something in me has been saying "stay here" the same way it did four months ago. and i find myself staying longer than i had planned. drawn in here, to little dublin, like a moth to a flame.
i've been feeling intensely sentimental since i've come here. days filled with museums that seemed so big when you a child, that they still have the capicity to make you feel like one. family visits, and jello on the porch. backyard baseball games with my nephews. running in spring grass with bare feet.
seeing a play at the ford's theatre, sitting two seats away from where ol' Honest Abe was shot. the fisherman looks over the edge, imagining for a moment that he's john wilkes booth, the handsome actor. he says, "that's not too far to jump." he tells me that today, it'd be like brad pitt shooting george W. huh.
long afternoons spent sitting outside the irish bar, drinking bourbon, slow, for hours. meeting and drinking with some of the most interesting strangers in the world. educated and passionate. fighting for the left and for the right, drinking about it later.
nights spent going over the barely-averted bar fight with a bunch of self-loathing anti-immigrationists. they accused the busboy of being an illegal immigrant. the cook spat in their food. and one of the waiters starts rolling up his shirt sleeves to defend the whole human race. he never lets things get to him, but tonight...
that's the one i'm sharing a bed with. good for him. i'm proud to be his girl in a John Wayne in the Quiet Man kinda way.
so i'm leaving little dublin. it's the last time i'll ever be in this house. the last time home will ever be here. the house is being sold, everyone's moving out. no more.
this place has been an escape for me. a chance to get some peace. some time at home with the boys. things figured out. stories told. the good luck to be able to walk into a bar where literally everyone knows my name...
c'mon, who doesn't want that?
so i sit in the house with the springtime sun going down, in a room filled with baseball posters and cowboy fiction, saying goodbye. tonight i'll walk into the bar, one last time, to pick up the brave, handsome fisherman. tonight, four months to the day when i first walked into this house, into this world, i couldn't love it anymore. goodbye, little dublin. thanks and farewell. it's been ever so sweet and lovely.
