Irish Soda Bread
Oof. I didn’t want to leave Ireland. And now I’m back! If you don’t know the song “Dimming of the Day”, here is my best friend Alice Spencer singing it. Heaven.
With my buddy Irish writer Sinead Gleeson on an epic night at Whelan’s in Dublin 6 years ago. You haven’t lived until you’ve been in an Irish bar when Thin Lizzy drops!
“Hey Baby Que Paso”. Dancing on a chair to the Texas Tornados in Ireland in 2018. I was THAT lady. LOL
Watching Julie Traymor’s “Frida” on my flight over.
Irish Ghost Story: These Boots Are Made For Walking Edition (I’ll explain below)
I love this family portrait because I’m in Mom’s belly!
I found this photo in Mom’s Shutterfly account. I’ve never seen it before! Not sure why she’s wearing a tiara but I love it.
Also a new pic: When Mom found out I was pregnant she signed up for a smocking class so she could make beautiful dresses for Luca. This pic is SO HER.
Baby Luca with her Gramps at our old house in Wimberley, TX. THE BEST PHOTO EVER!
Mom and Chris on the QM2. He’s always gonna be family.
Montana family portrait the weekend we got divorced / my birthday. We went thrifting and Luca got that leather jacket and shirt, Chris scored a bitchin' Camaro shirt, and I landed a chic reversible cape! We got in the car and went location scouting, ultimately ending up at a basketball court with a view. There was no discussion of WHAT we were doing, because of course you do a family thrifting photo shoot! That's assumed.
This year's work in Ireland has been surprising me. I'm creating new tarot suits, so instead of cups, pentacles, swords & wands I'm using body parts. I've worked with hearts before and actually have a blog post about that,. (Oddly, I started drawing hearts right around the time Mom got heart cancer – before we knew). I'm now realizing that Frida Kahlo movie must have rubbed off on me. These are also 3 dimensional, which is new for me. I'm sculpting with paper on top of my drawings.
When I told people I was finally coming back to Ireland, a reasonable number responded saying “Sláinte”. Being an alcoholic, always in a rush for the drink, I never stopped much to think about the meaning of this toast. As far as I was concerned it could be a clumsy “bottom’s up!”. But, as I lie here in an attic room in County Monaghan unable to shake a cold I finally googled it and the message is simple. “Health.'‘
I came to Ireland exactly six years ago. My phone even confirmed it today with a “memory” of my last day at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in 2018. I was telling a friend that, in hindsight, I realize that trip was the first big thing I really did to distinguish myself from the roles that bound me: mother, wife, daughter, generally good society member. When I decided to go a lot of people asked, “why Ireland?” The answer was simple. Within one week two acquaintances posted on social media that they were visiting Ireland and another announced a sudden (to me) move to the country. There was an Irish zeitgeist. I listened. At that point in time, I wasn’t listening much. I wasn’t feeling much. But for some reason Ireland showed up and I chose to go with it. I googled “Irish artist residencies” and the first to appear was this center, also known as the way more poetic “Annaghmakerrig”. It’s one of the more established residencies here, based out of the estate of the playwright Tyrone Guthrie in the very North of Ireland (not yet Northern). Brimming with welcome enthusiasm I fired off an application, dusting off my professional coat, fluffing up my creative feathers, and reminding myself that I used to be considered an accomplished artist. And then I went back to the slog: school lunches to be made, bills to be paid, generally wilting in the Texas heat. A few months later a letter on real stationery appeared in the mail. I had been accepted for a residency! To be honest, I had already forgotten that I had applied. Chris was wonderful about it, he seemed to sense my discomfort over the years and was always telling me “If you feel like you have to go to India or something like that ….”. Well, Ireland isn’t India but the point was the same: self discovery.
The second I got out of my car at Annaghmakerrig in 2018 I met my soon-to-be friend Sinéad Gleeson who was dragging a suitcase towards the door. She had a Frida Kahlo tote bag. I asked her if she was an artist. She replied that she was a writer. When asked what she wrote about (such a dreaded question, up there with “how’s your kid’s college search going?”) she actually had a concise response: bodies, feminism, artists, memoir…. clearly she had done this before. Sinéad took to me for some reason and grabbed my hand, dragging me around the big manor house, showing me all of the wonderful nooks and crannies, giving me the inside scoop, and introducing me to the warmth of Irish people. I spent a week and a half here making clunky art during the day, drinking wine at night, and reveling in my freedom. There’s a photo of me dancing on a chair in the dining room to the Texas Tornados “Hey Baby Que Paso”.
“Come on baby turn around…..”
(Just like Club No Minors in Houston. IFYKYK.)
I was in touch with home sporadically, but mainly I wasn’t. Our marriage was already dying on the vine. On my last night at the center I burst into tears after dinner and my friend Richard, a children’s writer from Australia, said “I’ll grab the wine and meet me in the library”. We opened the large windows to the lake, pulled up cozy arm chairs, and we drank and I cried and tried to explain what I was feeling. In a very basic description, it felt like camp was ending. Remember how worked up we used to get around the fire on that last night of summer?! Wailing girls! “Love you like a sister!” “Will we ever see each other again?!” (The answer to that question is no. I don’t think I’m in touch with any camp friends anymore.) Well, I’m happy to say that I am still in touch with Richard and Sinéad and Muriel and Serena and Karen and Sarah and Patricia and Siobhan and Ger from Annaghmakerrig in 2018. Again, the warmth of the Irish (and one Australian!).
