two hundred. twenty seven.

These past few days I've spent holed up in Chris & Steph's apartment as they're on vacation.
My aim was to get some real writing done, to finish several projects that I've just been blankly staring at, lock myself in a room until I emerge triumphant and all that. Whenever I have these lofty goals, real problems start to arise.

For one, when I spend a lot of time writing, I begin to ask myself: "Who are you kidding? What are you playing at?" Because it feels like I'm pretending to be a writer sometimes, but instead I'm just sitting on the floor going through huge mugs of black tea and jars of Nutella, and saying things like "plot holes" as if they mean something.

For the blessed moments where I forget about myself completely - it's good.
Little things spur me on, like the artist I had just met and she asked if I was an artist as well.
When I said no, she responded with: "You're a writer," and nodded her head.
She knew. I wanted to hug her and ask her how she knew.

Anyhow. I've thrown the Nutella across the room so that my laziness will override my need for hazelnut, sugary goodness. I've refilled my mug. Turned Kim Janssen back on. Ready for another round. Cheers.

two hundred. twenty six.

i walk often and i'm reading three books, and one of them is about walking. it's excellent. all of my journal is filled with quotes from others recently, i've nothing of my own.

In Ireland no one ever really asked me what I did. As in, just after meeting someone your next question is: "So what do you do?"

If they did ask me, it was after several moments of preliminary conversation, establishing a base for who I was before asking what I did.

Does this make sense?

It was so nice not to be asked that, to have to tuck that question away as I was over there. People would call me out for using it: 

"You Americans, always asking people what they do, you all have to know what people do. It's a status thing for you. You have to know where I rank."

I've known that I hated that question, but never realized what life was like without it.
I'm so accustomed to feeling forced to ask that question to form any sort of initial relationship with a stranger, and so accustomed to feeling forced to answer that question in a comfortable, impressive way. 

You know what I mean by comfortable?

:: In order for our interaction to proceed in a usual fashion, I'll need to answer the question in a way that puts you at ease by leading off with an aspect of my life centered around my education or work at the time. 

Heaven forbid I shun convention and make you uncomfortable by giving you other sorts of information about how I spend my time, information that won't immediately compute. You might not know where to file it and how to respond. 

Here, we are all so task-oriented that we value the lives of others based on what they do.
If they spend their time in efficient ways, doing "worthwhile" things, like maintaining the pattern of a busy life. 

Ex: in a speech for a graduating class recently: "Get out of the slow lane, get into the fast lane."

Once, I had met this guy and like a good conversationalist asked him what he did. He said he was a financial analyst. 

I asked him if he enjoyed it, because that doesn't seem like the kind of job that someone IS, in the way that an artist or writer is usually both a job description and the defining essence of a person. 

He stopped for a long moment before saying, "You know what, no one has ever asked me that before."

In Ireland, the first question would most often be a "why" question, which is so revealing.

Instead of asking what it is that you do, ask why you are doing it. 

So, in the context of a traveler, they would ask me why I was traveling. And since I was traveling, why Ireland? 

Then more questions: what had I seen, what had I loved? 

They asked me if it was different than I thought it might be, if it was my first time out of the country. 

They asked me where I lived, if I enjoyed it there, if I would come back to Ireland. 

They asked me where I was going next, and proceeded to fill in any and all gaps with their own personal experience of Ireland, giving me suggestions and so much history. 

I love this way of being introduced to a person because you gain all sorts of insight into their character before peering into the mechanics of how productive they are. They knew what I ached for before they knew what I did for a paycheck.

And maybe it's too idealistic and grand to put it that way, but it did alter how I view introductions. Ask more "why" questions. Ask why when someone tells me they're a student or a teacher or artist or financial analyst. 

I asked a man in a pub why he was a teacher. Without missing a beat he said because it was important for him to preserve the language. He grew up on the West Coast, where people still spoke it in their homes, and it was a way of life that was too crucial to let go. 

It occurred to me then that if I had asked the financial analyst why he was a financial analyst, I don't know if he would have had an answer.

This is so much later than I meant to stay up tonight. Tomorrow we're building raised beds and planting lots and lots before running to find some water to sit by. These days. 

two hundred. twenty five.

Just like that it's all changed.
I've left the dear coffee shop for other things, and this blog will suffer, I'm sure, without stories about nose-picker Joe and such.
Tom the farmer gave me some daffodils before I left.
I clutched them tightly on the drive back home.
They nodded their sunny heads encouragingly because it's going to be ok.

