Chicago’s Art Institute is perhaps one of my favourite places on earth, and certainly in this city. I love to go in there and let the art sweep away my imagination (and drink the free coffee) but I was there the other day and I came out feeling a bit ‘meh’. I flippin’ love that place so my own indifference set off alarm bells, and I finally copped that it might be to do with my recent growing disillusion with America and my frustration at all that’s wrong with the land of the free and the home of the brave. Turns out I was tripping headfirst into that age-old trap of putting Ireland/home up on the very pedestal I was taking America off. Being away – even if it’s only for the ten minutes I’m gone – skews one’s perspective or view of home. There are problems in America, there’s problems in Ireland and sitting around giving out about but doing nothing solves neither.
My disillusion or frustration was largely the novelty of America wearing off, and me seeing it as it really was. I was getting unusually annoyed about all sorts of things, big and small, and blaming America Inc. for them. Poor America! Everything annoying was ‘typical American’. Too many napkins, too much advertising, too much plastic, everyone running stressed and working ten jobs and football games with ninety-five breaks in them to cram in as much advertising as possible; sigh, how awfully American. The blatant inequality here, of people at bus stops whose diabetes is so out of control that their ankles are the size of my not-insubstantial thighs and the ubiquitous consumerism of constantly buying, wanting, yearning for stuff that either won’t get used or will be thrown out. God, the absolute cut of Americans. The disregard of climate change and the fact that panellists don’t talk on TV; they bicker even when they’re on the same side, especially on sports programmes. It wasn’t that long since I’d been skipping through the streets of Chicago, enchanted by all I saw. Now, my head was wrecked with all I didn’t like – so wrecked indeed, that I didn’t see that these problems weren’t just American problems.
And that Ireland has problems too?? Who knew!! (Everyone).
As I was venting about poor oul’ America, from this distance I was totally idealizing Ireland. I was whinging on WhatsApp to a friend about how America’s no good anymore (which was quite the turnaround in just a fortnight) because of its consumerism, its indifference, its anxiety and everyone working ten jobs and buying more stuff than they needed, most of it made in the slavery-like conditions of Chinese factories and Burmese sweatshops. She replied,
‘Most of what you wrote here is true of Ireland/the West in general’.
She could’ve knocked me over with a feather. I swear I’d forgotten that all the abovementioned affect Ireland too. I spent so long talking Ireland up to Americans (please come and spend your dollars in Ireland, preferrably the west!) that somewhere along the line, I began to believe my own soundbites. Consumerism, fracturing of community, badly-treated workers, indifference to the Green agenda? In Ireland? Lord, no! Sure everyone’s at home now, getting on great with each other and never falling out, living out their eco-friendly lives, buying only sustainable goods and clothing, living the frugal lifestyles of say, comely maidens dancing at a crossroads. Like, not literally but my perspective of Ireland was so skewed that it wasn’t far off a Quiet Man excerpt. I’d scoffed at emigrants whose version of Ireland is wholly unrelated to the Ireland of 2019 and there I was, after just eight months, not much better than them! Further proof that emigrant perspectives of home are famously unreliable, but a good wake-up call.
The novelty wears off for everyone, just maybe not as dramatically as it did for me; poor oul’ America went from hero to zero in a matter of days. And though it’s right and proper to see a city without the rose-tinted glasses, I’m working toward a balance of normal and rediscovering those thrills and delights of when I first came here. My time here isn’t ‘normal’; it’s only a year long visa and in years to come this year will be an interesting footnote in the story of my life. Yes, I need to keep putting out the bins and doing the shopping and doing my washing but I also need to get back to looking out for glimpses of the Chicago skyline from the train and paddling in the lake and the other small things I loved. I should get back to looking at the houses in Rogers Park and picking out which one I’d build in Ireland (megaLOLz). And balance that optimism and positivity with getting up off my ass and doing something about the problems I have learned to see. I’ve signed up to volunteer with some tutoring and political work, to share around some of those skills I’ve been fortunate enough to get to develop. To do something rather than sitting around giving out. Or at least do something, then give out(!)
Part of my newfound drive owes itself to the biography of Bobby Kennedy I just finished after staying up all hours engrossed in it. RFK used to annoy students by calling them out, “He told college kids everywhere he went tht they could change the world so why the hell weren’t they?”[1] Why the hell indeed. Whether Chicago, America, Ireland or Ballinlough; nowhere is perfect and there’s work to be done everywhere. I’ll leave it to my good friend Bobby,
It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
Robert F. Kennedy, Day of Affirmation Address, University of Capetown, June 6, 1966
[1] Larry Tye, Bobby Kennedy: the making of a liberal icon (New York, 2016), p.414
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