It was March 2019. We followed Mike Pearson. On a knee fresh from surgery, he led the way through Temple Bar. All eight of us students wanted hotel beds to plunge into. I’m not sure  any of us slept during our red-eye from New York to Dublin. We were the shambling dead following the person with brains. 

This study abroad trip to Ireland was my chance to find peace and inspiration. If this was the land that created brilliant artists like Joyce, Yeats, Wilde, Rooney, and McDonagh, then maybe it would help me. Maybe I had a shot at being a writer one day. It was my mom who suggested I go. She called Ireland a thin place, where the veil between Heaven and Earth was thinner. Maybe I could find spirituality. I didn’t know if any of that was true. But I was open.

I slid a blue beanie out of my pocket and covered up my cold, shaved head. Pearson talked about the area, or maybe it was literature. Honestly, I wasn’t listening to him like I should have been. How could I with shop windows distracting me on my left and right. Donuts the size of my fist draped in icing called to me. Macarons demanded I ogle over their perfection. If it wasn’t bakery after bakery, it was ice cream shops, and coffee shops, and clothing stores that vied for my attention. Even when I looked down I was interested. My new hiking shoes walked on old cobblestone. No one seemed to care, but it was vastly more beautiful than the normal asphalt of my home. The web of imperfectly perfect pieces, bound by mortar, made each foot fall important. Where I stepped now mattered. A wrong heel placement could cause a twist, a crash, a stop to my destination. 

 Once back on a sidewalk, I turned my head to peer into a shop window when I locked eyes with a classmate. Gabby wore kick-ass black boots, black floral leggings, and a green beanie that all but covered her blonde pixie hair. She was cool. 

“Oh, hello,” I said.

“Hello,” Gabby said back.

A lamp blocked our path, I went left, she went right. When we returned to the middle of the sidewalk, Gabby looked sharply at me. 

“Oh hey, long time no see! Dan, was it?”

I laughed with my entire belly. 

We passed pub after pub and Pearson beckoned that we stop in one for lunch. I put my hand in my right pocket and with fingertips, traced around the edge of a ten month AA chip. 

---

It’s 2023, and my fingers leave my tie to click away from my empty Zoom screen to the Google Doc I have open off to the side. I review my questions again. I want to make sure I sound professional. Mike saw me a couple of days prior at ODU’s Literary Festival. We talked and joked like we were back in our class together. But the class was over three years ago. Since then I graduated with my BA and my MFA in creative writing at ODU. I’m now working full time as a lecturer at ODU. This had to feel like a real interview. From a real writer. 

Mike’s name appears on my screen. It’s time. 

“What’s that painting behind you?” Mike says. 

Sweet! He noticed. 

“Does it look familiar?” I say.

“It looks like the Cliffs of Moher.”

I nod my head with a proud, goofy smile. My face turns red as it so often does. Usually I despise my chubby, rosy cheeks and do my best to force the color to fade. But in this moment, I don’t care. The scarlet shines.

“It’s actually not a painting. It’s a puzzle that’s been glued and framed.”

“Nice. Very nice. And it was great to see you again,” Mike says. 

“It was. It took me back to 2019 and 2020. Back in the classroom hearing you lecture. Which was a good thing,” I say. 

Mike and I talk about yet another great Lit Fest held by ODU and particularly praise S.A. Cosby’s reading and Q&A. He made me want to write more than I currently do and reminded me to finish what I start. Pearson says to live a double life as a professor and a writer. That it’s exhausting but rewarding. 

“But ask away if you have questions. And I hope it’s not why is the sky blue? Because I don’t really think I ever got the explanation for it. But go ahead,” Mike says. 

“The book’s about a lot of intriguing writers. The most compelling being you. Yet, you’re only sprinkled throughout your book? How did you decide when to show up?” I say. 

“You have to think of yourself as a character to paint a picture. To get a portrait of the world and people in it. You’re always looking back at some part of yourself.” 

