Side Quest Saturdays

It's the little stops and side quests that bring about the greatest sense of adventure for me. During the West trip, our bus stopped at Inch Beach and the Ladies' View, which were both my favorite stops of the day. Even the stop at the ancient burial site in Connacht, with the rocky landscape, was a highlight. I love the little adventures that have taken me off the beaten path and into the wonders of place. 

Since having returned to Dungarvan, I've tried to add these piecemeal adventures into everyday life, like when I went along to Cork even though I didn't get a tattoo. Or walking to the end of the stone wall by the Park Hotel, and stumbling upon a footbridge bridge on the other end of the Colligan river. Wandering brings about a joy that isn't found in the mundane. 

This past Saturday, when a group and I went to Cork, I got to spend time feeling out of place and lost in a city. Even though it was stressful and we missed one, and almost two, buses home it was so fun! Feelings of wandering or being lost help me to see in the present, when I'm not entrenched in the doldrums of routine. I've learned that a walk, best without a set destination, helps me to feel this even while in town. 

These little stops also create a more honest, and less touristy, experience of place and people. I've loved stopping at the cheese and fudge place (I honestly don't know the name) and walking to the Cove on the Abbeyside strand at low tide. Most of all, I've enjoyed the lessened stress of time and work. 

There will likely be no other uninterrupted chunk of time like now to travel and enjoy until I change from a retail schedule, which is a bit of a sad thought. Overall, I'm glad that I am studying abroad. It's helping me to see how much of life slips by in the duties and responsibilities, and how little side quests can help me to feel alive again. 

While travelling, the most important thing I've learned is to give myself permission to experience everything and have fun. A lot of the time, I resign to apathy and wait for something to be over, so I can go on to the next responsible thing (going from
classes, to a job, to home, and then to a second job). Though this attitude helped me to get through long days of work and school, I'm learning that I can enjoy the little bits of life if I frame them as an adventure or unexpected. 

So while I'm abroad and don't often have plans for the weekends, I'm declaring Saturdays as "Side Quest Saturdays," where I will go explore a new place, hike, or intentionally try something out of my comfort zone. It's exciting because it's new, but it will also help me grow. Cheers to a new day! 

These new days also reminds me of Yeats' poem "When You Are Old," where he describes an old person reading a book of times, or their memories. Though Yeats casts this person as sad, I also think there is a glimmer of pride in having once lived, loved, and experienced the everyday. 

"...And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;...And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars." 

These are my favorite lines because they are all about the evasion of memory, of life, and even of the present moment. As the person looks into the past, they remember and possibly misremember the days, but fail to live out the one they are experiencing now. Their being "full of sleep" is both about being old, tired, and keenly aware of time. 

I love literature that works with time and age in new ways. This time abroad, with its expansion and abstraction of time in hours and days, is a wonderful experience of suspension of everyday life and thought. 

Afraid of the Dark?

I've realized that I don't spend enough time in the darkness, after the sun has set, to sit and reflect. I'm often scrolling on my phone, researching a new hobby, and sleeping through the time to wait for another day. Since I've been abroad, I've been sleeping less. All of the extra time I'm awake, then, is given to these toils. 

Darkness's physical reminder of not being able to see asks me to look inside and deal with the more difficult, present ideas (which is usually why I avoid it, hehe). I think that's what a lot of the poets and artists did to reflect human experience. They looked both inward and out toward the world, and shared their perspective. 

Even in Yeats' poem "The Lake Isle of Innisfree," he mentions the serenity and fullness of night and day:

"And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, 

And evening full of the linnet’s wings."

He finds beauty in all these times of the day, and peace in all the states he encounters too. This becomes a hope for peace with all things, even those he cannot control: the linnets, the bees, and the glade.  Nighttime brings an extra warmth and comforting glow to any kind of light, too. It's a kind of beauty that I'd like to understand more deeply. 

