Storytelling

In an effort to exercise my writing muscle and put down on paper loved memories, I’m starting a new series called storytelling. Here I’ll do my best to transport anyone reading this little blog right into the sights, sounds, and smells of memories I don’t want to forget.  Our minds are amazing but fragile organs, and I feel some of my favorite memories fading with time.  Let’s preserve these bits and pieces of life in the written word.

Feel free to join me! I’d love to hear other people’s favorite memories and how they recreate them to be shared.

We were soaked through to the core. Plastic bags full of hand-made scarves and souveneirs took shelter under layers of dripping wet t-shirts, sweatshirts, and windbreakers. Everyone was miserable. We had taken a small, rickety boat out to the Aran Islands, a collection of three islands, off the west coast of Ireland.

When we set foot on ground, the skies began to pour rain down upon us. We threw up our hoods, opened our umbrellas, and huddled together. We spent the day in a horse drawn carriage touring this beautiful place,where the residents still spoke Irish and our carriage driver blessed himself each time we passed a statue of the Virgin Mary. The Aran Islands were known for their handmade wool sweaters and their adherence to tradition; our 17-year-old tour guide wore his claddagh with the crown facing in, certainly meaning his heart was taken.

The cold and rain bit us sharply, but I felt warm, my heart dancing in my chest. I beamed at my professor that this was, in fact, my favorite part of our month-long stay in Ireland. She waited patiently for a hint of sarcasm but it never came. Everyone wanted to be back in our cozy Dublin apartments but I never wanted to leave.

We boarded the small boat and huddled downstairs to protect ourselves from the wind and rain. In addition to my classmates, other tourists packed in below, shoulder to shoulder, in a small wooden room with a few pews for seats. A tiny round window provided a glimmer of light that cast shadows on everyone’s sullen faces. The humidity in that tiny cabin was unbearable.

As the ship left the dock, we should have expected the waves we would face in the storm. Although pieces of conversations in Russian, Chinese, French, Italian, and English created an unintelligible murmur, our faces clearly communicated fear as our boat sailed on top of a wave and then quickly fell, submerging our small window completely underwater. Before our boat had a moment to settle, we were thrust up and dropped back down again. Up and down, up and down, up and down.

The weak at stomach didn't stand a chance. One by one their heads shot between their legs and into whatever container they could get their hands on. Babies were crying and all of us were scared. 

A sweet girl, with sweat dripping from her forehead, looked up from her hunched over position and apologized for the sound. A selfless thought among this miserable scene. In an effort to conceal the sound and calm the spirits, someone started in, “A long long time ago, I can still remember how that music used to make me smile...”

A few classmates joined in, “And, I knew if I had my chance that I could make those people dance, and maybe they'd be happy for a while...”

Don McLean’s lyrics were a universal language that day; when we hit the chorus the whole boat joined in, “And we were singing, ‘bye bye Miss American Pie...” We all swayed side to side as our boat rode up and down. "Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry..." Spirits were lifted as our impromptu karaoke drowned out the sounds and fears. "Them good ol' boys were drinking whiskey and rye, singing..."

And then, at once, we realized what we had gotten ourselves into. The whole boat burst into laughter and refused to belt out that last lyric as we finally felt the boat coming into the dock.

“This’ll be the day that I die...”