Things Go Wrong

I don’t curse very much. But if I do, it’s often self-directed and always blistering. Dublin requires that I bike behind slow-moving clumps of pedestrians who clog the narrow pathways. In the streets I get to out-pedal looming city shuttles whose drivers don’t care that I have only two legs while they wield two tons. In those circumstances I say nothing, or I speak clipped, polite phrases. Not a blue streak to be heard. Then I drop my bike keys under the front wheel and struggle to retrieve them through the metal spokes, and out comes the ready “mother—“ which only occasionally trails off from a sense of decency. More often it does not. You might say that I’m wound tightly, if selectively.

Dublin might be working to change that. Life in this city, along these bus routes and these train tracks, is bringing out what little flexibility I possess. Inflexibility has always been one of those crosses borne across my shoulders, sizable enough to earn a sincere scolding from friends (a mild, non-binding intervention, if you’ll believe it). It’s just that I like the plans which I make for my time. They always fit my interests, match my thought process, and have me arriving ten minutes early. What’s to reject? The rigidity, you pocket watch. So much structure, while efficient, eliminates the spontaneity of so many open doors waiting to be stumbled into.

It’s the unexpected which my regular mistakes help me experience. And these blunders are of the moronic, palm-to-face, why-are-you-this-way-in-the-mirror variety. My first Sunday, I missed church by stubbornly waiting at the wrong bus stop. I’ve regularly missed trains, getting to wait half-hours on cold platforms. Within the course of a week I managed to lock myself out of the house twice: once to take out the bags of recycling, and the other on my way to a campus meeting. As the key ring also held the key of my bike lock, I then got to miss the meeting on top of it. Ahead of my first trip to Cork, I mistimed purchase of the bus ticket and had to arrive the following morning. That meant somehow finding my group alone in a new city. As one can expect from a first-time foreigner, I can’t quite get out of my own way.

And yet, the unexpected pleasures bettered me despite the mistakes which in the moment were surely the end of the world. I managed to find church the next Sunday on account of having bungled the first try. Missing trains lets me read great Irish books without the motion sickness which train-reading entails. From the pair of lockouts, I was able to meet Di, the kind old woman across the street who keeps a spare key: tentatively the first time, and the second with neighborly recognition. Missing that campus meeting reserved my evening for some calm during what became a vigorous week. Mistiming that trip to Cork gave me excuse to walk the six kilometers of stunning cliffs and windswept fields from Bray to Greystones, one where God’s creation was triumphant below, around, and above me. The beauty was so majestic that it grew humbling by the end. All for a bus I supposedly would’ve preferred.

When I put down this list, the blessings I forgot to count come trotting out expectantly. And the rigidity feels moronic, of the why-are-you-this-way-in-the-mirror variety. Anyone reading this little reflection can surely fill in the blanks, as I must every day. There’s no need to spell it out, as so many children’s books and social media posts like to do. Usually the fonts are flowery and the backgrounds are lovely: “Learn and Live,” “Mistakes Are Just Opportunities,” or “Don’t Criticize Yourself, Hater.” But truly adjusting to what little failures teach us requires a touch of grit, a pinch of resolve, and naturally, that part of the formula is omitted.