Pennywhistles, Painted Nails, and Prayers

Last night
we braved the icy roads
and took the jeep to State College
to see the Chieftains,
Ireland's premiere musicians,
in concert at Eisenhower Auditorium.
We arrived early to visit the grandgirls.
Den taught six-year-old Anna
how to play Kings,
a checker game he learned from his mom,
while I assisted three-year-old Lucy
in using silly putty
to make grapes
and grilled cheese sandwiches
for her sick stuffed animals.
Then Anna showed me Shelby's bucket of nail polish.
"Would you like to do my nails?" I asked.
Anna was thrilled.
"Wow! Yes!
I've never been allowed
to do the painting before!"
We sat down at the dining table
with paper towels
and a wide selection of polish.
"What color would you like, Grammy?"
"You choose for me."
Pale yellow and orange
alternated on the left hand,
plain with sparkly blue on the right.



I used to wear nail polish in my teens and twenties
as my mother had encouraged me
in the small habits of ladyhood,
but one day my friend Janet observed
"Your polish is always chipped.
Your nails are different lengths.
Why do you bother?"
She had a point.
From that day on,
I gave up polish.
Until yesterday.

I went to the Chieftains concert with flashy nails.
We sat at the edge of the first tier,
Den in his Aran fisherman's knit
and me in my green Donegal Irish sweater.
I leaned over the edge to see if anyone else had dressed thematically.
Two people in green.
Three guys in wool driving caps.
I then estimated the auditorium's seating capacity
and also had fun
with my green laser pointer
until Den encouraged me to put it away.
Then Paddy Moloney
carried in his pennywhistles and uilleann pipes
and Matt Molloy his flute.
There was a bodhran
and a guitarist
and two fiddles
and a harp
and a mandolin player.
There were Irish dancers
and a Scottish vocalist
and the Nittany Children's Choir
and a local step dance class
and Jaffa bagpipers 
and a family from Canada,
The Next Generation Leahy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXd_dSkScvg,
whose amazing dancers just kept getting tinier.

We closed our eyes
and we were back in Ireland
in Matt Molloy's pub in Westport.
We could almost smell the whiskey.

Irish instrumental music
is the happiest
and the saddest
in the world.
The bodhran thumps in your chest
and the vibrations hit your toes.
The pennywhistle wavers in your ear
and your eyes mist.
And not a word is spoken.
Perhaps music is interpreted in a different part of the brain,
having no interface with letters
or words.
It is a language all its own.
Our friend Barry said
that perhaps the Psalms
are the Irish music of the Bible.
Great joy
and lament.

During the night's final number,
audience members were encouraged to hold hands in a line
and dance their way through the aisles.
I dashed from the balcony to join them.
As we stomped enthusiastically across the stage,
the lady behind Den asked,
"Which one is your wife?"
"The one in the green sweater
and tan boots."
"She looks like a leprechaun."

Today I decided to start wearing nail polish again--
but only on my left little finger.
The polish will remind me
of Anna's first try at polishing
and of that pennywhistle night
of joy and lament.
When I notice my little fingernail
I will pray for my grandgirls,
for Anna
and for Lucy,
that they will live lives of much joy
and encounter grace in the sorrows.





P.S. Not to be outdone by her older sister,
Lucy
(with help from Shelby)
painted Den's toenails
bubblegum pink.

P.P.S.  Want to hear the Chieftains?
Click below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7pDiO52xSs