On my last day I went into the center’s office and announced that I wasn’t leaving without making a deposit for a return date. I could barely stand to go and I think I made a reservation for just six months later or something relatively soon. With that in place I could board the plane. I had found something I had lost and I was desperate to hang onto it. That would have been September 8, 2018. Exactly two weeks later, September 21, I was on the other side of the Atlantic, deep in the West Texas desert at the Trans-Pecos Festival of Music + Love with my family when I got a phone call that Mom was being evacuated off of the Queen Mary 2 because they couldn’t control her heart. I wrote a post that details that adventure: steering the ship off course towards Newfoundland, an airlift in gail force winds (!), general confusion and fear. And I was stuck in the desert. While alone in Newfoundland, before my sister and dad could get there, Mom received her terminal cancer diagnosis. She died within a month. We were able to get Mom back to North Carolina for her decline and it was actually a beautiful death, but long gone was that feeling of Irish freedom.
I didn’t return to Ireland that Spring. I didn’t return that Fall. I kept kicking that deposit down the road. I was supposed to come back in April of 2020 and, well, you can see where I’m going with that. Remember when we thought COVID was going to last a month?! I was outraged. “Why during MY time in Ireland?!” I wish the pandemic had been shorter but in some shitty way I felt like at least it wasn’t just my plans that were ruined.
I can’t remember how many residency reservations got changed. There’s an embarrassing email thread where each message starts with some semblance of “Hi Mary, I’m really sorry to have to do this …” and then follows with me postponing a handful of months or a year. And, then, in Fall of 2023 we got my daughter launched off to college, I moved across the country to Rhode Island, took a new job at my alma mater, and got divorced. I received that freedom I craved but it came with a substantial price, leaving what I knew to start over. When I finally got on the plane for Dublin this past Sunday I let myself watch one movie before trying to sleep. I painstakingly scrolled through each movie icon, analyzing them. “Too serious”… “Stupid”… “Boring”. I settled on Julie Traymor’s “Frida” which I hadn’t seen since it was in the theater. I had totally forgotten about Sinéad’s tote bag and was just picking something that was beautiful and artsy (but secretly kind of dishy). I slept like crap on the plane and arrived at the Dublin airport greeted by a cheerful driver who was willing to wait for Sinéad, who would be joining me once again at the center, to be dropped off for a ride.
The drive to Annaghmakerrig that morning was nonstop chatter, Sinéad and I catching up on all of the changes that had happened since I saw her in NYC a few years prior. My first time here I had the most gorgeous room on the 2nd floor, I’m not sure if it was an accident or if they were rolling out the red carpet for the new gal. This time I’m in the attic in a funky, possibly charming (?) room with a ridiculous shower that you have to climb UP into only to descend DOWN. I know. It doesn’t make sense. I was initially slated to come in November but realized that I didn’t want to be out of the country during the election and that the weather in September would be way better. When I changed my reservation they told me they only had the attic room left so I grabbed it.
My first night was weird. I was beyond tired and it was also the eve of Dad having some fairly routine spinal surgery. Twelve years ago Dad had a triple bypass which was far more precarious and I went to NC to help with that. I remember going to sleep the night before the heart surgery wondering if that might have been the last day I spent with my father. So, needless to say, it was strange being across the ocean from Dad, jetlagged and in such a wildly different place in my life from when I had been here before. I stayed up Monday night reading old emails from Mom, grabbing at any chance to hear her voice. I kept coming across links she had sent me to her photographs. Mom was always taking pictures, correcting them in Photoshop, and painstakingly cataloging them. How had I never thought to look at her photo account? I was able to cobble together her password and when it was accepted I could almost hear the trumpets going “Ta da!”. There were photos I’ve never seen: Me, Chris and Luca as a young family, holidays from which I have bittersweet recollections, a million photos of English churches, weird shit about BBQ….
Mom was speaking to me here.
Dad’s surgery went fine and now he’s rehabbing and bored. If you want to check in with him I’m sure he’d appreciate it. I wanted to have a defined creative project in mind for Ireland. My first time here I decided to learn how design pattern repeats for fabric and wallpaper. My idea for this visit was to create a deck of tarot cards, something I’ve been talking about doing for decades. My friend Hynden Walch introduced me to tarot in high school. She and I have partnered over the years, working on a kids book called Ben & Boo: Two Dogs on Mars with Banana Pies as well as a book about a produce coop that she started in LA. We always planned to do a tarot deck together, so when looking for a project that idea resurfaced. Hynden is busy as hell as the voice of many of your kids’ favorite cartoons so for now I’m working alone. Oddly, on Wednesday I had two tarot readings, one from a friend in the US and one from Sinéad. The cards were what you might expect, lots of “change” cards (The Tower, anyone?!). Also, there seemed to be an emphasis on my health. Every healer or therapist I’ve spoken with recently has mentioned that. I’ve been on autopilot this year, taking care of each seemingly unsurmountable task only to move onto the next. We sold and liquidated 3 houses in Austin, Marfa, and Maine in 3 months. I realize that’s what one refers to as “champagne problems” but they are problems nonetheless. So I’m realizing I came to Ireland to fall apart in the best place possible. There’s some real maternal energy here, partially because it’s where I had such an intense experience just prior to my mother’s decline and partially because the house is staffed with the MOST lovely women with singsong voices who keep encouraging me to eat scones.
