This spring we take to the open road traveling the old country of Ireland, ambling across farmland, seaside and urban street. Travel loosens the hardness of self and unravels time. When your day can take off in any direction you feel that you are not living life, but that life is living you. It is a time when the heart can be caught off guard and in a look, a turn of phrase, the whole world is spinning and somehow holding you aloft. It is as if a ball has suddenly been kicked in from the side and you are off in an open field, playing a game without goal but just for the sake of the run. On the trail overlooking Church Bay Beach and the Irish Sea in West Cork we meet a young girl with wild Foxglove blossoms on her fingers. We plunge into the cold cold sea not so much swimming but suspending, taking quick high breaths. We wander the county fair, listen to local tunes at the O’Donovan’s Pub, sit in the old stone church on a narrow wooden bench built for a child, saying silent prayers in the candlelight at dusk. We drive through the emerald hills, on roads so narrow you have to slow down or stop all together to let oncoming cars pass. They are tunnels of thick green hedges, and you never know what is around the corner. We go back in time at Drombeg Circle, an upright ring of standing stones dating to 900 BCE. In the company of the old pillars, you feel like someone or something else is with you, maybe watching you, old beyond years, gone yet present and that something is being handed down to you.
The paths we travel are well worn but in the mind of the traveler, they are always new. It is impossible to take in, yet impossible to turn away from. You see everything as in a sidelong glimpse, like looking out the back window of a traveling car looking out to the leaves, the faces, the signs and in a burst of inspiration you go after it.
