Dublin 1

July 6, 2009

Lynman’s Hotel, O’Connell Street, Dublin.

I have made two mistakes so far, both based on the ordinarily noble principle of experimentation. I thought it would be no problem to get from Newark to Kennedy in four hours on a Sunday, but it turns out that was barely enough time, what with it being a fine day and everybody heading for the beach, what with it being the end of a long weekend and everybody heading home from what vacation they could manage. Did get my first look at Staten Island, which is surprisingly suburban, in places quite green. The neighborhoods reminded me of working-class neighborhoods of Akron. The tour of the boroughs included Richmond, Brooklyn, and Queens, but we did get there $130 poorer and in time, if barely. The Brooklyn shore bristled with picnickers, the sky shimmering with kites. It was lovely, or would have been had I not been trapped in an un-air-conditioned taxi having no idea whether my trip was on or not. The flight afterward was lulled away in an almost unbroken river of sleep, but I do remember that the girl next to me was obsessed with Madame Bovary. I would have commended her reading could I have stayed awake that long. I do thank the Power which allows me to have slept through most of my travels.

The second mistake was this hotel. I thought I knew the establishments along O’Connell, but I didn’t know this one, and there was a reason why. It is a crappy, badly run, shit-storm of a hotel, but now that I have been in my room for a while (after a SIX HOUR WAIT) I have come to appreciate my window on the bustle of O’Connell Street (which it is well that I like, for there is no air-conditioning and the window must be open) and the mercy that the squalor of the room is old-time Irish squalor, and I think I can be productive here. It certainly has a few more stars in its Expedia listing than it deserves. I wondered why there was a vague smell of ash in the room: former occupants used the outside windowsill as an ash tray, and a pile of butts gray and crumble in the sun.

The times when I say of travel, “it’s just too hard,” become more frequent, but have not won yet.

Yet almost the instant my feet hit the street,new life awoke in me. I cried for joy as I had not in Dublin for so long that I thought that particular emotion was gone. The first café where I sat down, the poetry came gushing out of me, and paused only because I paused it to walk on a little more. It as though this is my first stay in Dublin, and all is new and wonderful–except that I know where everything is and am not dragging around a map. I know why I keep coming here. People ask, and I make something up, not knowing really what to say. I come here to write. I might have hidden this from myself all along, it being too clear, too crisp, too joyful.

Bought Irish first editions and tickets for my evenings. Tonight it is a the Abbey. I have been writing, sleeping, writing since I was finally allowed into my room. Now I must prepare for the theater on the first night ever this man of fire was in Dublin.

Will also strive to keep my gorge unlifted by further discoveries in the room.