After The Honeymoon

Originally written for Ramp.ie as part of the Emigration Diary series

They say after about three months the honeymoon phase of culture shock ends and the negotiation phase begins. This is apparently when the differences between the old and new cultures become irritating and annoying and many people experience frustration and anxiety while yearning for the familiarity of their old society. Some people withdraw into themselves, some become reliant on others from their own culture, some adopt a hostile, superior attitude and others become suspicious of the cleanliness or safety of their host environment. Thanks, Wikipedia, for reminding me what predictable nutters we all are.

The best thing, it seems, about this negotiation phase or process is that it ends. It’s the make-it-there-or-make-a-legger-for-it period. It lasts about another three months until the adjustment phase begins or, in other words, we get used to the differences and accept them. Hmm… in just under two weeks we will have been here exactly three months. We are four people who have a tendency to react very differently to stimuli. It sounds like this ride may be about to get bumpier.

Still in the Honeymoon period, I guess, George and I took a childfree stroll around NYC last week. We started with Sunday brunch at an outside table on Union Square; mimosas and eggs Benedict, beer and steak and eggs. Delicious. Then we walked down The High Line, a disused elevated freight railway line above Manhattan’s West Side that has been turned into a spectacular public park. This brought us to the Meatpacking District where a rather cool Urban Space market was set up. After a thorough perusal, we took the subway back uptown to Central Park. It was International Peace day as it turned out and we stopped and watched some gospel singers on the bandstand for a while. At Bethesda Fountain, we were amused by no less than six wedding parties posing among the tourists, their photographers desperately trying to capture a scene of newly wedded bliss while the brides threw sidelong comparison glances at each other’s dresses. Afterwards we found a French patisserie where we stopped for tea and cake. All in all, it was a lovely day and it was really good for me to get off the island and spend some time mooching about in the city.

Our life is far from that glamorous on a daily basis. George is working long hours during the week and I work a few shifts in a restaurant at the weekend. There’s not a lot of time or money for wandering about enjoying the sights at the moment and at times we both get irritable. The kids both seem very happy though. They are enjoying school and the afterschool program they are in. At first, I thought it was too long a day for them but I soon realized that they have both made good friends there and spend the couple of hours running about outside playing soccer and tag, followed by homework and quieter indoor games. The few days they have had off they were complaining that they were bored and bugging me to invite their friends around for a playdate. Yes, they use that word.

I think, at the moment, it is not the differences between our old life and our new life that we are finding frustrating but the similarities. The humdrum of making lunches, cooking dinners, loading the dishwasher and doing laundry was not what I imagined when I envisaged our move to New York. I don’t think George imagined himself working very long hours for not enough money either. The big difference here, and it’s the one I’m clinging on to, is that it feels transient. It doesn’t feel like this is it. Already, the hard work is beginning to be rewarded. Opportunities are arising. It feels like upward mobility is not only a possibility but a probability. It’s still very early days in the grand scheme of things. We just have to negotiate the next three months.

Moo-ving In

It was Cow Harbor Day on Sunday. This is a traditional annual festival held in Northport, where we live now, which was once known as Great Cow Harbor because cows used to graze in fields by the waterfront. Thousands of people filled the sunny, waterfront village for a parade and a funfair, loads of live music, antique cars, impressive motorbikes and the local restaurants had grills and hot dog stands out on the sidewalk to feed the crowds.

 I love the place names here on Long Island. We’ve got the Jericho Turnpike which is lined with strip malls where you can buy absolutely anything. My favorite beach is in Sunken Meadow State Park. Our local IKEA is in Hicksville. We’re a few train stops from Amityville and I do most of my clothes shopping in Walt Whitman Mall, on the Walt Whitman Road, near the birthplace of the poet. We often take a stroll on the beach at Little Neck Bay, which borders Great Neck, the backdrop for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. We’re also five minutes down the road from the Vanderbilt Museum which houses the rather obscure collections of William K Vanderbilt II in his mansion on his former estate, Eagle’s Nest. It’s interesting and fun getting to know the local history. I guess that’s one of the advantages about moving somewhere new – no matter where you go.

 My kids have started school and seem to be settling in well. My second grader is already using terms like ‘pop quiz’ (nothing to do with music) and ‘Show and Tell’. Football has very quickly become ‘soccer’. My Kindergartner goes in everyday with his ‘tote bag’ and ‘erases’ things when he makes a mistake. It is certainly not taking them long to pick up the lingo. I needn’t have worried about them fitting in. They seem to be doing just fine. They both go to afterschool club which they really seem to enjoy and have made loads of new friends. They’ve been off part of this week for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. I was surprised, to be honest, that schools in New York were off for Jewish holidays, but there you go.

