It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year…

Today might be my favorite day of the year. Better than my birthday. Better than Christmas. Because today in Ireland is the first day of Summer Time! (That’s Daylight Saving Time for my friends in the US and Canada.) Weeks after the clocks jumped forward in the States, they finally jumped forward here last night and now the sun will not set before 7pm in Ireland until sometime in October!

Summer Time is a big deal here. The long light-filled evenings are called the “grand stretch” and it is glorious. In the height of summer it won’t be completely dark until well after 10pm and the difference it makes in people’s moods is palpable. We do not have great weather here in Ireland and the winters, while not as frigidly cold as what I grew up with, are so wet and so dark they can really feel oppressive. From today, it’s like a weight has been lifted.

There has been EU legislation passed that was going to stop the time change. It was supposed to stop in 2021 but something else (gee, what could that have been?!) had our attention during that time so it was put off. And there doesn’t seem to be any plan to implement the legislation any time soon. I wouldn’t mind and I don’t think Ireland would mind as long as Summer Time is what became permanent. If we stayed in Winter Time and it got dark an hour earlier in the summer there would be sobbing in the streets here. We love our grand stretch – please don’t take it away from us!

And so starting tonight, I’ll need a sleep mask so I don’t wake up with the rising sun. I’ll be able to go for a nice long walk after work to close out my day. A glass of wine at 9pm on my balcony will become the norm. I’ll be able to walk home after dinner in town rather than hopping in a taxi or the luas.

In Ireland it may not be warm and it may not be dry but it will be light!

Happy Summer Time everyone!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Today is St. Patrick’s Day, Ireland’s national holiday. It’s a holiday that gets our tiny little country a lot of attention across the world. In America, our Taoiseach has a standing meeting with the President of the United States every year on this holiday. I don’t know of any other country that has this guaranteed access to the leader of the most powerful country in the world. And though America and Ireland have always had very strong ties and America loves St. Patrick’s Day (indeed, I feel like my friends in the States often do a bigger celebration that I do here in Dublin!), it feels like on St. Patrick’s Day the entire world wants to be Irish.

And how lucky am I to actually be Irish now? I’m sitting here on a Sunday morning and the morning program is asking viewers what it means to them to be Irish, which of course, has me thinking about what it means to me to be Irish. Honestly, it’s hard for me to put into words, but I’ll try. 😉

I arrived in Dublin, having never set foot in Ireland before, in November 2012. I remember thinking “Okay, I guess I live here now.” I never imagined then that nearly twelve years later I’d be contemplating what it means to be Irish, because I would now be Irish. I didn’t need to get Irish citizenship – I already had my Italian passport so I was not tied to a work visa or anything. But I really wanted Irish citizenship. This is the country where I’ve chosen to live my life and it was important to me that I be an actual citizen of that country. Again, it’s hard to put into words but it kind of felt like I needed to make a commitment to Ireland and what better way to do that than by becoming Irish myself? I am immensely proud of Ireland and of being Irish. Is Ireland perfect? No, of course not. What country is? But I love how our little island consistently punches above its weight. I was recently at a reception at the residence of the American Ambassador that celebrated Ireland’s contribution to film and the arts. Punching above its weight might be an understatement there.

Being Irish is also something that is truly mine. My expat adventure is something I didn’t consult with others about, or something I sought permission for – it’s something I just did. And this life I’ve made for myself here, is mine and mine alone. And being Irish is a huge part of that now. Being Irish has given me a feeling of belonging, of permanence and frankly, of happiness. Even if I don’t live in Ireland forever. I’ll always be Irish. It’s a part of me now, and always will be.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone!    

Fresh Outta…

Here we are at the close of another year. I truly hope that 2023 was a good one for you. For me, it was… decidedly mixed.

2023 wasn’t a tragic or catastrophic year for me – I need to acknowledge that because it has been a tragic or catastrophic year for so many people on this broken planet of ours, friends of mine included. Mine are definitely “first world problems” but they are still mine and that meant that for me, 2023 wasn’t all that great. There was a lot of stress and uncertainty. There was betrayal by people I thought I could trust. The autumn, as some of you may know, saw me suddenly and drastically under-employed when a dream project that I co-created just… stopped.

