Tuesday When Everyone Was Irish

I was thinking of my most Irish friend, Darin Kelly, who named his sons Eamon for Eamon de Valera and Eoin, because that's the truly Irish spelling of Owen. (Darin always refers to St. Patrick's Day as Amateurs Hour and claims it's when the real Irish-Americans stay home and watch all the pretenders go out and get sick on green beer.) Darin's charming cynic's eye aside, St. Patrick's Day really is quite the eye-opening festival in Philadelphia. Near where I live, folks sporting Mardi Gras style beads, funny hats and clothing of all types but all the requisite bright green, fill the sidewalks. Some amble from Irish bar to Irish bar listening to music and sampling brews on Philadelphia's version of a pub crawl. They begin the crawl at 11 a.m.

Tuesday I watched as a band of bagpipers went from pub to pub serenading diners catching a corned beef and cabbage special at lunch time. Along the way they entertained those who were simply doing what I was doing--wandering for an hour to see how my neighborhood transforms itself and becomes, for one day, some place foreign. My writer self loves these opportunities to see my familiar spaces and routines recreated. They give me the chance to play tourist in my own life, to see my routine through a foreigner's sharpened gaze. That's the kind of gaze we'll sharpen and write from in my class this summer at Findley Lake, the kind that let's you stand outside your own "usual" and "be there", as if for the first time.