blue-eyed children.

So she did it. She found her hand to clasp, her pair of running feet with which to plunge over edges. She has taken that great and magnificent step, and so we all must take our own, whatever they may be.



We can talk smart or just act a fool
...It doesn't matter to me
Because I know that I'll be with you