 In the meantime, George commutes into the city to work. Although I don’t envy him the 70 minute train journey each way every day, he does seem to be meeting some glamorous people and visiting some even more glamorous places. He came home with some expensive men’s product last week. Someone had given it to him as a tip for installing blinds in her apartment. Is that the etiquette? I’d love to see the face of a UPC technician in Dublin if someone offered them male moisturizer for fixing their broadband. I think I’ll stick with handing over an extra couple of bucks for now. See? I’ve got the lingo going on too!

 There are a couple of things I am finding it hard to get used to though. Turning right on a red light makes me feel downright rebellious every single time, but I’m beeped at ferociously if I don’t. I can live with the guy in the gas station filling my car for me while I sit there. I’m not really comfortable with cooking here yet. Chicken breasts seem outrageously large and there are sneaky artificial colorings and flavorings in quite a lot of products. There is quite a selection of healthier goods available. It’s just a case of me getting used to what’s good and what’s not and figuring out the best places to buy stuff. The choice is certainly available. It’s sometimes overwhelming. I’ve been working my way through my American cookbook for all the things I wanted to make before but couldn’t easily find the ingredients in Ireland. It always seems to be the case that if one child likes something the other doesn’t but that was the same in Ireland. No doubt we’ll fall into some kind of meal routine soon, even if it means each child only gets fed every second day. So we really live here now. It’s starting to feel like we’re more involved in society, not merely vacationing observers. We’ve certainly been made to feel very welcome. I wonder how long it’ll be before we start to consider ourselves Irish-American? I don’t think it will take the children long at all, probably the adults a little longer. Maybe next year, we’ll even take part in the Cow Harbor Day parade ourselves.

Are You Ready Boots?

Originally written for Ramp.ie as part of the Emigration Diary series

September is rolling in. I’ve always thought of September as the beginning of the new year. Maybe it’s because it’s my birth month, maybe because of the years spent in school, university and back at school as a teacher but it seems to me that autumn is a far better time to start something new than deep in the middle of winter. It’s a great time to buy new boots and break them in before the going gets icy. I’ve got some already. I bought them in an off-season sale in July. Having put nearly all my other boots in a donation bin in Ireland, somehow I doubt they’ll be the only boots I buy this year.

Here in New York, the weather is still summery. I’m writing this sitting on the deck wearing shorts and sandals. Not at all boot weather yet – it’s 27° – but there are a few tell-tale signs of fall. The tops of some trees have turned red and yellow and there are a couple of leaves scattered around me. The summer vacationers have all gone home now. The kids start school this week. I guess they’ll be needing new boots soon.

We’ve had a little tour of the school and met the principal. It is her first year in the school so my kids won’t be the only newbies. I’ve already been talked into attending my first PTA meeting. Although we have the teachers’ names, we haven’t met them yet. My youngest is starting big school for the first time and he is more than a little excited. I’m quite nervous for my eldest going into 2nd grade. He doesn’t even want me to drive him on the first day. He’ll be getting on a bus with a load of strange kids and will have to figure out the dos and don’ts by himself. Do stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Don’t ask your teacher for a rubber. I’m sure he’ll be fine though. He’s still young enough that it shouldn’t be too difficult for him to fit in.

In other news, I got myself a job. Not quite the glamourous city position I fancy myself in, I’ll be a hostess in a local restaurant. Still, the hours suit me and the money’s alright and it seems like a nice, friendly place to work. The food is really good too. I can continue writing and rewriting my resume and presumably I’ll pick up something more stressful in time. I’m happy enough to stay local at the moment. You never know, my children may decide they need me after all.

So the summer’s drawing to a close and I guess that means we’ve lasted here a season. It’s had its ups and downs, adjustments and shocks. We by no means walked off the plane and into an American Dream. We’ve discovered that we’re going to have to work hard and make certain sacrifices to get to where we want to be but we do still seem to have a good chance of getting there. I never really felt that I had that chance in Ireland. No matter how hard I tried, doors seemed to slam in my face. I know it’s still early days but I haven’t felt as shut out of anything here. I also have a much greater choice of new boots. All that’s left to do now is start walking.

The Big Question

Originally written for ramp.ie as part of the Emigration Diary series

 Everything is bigger here. The cars, the shopping malls, the cooker, the fridge, even the milk cartons all seem enormous. The boxes of toys and clothes I posted over that seemed overwhelmingly huge when they filled my front room in Ireland barely even got in the way in the hall here. Everything is bigger, but is it better?
We went to a sprinkler park this week. The kids got to wear their swim suits and a generous helping of factor 30 and play in a playground made up entirely of water hoses and sprinklers triggered randomly by giant red buttons. There was the usual playground equipment too but it was so scalding hot from the sun that it was practially redundant. Initially, my kids were hesitant to join in this strange game with these strange children but fate had gifted me with a ping pong ball in my handbag and the quest of balancing a ball on a water shoot was just enough to break down shyness and integrate them fully with their peers. Loads of squealing, watery fun was had. It’s a fabulous amenity that my seven year old commented would be practically useless in Ireland.

