Back in Dear, Dirty Dublin

It’s been a busy week in Dublin, and I wanted to take a minute out to put up a quick update.

The first thing warranting a mention is how bizarre it is to walk around for long periods of time without my gear. I’m used to walking down sidewalks with my senses on high alert, keeping a secure hand on my tripod to keep it from becoming a lethal crowd control weapon. On many occasions I’ve crossed a bridge just when the sun’s drifting out from behind a cloud (a rare sight on this side of the Atlantic, to see the sun at all), or seen a particularly colorful street performer, and I’ve reached for the zipper of my backpack, only to realize that the camera’s sitting back at the apartment, and my stint as amateur videographer has come to an end. It’s sad in a way, although a relief — at last I can settle backward into a rail car seat without worrying about squashing an expensive gadget, on loan no less, between the seat cushion and my spine.

I expected that it would take time to adjust to city life again, but even after spending a semester in this place, I wasn’t quite prepared for the mental shift I would need before I could navigate these teeming streets comfortably again. A day or so ago, I staked out a spot in a cafe by the Liffey River to log some footage. The place started off quiet enough, but as lunchtime saw the tables filling up with people, a buzz of conversation built up in the air, and someone put on some bad pop music on the house radio, and I couldn’t believe the noise. I packed everything up and moved down the quays a bit to another coffee spot, but eventually found myself in the same predicament.

I remember looking around at the people sitting at the tables next to mine. Most of them were in business casual dress, the women in serious black dresses and the men in ties, often with coats draped over the backs of their chairs. The cafe was right on the edge of a block of office buildings, and there were a few meetings going on; the rest of the diners were solitary, mopping up butter with croissants or sipping coffee and staring out at the flat grayness of a Dublin afternoon. The creeping sensation that I was in the middle of a great shifting of gears was inescapable. These were people who had been sitting in front of computer terminals and white boards for the last several hours — flow charts, spreadsheets, projections and proposals. This was their break, their chance to get out in the street and relax: but I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was but a short respite, bracketed by more periods of intense industriousness. I had a dizzying image of the whole riverside, packed with these tidy coffee shops from one end to the other, all crammed with people killing time from noon to one. I felt the way a mouse must feel when he has scurried into the body of a grandfather clock: surrounded by an alien rhythm, dodging the sweep of clock hands and the grinding roll of gears. The pace of the country, I thought, had seeped far more deeply into my veins than I had realized.

I wound up putting everything away again and plunging into the street, searching for the little music shop along a back way I used to haunt when I studied here in the city. The sensations of the place were immediately comforting: the feel of strings pressed against frets; the smell of wooden guitar bodies, and the feel of a drumstick cradled between finger and knuckle; and the slick coolness of a splash symbol chilling the back of my tongue when I hit it. It brought me back to my senses gradually, and I was able to face the bustling streets with something approaching confidence. It has taken only a few days to settle back into the heartbeat of Dublin, but those moments of re-initiation were unexpectedly bumpy.

It’s good to be back in a city that feels familiar, and I’ve enjoyed strolling down its sidewalks and reacquainting myself with the way the buildings look under the sunlight, in the rain, in a softly drizzling mix of both. I’ve spent my time logging footage, slipping in and out of my favorite bookstores, and taking day trips out to spots in the Dublin area — at the nearby town of Bray, we climbed to the top of a mountain just in time to see a cloud surge up the opposite slope, and engulf us all in clinging fog for half an hour. It was incredible; pictures to come when they’re uploaded. We also made some time for opening day of The Dark Knight — I could write a whole post about that experience alone, but I don’t have the several hours I would need to really do it justice, so I’ll just say that I wouldn’t rule it out during the Academy Awards.

I hope to follow up a lead at the Museum of National History about storytelling. In the meantime, there’s plenty to do in Dublin: more logging footage, a trip to the library at Trinity College to search for Black Dog articles, and a chocolate festival in Temple Bar this weekend that sounds simply too good to pass up.