Ireland Part II
My journey overseas has begun, though it doesn’t feel like a beginning. It seems as if the year itself has been a continuous journey onwards into future unknowns, no one adventure starting or ending, but all of it part of one long story. It began with the freedom to choose, and from there, there were only more choices going on and out like a road.
I like the feeling of having choices, of constantly discovering what more there is to be found and experienced. In this way, life is not so linear, not so coordinated. It jumps from place to place; it makes itself known. Life is about discovery and understanding, and then about relearning it all again. My hope is that this trip overseas will not have such distinctive beginnings and endings either. My hope is that it will go on as a way of life, that I can go on exploring and living each day as if it is a moment of discovery, a chance to learn something new.
My field guide for this journey has been a little volume I picked up in Washington when I was there this winter. It is a book called, A Field Companion for Wandering by Conner Bouchard-Roberts and was published by a small press called Winter texts. In it, Roberts writes,
“Being lost is being submerged in unknown signs and symbols. Wandering is moving past and through, around and within these symbols.
The shape winds and circles back and zigzags down back roads and hostels and homes. An aimed aimlessness.
Admiring and observing all that’s in the world without committing yourself to any one thing: noticing, acknowledging, reflecting and letting go.”
I feel like I am in a time of wandering. I shall not commit myself to any one thing. I am open to the world and the world is open to me. Perhaps this is why I have felt at home in every city I’ve ventured, every town I’ve paused in for an afternoon, every land that my feet have trod on. Being open to these places means seeing the world without boundaries, and in a way, I see it all as my home. I bring a part of myself to those new places, and in return, the world reflects something new back to me. I’ve spent the last month traveling around Europe, yet after a month, I do not feel tired, I do not feel a longing for home. I do not crave a space of my own, only a new place to see, a new lens through which I can understand myself and the world.
It began in Ireland. Among the seascapes and the windblown vegetation, I saw something of myself, and I was surprised at the reflection. Though I was thousands of miles from where I’ve lived all my life, Ireland was comfortable and familiar. I understood myself on a deeper level while I was there. I could feel my roots leading me to a place of deeper past, deeper knowledge. I saw myself in the hearty landscape. I understood my unruliness, my rootedness, my connection to mud and sea.
We made Galway our home base and traveled on day trips from coast to rocky coast. Each turn showed me more of my homeland, the place where my relatives had once been born. The dells were green with the shades of another life. The air was dampened by the ocean. When the sun shined, it brightened the buildings and made everything glossy.
In Galway, the city sparkled, colorful as it had been the first time I visited. Whenever the rain hit, there was always a pub or a cup of tea waiting around the corner. Galway feels like a city that smiles, there’s something altogether friendly about it, and the more I travel, the more I realize how rare and pleasant this is.
When I had the time, I would walk the back alleyways and through the main streets where people gathered. The energy of it intrigued me, I wanted to see more. I liked the street performers with their guitars and Irish folksongs. I liked the air when the weather was clearing. I liked that tea was served more readily than coffee, and that there was a selection of soup in almost any establishment. It was a cozy city, friendly to the traveler and the local alike.
At the weekly farmer’s market, I asked where I could find a book about Celtic mythology and was directed to a historic old bookstore. Charlie Byrne’s looked unassuming from the outside, but within was a treasure trove of volumes old and new. The air was thick with stories and soft light and the smell of pages being turned. I browsed as long as my travel companions would let me. From the corners of the room came the voices of old authors whispering lightly. Their pages were like dear friends.
On busier days, we took day trips out of the city. We drove out to County Clare, saw the rolling sea against the cliffs of Moher where the sun glinted and sparkled over the landscape. It was a bit different from the last visit, and a treat to see in such ideal conditions. The sun illuminated a new view all the way up the trail. Despite the heatwaves in other parts of the country, Ireland was pleasantly cool. The fierce breeze shook our hair and twisted our scarves, recalling rougher winds from storms of the past. The Atlantic was at work. As we climbed the path, we could hear the traditional music of a flutist from below, as if the melody were rising from the landscape itself.
Another day, we made our way up north towards Donegal where we found yet another edge to the land. The Slieve League cliffs dropped perilously towards the turns of the ocean depths, but the sheep didn’t seem too concerned.
Along the trail up to the cliffs, I breathed the sea air and felt the mist rising as the day wore on. The clouds were lifting over the mountains, the sky growing a saturated, forget me not blue. The sea was everywhere. I could’ve sworn it was in the air, the shifting tides sending waves into the sky. Each steppingstone put on a robe of moss. At the peak, the wind blew so hard we had to duck our heads and watch our steps.
We stopped along our drives, letting the spirit of the wandering road take us into villages and towards ruins. The Sligo abbey cut a crooked crust of shadow through the misty sky. Towards Killybegs, we stopped to find rooms for the night, and instead discovered more ruins among the battered seacoast, out where the cows grazed. The coast was rough and hearty, even the plants looked fierce and beautiful. It helped me to understand how something could be both earthy and elegant, how the limits of beauty extend into places we dare not go. In nature, there is no right or wrong way to be. Upon the cliffside, the flowers grew thick skins and prickered leaves and caught the mist in their briars. The beauty in the landscape was underscored by a certain toughness, the land and its determination to survive.
Soon, after trudging through the mud and the drizzle, we happily warmed ourselves with a pub meal. Watching the rain pour on against the windowpane, we filled ourselves with warming food, the kind that nourishes your bones and thaws a chill. I was sated by the family meal, and by the time spent in the pubs where voices rose like choruses to a jolly folk song.
Ireland felt like a folktale, like a fable that’s been told and retold. I could remember the foods, the songs, the smells of the ocean and the wind, almost as if I’d been brought up on them. Each step, each new region brought me closer to a part of myself.
On our last day, we drove up through Connemara National Park. Sheep ran alongside the road and mountains rose like cathedrals in the distance, sparkling when the sun came out. It was one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen, and certainly the wildest. We made our way to a small sheep farm in the middle of nowhere, beyond the hills and the shaggy grasslands. There, we were treated to a sheepdog herding demonstration, watched as one of the farmers sheered a sheep with his own two hands, and then fed the lambs bottles of milk.
As we drove away, the sun came out and illuminated the fields, dewy from the rain. We were treated to a few Irish rainbows on that drive, omens of luck for the road to come. The wandering spirit sparked within me, I let go of the Irish fields, moving past and ahead to the next new turn in the road.
