High Hopes for Another Fine Day

In my head, I would never see him again. I liked how it ended: with a hug and a look that meant, “This is it?” It was storybook. We were in Ireland, in front of the massive gates at Trinity College, and I remember the long walk across the campus, back to my room, thinking that I could go home happy now. I used the last few precious minutes on my Irish Nokia cell phone to call him, hours before my plane took off, and joke and laugh and put an extra sheen on the experience that was meeting him.

It was so lovely. Wrapped up in a package, neatly sealed, tucked in a corner of a country that I would visit again but never really experience in the same way. He was a part of that. The perfect day, inside the perfect 6 weeks.

Today I got a Facebook message.

Subject: Yo!

Hey Lauren,
I dont know how far along your "leave New York, go to culinary school" plan you are but if you're still in NY, I'm heading over to stay with some friends of mine on sunday. I'll be there for 2 weeks (4th-18th), if you’re around we should get together at some stage.
Hope you're well,
graham.

It’s been four years. And now that I know he’ll be here soon, I feel like I can’t wait another day.

Well then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do

It began, as most romantic comedies do not, with the World Cup. I was about to turn 21 years old and I was studying abroad in Dublin. He was a floundering college student taking some time off to work and find himself, as so many young Europeans do. He was so endearing and I liked him immediately. "Do you want to meet me at the bar?" I asked. "Yeah," he answered, "Be there in two shakes of a lamb's tail." Oscar. My European love affair.

I don't know if most people can pinpoint their best kiss. Mine happened in the most mundane of settings, in the most common situation. We had been watching a World Cup football match at a favorite bar of ours. He was wearing a white polo shirt and he bought me a pint. We stood close at the bar and smiled a lot and fidgeted and touched each other lightly and should have been social with other people but we weren't. I was so incredibly comfortable with him and told my ridiculous jokes and said stupid things and all he did was laugh along and act as a catalyst for my personality. I adored him.

The match ended and I had planned to go out with the girls later. We left the bar together and I was in such a happy haze that I forgot to pay my bar tab. The sun was beaming down onto Dame Lane in an unseasonably warm early July day in Dublin, and the sunshine and the warm air and the pint made me feel floaty and dreamy and drunk.

"So, I'll text you later," he said. He smiled. He reached out and grabbed my hand and pulled me toward him, and then he kissed me. It was nice. It was gentle but given with purpose. And when I opened my eyes, I saw that his were still closed. His eyelids lifted slowly, and he grinned.

And it was perfect.

And a rovin', a rovin', a rovin' I'll go...

Me (in blue jeans, blue shirt) and my study abroad group on the Dingle Peninsula, Co. Kerry, Ireland

I’m not sure how a place can have your heart, but Ireland has mine. And not because St. Patrick’s Day mirrors any of the qualities that I love about the place (except, of course, for the Irish people’s affinity for drink), but I felt like it was my duty to post today in honor of the Emerald Isle and my deep affection for it.



Slainte!