This turn of events had me doubting nearly everything about myself, especially about whether I’m actually any good at what I do. I’d been gaslit (see reference to betrayal above) for over a year and when everything imploded I had a real crisis of confidence about me and my writing. Maybe I’m actually not any good at it. Maybe I’m not meant to be doing this. Maybe I should just throw in the towel and do something else, something I love less.

Nah. Fuck that.

Things started to change a few weeks ago and some stuff happened that gave me the validation I apparently really needed and I realized that I’m actually really fucking good at what I do. The people who had me doubting myself were, in a word, wrong. They actually don’t know what they are talking about and I’m no longer going to allow them to live rent-free in my head. Again, fuck that.

I usually like to include some kind of quote for my New Year’s posts, often something profound written or spoken by a writer or a poet or a philosopher. But as I was trying to find the right quote this year, something different kept getting my attention. It may seem flippant or crude at first but, as I reflected on it and on the year I had, I realized that this quote is actually about empowering and advocating for yourself – something I need to do more of. It’s about not letting the assholes drag you down – something I’ve allowed way too often. It’s about cutting out the noise and the bullshit – something we probably all could do more of. For me, it’s an extremely positive attitude to be moving into the new year with.

So, here it is. My 2024 New Year’s quote:

A gift from my sister, sent to me for Christmas 2020, when I wasn’t able to be home for the holidays. This is the mindset with which I hope to approach 2024.

I wish all of you a very Happy New Year and I hope that, in the most empowering and positive way possible, your 2024 is free of fucks.

The List, Revisited…

In my last post I wrote about a list I made when I first moved to Dublin and was struggling. I was actually quite surprised at the traction this post got. My list and the need to do it seemed to resonate with people. And more than one person reached out to me and said that I should do a new list. So, I did. 

The timing for this new list is actually rather poetic. Today happens to be the anniversary of my arrival in Dublin. On 5th November 2012, I arrived in this city for the first time ever, ready to start my new life and having absolutely no idea what was in store for me… or if I was going to like it.   

So, without further adieu, here is my new list of “Things I like about Dublin” nearly eleven years after my first list:

One of the things conspicuously absent from my previous list was friends. I think I was so newly in Dublin that I just hadn’t made any yet. I’m happy to report that friends are now at the top of my list of things I like about Dublin. I have a wonderful circle of friends that I know I can count on – exactly who those friends are has crystallized even further over these past few rather bumpy weeks.

My circle of friends has contracted and expanded at various times throughout my time in Dublin. Some friendships have grown stronger. Some have fizzled. Some friends have been absolute rocks for me. Others have betrayed and hurt me more than I thought was possible. Some I know will be part of my life forever. Others I want out of my life, forever. I suppose that’s the nature of friendships and of life. Things change. People change. But my takeaway from this is that during my time in Dublin I’ve made friends and lived a life. A life I couldn’t imagine when I made that first list. And, even though things are rather bumpy at the moment, I’m still extremely grateful.

Eleven years in, I’m grateful for the life I’ve made for myself, the friends who have stuck by me, for everything on my new list really.

Especially the ducks.

The List…

I was looking for a notebook yesterday and I found one in the back of my desk that I must have been using when I first moved to Dublin, nearly eleven years ago. There were budgets from early 2013 (my rent was only €1250!), trip itineraries and this list:

During this time I was still struggling with my decision to move to Ireland, not happy with my life here and wondering if I’d made a big mistake relocating. This must have been some sort of exercise I was doing to look at my life in Dublin and what I liked about it.

I found this list very interesting. These are the things I was clinging to more than a decade ago. A lot of the things I listed are no longer around. Door 51, a cafe I used to love, is long gone. The Tim Horton’s, a little taste of home in my Irish neighborhood, is as well. Argos, the closest thing Ireland had to Target, shuttered this summer. My local Diep thai take-away is now called Oho.

And then there’s my job. I am not in the same job I was at the time I made my list. But, without going into too much detail, I lost my current job (what should’ve been my dream job) a couple weeks ago and while not completely unemployed thanks to some freelance writing gigs, I am hugely under-employed at the moment. And it’s shaken me to my core for many reasons, that again, I’m not going to get into here. But “my job” as something on this list that I liked was a bit of a gut punch.

