Getting Unstuck

Fear is the great undoer. When my travel partner decided yesterday she needed to go home, I had two choices: go home as well, or travel on alone. I’m in my 60s, and in all those decades, I’ve never traveled alone except to drive or fly to where I was meeting someone. Ireland by myself? I was afraid. I figured my family would all panic and insist I get on the plane with TB (travel buddy), which would give me the excuse I needed to bail. Surprisingly, they all said go on. Be smart, aware, and check in often—but go on.

So yesterday, in spite of my fear, I dragged my overpacked luggage across Trinity College campus, got a taxi to Stephen’s Green north, grabbed a latte at Starbuck’s (put me right at ease), and got on a St. Kevin’s bus for Glendalough. When I got on the bus, I asked the driver about getting from the bus stop to my B&B. He said, “Ah, this bus goes to Glendalough. You can’t get to the lodge from there. I’ll call a feller. He’ll pick you up.” At Glendalough (glen-da-lock…glen between two lakes), getting off the bus, the driver said, “There’s yer feller.” Sam, my feller, took me to the lodge. He says Bob (bus driver) often calls him to pick up “the stuck ones.”

Here I am, Day 5 (if you don’t count plane/delay/Chicago time), officially UNSTUCK.

I’m at a beautiful lodge in the Wicklow Mountains. The lodge is a hub for walkers and hikers from around Ireland (and the world). I have spectacular views of small mountains that remind me of the Black Hills back home. I’ve had great, hearty food at the inn’s attached pub—“vegetable” soup (pea soup with one or two potatoes), the best hearty brown bread I’ve ever had (almost everyone serves coarse brown bread with every meal), and spaghetti balls smashed (spaghetti with meat sauce).

I had a long conversation with a young hill-walking couple about changes in Irish attitudes toward the Catholic church and bringing up kids. The young man says the church still holds the reins on Irish schools, but he thinks people mostly christen their kids, go to mass sporadically, and “go through the motions” out of a sense of tradition, not a belief in the religion. He didn’t know much about the laundries. Many Irish people don’t; they only know that the laundries existed, and many know the nuns as the “bogey man” of parents’ threats—if you don’t behave, the nuns will come and get you.

Tomorrow I move on. The staff here says, "No problem, we'll sort out your ride." Today it’s raining, I have a gorgeous view of misty hills and the longhorn cows, and it’s a good day to write. As I sit here, hikers are taking off from the lodge in their head-to-toe rain gear, with day packs and trekking poles. Their luggage is stowed at the lodge and "a feller" will pick it up soon to take it to the hikers' end destination. Maybe that's the key to answering for the sorrows of the past, and avoiding trouble in the future--learning to be fearless.