Letters to Strangers: To the tour guide who brought us to the Cliffs of Moher —
September 26, 2021: Ireland
I strongly believe that as a tour guide, only 10% of the job is about making your customers like the location, 90% of it is making them like you. And because you reminded me so much of Mr. Collins, my high school history teacher, I was immediately fond of you. Chock full of ironic jokes and a gruff, but good-natured demeanor, you inspired that weird nostalgia one possesses for someone and the time they represented in your life. It probably didn’t hurt that you were also Irish.
I remember your voice occupying the bus as it bumped along the winding cliffs for hours, though I couldn’t remember anything you said. I was focused on keeping my debilitating motion-sickness at bay, fixedly staring out the window while absentmindedly listening to my friends talk about Ed Sheeran. But I’d notice when the bus would stop at a viewpoint; when you’d step out, heavy-footed as if carrying the world on your shoulders and light up a cigarette — the larger-than-life tour guide persona shrinking back into that of a more tangible man.
Though cornered away and uninterested in small talk during one of these breaks, you noticed our offensively green beanies with felt horns stuck on the sides and “IRELAND” splashed across. Of course, that, along with everything about us, screamed American, an obvious target for your mordant teasing. You probably get a lot of Americans on your tours, seeing as it’s one of the cheapest ways to get to the cliffs. Do you enjoy the exposure to a wide variety of people, or does it perhaps overwhelm you with so much unpredicted behavior?
The day is a post-Brexit glumness, and the clouds hang low, but the whip of fresh air is undeniable. I can’t put my finger on it, but it seems like you’ve been doing this for a while. The ocean is probably a familiar sight for you, rocks slick with salt becoming a stable safe haven for those who survived the winding path up. By now, you must know the minutes between each stop; the sickening rhythm the bus jolts to must feel familiar. And you must know the people, their shops, and their goats; know where to stop for an authentic meal and the best spot for a pint and a view. Do you get tired of knowing repetitively?
The cliffs must never get old for you, though. When we finally make it to the Cliffs of Moher, I feel like I’m in Dear Esther, the video game epitome of a hauntingly majestic, oddly nostalgic Gaelic countryside. The zombie weather adds to the effect — flat cliff sides blanketed in green jutting into gray-blue water. In pictures, the cliffs seem as if they should be quiet, peaceful, picturesque, but my memory is inundated with crashing waves and shrieking winds. I remember it being only late September, but already needing to be wrapped away from the nipping chill.
You probably have more sophisticated feelings than me, a more holistic and nuanced view than what I pieced together in a few hours. But I think we’d both would agree this sight is one of the world’s greatest offerings, and maybe that’s why you choose to ride the same Leprechaun-themed bus everyday, regurgitate the same introductions, and face head-on the unknown of what brazen accessories your next group of tourists may don.
I heard Mr. Collins retired recently, maybe he’s back here too — trading sunny California for this cold, wild, breathtaking view.
My inspiration for this series, Letters to Strangers, comes from the compilation of the same name by Colleen Kinder. She writes:
“We spend so much of our lives in the company of people whose names we’ll never know, people we’ll never meet again. How rarely we honor them. How rarely we admit to ourselves the strange, unannounced ways they can lodge inside of us.
These essays don’t say, I knew you. They say, I never really knew you. They confess their own partial gazes. They open up territories we didn’t know we had inside of us. They offer themselves as vessels for our least official ghosts.”
Memory is imperfect, romantic, and often a reflection of ourselves. Writing letters to strangers allows me to embrace this semi-reality.