---

Day three of the study abroad trip. Waves splashed the starboard windows of the ferry. My eyes knew to stay steady but couldn’t help wandering downward. The blue deck speckled with white jerked up and dropped just as quickly, then listed portside, listed back to starboard, and then jumped up again. My stomach was next to jump and list. I shut the world out and focused on my exhaling breath. Lee Smith, the life and party of our trip, was in a wit war with Pearson—improvising limericks as an ode to the gorgeous county. I can’t remember what Lee said, I only remember it being funny, and Pearson jokingly tearing it down. A delightful banter that endured the entire trip. I had to peek out of my closed eyelids to see Pearson’s smile as he boasted about his own limerick. That’s when I noticed Gabby. Her pen was no longer scribbling on a torn piece of paper to join in the limerick game. Her face was shock-pale. My Coast Guard instincts kicked in, and I jumped into action. My sea legs were rusty, but still under me. I balanced myself while reaching a hand out to Gabby. I told her to follow me outside, that fresh air and looking out to the horizon would help her. She was reluctant to move, afraid to deflate the invisible safety bubble she put up, but a heavy battering sent her off her seat and into my arms. My only concern, my only goal, was to take care of a friend, a shipmate, as my thinking reverted back a decade to my early 20s aboard a cutter.  

Once outside, Gabby latched onto the railing of the stern while doing her best to look straight ahead. The fierce splashing and misting of the Irish water made it hard to open our eyes. Within a minute, Gabby was soaked and shivering, mascara running down in trails past her clattering teeth. I was afraid if I let her go, the rocking and wet deck combined with her low balance would send her drowning. So, with one arm firmly planted on the railing, my other arm steadied around her, keeping her upright. To a jealous onlooker, it might have appeared to be a special moment. For Gabby and me, we only thought about not throwing up and drowning. I soon took my rain and cold weather jacket off and put it on her to quell the shivering. It worked. I, however, froze for the remainder of the ferry to Inis Meáin. What may have been twenty or thirty minutes to my bad back felt like an hour. But it was worth it to help a friend.  

Once on solid land, Gabby and I chose to walk to our B&B instead of taking a car. She wanted her legs to firm up under her, and I wanted to dry off in the sun that I prayed would poke out of the dark skies. It didn’t, but it gave Gabby and me time for small talk about our favorite movies, holidays, meals, vacations, any conversation to keep us occupied away from our miserable bodies. It was me taking care of her with no ulterior motive that made Gabby walk beside me. On that road, and onward.

I was too preoccupied with being decent to think of ulterior motives. Too preoccupied with surviving. The chip in my pocket weighed me down. I feared of falling in the drink.

---

“A book tells you what it’s about,” Mike says. “And I realized the essence of this story was how I tried to find my grandfather, Alfred Hunter, through literature and through travels to Ireland. I knew my searching for him had to be woven throughout. What holds the book together for me is the ghost of Alfred Hunter. He was the catalyst to write the book.”

“Like a ghost, he fades in and out,” I say.

“Alfred Hunter is my Hamlet’s ghost. Hamlet’s father, appearing to him throughout the play. If you don’t ask your family the right questions at the right time, then you’re left with a mystery, a mystery you solve alone,” Mike says. 

“I’m curious what you feel an American reader thinks of Ireland and how they view Irish literature before reading your book. Are their views outdated?” I say.  

Mike first alludes to his reading at ODU’s Lit Fest where he had everyone stand up, then those with any claim to Irish heritage could remain standing. When the last butt hit their seat, half the room was still standing. Myself included. Although, that might have been wishful thinking on my part. Then Mike says, “There are a lot of people who feel a connection to Ireland. And if you’re interested in Ireland and its history, then the literature is political. But if they view it as the literature of Yeats and Synge and Frank O’Connor, there’s some truth in that, but I do think that there’s a renaissance in Irish literature now.”  

I cut in to say, “When people ask what Ireland’s like, I tell them it’s more modern and liberal than they ever thought. We saw those massive protests for global warming. That didn’t seem like a country frozen in time. They were very much ahead of us and in a lot of ways—”

“Nineteen-fifties Ireland was the country of, want an abortion? You gotta go to England. You want a divorce? God knows what you have to do. The Ireland of the 1950s isn’t really the Ireland of today. It’s gone into the future compared to the United States, where we’re restricting women’s rights, we’re limiting gay rights, and banning books. Fintan O’Toole said about my book, there’s a sense of Ireland as a progressive place, but also that Mike Pearson seems to see the other side of Ireland. There’s one scene in the book where John Lawrence and I are in Dublin and we’re walking down O’Connell Street and these two guys are wailing the hell out of each other. And all these people are just standing around. Like, it’s an old Irish travelers boxing match,” Mike says. 