Some of the evening strolls and hurling matches have been my favorite activities. I think it's because I am aware as the deep grey takes over the sky, and I accept it as it happens. Someone told me that the trip is about halfway over today, and it was another thing I was shocked to hear. Like the night, I knew it was coming, but am sometimes still in denial when it arrives. I'd like to take this blog post to recognize some new goals for the second half of the trip, and to reflect on the first half. 

4 Weeks of Adventure in Ireland so Far (approximated timelines):

- Week 1: Arrive, Intro to Irish Cultures, Dublin trip!

    - Exploring Dungarvan when everything felt exciting and new

- Week 2: Castle ruins, Giant's Causeway, amazing hikes

    - Getting familiar with travelling

- Week 3: Waterford Greenway, beach walks, Irish football

    - 22nd birthday, getting to know people in the town

- Week 4: St. Patrick's, West Trip, and day hop to Cork

    - Realizing that the best memories are made when travelling

Moving Forward:

- Reaching out: as I get more comfortable in the place, I want to reach out to others more (even though the anxious part of me grimaces as I write this). 

- Find more opportunities to travel, whether it be in little day hops/side trips or exploring! 

- A picture a day: to remember the little moments. 

- Trying new things every day: it's initially difficult to try something new every day, whether it be an experience, food, walking a new route, ducking into a shop, or running out to see dolphins. 

Maybe the Isle of Innisfree isn't a place: it's wherever you choose it to be. I want to try to experience
Innisfree in everyday life, especially while I'm here, and even in the darker days and moments. 

Yeats' Isle of Innisfree in Sligo, credit to Tom Bartel (Google Images)

Old Market Art House

I stopped in at the Old Market Art House in town yesterday, mostly for an assignment for another class, and got swept up in the art of the town. The gallery itself is cute, small, and quiet. I found myself in awe of the paintings of places I'd recognized and been. Even now, when I look up Dungarvan on Google Maps, I recognize all of the pictures that pop up. It's so strange to think that a place like this could so quickly be familiar and still unknown. 

I do not know the place in this painting below, but it was a dreamy representation of what Dungarvan might look like a few years ago. The sharp edges of the oil paint stood out to me like the strata of color in the Cliffs of Moher, and I'm beginning to see a continuity and connection between all things. 

Like, for example, when Gianna and I stopped to watch dolphins this morning, I realized that the colors within the water are suspended and mixing. The water I was experiencing was not just Atlantic Ocean water, but also all the water that has touched and intermixed over time, from the Pacific, Antarctic, and other smaller streams. It's a kind of experience that I do not have words for, but an experience much like Mary Oliver's realizations in her poetry. 

This connection, found in the fine lines of the artwork, becomes a paradox itself. Because the lines are what create the boundaries, sections, and moments apart from other colors. The fine lines add style and texture that set this painting apart from the others as my favorite. 

These thoughts got me to muse on Irish art as a whole, and to notice how lots of their artwork center on the politics, place, and connected themes of Ireland. There is not one place the writers knew better than their own, even from afar like Joyce and Yeats. As I reread sections of Ulysses, I'm brought into a sharper understanding of place and references because I've been to some of the streets in Dublin, know about the authors he references, and have learned a little bit more of the history his characters grapple with. 

I can't speak for all Irish artists, authors, poets, and creatives, but it makes me so happy to see that they all create for some purpose. It's amazing to step into an artist's work in process, or one moment of their career, and see how differently their path winds in the next work. I read a short collection of Yeats' poems, and a bit of the Celtic Twilight before taking this class. But, going through the poems in the Irish landscape, with all of the history and context waiting to be discovered, I find these poems so much more invigorating. 

The Walking Gardens

During the West Ireland trip in the past week, I uncovered a new interest: gardens. Specifically walking in them. Our stops at Kylemore Abbey and the Muckross House were surprisingly my favorite of the whole trip because of the history and ornateness of the gardens. They were peaceful! It was freeing to wander, uncover new areas, and be in nature. The idea that someone designed these for ambling made the experience of them like none other. 

