Experience

by Laura McKean-Peraza (Randolph-Macon Woman's College)
I'VE ENCOUNTERED SO MANY different feelings that I am beginning to feel like I’m back on the balance beam testing my limits. Fear, learning my limits (in cross-cultural conversation), and thoughts about time have completely dominated my mind for the past few days. I won’t bother with a description of my recent nightmares, featuring lions getting into our dormitory, but otherwise I seem to be concerned with soaking up experience and making sure I take advantage of opportunities that are only available for a short time.

Friday night was very chilly, and photography professor George, film professor Dustin, students Andrew, Christine, Meg, and I were all drawn to Kelly’s bar to warm up and to listen to traditional Irish music. As soon as we walked into the bar, a group of five natives of Armagh ranging in age from 25 to 60 years old pulled us into their booth as affectionately and eagerly as if they’d finally found their long lost children. For a second I thought someone in our group must have known one of these people from a previous encounter – but no, none of us knew any of them. Orla, a friendly Irish woman in her mid-forties, literally lured us into the booth with her eager handshake and made us feel really comfortable. Meg and Andrew were pulled and squeezed into the center of the half-circle booth and began deep conversation immediately with Orla and the others. Of course, having learned that it seems to be the nature of the Irish to be kind, the rest of us also sat right down and began chatting. We lost all sense of time and simply enjoyed the conversation, even during difficult moments, and the music.

For some reason an older man sitting next to Orla felt the need to begin a routine of insulting Dustin (about what?) and then shaking his hands to apologize – he must have repeated this sequence about seven times during the three hours that we were there. As he spoke energetically with his hands, he nearly hit Christine in the face several times, and Orla kept apologizing for that. But we knew he had gone beyond his tolerance for alcohol, and we did not take either the insults or the hand-waving personally.

Then, a little person came up to the table, someone who knew the Armagh residents with us, and we were appalled at the way the older man teased him. We don’t know the history there, but no history really seems like an acceptable excuse for teasing.

We all got talking about interesting topics, and although the initial encounter seemed completely friendly, the conversation drifted into difficult issues at times. Some of the Armagh residents were angry when we started taking pictures of each other in the bar, about our using our cameras. Even though we were only photographing each other, and we explained that we certainly wouldn’t photograph them too without their permission beforehand, they remained upset. We began to think that one fellow, who spent two solid hours pouting and debating the camera issue, must be in the IRA. One issue that we get slammed with almost every time we have a close encounter with an Irish person is George W. Bush. We have all learned to sit quietly and patiently as they pour out their explosive feelings on this pressing issue to American listeners. After the older man made his speech about the damage Bush is doing, I asked “What makes you feel the need to say such things to us, other than the fact that we’re Americans?” He didn’t have much of a response. I wasn’t surprised. Most of them feel that Bush is doing great harm around the world, and talking to the only Americans they have handy may seem like a chance to figure out why this can be happening and their only way to get the message into America that the rest of the world is very upset. Still, it frustrates me greatly when some people pour out such feelings with out knowing the beliefs and feelings of the people they’re talking to. They might find out that more and more Americans are beginning to agree with them.

Christine, sitting between me and one of the people concerned about Bush, whispered to me, “It isn’t your environment that makes an experience, it’s the feelings you get during the experience.” I kept thinking about this over the next 24 hours, in different states of mind – happy, sad, depressed – and realized how important it is to function slowly enough to become aware of the feelings we experience. All of us at Kelly’s were so interested in talking to these kind, sometimes troubled, and always fascinating people that we were completely unaware of the time, and it was really nice to be able to focus on our feelings and the experience itself, and not on the time. I’ve lived in America for for 22 years and in Armagh for only 2 weeks, but these lessons about time are the most significant I’ve ever learned. Americans are so busy that we are obsessed with time. We work all the time, and we worry about schedules like the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland who is always late for a very important date. Here the Irish are not nearly as worried, and they consider time spent with family and friends to be the top priority, just as important as work is to Americans.

The music didn’t begin until an hour or so after we got there, but it was terrific. There were a flute player, a performer on the Uillean (elbow) pipes, a drummer, and a fiddler. Even though there are some differences in the music, hearing Irish music soon made me miss competing in Scottish highland dancing. There are similarities and shared songs –jigs, hornpipes, and reels -- that make me want to whip out a jig or hornpipe. These are character dances, developed in the theater in the 1800s, but they eventually became ritualized and technically difficult highland dances. The Sailor’s hornpipe imitates the work of a sailor in the British navy. Irish music is also similar to Scottish country dance music. I asked the musicians if they took requests and decided to ask them to do “Marie’s wedding.” The “Marie” is also spelled “Mairi,” “Mairie,” and “Mhari,” in Gaelic, and it seems that it is claimed to be both a traditional Irish song and a traditional Scottish song from the island of Lewis. Who knows where it really started? It was wonderful to hear the song again.

My trip to Armagh is unlike any other trip I’ve ever made. Irish culture has given me new lenses – slow down, stop and listen to people, notice your own responses, experience a place, and listen to the music. This trip has taught me some of the most important things I could learn in a lifetime. To live life, we need to stop a bit, slow down, see it, enjoy it, and listen to it. Carpe diem.