Monday, July 06, 2009Auld Lang Syne Auld lang syne... idiomatically, it is sometimes translated as "once upon a time," or "long long ago." Once upon a time, we spent an idyllic three days here in Dumfries, Scotland. Those days happened to be today, yesterday, and the day before.It's very difficult to put words to this country. Robert Burns, the poet laureate of the country and a highly revered man in these parts, was able to put pen to paper and compose thousands of words in song and poetry in his 37 years on the planet. I have been here for these three small days and am having a hard time formulating even a few. But... the ones that have come to mind, go like this: It's different over here. We have visited a medieval castle (Caerlaverock) and Drumlanrig castle, which is still a home to the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry. We have gone to a village gala and seen a massed band of bagpipes and drums marching up and down the street, playing haunting and inspiring songs of valor and war and love and country. We have been escorted through several of the town's many pubs and found warm cozy clusters of people, laughing and drinking and spinning yarns. It has rained just about every day, and even though the nights do not get dark until after 11 p.m. right now, it is altogether too easy to guess what life here is like during the cold wet winters, when the night falls at 4:30 p.m. and does not lighten up until well into the morning. We are in the border lands. These rolling hills have seen many centuries of fighting and blood. Loyalties shift constantly. Border rievers rustled cattle back and forth between the two countries, opportunistically taking advantage of the constant flux. The sense I get is that all this change has only solidified the people who thrive here; they are flexible, tough, and stalwart. They are attached at a deep level to their land, their heritage, their music, and their love of independence. They are not afraid of getting sentimental when they hear certain songs. They understand that love of country is vastly different from politics. We have been staying at the Ferintosh Guest House, a B&B run by our dear friends Robertson and Emma. Again, words are failing at describing the experience. For one thing, the B&B is terrific -- well run, extremely comfortable, well situated in the town, and with terrific food and amenities. I strongly suggest everyone who reads this book a trip over here and experience it directly. So not kidding. We actually have contemplated canceling Paris (where we are flying tomorrow) to stay another week here. That good. And we will be back. Our experience, however, has gone way past the comfort and fun of staying at a great B&B. We have found magic moments. Long conversations into the night, talking about politics and the world and people and relationships and family and art and theatre. Robertson shared with us his best whiskey, and loaned Roger his kilt tonight to go to a Jean Armour dinner (a dinner held in honor of Robert Burns' wife). Robertson and Emma took us to their favorite pubs and together we crawled around an old graveyard, reading headstones by the failing light. Our gratitude to them is boundless, and humbling. The Jean Armour dinner encapsulated the magic. We sat in Burns' favorite pub (The Globe Inn, still in operation) along with about 50 members of a Burns society, a group dedicated to preserving his memory and celebrating his life and art. Tonight's dinner was to acknowledge his wife Jean, who not only understood and supported the poet, she also took care of at least one his illegitimate children and tolerated his many other mistresses. The men at the dinner were all dressed up as they paid their respects to the occasion. There were toasts and recitations and jokes that we could not possibly unpack from the brogue that surrounded them. There was whiskey and ale and an abundance of food. They talked about Jean Armour and paid tribute to how she steaded Burns, learned how to live with him, understood him. These were not politically correct men; they made sexist jokes and were very much about being a men's club (that invited the women along only for this special occasion.) And yet they still understood a good woman when they saw one; and they knew that Robert Burns had a good one with Jean Armour. And to their credit they seemed to understand that the wives who sat beside them were good ones of the same caliber. And in their way they paid deference and homage to them as well. They sang songs to haunting, beautiful old melodies. They recited poetry while the rain dripped from the eaves outside. They spoke in an accent that was almost completely unintelligible to us, but was unmistakable in its sincerity and respect. And I kept thinking: All this is for a poet. A writer. He was a man who put words on a page. And yet he has become more than that as well. He is a voice for the lower class man. In him, they hear a comrade, a spokesperson, a flagbearer. His words are like the haunting, reedy notes of the bagpipes as they stir the warriors' hearts to march into battle. And I wonder -- why don't we have this in the states? Why don't we have these deep underpinnings of passion for certain songs, certain words, certain art forms? I don't know the answer, and I certainly don't want to imply that we are without all forms of patriotism or love for our artists and our battles. But this is different. This truly is in the blood, and has been for thousands of years longer than ours has. This seems to come from many centuries of battles fought, blood shed, clans bonding together in death and victory. It also may be born of a class system that was so oppressive that our own forefathers fled it and established a country that was resolutely and consciously going to avoid a noble class, or any kind of class structure that results in such unfair stratification. It feels very different to be in a land where family lineage defines you, where love of poetry and song can be expressed openly, where old men wipe their eyes when they hear certain tunes. I looked around the room tonight and met people whom I most likely will never meet again, older people who have lived lives I will never know, and who embraced us, the Americans, with friendliness and a strong desire to make sure we "get it." I'm not sure we do, or can, fully "get it." But the feeling of being in an older world, a world where story is put into song and sung beside fires to ward off the cold, a world where the cozy warmth of a pub provides entertainment and community that television can never match, a world where there is a social fabric that is as elaborate and rich as a Belgian tapestry... is something that I want to carry back with me. I want to spin stories long into the night. I want to continue exploring places and things that make me wonder and long to know more. I want to grow old with some traditions. I want to be like the lady I sat across from tonight, her lips moving to the words of an old familiar love song, her face transfixed into that of a wistful young lass. # posted by Katherine Shirek Doughtie @ 4:34 PM  
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