I've been the type to plan a garden, but to let it fall to weeds in the late summer heat. The purpose of those gardens were always for food, and never for beauty and enjoyment. The gardens at these places were different because they were made for enjoyment. I was caught in the ideas of uncovering new paths, exploring, hearing the birds around me, and even in experiencing the garden in different speeds of movement: a stroll, meander, walk, jaunt, jog, and run. This wonder and curiosity helped me to reframe my experiential idea of a garden. 

Killarney House Gardens

This trip to the gardens also taught me to see the everyday beauty in discovery. I'm beginning to love walking every day, simply to explore and move, and got the chance to discover the Killarney House Gardens near the Dromhall Hotel. The sun rising over the morning dew, over the gardens and trees and swans, are pure bliss. I loved the little adventures I got to take solo and with others during this trip, as they were all about exploration and getting swept up in the current of things. 

It reminds me of Seamus Heaney's poem "Blackberry Picking" because of the changing beauty in each moment. I'll include it here: 

Blackberry Picking, Seamus Heaney

Moooving Metals on the Copper Coast

On Saturday, most of the group set off to bike the Waterford Greenway, which goes right along the beautiful Copper Coast. It was breathtaking, both the views and the bike ride! I ended up in a group at the end of the pack, and we split off to fix a bike malfunction, leaving the rest of the group to go ahead of us. For a while, it was just Ella and I, biking peacefully with many stops in between. We ended up biking around 11 miles, and Connor caught up to us later on. I loved being able to make small stops every once in a while to take pictures and bask in the sunlight, which made the entire trip worth it! 

My favorite stop was at a farmer's gate to take a picture with a cow! They started coming up to see us, and it was my favorite moment of the day. Yeats' poem "A Coat" reminds me of this experience, especially after going through a section with little faery doors:

"A Coat," W.B. Yeats (Poetry Foundation)

I made my song a coat 

Covered with embroideries 

Out of old mythologies 

From heel to throat; 

But the fools caught it, 

Wore it in the world’s eyes 

As though they’d wrought it. 

Song, let them take it

For there’s more enterprise 

In walking naked.

I love how witty this poem is, and how he describes his writing practice and thoughts through experience. The coat (the poems, fame, and so on) becomes something sought after, but not the experience of writing, which is such a distinction to make, because Yeats writes about how difficult writing is, for example in "The Fascination of What's Difficult."

Much like this poem, the experience is what I seek after. I don't want to come back from Ireland simply to say that I have been, seen, gone, but that I lived, experienced, communed with the land, people, culture, literature, food, and everyday life while abroad. 

Yeats' poem is a practice of presence, too. Even in his writing, he's in the present moment, as though he is captured and lived in these very words. But, there's a distinct sense that he's moved on from them as well, that the fools have moved on, worn the coat, and still not found the fulfillment they're looking for. In some ways, the acknowledgement of his self-consciousness about having written things people desire is contrasted with the self-consciousness and egoism of walking naked. 

Anyway--the Copper Coast might be another one of those aphorisms for a beautiful place, like Yeats' coat. Maybe renaming it and redescribing it are part of the reflection. But I think the experience of the thing, the day, the moment and moving from it to another can only be understood in pieces. I know those cows already have names, places, and purposes, but to me they are the living coats of that day. Maybe that's what experience is all about, though William Blake might not agree. I might have experienced the sublime that day, regardless of the focus on corruption, on the metallic leagues of the coast. 

America's Zoo

Since reading The Crock of Gold by James Stephens, I've been thinking about the myths I encounter in everyday life. Stephens' work is steeped in old Irish and classical myths, including leprechauns, fae, faeries, Angus Óg, Pan, and more. The blending of these cultural myths bring about the idea that cultures are changed, forgotten, and blended: they are dynamic, and never the same. 

My own encounters with American myths (though I use this term very loosely, as some of the figures are historical and their struggles real) began early, with Disney's American Legends film rented time and time again from the library. The characters are pictured here. This cartoon is about some of America's earliest heroes and is absolutely worth watching, as cartoons aren't made like this nowadays, and all of the fables are about success of, The American Obsession.

