It was the day I stood in the old castle next to the woman with the Irish curls. I was staring.
They were all old castles but it was the first time in seven Irish days that I noticed curls like that. Irish curls like mine.
The room was intentionally dark, so that we could really experience the place as it was 800 years ago, long before Edison invented the lightbulb, when the only form of electricity was the static produced by a couple of drunk laddies clinging pints.
The decor was gaudy and the windows were tall and the door frames were so narrow that I assume my ancestors were very, very hungry people.
About 15 of us stood in a broken circle around our castle guide, in the room with the ghost stories and dark painted oak. He yammered on about the room's history, something about Lord Talbot and bright white pillars turned black because there was no HGTV or Joanna Gaines to tell a man of great nobility that his interior design choices were just plain wrong.
While everyone else peered around the heavily paneled room, I was fixated on the hair. It was a shade of red that I have never seen before on a head of hair. I'm certain it was her natural color because she oozed effortless simplicity and laid-back cool. And she certainly didn't seem like one of those women who spend time trying to look natural, overspending on products with "sheer," "bare" and "neutral" in the name.
The only other time I've seen that shade of red in the natural world is at home in October when the maple leaves change from lime green to rusty red, and at just the right time of day, whether dawn or dusk, the light filters through the blue and purple sun-backed clouds, giving the red maple leaves a depth of color that can best be described as magenta mixed with maroon. That was her hair. Magentaroon.
If I know anything about anything, and believe you me, I don't, I would guess that her hair was air-dried because as the sunlight moved through the dim, oak room, little frizzy magentaroon hair strands made a weightless halo around her head. No magic oils or potions to settle the flyaways, no ma'am. What could not be tamed, she embraced. I couldn't look away.
The top of her hair sat soft and wavy, some parts even straight, but not stick straight or silky straight, instead it was as if someone took a balloon and rubbed it right across her crown, levitating strands of unbent hair. Underneath, around her neckline and shoulders, there were curls, dozens of them, loose ringlets lining her frame.
I knew this hair. It was my hair. Frizzy. Gravity-defying. Straight strands and wavy strands, all layered around happy little curls.
I noticed all this and became mesmerized by it because just recently I learned that there is a name for my hair: Irish curls (at least that is what the Internet tells me). I didn't share her hair color of course, goodness no. My natural color is described as "mousy," and "dull," as if someone found a forgotten wig in a small kitchen cupboard next to a few forgotten breadcrumbs, picked it up, and plopped it on my head without dusting it off.
But there I was in real life Ireland standing next to my family and a bunch of strangers in a real life Irish castle looking at what I could only presume to be a real life Irish lady with her real life Irish curls.
I wondered if she wakes up every morning with a bird's nest in the back of her head like I do, a place where the curls, waves and frizz all mesh together, leaving me with a round well of wispy tangles in the back of my head, a perfect habitat for a small bird to lay her eggs. I doubt she does. I'm sure the Irish air and sea give her hair a natural release each night when she rests her head on her happy little Irish pillow. Everything is happy and little in Ireland, by the way. I'm sure it is just my particular set of Irish curls that act like a tantrum-throwing army rebelling against me, as if to say, "Ohio, really? That's where you are sending us?" Now that I've seen Ireland, I don't blame them.
It was as I was standing there in that room, studying her hair and falling in love with it that I noticed the music. Whereas the magentaroon curls made sense in a place like this, the music absolutely did not. At least not the kind of music I was hearing.
At first it seemed so far away, the noise of it disturbing our castle tour, but the more I began to pay attention, the louder the music became, and soon it was undeniable that its origin was not that far away at all. I wasn't the only one to notice.
Before any of us could even ask the question, the guide began to explain. “Along the grounds here and just outside that window," he nodded toward the low sill where my eight-year-old was sitting, "Malahide hosts many concerts and festivals," his disposition pleasant and cheery, as if the noise was not bothering him and his telling of the castle history but rather an interesting complement to our tour. “Tonight, I believe, is Duran Duran."
That's when I noticed the three middle-aged women standing across from me, smiling and moving their heads, bodies and arms, their oneness like the head of Medusa, swinging and swaying in every direction. One began to play the air guitar and another closed her eyes, a soft grin across her face as she gradually bent her knees and floated side to side. Never mind the ancient furniture and ornate decor, the women transcended their surroundings and moved effortlessly to eighties rock music, each wearing a Duran Duran t-shirt, something I might have noticed earlier if not for my Irish curls hypnosis.
While the framed faces of lords and ladies, 800 years dead, stared their disappointed noses down at us, this Duran Duran t-shirt trio moved their hips to a distant Hungry Like a Wolf with complete disregard for anyone or anything else.
Suddenly it felt like maybe the castle tour was interrupting their moment. Whereas the music was a backdrop to the castle tour, the castle was a backdrop to their concert.
Collectively all 15 of us moved toward the large trellised windows with clover-shaped cut-outs and peered as best we could toward the tree-lined field. I could see the venue, much closer than I expected, a dome covering a wide stage. And presumably there on that stage was Duran Duran, warming up for their evening performance.
I moved to the window and looked across the path toward the stage and field. It was then that I realized we were standing directly above one of the castle entrances. The wide path leading to the entryway below opened to castle visitors exploring the surrounding grounds. The t-shirt trio weren't the only ones dancing.
Practically floating along the path toward the castle, a rag-tag group of people stole my attention. With two in wheelchairs and another five or six surrounding them, the group rocked and danced and swayed. As my focus sharpened, I saw that they were a mixed ability group of adults, a medley of folks with the kinds of needs that require supervision. One of the men in a wheelchair, being pushed by a chaperone, tilted his chin forward and wagged his head side to side, a wide grin across his face. One woman stumbled as she moved, her chaperone holding her hand and keeping her right-side up. The woman laughed. Her chaperone laughed. They all laughed. They all danced.
I was beginning to think that maybe we were in the minority, standing in this place for a castle tour when everyone else was moved, literally, by the men who, though well past their prime, most definitely still got it.
As pleased as he appeared with the Duran Duran interruption, our guide announced that it was time to move to the next room, the next layer of Irish history, myths and tales awaited us.
I didn't want to go. I was converting to the religion of Duran Duran, the contagious wonder of men in their sixties, deep black eyeliner smeared across their eyelids, dangerously tight jeans and frosted tips, who still sing, play and dance, who remind a group of middle-aged women what it feels like to be a teenager again, who remind a group of the often overlooked what it feels like to be part of the rhythm, who remind a frizzy-haired mom with Irish roots, on vacation with her family, what it feels like to be carefree and without insecurity.
Squeezing through the hip-shaming door frame and into the next room, I looked back and noticed the trio of women still lingering by the window. I wondered if they saw the adults with chaperones, and I thought about the men, slightly off pitch, with bleached hair and dark eyes, their music a bridge between the two groups.
I turned back around, the rest of the group now filling the next room. The music began to fade, and I saw Irish curls several people ahead of me. It was the last day of our weeklong trip to Ireland, but it was the first day I saw a physical similarity to me as someone with Irish roots of my own, the first physical confirmation that maybe I really do have Irish in my DNA.
My hair. The same hair I have wished away so many times. Shave it and start over, I have thought. The can't make up its mind hair. The untamable collection of mixed strands. Neither curly nor straight and also very much curly and very much straight. And wavy. And frizzy. And tangled and ... well, she probably didn't notice me or my hair, but I will never forget hers. Her Irish curls, a happy little bridge between us.