 Other than the weather, my day-to-day life hasn’t changed a huge amount yet. I’m still loading and unloading the dishwasher daily and churning out lunches and dinners to a constant chorus of ‘I’m hungry!’ I’ve been applying for jobs but haven’t found anything suitable yet. In fact, it’s been three weeks and I haven’t even left Long Island. I still have a lot to organize. We both have to sit driving tests and I’ve yet to find suitable health insurance and childcare. I’ve enrolled the kids in the local school from September and there is much excitement that they’ll be collected from outside the house in a big yellow school bus, just like in the movies.

 We joined the local library the other day. In addition to stocking our bookshelves, we signed up for some free family workshops during the month. I figured it might be a good way for the kids to meet other children in the area. I might even work up the guts to go to a mommy coffee morning soon and maybe make some new friends myself. It’s funny how I expect my children just to join in with strangers and integrate when I find the prospect of doing something similar so daunting.

We see a lot less of George now. He’s commuting an hour each way to the city so he’s gone early and gets home late, barely in time to say goodnight to the kids. He does seem to be enjoying the work though and I can’t help feeling a little jealous when I see his photos of city skyscrapers while I’m still stuck in suburbia. True, it is a hotter, sunnier suburbia with a beautiful swimming pool in the garden so I can’t really complain. It’s also really nice to have my family around. It’s good to not have to load the kids into the car every time I need something from the grocery store. I guess I just thought things would change more dramatically for me. Patience is not my strong point.

George does get weekends off, thankfully, and we spent last Sunday in the garden. It was 35°C. He repaired some of the decking that hadn’t survived the winter and cut back some of the trees. My mother cleaned and oiled the patio furniture and I took the giant pressure washer and cleaned some of the paving around the pool. The kids built themselves a camp out of the off cut branches. Afterwards, we all went for a refreshing swim and then had a delicious barbecue. It was a really pleasant day and we didn’t have to go anywhere. I got to thinking; everything is bigger here because there’s so much more space to fill. And if there’s one thing my kids and I appreciate it is space. Here they have the space to run around, I have the space to think and most importantly, we all have so much more space to grow. So, with my fingers crossed that I don’t expand so much as to fill the capacious driver’s seat, we’ll continue our journey onwards. Because, despite all the adjustments and upheaval and the anti-climaxes, I still believe, in the long run, for us, it is better.

Emigration Diary: First Steps

Originally written for ramp.ie as part of the Emigration Diary series

Well, we got here. After an uneventful flight, we hung around in US immigration for a couple of hours, signed here, fingerprinted there and with a ‘Welcome to the United States’ we were sent out into the heat with two overtired, overexcited children and minus one suitcase.
The first weekend was passed catching up with family, splashing around in the pool, unpacking, organising and figuring out what we have to do to get social security numbers, enrol the kids in school, get phones, driving licenses and set up bank accounts. On Monday morning, I gathered the necessary documents and we found our way to our local social security office just to be told that we would have to be in the country for ten days before we could apply for our numbers which we need to do all of the other things. Oh bureaucracy, must you follow me everywhere?
I came home a little bit discombobulated and automatically picked up the phone when it rang. It took me a while to figure out that the earnest young man on the line talking about preplanning was desperately trying to convince me to buy cemetery plots for myself and my husband. We only just got here! I told him it really wasn’t a good time for me to plan my funeral that morning. He didn’t even let it go there. I think he’s going to call me back after Labour Day. Note to self: screen all calls.

So enforced vacation it is for a little while. The weather has been a bit changeable but the kids are in the pool most days regardless. We even got to the beach one day. George found a list of house maintenance tasks to be getting on with before he starts works next week. I’ve been trying to establish some kind of routine and collecting loyalty store cards. I have four already!

On Tuesday, I took the kids grocery shopping and let them pick out some store cupboard snacks from the unfamiliar brands. This involved driving the giant automatic car on the wrong side of the road and finding my way to the grocery store. Out of force of habit, I took shopping bags with me. I didn’t know it at the time but each bag you reuse gets you a 5c discount on your bill here. Even so, still not many people recycle them and plastic bags are peeled off the roll by the dozen. I felt quite smug as the cashier counted my bags to ring up my discount but pride soon turned to shame when I realised all of the bags my kids were stuffing with non-nutritious food were emblazoned with the label Bottle Bargains and had come from the local liquor store. There goes my good mom image right out the window, and we’re not even here a week.

Applying for jobs here is interesting. It’s not as simple as just emailing off a resume. Each position requires a carefully tailored cover letter and often a lengthy application form as well as a resume. It takes hours. I am delighted that there are so many interesting things to apply for though. Luckily George is set up with something already. He starts this week, while I get on with enrolling the kids in school and finding my way about.