One thing conspicuously missing from this list is “friends”. I have forensically deduced that this list was most likely written in December 2012, so I’d just started my new job and while I apparently liked the people I worked with, it doesn’t appear that I considered any of them friends yet. And just a month into my move, I hadn’t yet met any of the other non-work people who would become good friends. I think I was very lonely during this time and I had no idea that it was going to get better. That I would make wonderful friends that I would meet through work and elsewhere. People that I am still close with a decade later. People who have been so supportive and compassionate over the past couple of weeks. If I were to make a list like this today, I’m happy that my friends would be at the top of what I like about Dublin.

And I still really like the ducks.

Summer Days, Drifting Away…

How are we nearly halfway through August already? Where has the summer gone?! I’ve never been one who lives for summer – weather-wise I tend to prefer the fall and I don’t tend to take holidays during the summer because it’s “high season” in most places and therefore more expensive. This summer has actually been a bit different in that I’ve barely been in Dublin.

I started my summer (okay, technically spring) in Paris in May. I spent several weeks there and it was bliss. I’ve missed my Paris so much and being back there for an extended stay was something I really needed. Then it was off to Annecy for a week for work, like I do every year. I was then home for less than two weeks and I was off to the States for a month, including a week’s holiday in Canada. (Apparently, while away, I missed the wettest July on record in Ireland – which is saying something!)

I returned to Dublin and had four days before my sister, bother-in-law, niece and nephew, along with another family who are very dear friends and a couple additional friends thrown in for good measure (10 people in all!) descended upon Dublin. This was a holiday that was originally planned for summer of 2020 but we all know what happened then, so there was a lot of anticipation for this trip and I really wanted it to be great for everyone.

My sister found an amazing house for rent in Glasnevin that could accommodate all 10 of them. And it turned out to be great. It was a traditional house but it had been redone and extended not too long ago. I don’t know the neighborhood of Glasnevin very well – I’d actually only been there once before, when I visited the famous cemetery on my parents’ last visit. So, spending so much time in this neighborhood was fun for me – though the taxi receipts between there and Ranelagh did add up! It’s a lovely part of Dublin though. The Botanical Gardens and Glasnevin Cemetery were in walking distance to the house. We had several excellent restaurants to chose from and, of course, the famous Gravedigger’s pub. And what I really loved is that everyone basically lived in a real Dublin neighborhood for the week so they got a real peek into what living here can be like.

I still get occasional houseguests after nearly 11 years in Dublin but, more often than not these days, I give them a set of keys to my place and send them on their merry way to be tourists and see the sights. But this time, I took the week off to see the sights of Dublin and Ireland with my sister and company.

And you know what? Ireland is pretty great.

It was a lot of fun to be a tourist where I live and, even better, to see how much those visiting these sights first time loved it. We packed a lot into a week. We got to most of the major Dublin sights – Guinness Storehouse, Jameson Distillery, Kilmainham Goal, Glasnevin Cemetery, Book of Kells, Merrion Square, Grafton Street, a session at The Cobblestone and even a pub crawl through my Ranelagh neighborhood. Because we were such a big group, we were able to book our own private tours to other areas of Ireland – we are a group that doesn’t really like other people so this was a perfect set-up for us. We did three separate day trips to Blarney Castle, Giant’s Causeway/Belfast and the Cliffs of Moher.

I’m pretty sure this trip was everything my sister and everyone else hoped it would be. I think they get why I love living here so much. It was even nice to be reminded myself why I love living here so much.

And now I’m back in Dublin for the next while as summer slips away. I’ve missed being here. I have friends I haven’t seen in months that I’m desperate to have time with. I have “life” things that I can finally get around to taking care of. I’ll hopefully get back into the routine of going into the office a couple of days a week. In other words, get back to my life.

Which I was reminded this week, I’m pretty lucky to be living here.

Paris: The Return…

I have been in Paris for the past two weeks and the amazing thing is that I still have a glorious three weeks to go in my stay. I had gotten into a habit of extended stays in Paris starting in 2015 but this is my first extended stay since I moved from Paris back to Dublin in 2019. I never intended it to be this long before I got to “live” in Paris again but covid and other life things got in the way and before I knew it it was 2023 and my need to return to my favorite place in the world was becoming urgent. I have missed it so much. I’m renting an apartment from my friend in my old neighborhood in the seventh arrondissement. The minute I was back here I felt like I was home.

