I pulled out a journal I kept from a vacation I took as a teenager ( when I was researching as a writer before I realized that was what I was doing).
Before my senior year, a high school friend invited me on her six-week trip to Ireland to visit her grandma in Limerick and her aunt in Dublin. I spent every last dime I had earned on the airfare, counted myself fortunate, and stepped on the plane with her. I immediately fell in love with this land of my ancestors.
I wrote in the journal to remember. I wrote for the future–to taste that trip twice knowing how way leads on to way and that I might never get the fortune to return.
Rereading my thoughts, I wish I had recorded more detail. I have questions for myself.
The journal has been toted from home to home over the last forty years until I cracked it open today. While Man in the Mist is set in Scotland, I thought I’d share a few of my random thoughts I wrote from my first visit to the UK.
…many people are out digging up turf which is like peat moss, I suppose, and when it is dried, it is used for fire-heat. People like the smell. I think it’s awful. People rent land for a year and dig out squares for their personal use. We saw all the piles of it, like haystacks, drying.
Walking along the lake…I felt…a soft brush as from a piece of suede. I unconsciously awaited the next touch.
The sky was dark, threatening rain when we arrived, and it all of a sudden changed and the sun sprinkled over the area making the ripples of the water appear to be dancing.
Gran [my friend’s] got such a kick out of my dad’s grandfather’s immigration papers that she said to tell my dad she put them right under her picture of the Pope and she plans to frame it soon and show all her friends. She particularly liked the part that said something like “and he breaks all ties with Britain and Ireland of whom he is now a subject particularly with Queen Victoria her Majesty. She reads it over and over and giggles. I think more inside than out.
Poteen—moonshine—as Gran calls it. She gave me some this morning to make sure I could say I had experienced some. She said, “Oh, you know this is illegal. I don’t even keep it with the rest of the liquor.” She calls it a spirit. Mary asked her where she got it, and she replied, “Oh, that’s a secret.” We also had a traditional breakfast of Irish sausage and pudding and some Ovaltine.
After mass, I decided to be by myself. I wanted to be—just to be—so I sneaked off and sat at the top of the hill behind the house which is the edge of the school’s concrete playground. I sang songs, ones I knew, ones I made up, and ones I didn’t even know I was singing. My mind rattled from one thing to another, from here to there. I found myself staring at the birds in flight, the large field filled with yellow and green weeds, at the pebbles on the ground, my shoes, the people walking by, the sky as it seemed to get darker faintly. All the while, I was playing games—throwing rocks up and hitting them with a stick. I had no idea what time it was, nor how long that I could have spent there. My realization of time faded.
As I’d think of home, I’d find my eyes filled with tears. Deep thoughts. It was an inspirational time mainly because I was with myself and I inspired myself. I believe there are times when you just have to listen to yourself. I tried to do that, listen to all that my mind has been trying to say to me. Some of it was good, some wasn’t. Some I could explain and some I could not. It helps me to keep going to live with others, if at times, I can find myself, to shed everything and start again. I kept hoping my grandpa and dad had enough sense to stay out of the heat and not mow the lawn. Then I’d totally switched and scared myself by asking myself, “How in the world are you going to handle next year—school, money, job, volleyball, and plans for college?” Then I’d yell at myself for being mean and then pat myself on the back remembering how I try to be gentle and helpful. I came out in the end liking myself and hoping others did, too. It was nice to be alone.
My mom wrote…and said something I think I’ll never forget. She told me “vacation is a frame of mind.” How so very, very true. One must always remember that. I hope she is still on vacation when I get home.
That trip was remarkable. Besides realizing that I liked milk with my hot tea and biscuits (cookies), I learned the adventure of travel and the grand stories I can collect.