To mark this transition I found a hill and sat on it for a bit, because when it's all altered I need good space and good sky, as if a clear view from horizon line to horizon line would lend me clearer sights into what was coming next.
I over thought a lot of things and then began simplifying them.
Living now in gracious uncertainty.

two hundred. twenty four.

I've been stalling from making a post about Ireland because, you know, it's only the place I've spent my life dreaming about. 

I can tell you that I did a pretty terrible job of taking pictures if we add up the moments I could have taken pictures and then look at when I actually did take pictures. 

But if there was music, I was too busy dancing and clapping. 

If the hills were nearly mountains, I was too busy driving (or nearly crashing). 

If the pub was quaint, I was too busy chatting. 

If the food was superb, I was too busy eating (minus the one picture I got of my stew. Mmm, and what stew that was).

I did a decent job documenting the trip in crazy bullet points scribbled across journal pages, words sharing space with random bits of flowers and moss that I would find too dear to leave behind. 

"What was your favorite part of the trip?" I've heard so many times. 

Usually I end up sputtering, making a lot of noises that signify deep thought and ending in a hopeless, shrugging silence. 

The silliest question. 

I can tell you a few things, only if you promise to understand that this is not the half of it, not the half of the half of it, and we'll talk more later. 

It was strangely surprising to me how real it all was when we first were driving (and lost, incidentally). Worried I had built it all up in my mind, I wanted to stop and kiss every low stone wall, every pasturing sheep, every old home with simple, clean lines. The music in the pubs, the stories we heard until too-late hours, the beer, the brown bread and smoked salmon - it was all really and truly. I kept saying stupidly "This is real life!"

Here, anyhow, are some of the answers I give to the impossible question of favorites:

The people dancing in the streets to the gypsy band in Galway.

The music in the pubs. So much music, everywhere.

The Guinness. Friends, it's real life.

That time we lifted some pub glasses. 

The one dear librarian with the glasses on her nose. She had to look over them to see the computer, and she moved so slowly that it took her a half hour to look up directions. Once we got there we discovered it still was not the place we had been looking for. But you've never met a dearer librarian.  

Speaking of poor directions...the hilarious amount of poor directions we received.

The ruins we crawled around. 

Talking to Stephen about the ruins he crawled around growing up. We also discussed Irish history and economics and language. 

Receiving maps of Sligo from the John the map guy, the cartographer who carries a bag of his maps with him.The man was an absolute gem, and has a website: johnthemap.co.uk 

The smell of the Long Room at Trinity College. 

The chills I got at Newgrange - partially from the wicked cold, partially from the incredible structure. So much to say about this!

The pub in Slane where the owner played us the U2 DVD from the concert he went to at Slane Castle. We all sang along. 

Speaking of singing along, I'll always associate "Ho Hey" now with the time we sang it with a room full of Irish folks at the top of our lungs. 

Ronan, one of my very, very favorite. He regaled us with tales of the pub he'd owned for the last 22 years, then walked us to our car to make sure we got out alright. 

The tea with milk. Always tea with milk in cups. 

The woods. So alive and eerie at the same time, what with the moss and ivy and crumbling ruins you'd find.

The rivers. 

Every perfectly delightful friend we made. 

There, that's enough for now. 

Now that I'm back I'm bracing myself for the future, trying to find signs of spring and remembering to love this land as well.

[And, of course, planning an extended return.]

two hundred. twenty three.

Life is a branch & it is a dove // handcrafted by confusing love

Where have I been?
Not here, clearly.
I've been on some trains recently, that's something. I make little notes of things to remember to tell you later, but I've been doing a bad job of it recently.
But on the train I wrote a few things down.
Nothing very interesting, but for some reason I find everything interesting on trains.
Ok, I pretty much find everything interesting ever.
Except March Madness.

On the train there is a man sipping something from a Two Brothers bottle. "I love Two Brothers!" I want to lean forward and whisper, but don't.
In front of him a young man hangs his head in slumber, hands clasped as if in prayer. I notice how clean his nails are. Peeking out the back of his rabbit fur cap is a single shy curl.
The woman in front of him plays solitaire on her ipad. I cannot see her face but her hands old, and she's a wizard at solitaire.
They all sit close to the windows on the bottom level, and it gives the welcoming appearance that they might be alright if you sat next to them. But see what happens when you do, how they shift uncomfortably in their seat and subtly let you know what an inconvenience your presence is.
I sit up top in the single seat, so that I can see farther out the windows when I'm pretending to read but really just watching people.
I sit in the single seat so that no one can mistake me for being friendly, even though I consider myself pretty friendly, or at least terribly curious which usually amounts to the same thing. But when I first started taking trains by myself when I was younger my Dad would make sure I sat in the single seat so he didn't have to worry about stranger danger. It's one of those funny things that stuck and now I habitually sit there without even thinking twice.