A lot of people have asked me what I’m going to be doing while I’m in Paris and my answer reminds me of what Anthony Bourdain said about the city:

Most of us are lucky to see Paris once in a lifetime. Make the most of it by doing as little as possible. Walk a little, get lost a bit, eat, catch a breakfast buzz, have a nap, try and have sex if you can, just not with a mime. Eat again. Lounge around drinking coffee. Maybe read a book. Drink some wine, walk around a bit more, eat, repeat. See? It’s easy.

Mime or not, I’m not really planning on much in the way of sex, but the rest of this quote pretty much describes the extent of my plans while I’m here. I am still working full time so my days are taken up with that. But my evenings and weekends I spend much as Mr. Bourdain recommended.

It’s light until nearly 10pm at this time of year so I go out for a walk every evening after work, rain or shine – and there has been a lot of rain on this stay. Sometimes I walk along the Seine, sometimes I go to the Champ de Mars, sometimes I just wander through the different streets with no destination in mind. Sometimes I bring a blanket and sit under the shadow of the Tour Eiffel reading my book, sometimes I stop for dinner someplace, sometimes I stop for an apéro, sometimes I don’t stop at all. Depends on the moment and my mood.

It’s a gorgeous Sunday here in Paris and I literally have no idea what I’m going to do with myself. It’s nearly noon and I’m still in my pajamas drinking coffee but I’ve got daylight until 10pm, so I don’t have to rush to be out and about. I’ll see where the days takes me, like I did yesterday – which turned out to be a nearly perfect Saturday.

I got a late start, just like I will today, but then decided to go to the market (each Paris arrondissement must hold a food market twice a week and in the 7th it’s on Saturdays and Thursdays). I got some beautiful food and had some lovely conversations with the vendors, in french (my french is still atrocious so any time I have a successful conversation I feel ridiculously proud of myself).

After lunch in my apartment, I ventured out again with no plan. I didn’t get any farther than the café on the corner where I grabbed a seat on the terrace and ordered a rosé. I had my book with me but it couldn’t hold my interest the way the people-watching did. I sat there, just watching Paris be Paris and I couldn’t imagine a more perfect way to spend an afternoon.

I’m luckier than most. Instead of seeing Paris once in my lifetime, it has become an important, integral part of my life that greatly contributes to my happiness. More than any other place in the world, my arrondissement in Paris is a place in which I just love being. I often find myself walking around or, like yesterday, sitting at a café terrace thinking “I love it here.”

I didn’t forgot how much I loved this city during my absence from it but it’s been so amazing and, frankly, rejuvenating to be back here, living that love. And I’ve still got lots of time left to live that love – I plan to do just that.

My Collection’s Complete!

I got my Irish Passport last week! That was the final step in my citizenship process and now I have what I consider to be a complete collection of passports – American, Italian and now, Irish. It’s a big deal for me and something I never dreamed would become a reality when I arrived in Ireland more than ten years ago.

Since I got my Italian citizenship 12 years ago, I get asked a lot of the same questions. And now with three citizenships (which, admittedly is very unusual) I get asked even more questions about the how and the why of it all. So I thought I’d put some of those answers here, for anyone who might find them interesting or useful.

My newly-completed passport collection!

You’re allowed to have three citizenships? Yes, I am. But that is a country-specific thing. Ireland, Italy and the US all allow for multiple citizenships. Some countries do not and one would have to renounce their previous citizenship as one of the requirements for citizenship in that country.

How did you get your Italian citizenship? I qualified for Italian citizenship through something called Jure Sanguinis, which literally means “right of blood” and is synonymous with “by descent.” This essentially means people with Italian-born ancestors may have had that ancestor’s Italian citizenship passed onto them through their bloodline, or by descent. There is a very involved process to prove that citizenship and the right to claim it. It took me two years to claim my Italian citizenship and it’s not for the faint of heart. My Italian citizenship is quite special and interesting because getting citizenship via Jure Sanguinis means that I have always been an Italian citizen – my application was to get that citizenship recognized. This is different from the birth-right citizenship I have from the US and the naturalization citizenship I have from Ireland.