Our discussion in class about American myths brought me to think further about their role in American society, for people now. I can only imagine the role of the leprechaun for Irish people, let alone imagine it in a culturally appropriate way of understanding their relationships to this myth (or reality--who am I to decide). I've notice more and even more often that myths in American society are profited from. For example: the Paul Bunion chain of stores, Johnny Appleseed shoe sellers, the cowboy as the mascot for Levi's, among the many. 

Our American concept of branding and spending also recalls the idealized version of what Americans might see as myths. This shapes our ideals of success, image, and business around perfectly heroized ideals. In response to this discussion about The Crock of Gold, I wrote a poem about the way that America employs their legends:

--------------------

America's Zoo, Corinne (2025)

Paul Bunion sells onions 

on each cornersquare

and all else he's peddling

in meek psuedoculture

exists in legends, promised

as things sold un-a-wares; 

His giant hand stretches o'er 

land, on earth his heaven be,

doling prices and quantity at

market price paid by the free:

cherries, nickels, stones and sludge

dance haphazard step, he whips

each sunk and rotten pit into 

national-standard fee--

Oh don't forget the cowboys, 

Johnny Appleseed too, grinning

with unseeing teeth at riches

eating agenbite anew. 

Legendary profit--a dream 

wide as it's hairy brow--holds

myths locked in zoos, American

haunts, profits, screeching at bands

and bars, to a mythical you. 

------------------------

It might be a tad dramatic, but if it weren't it would be trite. I've been reflecting on the differences since leaving the States--and the lack of advertisements, commercial noise in public spaces, and noticeable  opportunities to monetize something--and all has astounded me. I didn't realize I was so entrenched in the American dream of profit. Now, I doubt I can go back to life within the commercial. 

The American dream implies that we are sleeping, docile, and most of all out of our mind. I wonder what the Irish myths say about Ireland, and if these meanings have changed over time, as our legends have. 

Dew Sweet

Dew Sweet

There's a peculiar sense of awe settling on the hills as morning dew. It's apart from the everyday curiosity because it stirs my soul to walk new paths of wonder. 

I've made an effort to walk daily, exploring the suburbs, rural hills and riverside baths to experience this awe. Being in this new environment feels as though I have stepped into a new frame of seeing the everyday. I've noticed, especially when reading Irish writers in Ireland, that the place becomes so much more tangible and real and integral. Though I've read a few Irish writers, there are so many more to read, and I'm eager to wander their well-trodden lanes. 

If there was ever a library that could take me through th eworld, it would be the Old Library at the Book of Kells exhibit. I was spectacularly in awe of the books, manuscripts, and history shelved there. There was also an exhibit of the earth in the library, a looming balloon filling the space between the buttressed ceiling and shelves, circling constantly. As it cast shadows on the visitors standing underneath, I saw how the earth and nature could make such an impression on people. 

These two scenes, however different in setting, explore the same subjects: the world around them, and the knowledge from its experience. I believe that every subject of knowledge, learning, and experience could fit under these two categories, be it religion, fantasy, politics, philosophy, physics, etc. But firsthand experience of the world and secondary experience by reading or watching are two vastly different things, which trouble the idea of learning and experiencing at all. 

Yesterday, I stumbled across a Gaelic poem that had been translated to English and I think it sums all of the natural world that Yeats describes (yet cannot every fully know) in the "dishevelled stars." It sums the experience of one week of study abroad, and the act of reading. 

Sweet Jam

There was a jam

On the doorhandle

But I pushed away the feeling

That rose up in me, 

Because I thought of the day

That doorhandle would be closed

And the little hand 

Would be gone.

     --Séamus Ó Néill

We take the steps without knowing what may happen, what we will feel, or what may come of it. But in the poem, the person stopping all of this exploration is holding the handle the entire time. In going to Ireland, we've opened up a door in a long hallway, ready to open all the other doors too. I also think that the way I act is out of habit, which eases the crisis of choice. I've learned, through reading and exploring, that it's in the choices everyday that we make and experience the world: yours, mine, Yeats', Ó Néill's, and such. Though we can never fully know the one outside of our limited understanding, I think it's good to try. 

I write and live and hope, as the title of the poem suggests, that the jam will be sweet.