Photo:
On the O’Connell Bridge over the River Liffey, downtown Dublin. Photo: Dana DuBois
I wake up in our Dublin hotel, jet-lagged and desperate for caffeine.
At home in the U.S., we’d probably have a mini Keurig or a drip coffee maker. But here, I find a proper electric kettle with ceramic mugs, Barry’s black tea, milk and sugar — coffee tucked away as an afterthought, in Nescafé instant packets at the back of the jar. I fill the kettle and smile. Despite hailing from a coffee capital, black tea with milk is my wake-up beverage of choice.
“Want some tea?” I ask my two teen daughters. We have a day of adventure ahead but like me, they’re bleary.
They nod, and I pour us three steaming mugs.
I’m warmed with a sense of familiarity for this new-to-me city.
My eldest rolls out of bed, takes her tea, and breezes past me to the mirror, faint wafts of vanilla, musk and red berry trailing behind her. At 17, she’s deep into beauty products, filling our home with sweet-scented lotions and potions.
My heart tugs as I breathe her in. How I’ll miss her sweetness when she leaves my home for college next year.
“Can we go to those thrift shops we saw online today?” she asks, downing her drink as she rummages through her pink overstuffed cosmetics bag.
“Those are in Dublin. Today we’re taking the train to Galway for the university tour,” I remind her. She wrinkles her nose, displeased, before applying contour on its bridge.
She’s here to find stylish shops. She knows just where to go.
I’m here to help her find her future. And I’m struggling with what to do with mine.
I’m traveling in Ireland with my daughters and their dad, my ex-husband — and yes, this is an unusual arrangement, even for us.
But here we are. Dublin is a gem of contradictions, each block an urban blur of artful murals, gothic cathedrals, stylish modern shops, tasty bakeries, raucous pubs, and back again. And the music! Buskers and bar bands flood the streets with songs, some traditional, some originals, and many covers — especially of U2 songs, of course. Lucky for me, it’s a great place to wander without a map.
But we’re not here simply as tourists. David and our daughters are dual U.S. and Irish citizens, and we’re traveling with intent.
We’re here to tour colleges.
We’re here to explore their heritage.
We’re here to see if Dublin feels like home.
Well, at least I am.
I may be the only one without citizenship, but I’m the one nudging us to consider Dublin for our new home.
My ex and I share a sense of dismay over the state of the United States and, in theory, a desire to leave and live abroad. As our kids steer us to yet another trendy shop, we take in the sunny day and gorgeous sights. I marvel over how comfortable it all is — both the city, and traveling it with my ex.
“I love it here,” says David.
“Me too,” I reply. “Anytime you’re ready to move, say the word.”
“But I can’t afford to just up and leave.”
He’s not wrong, and I can’t afford to either. Not properly. But I’ve got equity in my home. And he’s got citizenship. Together, these pieces are interesting but don’t quite complete the puzzle of relocating our nontraditional family.
“Perhaps we’ll find a way here eventually,” I give as my nonanswer, a thousand unanswered questions lingering between theory and our shared reality.
Could our child starting college be the catalyst that moves us all to Dublin?
I’ve done it before.
Over half my life ago, I picked Seattle as my new home, moved across a continent on six days’ notice, and fell in love.
Not with a man — but with this city lodged between two mountain ranges, on the cusp of a tech boom and the cultural coattails of grunge. Seattle was edgy and strange like I’d always hoped a city could be, liveable and affordable and fun in ways that resonated with 20-something me.
In Seattle, I found lifelong friendships. I launched a music website, built a career in tech and came into my creative power as a writer. I married, bought a house, had two kids, divorced, and have lived in that little brick Tudor for nearly 20 years. I’ve raised my kids with my ex across two homes, but as one family. In Seattle, I thought I’d picked my forever home, and hoped it was a place my children would want to live as adults.
Seattle is deeply imperfect but as a blue liberal dot — some might say, bubble — it’s a haven for the freedoms I cherish. I love Seattle.
But Seattle is still in the United States.
And the United States is a tough and disorienting land these days.
Helping our babies launch into adulthood is a timeless challenge parents face. Trying to guide them at this moment in time, during a time of such political, economic and social uncertainty? It’s destabilizing. I feel my core equilibrium, my true north, faltering — just as my daughters need me as their compass.
How can I prepare my children for a world I no longer trust?
It’s hard to know which way to point them.
Unlike me, my eldest has an innate sense of direction. She races ahead of us, bold as she traverses the city, confident in her ability to find her way back home to the hotel. Not long ago, I had to plan every step of our trips. Now she trailblazes, and I trail behind with snacks. I know she’ll get us where we need to be.