Do you speak Italian? I do not, at all. This surprises some people because getting citizenship to a country often requires proving language proficiency. Since 2018, Italy has had a language proficiency requirement for citizenship but only for NEW citizens, so via naturalization or marriage for instance. But as I explained above, I was not a new Italian citizen. I was born with my Italian citizenship and my process was only to get it recognized therefore, Jure Sanguinis applicants do not have to prove any language proficiency.

How did you get your Irish citizenship? One qualifies for Irish citizenship by naturalization when you have five of the previous nine years of residency in Ireland, with the immediate year previous to the application needing to be resident in Ireland. I qualified for citizenship back in 2017 but then I moved to Paris in 2018, so I needed to get that one year of residency previous to my application in before submitting my application. I moved back to Ireland in April 2019 and my application was sent in September 2020. The application process is quite straightforward as long as you read everything carefully and follow the instructions to the letter. Ireland is probably one of the easier European countries in which to get residency-based citizenship.

Do you speak Irish? I do not, at all. Ireland does not have a language proficiency for English or Irish requirement as part of their naturalization application. Fun fact – Ireland is one of only three European countries that do not have a language proficiency requirement for citizenship. The other two are Cyprus and Sweden.

You already had your Italian citizenship, why bother getting your Irish?  It’s true that already having an EU passport meant that getting my Irish citizenship wasn’t as crucial for me as for some people. I could live and work in Ireland on my Italian passport indefinitely. But my life is in Ireland and so I really wanted to have citizenship of the country where I’ve based my life. I also wanted to have full voting rights. As an EU passport holder I did have the right to vote in some elections here. But I was disappointed that I could not vote in, for instance, the historic referendums that legalized same-sex marriage and repealed the 8th. Also, Brexit. The agreement between the UK and Ireland predates the European Union so with an Irish passport I can still live and work in the UK if I wanted to but I cannot do that with my Italian passport anymore.

Would you ever give up your American citizenship? No, I don’t think so. I may not be a fan of many aspects of America right now, but it’s still the country where I was born and raised and may want to return to some day. It’s where my family is and I would never want there to be a limit on how long I was allowed to be with them. I’m American and I always will be.

Which passport do you use when? This can get tricky and confusing but it’s also not a huge deal. Essentially, I have to use my US passport when traveling to the US. I actually use it when traveling to Canada as well because then I don’t have to get an ETSA. I’ve always used my Italian passport when traveling anywhere else, but I will switch that to my Irish passport now unless that travel includes Italy. And for non-EU travel, while Ireland will be my default, the visa requirements could determine that it’s better to use one of my other passports. For instance, I was researching traveling to Vietnam and while US and Irish citizens need a tourist visa, Italian citizens do not – so in that case, the Italian passport makes the most sense.

Which is your favorite? I don’t play favorites! Haha! Right now, my Irish passport is all new and shiny and I’m very excited to use it for the first time so maybe it currently has a slight edge. But the truth is, each of my citizenships are special and important to me for different reasons. I love them all!

The Good, The Bad and The…

So here we are at the end of 2022 – how are we all feeling about that? While I hope everyone reading had an amazing year, for me, if I had to rate 2022 it would get a solid “fine.” There was a lot of good but also some bad.

Good: Covid isn’t as bad as it was. Last year at this time we had the new omicron variant just getting started and covid was everywhere. It’s still everywhere but we are nowhere near the state we were in during Christmas of 2020 and 2021. We have vaccines. We have treatments. It’s definitely a lot better than it was.

Bad: Covid is still here. The bugger is not going anywhere any time soon. It finally caught up with me a few weeks ago and, though my symptoms were thankfully very mild, I had to delay my trip home for the holidays. People are still ending up in hospital and on ventilators. People are still dying. We are stuck with covid, and that is bad.

Good: The world opened up! Most countries opened up their border and even eventually dropped testing requirements. People, including myself, were able to travel again – for work, for play, for whatever! And it felt better than good. My wanderlust got a real fix after two pretty dormant years. Highlights included a week in Canada with my family at a place we used to go to as kids but that I haven’t been to in many, many years and more recently, an amazing river cruise through southeastern Europe. It’s a trip that had been postponed several times due to covid and other elements of life getting in the way, so finally taking that trip felt like a personal triumph.

