The Silence of the Rhododendron

The Silence of the Rhododendron

The Irish countryside is as lush as its name, the Emerald Isle, conveys. Everywhere you look where there is no stone, there is something vital and green growing. In fact, when I learned that the Irish soil was generally lacking in the nutritional qualities to support much agriculture, I was surprised. I would have guessed the opposite. The give-away is that when you look at the hillsides you see what looks like well-manicured landscape. Anywhere else, much of the stone would have become overgrown, and yet in Ireland it sort of naturally sticks out. You may be thinking that the sheep are to blame for the grass length, but I think otherwise. In many ways, the natural rugged beauty of the hillsides, is evidence of the hardscrabble existence which is at best possible on these lands.

Now I grant you that I have spent my stay in Ireland in County Kerry, which may very well be an extreme. It is, of course, noted for its natural beauty, which mostly encompasses those rock-strewn hills that flow like glaciers down toward the sea. But wait, while my prior day’s visit to the Dingle Peninsula and the The South Pole Inn in Annascaul kept me firmly in County Kerry, yesterday, our local master of ceremonies, Gerard, insisted that we trek south of Kenmare to Glengarriff. Glengarriff is at the head of Bantry Bay and is squarely in County Cork.

We passed between the counties on another Irish small and winding road that runs more-or-less north/south through the Caha Pass. The Caha Pass is a magnificent scenic roadway that not only gives grand views of the Cork/Kerry hardscape, dotted with sheep and stone wall hedgerows, but it also runs through four hand-hewn stone tunnels where in days past the Irish equivalent of the US Civilian Conservation Corps averted starvation by taking up picks and shovels for good old Ireland. You haven’t driven through a tunnel until you have been in one hand-carved by men who were desperate for food when the land around them could not otherwise feed them. I imagine the existential struggle of those men as they took out their frustrations with the God they prayed to by swinging a pickaxe at a solid stone wall. It strikes me as a fitting image of what life on the Western shores of Ireland has been like over the centuries. Great beauty comes of great hardship and struggle I guess.

What draws people to a land? What causes them to cleave from it? Why did people need to stay so attached to these rugged hills and ragged coastline? Since I am here in Ireland this week with a group that includes a handful of my wife Kim’s closest theater friends, I am struck by a similar quandary when it comes to their chosen profession of musical theater. The similarity may not seem obvious to some, but to me it is very clear. It is about people choosing the hardscrabble path in life rather than the smoother path. They say that man is alone as a species in seeking out challenges, not because he must, but because he chooses to test himself. Some do it by taking on Antarctica and similar explorations, some do it by staying down on the farm in severe and unfriendly environs, and yet others do it by choosing to pursue their art for the benefit of their soul and satisfaction of their art’s expression.

People are drawn to stories of attempts (failed or successful) to conquer great challenges. The Shackleton stories far outsell those of the more successful Amundsen and Byrd. Great Everest Expeditions that ran into disasters and abandoned men and women on the mountainside make for bestsellers. People who live in the wild and difficult places and have to wrest a living from unyielding ground make for heroes that attain epic and legendary status, not because they prevail, but by virtue of their toil.

I find far less interest in the stories of Elton John and Freddie Mercury because they became star-studded performers, but because they persevered and survived. I am equally drawn to and will eventually write the stories of some great performers that never succeeded. The struggle alone is a saga and the decision point at which they must finally cast off that dream for the realities of life is a classic moment of truth that describes the human condition and plumbs the soul of mankind. That will be a story worth telling and hearing.

During this trip, we have heard Gerard mention several times about how the noble rhododendron, a lovely flowering plant favored in America for gardens and home adornment, has become the scourge of the national parklands and threatens to change the ecosystem of plant life in Ireland forever. The rhododendron was introduced voluntarily into Ireland in the late 19th century for the benefit of hunters who wanted to enhance hunting ground cover and thereby make better sport for themselves. In many ways, that says that the plant stock came to these shores by way of noble birth and to serve the aristocracy rather than to serve any greater good for the people of Ireland. While it was likely an innocent transgression, it is hard not to see a fair bit of elitist conceit in it nonetheless. At best the rhododendron was an ornamental addition and at worst now an ecological disaster that is deemed to likely change the flora and fauna of Ireland forever.

With all the great challenges and tragedies confronting modern life, it seems hard to take the rhododendron invasion too seriously. It seems like we are saying that change is bad despite its flowery nature. How is that even close to being an epic struggle? We loved elm trees in the U.S., but we survived Dutch Elm Disease and I don’t recall there being a purple flower left in its wake.

On this, my last day in Ireland, I am surrounded by interesting contrasts. Ireland is far more beautiful and far more challenged on the surface than I had ever imagined. The key may be in that very superficiality. The absolutes are what matter. The beauty and the tenaciousness of the land. The harshness and bounty of the sea. The perseverance and the angst of the people. Ireland and life are both like a box of chocolates, they can be yummy or they can melt all over your clean linen pants. The trick may be to not overthink the situation, but to just enjoy the day. Enjoy the silence of the flowering rhododendron and ignore the wailing of the missing oak tree.

They say in Ireland that when you can see the mountains it will likely rain later, but if you can’t see the mountains it is probably raining now. I say with all that I now admire about Ireland and certainly all that I have admired about Kim’s and her friends’ musical theater ambitions, rain be damned.