Perhaps I make it too grand, this life of mine.
This nonsense over strangers in trains.
Catching my breath over bridges and in cities and under stars.
I get teary-eyed at dumb things, like the cook next door giving me one of his stale donuts as we talk about traveling.
And the baby-faced college student customer who suggests a C.S. Lewis book club.
And the older woman who brings me a neck pillow for my plane ride to Ireland.
Certain songs and the starkness of this land right now stop me constantly.
Quite grateful. It makes moments of fear and doubt that much less significant, such simple blessings as reminders to not be afraid.
Tarry a little longer, friends. These moments are not to be missed.

two hundred. twenty two.

A song for someone who needs somewhere to long for - homesick

Walks these days are great.
& quiet - the quietest I can remember.
I felt offensive even whispering for Kanoa to keep up as we tramped through the snow. It began snowing moments after we arrived one day and we relished it, running where we would and sitting where we wanted. Twice I heard loud cracks in the forest, startled me. I had to comfort myself the same way I comfort myself when I'm alone in our house - by telling myself that it's old and is liable to make noises. There in the trees I was in a home-of-sorts and those trees are old, older than me, and given to shifting and cracking. Several times Kanoa would raise her nose to the air and I would raise mine too, trying to smell what she smelled.
I've come to love winter and arrive home unwilling to take off thick socks and warm boots.

Greg said some things today about walks and what we learn. "Participation," he said. "It's about participating in what we have. It means paying attention, being grateful."
We say similar things, but I think we mean it in different ways. Greg always says "You just have to get hip to it" which could mean any number of different things. He has an ominous way of talking sometimes, makes me feel like Greg knows things I don't know. He comes across like the crazy guy with the stringy hair, but gosh he's fascinating sometimes. He's hip to it. Whatever it is.

Nose-picker Joe is back from his travels and everyday he's digging. We had a great conversation about how cold weather matures people and how powerful literature comes from places where the writers have a season to be contemplative, when weather forces them inside, and the musings that come from the lingering darkness. But you know, I really struggled to take Joe seriously because I was so caught up with his nose-picking.


Change is slow but I feel it taking shape

I hope these next six months are as crazy as I think they might be.
Do you want to know something?
I'm going to Ireland!!
[I never use exclamation points because they seem awfully intimidating, but in this case I need them!!!]
Like a small child, I am ridiculously excited to have a flight long enough to watch a movie and eat free food.
I won't be there long, just a week, but I'll be there.
Holler if you have Ireland tips. I've been googling lots of random things in anticipation.

two hundred. twenty one.

There’s a blind woman  who lives on the house on the top of the hill that leads down to the lake.

She can remember how slowly the blindness came on.

Each day grew dimmer. Memories of her last days are caught in vignette, the edges darkening until there was no light or image left.

Each day grew louder and her feet had to learn to step without first seeing.

Now she lives alone by the lake.

The first time she made it down to the water by herself the wind blew through the aspen tree and the leaves all began clapping their hands for her.

She took a bow.

“Just because you cannot perceive the light does not mean there isn't light there.”

She reached her hand into the sunlit spot and felt the warmth.

She’s lived there for a year or two now and has been blind for five or six.

It set on when she was perfect and 28. She doesn’t know what she looks like anymore. She always used to ask her mother when she put her hair up: “Does it look alright?” Nervously, she would rake her fingers through. “Are there any bumps?”

Her mother would smooth the top. “None! You’ve adapted so well.”

She does her own hair now and asks her dog sometimes. “Fallon, does it look alright?”

He’d stick his cold nose in her hand to confirm.

“What’s the last thing you remember seeing?”

It wasn’t the last thing but it was the most important. She could see it still. The light grew softly from behind the tips of the pine trees. It was dawn and the horizon was all trees. They etched their way across the skyline and across her mind’s eye. She saw them often.

“Space,” she replied. “Just vastness – I can’t sense it anymore. Everything is so near, everything that I can sense is only within that reach. My eye could span farthest. I miss the sky.”

Sometimes she tilts her head up and opens her arms and it’s almost there; she can almost grasp the scope of the expanse.

But never quite.

“What does the sky look like today?” she’ll ask.

In the mornings she might forget, at first. She would open her eyes to darkness – always darkness. She’d blink several times before she remembered.

Several times when her mother came over to the house, random lights were left on because the blind woman would subconsciously turn them on when she walked into a room, a habit so familiar that she had no idea she had done it.

The hall light was nearly always on.

“It’s ok, dear. It lets people know that someone’s home.”