Bad: My hometown of Buffalo, New York had a tough year. In May, there was a mass shooting in a grocery store perpetrated by a racist who tried to broadcast the shooting in real time online. Ten people were killed. Ten people who did nothing more than go to work or go to shop. It’s mind-numbingly tragic and unfair. And somehow, inevitable. Just 10 days later, 19 people, mostly children, were massacred in another shooting in Uvalde, Texas. It never stops. And just last week, Buffalo was hit with a tragedy of a different kind – this time a blizzard. Buffalo is no stranger to snow, but this was unlike anything seen in decades. The latest count is 40 people dead. There could be more when all is said and done. I haven’t lived in Buffalo full-time in years but it will always be home and the year its had breaks my heart.

Good: The animated series I created with my writing partner went into production and we’ve been working our tails off as the Creators/Show Runners/Head Writers. It has not been easy and it’s been full of challenges but I am well aware how very lucky I am to be actually making my own show. Many people work their entire careers with this as a goal that remains unfulfilled. So, even with the stress and the challenges this is definitely a good thing. And if the show turns out how we have envisioned it in our heads since the day we created it, it will be a great thing!

Bad: I’ve lost some friends this year. People I thought I was close to. People I thought would be part of my life for a long time. But stuff happens, people change. I’m not even sure that these people realize (or more to the point, care) that things have changed between us. I guess that’s how things go sometimes. It really stinks though.

Good: I’m Irish! Getting my Irish citizenship in June was definitely a highlight of my year. It’s something I’ve wanted for a long time, and with covid delays, I had to be very patient in my wait to get it. But got it I did – at the first in-person ceremony since early 2020. That was a good day. Actually, it was the best day!

Ugly: … nah. I didn’t have an ugly year. But many people I know and care about did. They lost loved ones, had cancer diagnoses, had marriages break up, were made redundant at their jobs – those are all larger crosses than anything I had to bear this year. And I wish those friends strength and hope for the new year ahead. I hope it’s a brighter one for them.

I always like to include a quote in my New Year posts. I’ve used quotes from Alfred, Lord Tennyson previously, and these simple words encapsulate nicely my feelings as we close out 2022:

Ring out the old, ring in the new. Ring out the false, ring in the true.

I plan to do just that. And I hope 2023 is new and true for all of you!

Ten Years Later…

November 5th marked the ten-year anniversary of my arrival in Dublin – but on November 5th of this year I was holidaying in Budapest so, obviously, I didn’t have time to write a blog post.

Thinking about November 5th ten years ago, I was filled with anticipation about the new life I was starting. I remember the taxi ride from the airport when I had my first glimpse of Dublin, albeit in the dark. I remember my cute little hotel across from Christ Church Cathedral and the lovely Italian restaurant I wandered into for dinner. I even remember the glass of red wine I had with that dinner. It was all so exciting and Dublin felt so… shiny.

But what about ten years ago today, November 27th? I have been a journal-writer for decades, so I was literally able to read about how I was feeling then and, three weeks into my little Irish adventure, things were considerably less shiny. In fact, I’d thought I’d made the biggest mistake of my life in moving here and even called the international moving company I’d hired and asked, once my stuff arrived, would I be able to move it back to the States immediately. I was that sure that Dublin was not going to work out.

The previous three weeks had been so bad that November 27th was actually the day that I went to the doctor and got myself a prescription for xanax – my sister had reminded me that I was living in a country with socialized medicine and why the hell didn’t I get some anti-depressants already?! So, I did. And I’m glad I did. The xanax didn’t fix everything but it definitely helped.

It was still well into the New Year before I started to think that maybe, just maybe, moving to Dublin wasn’t a huge mistake. I started work, which I enjoyed. I began to make friends – both expats and Irish. I started to decipher the mysteries of life in Ireland such as the immersion and what ‘it’ll be grand’ really means. I opened a bank account and got a PPS number and had my first real Guinness. Things eventually started to feel normal and slowly, very slowly, Dublin started to feel like home.

And now, here I am, ten years later. I am now the owner of an apartment in the same complex I lived in when I first arrived. I’m an Irish citizen who will soon have her very own Irish passport. Those are things I couldn’t have even fathomed ten years ago. The past decade has been quite the adventure and quite the journey, full of ups and downs – as all adventures and journeys are, I suppose.

Dublin is now a city I love. A place that I do find quite shiny. A place filled with friends I love. A place that has opened up the rest of the world to me. A place that is… home.