Tomorrow I will be co-hosting a farewell party for a friend who will be returning to Ireland after seven years in the States. So tonight, I am finishing a CD of contempary Irish women singers I made for her. We both have a love of Irish folk singers and she recently inherited her husbands ipod. I’m giving her lots of Irish music to upload.

So, I’m listening to this lovely Irish music feeling melancholy about my loss. My generous side is so happy that she will bringing her children home, to raise them in the land that she was raised. My selfish side is jealous. Part of me wants her children to grow up here with mine. Another part wants to take my family and go away with her to raise my children in Ireland.

And it is bittersweet for her, too. Because that is how it is when you learn to love another country. You are always torn between two loves, as I know so well. We both need to be home, but we will always be citizens of this world.

Perhaps that is why so many of my friends are from other countries. We understand that part of each other. And in befriending each other, it is bittersweet, because so often you have to say good-bye when one returns home. That is how it has been so often for me. This seems to be my way in life, how it’s supposed to be for me. And these friendships are worth every torn piece of my heart.

As some of you know, I haven’t shared this blog with any of my local friends. I’m not comfortable with that. Maureen has read one of the birthday letters I’ve written to my girls, and she’s asked that I send them to her every year. Tomorrow I will give her this website address.

I wish I could audioblog some of this lovely Irish music I am listening to, but I’m afraid I'’ll violate copyright. So instead here are some lyrics.

(This one is for Maureen and she knows why.)

Song For Ireland
Songwriter: Phil Colclough

Walking all the day, near tall towers
where falcons build their nests
Siver winged they fly,
they know the call of freedom in their breasts
Saw Black Head against the sky
with twisted rocks that run down to the sea
Living on your western shore,
saw summer sunsets, asked for more
I stood by your Atlantic sea
and sang a song for Ireland

Talking all the day with true friends
who try to make you stay
Telling jokes and news,
singing songs to pass the night away
Watched the Galway salmon run
like silver dancing darting in the sun
Living on your western shore
saw summer sunsets, asked for more
I stood by your Atlantic sea
and sang a song for Ireland

Drinking all the day in old pubs
where fiddlers love to play
Someone touched the bow,
he played a reel
it seemed so fine and gay
Stood on Dingle beach
and cast in wild foam we found Atlantic bass
Living on your western shore,
saw summer sunsets asked for more
I stood by your Atlantic sea
and sang a song for Ireland

Dreaming in the night I saw a land
where no man had to fight
Waking in your dawn
I saw you crying in the morning light
Lying where the falcons fly,
they twist and turn all in you e’er blue sky
Living on your western shore,
saw summer sunsets asked for more
I stood by your Atlantic sea
and sang a song for Ireland

(This next one is also on the CD I made of Irish Singers with Dolores Keane singing. I adore the lyrics. I so wish I could put the audio of this song up here. It’s hauntingly gorgeous.)

You’ll Never Be The Sun
By: Donagh Long

Chorus:
You’ll never be the sun turning in the sky
And you won’t be the moon above us on a moonlit night
And you won’t be the stars in heaven
Although they burn so bright
But even on the deepest ocean
You will be the light

You may not always shine
As you go barefoot over stone
You might be so long together
Or you might walk alone
And you won’t find that love comes easy
But that love is always right
So even when the dark clouds gather
You will be the light

And if you lose the part inside
When loves turns round on you
Leaving the past behind
Is knowing you’ll do like you always do
Holding you blind, keeping you true