Biographical Stuff » Dreams of Arcadia

Clara Riddles

Aug 262010

To borrow a cliche, it was a day like many others…

My co-workers and I had made our usual lunchtime journey over to the CNN Center for a bite to eat and to rail at the talking heads on the giant monitors hanging over the food court. It was a sunny day – warm, but not too hot – and one of the rare occasions where things were running smoothly at the office and life seemed pretty good.

To say we are regulars at the Center would be understatement – we eat there so frequently that, “I’ll have the usual,” is an acceptable order, and our relations with the food court crews have long belonged to the Southern formal,”How’s your mom-and-them?” Continue reading »

A Dublin Memory

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Jul 222010

I was in Ireland, completely alone in life, far from family and friends, when I finally discovered what it means to feel at home. I was almost thirty years old.

I had come over on a scholarship to complete a program of Irish studies, mainly to further cement an emerging self to the source I had come to identify with most closely. Growing up I had always been aware of my family’s background, but had yet to fuse my roots to my identity, and felt a strange sense of disconnect between place and purpose. I was a Southerner, to be sure, shortening sentences and lengthening vowels with the best of them, but it never felt like it was me speaking as much as it did me playing the part of a Southern speaker. A character in a play, if you will. As my studies drew me deeper into the Irish side of my family tree, I began to feel a kinship of sorts with the myths and the legends that sang to me across the centuries. I began to feel as if I knew the characters in the legends, with a level of psychological insight more common to familial bonds than friendship or fandom. I could see them in my mind, anticipate their words and actions, and think the thoughts I knew would be in their heads. I understood them better than I understood myself. When one of my professors suggested a study abroad program as a possible fork in my educational path, I knew right away that I would do it, and where I would go. Continue reading »

The Book That Changed My World

Biographical Stuff, Book Stuff 1 Response »

Jun 162010

The title of this article is a reference to a recent Twitter “hash-tag” where users listed a book, or the many books, that had a profound impact on their lives. As the night wore on, and the tag gained recognition, thousands of tweeted titles were shared, critiqued, commented upon, and remembered – usually with a, “Oh man, I almost forgot about that one!” What is particularly charming about about Twitter memes such as this, is that you slowly begin to develop a deeper understanding for the people you’ve met and made friends with online. As their favorite books stream before your eyes, you glean subtle insights into their personalities and character that are often more revealing than several months of casual conversation could ever be. But then again, this is one of the wonders of books as well – that in the midst of storytelling comes a deeper understanding of others. The dream becomes a lesson, and the lesson becomes a guide for your own life and relations to others. Continue reading »

Dancing with the Dead

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May 302010

When I was about eleven or twelve, my great aunt passed away in her sleep. She was my father’s mother’s sister, and one of the favorites of the family – the center of our “mountain side” of the family. She and Grandma had been exceptionally close, and so it was we were piled in the family station wagon for the drive into North Georgia for the wake. At the time I knew very little of the Irish side of our roots, and the events of this day would come to be one of the defining moments of my life, the first doorway into a tradition and culture I have come to embrace with all of my physical, emotional, and intellectual being. Continue reading »

A Grumpy Old Man

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May 062010

My grandpa could be a right bastard at times.

I guess I loved him, in that way you’re supposed to love relatives you only see once a year or so, but it definitely wasn’t easy. He was a bear of a man, with a gravelly voice that always sounded as if he was either pissed off, or had just discovered that you were yet another member of a group of people he collectively referred to as “retards”. When I first saw the movie “Patton”, I I remember thinking, “Wow, how did they get George C. Scott to do such a good impersonation of grandpa? Did they know each other?” Scott’s performance captured the essence of grandpa, only dialed down a notch to keep it family friendly. He was a shouter, grandpa, and would argue the most ridiculous points in the loudest volumes he could muster. He would insist, absolutely insist, that certain shows like the Republican or Democratic National Conventions be watched on television, which, when you are a kid, is received as an equivalent to a request to execute your own dog. Nevertheless, he’d brook no debate, and whining was strictly verboten, so we’d all settle in for what was sure to be a mind numbingly dull evening, only to see him fall asleep in the first five minutes of his mandatory programming. Continue reading »