“It’s like that John Wayne movie (The Quiet Man).”

“Yeah, it didn’t seem to have the romance and the lyrical music in the background, that’s the thing. And I was horrified by people standing around, iPhoneing the whole thing. I want them to see an Ireland they can love, but recognize it for what it is,” Mike says. 

While in Ireland, I didn’t see any brawling. I didn’t get into a fight, except with myself.

---

On one of the last nights of our study abroad trip, a classmate, Paula, treated the whole class to dinner at a nice restaurant in Dublin called The Church. Named for its retired purpose as a church. We dressed up in our Sunday best. Multiple guys wore suits, or the very least, a nice blazer or tie. Women wore dresses. Everyone looked good. Then there was me in a black flannel. It was the only button up I owned that was halfway decent. I was envious of how dapper the men looked. I wanted to wear a tie, but felt only skinny people could pull it off. While eating appetizers and joking around, I tried to stop beating myself up and enjoy the food. 

One of the best parts of the study abroad trip was our meals together. Every meal was family style. We all bought different entrées and shared them around. Forks reached over to open plates while mouths laughed in between bites. There was never drama. No bad meals. So I focused on that when I ate my mussels soaked in a white wine and garlic cream sauce. 

But all I could taste was wine. It hadn’t been cooked off enough. Alcohol lurked on my taste buds. For over ten months I avoided alcohol in any form. Pub after pub I had a wonderful time, but I couldn’t stay in them for too long for fear the Jameson and Guinness would sing to me like two alluring sirens. First, they would bring me pleasure, erase all my doubts, fears, and remorse. Then they would slowly kill me. My nights would go back to drowning in blackness instead of studying in the light and making lasting friendships. My mornings would be spent nursing my body’s poor decisions instead of nurturing good habits and bettering myself. 

As I tried my mussels again, I felt that pleasurable tingle on my tongue once more. Or at least, I thought I had. My breathing sped, my chest heaved like the waves to Inis Meáin. My back straightened, I pushed my chair out, I was going to get up, run out, and never come back. Anything to save myself from slipping back to the bottle. Gabby was next to me, she saw me and whispered, what’s wrong? I told her I needed to leave. She said to stay, eat what I could, or just drink my Coke, and wait for the meal to die down and she would talk to me. 

So, I did. I ate my sea bass, I tried someone’s lamb, Mike’s steak, Lee’s potatoes, and felt better. I avoided the desserts that had Guinness, bourbon, and whiskey in the descriptions. I told myself that it was just the flavor of the wine. I was fine. I hadn’t relapsed. I was still sober. 

Downstairs music and dancing drowned out our party. We wrapped things up, but instead of heading for the fresh air and freedom, Pearson had us stay. Everyone wanted to drink and listen to the music, except me and Gabby, but we had to stay. As we took our seats at the bar, my breathing quickened again. I looked at Gabby and told her I was losing it. 

Instead of facing the folk singers and the thunderous dancers, Gabby and I faced each other. At first I did all the talking, about my sobriety, who I used to be when I drank myself almost to death for a decade, and how I wanted to be better. Then, when I mentioned I have a Higher Power, Gabby did all the talking about her upbringing in the Catholic Church, and recently leaving it to find her own Higher Power. For what felt like an hour or more, we talked about spirituality in The Church. And I was safe. 

---

“The class in 2020, that switched to Zoom, we interviewed Paul Lynch. I think about that interview often. Paul mentioned meditating before writing. That he clears away doubt that might interfere when drafting. His advice has served me well. Was there any advice you received from a writer that still echoes in your head?” I ask.