When it comes to her life direction, she has a similar fire. “I can’t wait for college,” she told me ahead of the trip. And I believe her. She was the first of her friends to wear makeup, to have a boyfriend, to drive a car. Yet when it comes to the logistics of where, how, and which college to pick, she’s more unsure. She’s hung back, leaning on me to guide her and handle logistics despite my encouragement to take the lead.
Helping her select a college will be my final act as the mom of a child. For all subsequent decisions, I’ll consider myself lucky if my adult daughter asks for my input.
I always vowed not to tether my fledgling adult kids to my home, and I still feel that way now as I face the reality of my eldest growing up and out of it.
She’s almost ready for the world.
I’m almost ready to let her go.
The big question is: to where?
We arrive at Trinity College as tourists, not as a prospective student family.
It’s my fault. In the flurry of booking this trip, I somehow scheduled our student tour at the Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. I steered us wrong, yet again. I’m angry with myself. We can’t leave our college tour of Ireland without seeing Trinity.
So I book the next best thing — tours of the grounds and the Book of Kells Experience.
Trinity is gorgeous and historic. Considered the “Harvard of Ireland,” it was founded in 1592 and boasts alums like Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett, Jonathan Swift, and apparently, Courtney Love, who studied theology there for two semesters.
Our tour guide is Liam, an older Irish gentleman who worked in The Long Room of the old library until retiring, and then returned to Trinity to major in history.
Make a note: History majors make the very best tour guides.
Liam is patient, knowledgeable and funny, and I find myself rapt, taking in the university’s — and in turn, the country’s — storied history. From the fraught journey of the “Book of Kells” to the sorrow of the Gorta Mór to the country’s violent fight for independence, only earned in 1921, I realize how little I know.
Ireland may feel familiar, but I’m a stranger to this land. It isn’t my heritage.
But it is my children’s.
Yet my eldest seems a bit checked out, not her usual engaged self. “I don’t think I can get in here,” she mutters. I’m grateful she’s opened up to me.
“I think it’s a reach school for you,” I assure her. “But that also means it’s within reach.”
I believe this is true. But I realize she may be right. Trinity only accepts about a third of its applicants. Their requirements are rigorous. And they don’t have an art or design major, so her portfolio won’t likely help with admissions.
I’m not certain she wants to go to school so far from home.
I’m not certain I want her to, either.
It’s one thing to contemplate your child flying the nest.
It’s another for them to soar all the way to the other side of the ocean.
I’m also unsure I can get in — not to college, but to the country.
And even if I do, I worry Dublin may never feel like home.
It worked when I was 25. But at 54, with a whole life already built, I’m not sure any new city could feel like home. I’ve grown up alongside my Seattle peers, from my 20s to my 50s. When we see each other, we appreciate the entirety of who we’ve been for three decades. I would mourn that sense of shared history elsewhere.
I fear I’d always be looking in on a culture and community I could never fully grasp.
It may be late for me. But for my children? They could adapt. They could grow roots. Ireland is their heritage. Is it worth it to lose my home so my daughters can gain a second one?
I don’t claim to know where the U.S. is heading. But I fear for the decisions being made at the highest level of our government. I suspect we’re heading for dark years ahead.
My eldest may have an excellent sense of direction. She can find her way to Sephora in any city. But she can’t fathom the magnitude of her college decision against the backdrop of our current political situation, let alone navigate it.
She can’t see how having two “home” countries could open doors for her.
How can I best usher her through this decision? I wish I could consult Apple Maps, or find a tour guide to point her in the right direction.
But I can’t.
Only we can help start her on this journey, and the roads blur and intersect in incomprehensible ways, leading to paths unknown.
It may be touristy, but my kids and I love Dublin’s Temple Bar neighborhood.
The cobblestone streets are flanked by graffitied and muraled walls, with doorways leading into some of the coolest thrift shops I’ve ever seen. We explore pubs, record stores, galleries and outdoor crafts. Late afternoon on our final day in Dublin, my eldest and I approach Temple Bar itself.
“Can we go look inside?” she asks.
She loves that teens can go to pubs here. So do I.
We enter the darkened bar, already full of revelers, and make our way to the band in back. Two men onstage play a rousing Irish rendition of John Denver’s “Country Roads,” the singer on acoustic guitar accompanied by an extraordinary flautist carrying the melody. My daughter and I belt the chorus along with the rest of the crowd.
“Country roads, take me home,
To the place, I belong.
West Virginia, mountain mama,
Take me home, country roads.”
We return to Seattle tomorrow. For now, it’s our home. I suspect it always will be. Seattle has been my true north for nearly 30 years, and I know my inner compass will always point me here, no matter what roads I travel.
But that place we belong? That country road — whether it leads to the U.S. or Ireland or elsewhere — remains to be seen.
The best this “mountain mama” can do is trust my kids will find their way. And I hope in helping them sort out their paths, I will find my own.
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