among the americans

Boston. A temperamental journey.

Bright clear fresh New England day. Morning coffee with Aunty Eileen and Uncle Joe at the Wellesley Starbucks. Chubby college girl smiled at me most winningly. She was in her shining days. I suppose all of twenty years old. Time thou hast cheated me.

Afternoon on my own in the city. Hollywood film crew had taken over half of the Boston Public Library in a welter of self importance. Some of the extras sat chattering at one end of my table. Another chap dressed in army fatigues sat in a little world of his own at the other end. Nobody messed with him. I guessed he was the star. Two black security guards ambled by chatting about the general shenanigans. 

"That guy was in the X Men," said one.

"Who did he play?" wondered his friend.

"He was the guy with the nails and shit."

Overhearing their exchange made my day.

Wandered outside to the Old South church, an Episcopalian structure located nowhere near South Boston. I reckoned I'd been led to it so I went inside. Old South is a beautiful church with a high vaulted ceiling and dark wood panelling that positively reeks of Yankee prosperity. It was empty. I sat in a pew. The silence flowed softly around me. Abruptly a bob haired woman emerged from a side door, strode onto the altar and began pounding the ivories of an ornate pipe organ. She was totally into it. Or out of it. I mean her playing did not lack commitment. Like an episcopalian phantom of the opera. My God how that woman could play. Her swelling theme lifted my spirit to the very heavens. I let the music take me and prayed without words. It was a magnificent sensation. Truly if the Lord wills it the churches will be one. Bob Tail was still clattering away goodo on the organ with no sign of growing tired when I emerged a half hour later into the winter night.

In the darkness the John Hancock skyscraper looked like a stately Spanish galleon sailing up Main Street to Copley Square. I caught a tube train out to Government Centre and wandered from there by my usual route to Boarders bookshop.

The horrendous Paddy Whackery of a monument to the Irish famine of 1847 greeted me like a lost son near the door. The bloody famine. Memo to the world: Only half wits like Sinead O'Connor and parvenu corporate pseuds like Tony O'Reilly, and gormless posturing politicians like our entire government, only these I say, identify Irishness with the famine. The rest of us have moved on.

Pleasant hours in Boarders surrounded by the Americans. A svelte Mexican woman in the cafe slapped her thighs when our eyes met. I thought this was very nice of her.

At closing time I walked outside and stood for a moment. Tree branches waving against the street lights sent shadows flitting among the statues of the starving family of famine victims. The shadows danced across the path towards a second group of statues representing the same family now strong and vital having built a new life in Boston. Time stood still.

It occurred to me that the famine monument has been very much misunderstood.

Mainly by me.

Train to Riverside and a lovely night walk back to the Fagan house. Aunty Eileen served up a dinner. Not one of her best. Aunty Eileen has about six recipes she prepares which are warmly redolent of the food served in heaven. Tonight there were no celestial viands. Tonight it was recipe number seven, something she calls Mrs Johnon's casserole. Mrs Johnson was not a renaissance woman. Well, they say what does not kill us will make us stronger. We shall see.

Tomorrow God willing, I'll fly home safe, sound and alive, to an Ireland starved for my presence.