Back From Ireland, Holding on to Then, Now.

I'm back from a most beautiful trip to Ireland and the sun and blue and cool air have, so far, followed me home. I felt lucky there because I saw blueberry skies when everyone said I should expect grey and rain. The incredible expanse of green didn't quite follow me back. The ground is silver and tar here. But the blue did. It did.

I hope the calm I felt there also stays. Spending that many hours on country road drives, climbing mountains, or standing at the foot of the shore breathing and thinking and being, everything wide and open, looking out, feeling as if all I saw could sail the dirt if it wanted to, it made me feel more peaceful than I have in a long time.

There came a moment, towards the end of my travels, when I realized I wanted to go home before the trip was officially over, which is a very rare occurrence for me. Usually, I have to be dragged away kicking and screaming.  But, this time, I didn't want to dig through suitcases for the shirt I had forgotten or sleep on the old, foreign sheets anymore. I wanted to be home and walk the familiar streets and hardwood floors of my real life. And it was the most amazing feeling, to want to return to all I have, but hold on to the calm I felt. I felt it was possible to do that then and I feel it is possible to that now and however that changes in the rush and crowd and squeeze of this real life, I'll try to remember how I believed in the possibility that it could be done.

Beyond that, I bought a fancy new camera and I loved experimenting. I'm looking forward to learning how to really use it in the coming months and years. These are a few of my favorite photographs of Ireland.

The beach in Connemara

Sky sparkle in Clifden

The Cliffs of Moher

Connemara National Park at the top of Diamond Hill

Sunset in Spanish Point

A sheep who posed just for me. 

 

Memory of Sintra

I woke up this morning and, for some reason, my head was here.  In Portugal at the Palácio da Pena in Sintra.  We walked the wet paths, clutching our umbrellas, through fairytale mist.  The lush woodlands carved out this picture of slippery yellow and grey, dripping to just a blur.

We took the train back to Lisbon and, the next day, my friend Lynn and I met up with Graça, a stranger to me and, up until then, just a woman who penned work e-mails to Lynn.  She was barely five feet tall, in a black suit one size too small, cheeks red and chubby.

Graça had a lot to say.  About everything.  Barely let us sneak in a word.  She led us through the streets, always marching many steps ahead, forced baked goods into our hands, analyzed event spaces (Lynn was there on business.  I was, as usual, observing...tagging along.) Her judgements were much bigger than her height.  She was unimpressed with almost all that she saw.

You went to Sintra yesterday? Her eyes huge with disapproval.  What a silly thing to do.  To see one of the most beautiful places in the world, in the pouring rain.


I don't know why I think of Graça and Sintra today.  But, for me, Sintra will always belong to the rain.

The Angel Oak

I took off for a long weekend to Charleston, South Carolina. For a long time, I had this idea that I was going to move there, without ever having been there. I had (and still have) a lot of romantic notions about the South, thanks to Pat Conroy and Margaret Mitchell. I thought (and still think) that everyone must sip their iced tea while sitting out on a veranda all breathless and sighing, I'll think about that tomorrow.

We wandered around the city of Charleston by foot and saw the gardens, the river, the grandiose homes. To my delight, I did see women with enormous sun bonnets and men in Seersucker suits. I lamented over the heat (96 every day) and sat on park benches fanning myself with my hand thinking where oh where is my lemonade? Someone pass the smelling salts before I faint!

At the very last minute of our day, we took a detour to find this live oak on John's Island. I've seen various reports of it's age (anywhere from 400 to 1500 years old) but I could not believe it's size, the way it sprang from the earth with it's mutant branches as if it could swallow up the sky. No matter how many times I have watched Scarlett O'Hara turn drapes into dresses, nothing could have prepared me for the Angel Oak. It was such an extraordinary sight.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday: At the market

It seems that all we want to do is see food. Marvel at it. Smell it. Take it home.

I should eat more cheese...

I just returned (begrudgingly) from an 8 day trip to Southern France. I had been to the area once before, but it was a short trip to Nice where my friend Lynn and I quickly realized that the entire town was closed due to Easter Monday. The following day we spent at a tennis tournament in Monte Carlo and the third day we walked an empty, cold beach front in Cannes before skipping off to Barcelona (ah the life of a study abroad student with a 3 week spring break!)


This time around, I was fortunate enough to have some locals show me around. Tyler's Aunt and Uncle moved to a small village outside of Nice called Montauroux 10 years ago and they were kind enough to put us up and show us the area. We also spent 3 days in a university town called Aix-En-Provence, which was extremely charming. We took day trips to Cannes, Fayence, Nice, Cap Ferrat, Avignon, and Marseille. We drove around exquisite mountain ranges, toured vineyards with amazing backdrops of said mountain ranges, sat for long hours at cafes, and walked through charming, narrow, cobblestone streets. The food was terrific, each view was more beautiful and breathtaking than the next, and life was generally smooth and easy (besides abnormally small parking garages, manic drivers, and a bit of a language barrier.)


Things were different there, as you expect it to be in a foreign country, and I left with a simple thought: It's a different life. Sounds simple enough, pretty much a no-brainer, a 'duh' moment. But, I really wanted to think about what made it different. Sure, New York City doesn't have sunny weather year-round, nice beaches, picturesque mountain ranges with Alpes in the distance. It doesn't have farms and sheep and vineyards and olive trees. But these are obvious differences when you compare a concrete jungle to the Mediterranean. The most noticeable difference was really and truly the pace of life.






In France, life seemed to be enjoyed over a longer period of time. People sat in cafes sipping coffee and smoking cigarettes without thinking about who they were going to meet with next. People ate dinners without tapping their fingers wondering how fast the food would come or when they would get the bill. People worked knowing they would have 2 hours in the middle of the day to be with their friends and family. People opened bottles of wine, buttered croissants, and sliced cheese without thinking about calories.

Perhaps it was only because I happened to be enjoying a period of leisure that I thought everyone around me was too, but I constantly sensed that time was spent in a much more relaxed way. I, admittedly, found myself growing impatient with the pace of life. I found it difficult to embrace the crawling pace at which time moved. I didn't want to reject it but I often found it hard not to.


Taking this trip made me realize that there is always a choice with how we spend our time. It may seem like it is always out of our hands. That there are obligations that require us to spend our time the way we do: "I have to be at work at 9" "I have to pay my rent" "I have to support my family" "I have to meet this deadline" But we only have to because we've required ourselves to think that getting to work at 9 and meeting the deadline are the only ways to fulfill our obligations. There are other ways to spend our days and accomplish our goals and do the things we've required of ourselves by the choices we've made. Sometimes it takes a new perspective to see that.


As the year draws to a close and we start a new one, I don't want to reject that relaxed sense of time. I want to find a way to use it so that I am not always thinking about the next step, the next meal, the next person, the next big thing. I don't want to force my time forward so quickly and frenetically. I want to be able to sit for long periods of time and enjoy the things I'm meant to enjoy.


Like cheese.