Reflections on the Eleventh Week of Spring – A.B.C.

Dunguaire Castle

I yawned and squinted at the backlit tablet screen. Above the picture of a weathered castle, my daughter Ellen wrote 

          A.B.C.―Another Bloody Castle―in this case

          Dunguaire Castle

In the tablet’s upper right corner, tiny numbers announced 2:56 a.m.

Sheesh. Ellen must be eating breakfast in Galway City, Ireland. She and her husband Chris would head off for another day before I got out of bed.

I shoved the tablet under my pillow, tugged the sheet up to my neck, and closed my drooping eyelids.

The tablet binged four more times, way more incoming emails than I’d expected after Ellen declined Spence’s birthday cookout invitation by emailing her father

           I’ll be in Ireland.

That early May day, when he had told me the sad news, I squealed “Ooh, Ireland!” and plotted. With my travel limitations―more than two hours in a car or on a plane induced vertigo―I couldn’t fly to Ireland. Maybe I could follow Ellen’s travel via the computer. Would she go for the idea?

No adult wants her mother tagging along.

I wouldn’t be tagging along―just looking up landmarks she visited.

A Purdue University professor leading an international course abroad needs an interfering mother?

How is sitting in my Adirondack chair and reading about Dublin interfering?

Ask her. Don’t presume.

I emailed.

           Do you have an itinerary of your activities that 

           I could follow? Would you mind if I made an

           "armchair traveler" blog of me following along 

          with you and Chris?

She took twenty-four hours to answer.

             I dunno about this blog.

           We’re taking a lot of undergrads who haven’t agreed 

           to this. Itinerary below.

She had a point. She’d be busy. I wasn’t the mother of the students taking the environmental health course. And Chris, a chaperone for the trip, wasn’t the type to email newsy updates.

If I followed Ellen’s itinerary using Internet photos, how would she know? I studied the itinerary. It began

           5/14: Leave for Ireland

and ended

           5/30: Come back to USA.

Two thirds of the way down her list she’d written

             5/24: Dublin

           Check out of hotel

           Wave goodbye to students

           Ellen and Chris to Guinness Storehouse.

Ellen and Chris on tour without the students! I could wait until May 24 for armchair traveling. I emailed.

              Thanks for the itinerary. Maybe I could follow  

           you and Chris AFTER the students leave? 

           Maybe not. The armchair traveler blog angle 

           might prove too tricky.

No response. Was she frustrated with my persistence?

She called on Mother’s Day. During our hour and a half chat, she said, “I bought Fodor’sEssential Ireland for the trip. You can get one on Amazon for about ten dollars.”

Okay. Not frustrated.

I ordered the guide.

While Ellen worked with students at Dublin Institute of Technology Wednesday, May 16, I prepared for Spence’s birthday company. With pots and skillets, spice bottles and canned fruit, dishes and utensils scattered helter-skelter on counters, the kitchen table, and chair seats, I scrubbed plastic cupboard liners.

A UPS driver scrapped open the porch gate and dropped a bag onto the welcome mat.

Fodor’s Essential Ireland? Time for a break.

I wiped my soapy hands, ripped open the bag, and plopped into my Adirondack chair. Sigh. The guide had more text than photos. I flipped through pages until page 161 caught my eye with a picture of a medieval High Cross next to a Round Tower at Monasterboice. Would Ellen see a high cross? I’d ask when the course ended.

Okay, I didn’t wait that long.

The next day I sewed patches on my son’s black work pants and listened to the On Point radio broadcast discussing the campaign for repealing Ireland’s antiabortion amendment. “Abortion politics in Ireland . . . strident conflict . . . in the streets of Dublin . . .”

Signs Referring to Vote Repealing Antiabortion Amendment

Streets of Dublin? Maybe Ellen and her students walked by the protesters.

I could ask.

Don’t pester her. She’s working.

She’d sent a text about her plane debacle.

           Travel drama! Flights yesterday were 

           canceled―rescheduled for today―then those were 

           canceled. Chris and I and two students are in Chicago

           waiting to go to Brussels then Dublin.

Duh. In an airport waiting for a plane? Much different that herding students and giving lectures.

She can ignore my text if she’s busy.

Stop your hovering-mothering.

I flipped the cover on my phone and typed with one finger.

           Are you running into any demonstrations for 

           abortion rights?  They’re in the news here.

She replied within a minute.

           Lots of signs for both sides. People handing out 

          leaflets. When we were in class there was some noise

          that sounded like a protest, but I could not tell

           what it was for, so . . . maybe?

And she sent another text. 

 

           Went to the Kingfisher Restaurant tonight for dinner. 

          It’s in the Dublin North section. Staying at Academy 

          Plaza Hotel.

I grabbed the Fodor’s guide and opened to Dublin North section. 

On page 104 the review started, “Don’t let the down-at-heel 

canteen decor put you off.” I visualized Ellen and Chris soaking in 

“lively community atmosphere” while consuming a whole sea bass 

at a wooden table marred with people’s initials.

The guide didn’t list the Academy Plaza Hotel, but the Internet did. 

The hotel looked comfy to me.

And three days later, while I revised part two of the quilt guild 

blog, she sent a photo with a text.

           These signs are all over!

Ellen must have returned from taking her students to Newgrange

the ancient passage tomb in Boyne Valley. I gazed at the phone

 

photo, clicked “save” on my quilt saga blog, and set the computer 

on the coffee table to answer her text.

             Amazing! Is that Dublin? Did you see a high cross

       in Boyne Valley?

The phone pinged and a photo of students clustered around a high cross arrived.

               Monasterboice. The prior photo was this morning right 

         outside Trinity College.

She had free time!

           Gorgeous, thanks. 

 

After sending me nine more texts that Irish evening/Wells Wood afternoon, she immersed herself in the course again―lectures and student poster presentations. But I didn’t feel neglected. I took afternoon breaks in the Adirondack chair to study Fodor’s, search web sites, reread her nineteen texts, and gawk at her three photos. My armchair travel moseyed along like a ride in a donkey cart with ample time to soak in the scenic views.

Then Friday, at 3:41 p.m., I lifted the mattress to slip on the corner of a freshly laundered sheet for Spence’s elementary school friend Eric, and my cell phone pinged. An email from Ellen! Before I opened it, I smoothed the sheets, pull up the quilt, and toted my sleeping gear to the loft.

The phone binged ten more times.

Hustling to my Adirondack chair to enjoy Ellen’s emails, I heard gravel crunch under tires in the driveway.

Sheesh. Ellen had switched to vacation mode, and our company had arrived. My armchair adventure abandoned the donkey to zoom like a launching rocket. Could I keep up?

End of Part 1

Chris and Ellen at Gravity Bar in Guinness Storehouse