It’s still very early days here and feels more like another holiday in my mom’s house than the beginning of a new life but we’re settling in slowly but surely and as I empty and put away the suitcases it’s starting to become real that this time we’re not going back.

Emigration Diary: Last Nights in Town

Orifinally written for ramp.ie as part of the Emigration Diary series

 

 We’re in the last few days now before the great odyssey and most of our goodbyes have been said. We’ve moved out of our house and are staying with rather bemused but very accommodating relatives in the house where I spent much of my childhood. The kids have constructed an unrestricted Nintendo nest in the boxroom and my husband has set up a round-the-clock online sales studio in the sitting room. It’s really quite fascinating what people will buy and I’m completely gobsmacked by the sheer number of things we possessed. I wasn’t even aware of half of the curios. There is a third skip in the front garden. It waits hungry-mouthed for any junk that is leftover on Thursday.

As George suddenly leapt into action and finally started shedding his load, I moved beyond the packing-repacking panic into a fairly mellow apathy. We are getting on that plane on Friday morning regardless of if we are ready or not. The miserable damp weather we’ve been having is playing no minor contribution to this attitude. I will feel the deliciously sticky New York summer heat on my skin on Friday afternoon if I have to go with nothing but a bikini in my handbag. It would be nice if we could get rid of the car before that though. It’s a teeny bit valuable for the skip and sadly, it won’t fit in my suitcase.

We had a little farewell do with friends last Friday which went on till the wee hours. It was rather romantic after the hugs,vodka and tears, to walk down the brightening, eerily empty Grafton St. accompanied by the dawn chorus and to watch the fast-food wrappers of the night before get carried away by seagulls before they could be swallowed by the street sweeper. These are the sights and sounds I most associate with our courtship many moons ago. We stopped at the end, had a kiss and waved goodbye to our Dublin scene. Then we fell into a taxi.

I found this picture while I was packing and thought it appropriate for this last post before our voyage. It was taken at a funfair in Germany. We were newly engaged and I was five months pregnant with my eldest son. I had been prevented from going on almost every ride by a red circle with a line through a stork. George suggested the photo to cheer me up. We joked that we would confuse our kids with tales of the olden days. It never occurred to me that circumstances may conspire for it to be taken as gospel in future generations.

So, I guess this is it. So long old country. Stay well. I’ll resist adding a certain John Denver track to this and I’ll talk to you all shortly from the other side.

The Last of The Spice

This article was originally written for Ramp.ie as part of the Emigration Diary series.

I used up the last of my jar of cumin today.

Not a big deal to most, I know, but to me it begs the question of whether I should buy another one or not. We’re leaving this house in less than three weeks and we’re leaving the country altogether in five. Forever. Our little family of four is all signed up to become a permanent resident of the United States and nothing more than a statistic to Ireland. We leave on Friday 13^th July.

Unlike many others, we are not being forced out of our country by the economic downturn. We’re used to being broke. We’ve never had much money here, yet we’ve managed to carve out a happy, relatively comfortable life. We’ve never owned a house but we’ve made homes in the ones we’ve rented. The Celtic Tiger somehow managed to pass us by, but that only meant its death was no loss to us. The fact that after years of trying – getting extra qualifications, setting up a business, working for minimum wage or worse, for nothing –  we are no further up the proverbial success ladder meant that when my number finally came up, twelve years after I applied, and I was summoned to the great round building in Ballsbridge, I ran there as fast as my best stilettos would allow and insisted the three males I’ve accumulated wore shirts. I even ironed them.

Emigrating is not a big deal to me. I’ve done it before. I was young, dumped and jobless, so I signed a two year contract to work in The Gulf in 2000. I wasn’t sure quite which gulf it was until the day before I left but I reduced my life to two suitcases and off I went into the unknown. I had a ball and stayed three years. This time it’s a bit different.

This time I have a husband and kids in tow. My husband has far more family to leave behind than I do. All the glitter of NYC will be dulled for him somewhat. My kids are seven and four. They are right at the beginning of their lives. Some say it’s a great age to move them. I feel like we are possibly influencing the course of their destiny by this move more than we have by any parenting decision we’ve ever made. For the record, we are subscribers to the go-with-the-flow school of parenting. I believe and really hope this rare decisive action we’re taking is for the best.

This time too, I know where I’m going, at least initially. We’re going to my mother’s house. She left for the US in 1992 with her husband and two small children and it was truly a leap into the unknown for them. They have done well. To an extent, us going now is history repeating.

To an extent, we have it easy. To an extent, this is a no-brainer for us. However, no life-changing uprooting comes without its doubts. So, should I buy another jar of cumin before we go or not?