I can almost hear Mike nod when he says, “Writers read. Seems so patently self evident, but it’s not. You have to read widely, and be open-hearted to all forms. The other piece of advice was Richard Ford’s: you have to be on duty. Point was your ass needs to be in the chair to actually write. In order to reach your hour, or get your 1,000 words, or get your two pages, or whatever your goal is. It’s not the best strategy to just wait for a muse. Inspiration will come if you’re working.” 

---

On the last day of the trip, Pearson gave us the day to roam the city of Dublin on our own. Around two in the afternoon, the group I was with disbanded as the city pulled people in different directions. I was pulled toward the sweet treats I saw on day one, like an old cartoon, the smells of food almost levitated me. Gabby was attracted to the same sweet treats. It was just the two of us walking the streets of Dublin. I wanted donuts. She wanted gelato.

I sat outside, drank a flat white, and slowly ate my cookies and cream gelato. Gabby talked about her parents and home life and I listened. I have no idea what I said. I just remember the sunlight making her hazel eyes sparkle. Her irises were a swirl of brown surrounded by green, just like my own. Now I understand why people say they like my eyes. 

That’s when I had an idea for a poem. I felt like a bad friend for not listening to her intently, but I couldn’t help but see words fall on a page. Words that talked about liking someone, but being too afraid to make a move in fear that it would ruin what should be a friendship. Then, I was distracted by the fact that I had the spark to write again. The spark to create.

Gabby’s eyes looked past me and widened at the display case of a toy store. My stomach ached, but my head nodded despite myself. I didn’t want my pain to show, because I was having such a peaceful time. So, when she asked if I was up to hang more, I said of course. Gabby and I talked about life while bouncing balls. We played with dinosaurs while I divulged why I got divorced. She let me in on her switching majors from engineering to creative writing while hula hooping. On the second floor of the shop were puzzles, something Gabby loved to do. She bragged about a Legend of Zelda puzzle she put together and then glued piece by piece to frame. 

Our train of thought sputtered to a halt to look for Waldo. For the life of us, we couldn’t find that lanky bastard. My stomach contorted itself into knots, but I ignored the cramps to find that smiling man in red and white stripes. We found his wizard friend, and all manner of people doing weird stuff at the beach, but after twenty-five minutes, we still couldn’t find Waldo. And I didn’t care. Standing next to Gabby with a poem in my head was worth the trip. 

---

“How do you define success?”

“I don’t define it by how much is in my bank account,” Mike says. “I define success very simply, if I’ve written a book, or essay, and I can approximate the feeling other books gave me, the experience, naming me, defining me by telling me who I was, telling me who I could be, if I can approximate that. That’s total success.”

I thank Mike for our chat and am so grateful that we’ve remained friends, all of us, for almost four years now. Then I tell him my idea for the interview. 

“I don’t want to just write it in the simple question and answer format. I want to find a way to include myself,” I say.

“I think putting yourself into this personalizes the interview in a way that other people can’t. I helped you fall in love with it all in the first place,” Mike says. 

My eyes wander around the first floor of my apartment. First, I gaze at my bookcases filled with inspiration and guidance on paths to becoming a writer. I take in the freedom of the wide open spaces, something I never felt growing up. Next, I scan the kitchen filled with food, security my job as a professor provides. Finally, I land on my comfy L-shaped couch and entertainment center. There, sitting, enjoying a YouTube video on Animal Crossing, is Gabby with giant gamer headphones on. My fiance, Gabby, that cute, cool girl that I wouldn’t have met without Mike’s class and our trip, always silently supports me. My eyes come back to the computer screen before they’re too glassy. 

“This is what I miss about teaching, you know. This kind of conversation,” Mike says. 

“I wish you could teach another Irish writers class for ODU. Because I’m a lecturer now and I’d love to somehow latch on to your class and—”

“Be an assistant on it. Talk to the people over at study abroad. That you’d like to do something with me. I’ve done it, five or six times, you’ll work as my assistant, we’ll figure it out. I’ve got the whole syllabus all set up.”

My head whirls at the prospect of going back. I would do anything for a second chance at Ireland. To remember what it’s like not to worry about tomorrow. To have inspiration flow through me again. To come full circle, and be like Mike and help someone, like he helped me. I would do whatever it takes to give back and inspire another writer’s world.