The Guthrie house comes with a ghost, Miss Worby, who was the maid to Lady Guthrie. Her room on the 2nd floor is said to be haunted. I think they used to put guests in there but have since stopped. Last I heard you could use it as an office. The other day I walked into my attic room and the luggage tag on my suitcase had been unbuckled and discarded onto the floor. I went to the kitchen and told Sinéad, “I think I have a ghost, I’m choosing to believe that it’s my mom.” Later that night Sinéad said, “Sarah, don’t you see it?! I mean as a writer it’s such a heavy handed metaphor, but your luggage tag is LITERALLY your identity. And it has been untethered from this BAGGAGE that you brought with you. Your mom is telling you to leave that behind.” I immediately started crying and then said “Oh shit! I put the tag back on!!”. Sinéad was like, “well go TAKE IT OFF!”. I did and the tag is now lying next to my cowboy boots, kind of symbolic in a “These Boots are Make for Walking” type of way.
I mentioned in my last post that Chris and I have ended our marriage in the most loving, creative way we could. The divorce actually went through on my birthday, something I initially wasn’t too jazzed about but later came to embrace. Our daughter, Luca, is in Montana working off the grid for five months. She is camping and clearing trails for the Montana Conservation Corps. She is a badass. Her position was initially supposed to just be for the summer but she extended her stay through October because it didn’t feel right to not finish the season. That’s so her, the kid has integrity. Since she is now staying into Fall there was a week when she was back in civilization between sessions, it was the week of my birthday. When I heard this (via the program’s director, not Luca who I’m not really in touch with) I automatically volunteered that Chris and I would come up to Missoula to grab the chance to see her. I knew Chris would agree. One of my growing pains is that I don’t have access to my kid. While I am a mom in my soul, I am not a practicing one at the moment. That’s a lot after leaving my marriage, dogs, friends, and hometown. (I know, pity party over here. My fresh start is good, but it’s A LOT.) However, I’m extremely proud of Luca for identifying this experience for herself. She’s happier than I’ve ever seen her (and super buff!). So on August 7, the Greene Bean family descended on Montana. Luca came off the trail and had her first proper shower in months, Chris and I got an email from our attorney stating that our divorce was finalized, and we all went to dinner to celebrate my 52nd birthday.
On the family front nothing has changed. For our divorce I made Chris a slideshow of photos of us from the years. So many costumes! Damn, we had some fun. When the August 7th divorce date became unavoidable (for boring reasons, I bought a house and it needed to be official prior to closing) I stopped to think and had this CRAZY realization. My first date with Chris was on November 8, 1998. In what I assumed was a massive coincidence we decided to get divorced on November 8, 2023, exactly 25 years later. Well - get this - we got engaged on August 7, 1999, my birthday. And, due to circumstances beyond our control we got divorced on August 7, 2024. Exactly 25 years later. I actually love this. 25 years is a perfect chapter. It is complete. Our 25 year union was a success. AND NOT A DAY MORE!
So, I’m over here sick in an attic in Ireland with the ghost of my mother taking care of me. “Sláinte”, indeed.
For today’s recipe I went Irish, obviously. Mom had this one in her files. There’s always fresh bread and delicious butter in the kitchen here.
IRISH SODA BREAD
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons caraway seeds
1 cup raisins
1 3/4 cups well-shaken buttermilk
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
Preheat oven to 375°F. Butter and flour a large baking sheet, knocking off excess flour.
Sift together 4 cups flour, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl and stir in sugar, caraway, and raisins. Add buttermilk and stir just until dough is evenly moistened but still lumpy.
Transfer dough to a well-floured surface and gently knead with floured hands about 8 times to form a soft but slightly less sticky dough. Halve dough and form into 2 balls. Pat out each ball into a domed 6-inch round on baking sheet. Cut a 1/2-inch-deep X on top of each loaf with a sharp knife, then brush loaves with butter.
Bake in middle of oven until golden brown and bottoms sound hollow when tapped, 35 to 40 minutes. Transfer loaves to racks to cool completely.
Makes 2 (6-inch) loaves
This was a remarkably easy recipe to make. I added a quarter cup of sugar, substituted currants for raisins, and cooked them for 35 minutes - absolute perfection! I might use a little less caraway seeds next time. My teenaged son inhaled half a loaf without blinking and then made a turkey and cheese sandwich on slices of it. I'll definitely make this again.
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