Self forgiveness: the capacity to reminisce without the cacaphony of the bitter note.
I.
1995: In the soft rain on the Irish coastal town of Glen Columchille, we are having a much deserved Friday night ceili after an intense week of (Gaelic) Irish language lessons. In the morning we will depart and go our separate ways. I sit on a sofa in this cottage on the tip of northwest Ireland and I don't know the time but it must be after midnight because the village's three pubs have closed and the party has moved, like a wave, to this frein-freastal house, and we continue our merry-making, drunk on poitin (moonshine) and all the Irish whiskies I never knew existed. Some of the students are literally hanging on the rafters, and all of us are singing "Bye Bye Miss American Pie" over and over, with an occasional rendition of "Waltzing Matilda" thrown in in honor of the young Australian in our presence.
I am only one of two Americans here to study Irish and one of the older students. I have been fairly well-behaved but tonight I am unleashed. Ignorant as I am on the nuances of the longstanding political conflict, I shout--in the midst of many students from Northern Ireland--"Hooray for the I.R.A.!" I talk with whomever will listen to me about my loyalties. And I dance, like a crazed woman, eyes unfocused, hit hard, I’m certain, by the poitin.
Just a few hours later, daybreak, I am on a bus headed to Donegal town. I have thrown my belongings together and I am unshowered and disheveled, breath wretched and body dehydrated.
How foolish I was, a woman in her early forties who behaved as an ugly American—loud, boorish, uncouth. When I recall my first trip to Ireland, that night rises foremost in my mind like a bitter note in an otherwise lovely piece of music.
II.
I am working at Al's 24-hour Café on north College and a customer asks me if I have a date for the junior-senior prom. I'm newly arrived in Fort Collins, 15 years old, and I don't have a date so he shows me a picture of his nephew, a good-looking boy with a cute grin and a wild shock of blond hair. He says, "He's dateless, too, would you like to go with him to the prom?" and I am thrilled and say "Yes, of course."
I wait at home in my black dress with white lace that my mother bought for this occasion and watch him drive up, my heart racing with anticipation. I see him get out of the car, a boxed corsage in his hand. As I watch him come up to my house I see that he walks strangely, with an erratic gait. And when I open the door for him and he says "Hello, this is for you," I become aware of his severe speech defect and it hits me all at once that he is a special education student at Fort Collins High School.
We leave for the prom. His driving betrays his difficulties with coordination but I am not so concerned with that as I am with what's ahead.
I am mortified as we enter the gymnasium where the dance is taking place. When we walk in, I feel as though the music has stopped and all eyes are on us and everyone is laughing at me for coming to Prom with a Special Ed student. And when we dance, he is a like a marionette whose strings are out of whack and I try hard to act nonchalant but my face is crimson from shame and when my only friend, Faith, who is there without a date, says to me "Let's get outta here, Colleen," I run out into the night with her as the music plays on and I get into her big Oldsmobile and we hit the road and I don't look back. Later, I think how pretty the corsage is.
Much later, the recollection of that night brings about a different kind of shame. I am ashamed of myself, ashamed that I could be so mean.
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