The Ballinastoe Death March, Part Two

This is a tale long in the telling, and I want to thank everyone for being so patient, as I let myself get distracted by other matters large and small. Linus had a birthday not too long ago, and he said a great present would be for me to finally finish the damn Death March story. So here you go:


It was when we started downhill that everything went wrong.

After straining our winter-sore muscles, climbing up a steep incline that never seemed to end, sweat mixing with the cold March Irish wind, we reached the peak, took some pictures, and were happy in the knowledge that from this point on, everything would be easier.

After walking through a brief suggestion of a forest, we were presented with a choice: not exactly a fork in the road, but an option, let's say. Go this way, or go that way. There might have been a detour sign involved as well, but it's been four months, and this is a story, so it doesn't really matter. You see where I'm going with this.

We stalked downhill, switching this way and that, getting hungry and thirsty as a brief weekend jaunt in the country moved into hour three. We edged closer and closer to where the car (in theory) lay, when suddenly the path just...ended. Stopped. Not blocked. Stopped. No more path.

Issy went over the map, Elimare cursed her decision to get up and join us (perhaps), and others tried their iPhones for some sort of desperate navigational epiphany, until we resigned ourselves to our fate and turned around. And started walking uphill, again.

The Gurrier, not one to take his medicine gladly, at one point left the pack and decided to strike out a new path for us, trudging through thick bracken and shrubbery, up a steep hill, and suddenly disappeared into the treeline, hidden from view.

I don't know if it was actually bracken, but it seems like the appropriate Tolkien-esque foliage description. And anyway, we were making all sorts of Sam-and-Frodo-march-through-Mordor jokes as we passed through a nasty bit of deforestated desolation.

Anyway, Donal disappears from view, and then Linus decided to follow. I stayed with the women. To protect them. From bears, or Gollum, or something. At least that's how I remember it.


Donal and Linus eventually came back, defeated once again, and we retraced our steps back to The Choice, and this time, chose wisely.

We finally found the car, and headed towards a small town for dinner. Something called a Rock Shandy was consumed, burgers and Irish stew and something vegetarian was eaten, and we eventually headed back to Dublin. We had planned to go into the city to visit a pub or two, but we were all just too exhausted. A cup of tea and some episodes of Arrested Development at Linus' flat were all we had in us, but at least I got to meet Franklin.

And then it was Sunday and I had to leave, back home, back to everything I know here, in Illinois, in my classroom, on my stage. They are all wonderful things to come home to.

But heading over to Dublin every now and then, despite the cost, is also something wonderful to come home to. That's how I see it now. I have my home here, and my friends, and I have a sort of home over in Ireland as well, and I have my friends in Ireland. They are wonderful people, and I feel incredibly lucky to be welcomed into their lives. It was four years ago this summer that the blogger Linus agreed to meet me in Grogan's for a pint, talking about comic books and mobile phones and introducing me to Elisa, Isobel, and Donal.

There's a guy named Chris Cope, another American friend of The Dubliners. He lives in Wales, and achieved two things that I've been unable and/or unwilling to get done: publish a novel, and live overseas. We both share a friendship with these guys, both have hung out with The World's Greatest Blogger, and we both like drinking. It's strange that we've yet to meet.

Not sure why I bring up Chris now, but he somehow seems to be mixed up in this grand story, and I'm curious to see what part he may play in the tales to come.

I leave for Europe in a week, once again spending my hard-earned cash on an expensive trip overseas. but it's what I want to do, what I need to do. This time I'll also see Bicyclemark, and hopefully JaG, and some new places, in addition to my old Irish haunts.

My dear, dear Kate told me last week that I always come back different after a trip. I told her she was wrong, but she might have been on to something. Travel always changes me, a bit, mostly because I travel solo, giving myself a long time alone with my thoughts, that rare chance to think about myself and my life.

I don't know if I'll come up with any grand realizations this time 'round. Bobby Neuwirth's coming with, and I won't be able to get lost in my head like I usually do, but that's probably a good thing. Mostly, I'm just looking forward to wandering around a bit, and seeing some good friends in far-flung places.

I Document Things

Now begins my great effort to start blogging again on a semi-regular basis. My creative energies have been involved with Limelight's current season, which leaves me little to no time for things like blogging, but that's gonna change. Another trip looms, and there's nothing I enjoy more than writing on the road.

I owe everyone a few late stories before I leave, though, and those will roll out in the next few days. Until then, here's a small sample of what I've been doing with my time this summer. In addition to directing a pair of youth shows based on Beverly Cleary novels, I've been documenting the process of Limelight putting up its first original musical. Here's one of four Production Diaries I've made so far:

Lumberjacks: The Musical! "Trust Me" from Brian Fauth on Vimeo.

Lumberjacks started off as an inside joke between some of the directors, and last summer I finally said to them: "You should write this." And a year later, here we are.

It's been another great season for us, although I'm utterly spent and wrecked as we approach the end. We're getting better and better at what we do, but it leaves little time to relax, and so I'm this horrible mess of stress and bloat and junk food.

I'm looking forward to the upcoming travels, especially the first leg: hiking in northern Wales, although I'm sure I'll be huffing and puffing for a while, until I get used to it all. There are plans to see friends and blogger friends and places I've never been to before, and this time I've got a travel companion.

My buddy Eric was itching to finally see a bit of Europe, and with airfare so cheap, we bought tickets barely a week after I returned from Ireland last spring. We leave Monday, August 3rd, right after Lumberjacks closes, and will return on Tuesday the 18th. Work pretty much starts the next day for me. So much for lounging around the house this summer.

Eric will not be known as Eric on here, though, to avoid embarrassing Google Search results in the future (he's a fellow teacher.) Plus, my good friend Duder is also an Eric, so there's that problem as well. I've been trying to come up with something interesting, a la "Stephen Katz" of Bill Bryson's travel books. I have a vague goal of writing something substantial while on this trip, and so I need a good name.

I was watching Don't Look Back a couple of weeks ago, the documentary film about Bob Dylan's 1965 tour of England, and I was struck by how much Eric looks like Dylan's road manager, Bobby Neuwirth. (Okay, maybe he doesn't look a whole lot like him, but the idea is right. Much of the film features Dylan and Neuwirth joking around as they travel around English cities.)

So if I wind up talking about wandering around Europe with a guy named Bobby Neuwirth, or some variation on that, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Solitary Man/Busy Man

Blogging shall return in one week. I promise. I've been deep into Limelight business, which, of course, consumes my entire life.

Meanwhile, here's another picture of Linus from the Death March story I haven't finished. It's his birthday today and he's waiting for Part Two to finally come out.


Celebrated Duder's birthday last week as well, along with some other marvelous times spent with his crew. Those stories will have to wait as well.

Now back to Klickitat Street...