I’ve learned that without rain, and plenty of heat
Irish summer can overwhelm with blooms.
My lips melt with the velvet
Of pale yellow primrose.
With hawthorn blooms lacing the roads,
My heart skips and breath catches.
To that end, I’ve learned the tenderness I have toward
Their healing softness, amidst their spikes.
I’ve come to drape myself in seaweed,
Near orgasm as kelp kisses my toes, the palms of my feet.
I adore the magic of sea lettuce crisped in Kerrygold.
Cleaver water scoops me out, and reminds me -
We can let go of whatever’s ready to move.
I now know when returning lost lambs to their field,
To be mindful their bladders may tell me they’re afraid.
Better yet, the tiny babes seem near guaranteed to be most playful
As night beckons and the sky erupts.
Despite myself, it is possible to burn and find sunstroke
Even on the Emerald Isle.
I can feel when the weather will conspire with me
To offer fresh laundry dried with nothing but slices of sun and sea breeze.
How bed sizes don’t match what I know,
That there’s a leap from double to king.
How sometimes mechanics can be smarmy,
& others gentle and kind.
That it’s near guarantee that long journeys will be paused by
Tractors and tourists chugging along narrow peninsula roads.
Despite my best efforts, Irish produce violates my commitments
To war against plastic.
I smirk at my new panic if ever I’ve forgotten to turn off the immersion.
There’s a way to bond across generations in water,
Even when we’re worlds apart.
I bless firestarters, my savior when I otherwise fail to keep away the cold.
A hot water bottle, one of my dearest treasures.
I know now to avoid mixing white wine with
Pints of Guinness after oysters, even when joy tells me otherwise.
That I can use an earring to eat periwinkles.
At times, I may wake to runaway cattle,
& it’s neighborly to return them to an empty field, rather than allow them to wander.
It’s best to allow my foraging basket to rest upon return home,
So that creatures who mistakenly entered have time to flee.
She also told me that carrageen should be dried twice,
So that’s now the practice as I’d imagine she’s right.
I’ve learned that I can manage rejection,
And that knowing the truth is easier than avoiding a ‘no.’
I now know donkeys will eat from your hand,
& that I can forge friendships with heifers with song.
My instinct to stop my car and feet to greet the gals,
Slowing return home from the village and strand.
I now know that some charges won’t be accepted from a non-EU credit card,
& I have friends who will float me when that is the case.
I also have evidence that if something isn’t working,
I can admit it and make a change.
I’ve (re)learned that I can sense things, and notice - even if first resisted.
I can adapt, even when I’m tired.
Better yet, when I’m told that I don’t belong,
I can choose not to believe it.
And though I may be impatient, I can find friends
Inside plants, sunsets, waves on days human ones are scarce.
Now I know to leave a note on the dash after a swim.
Otherwise, onlookers may call the coast guard
& I’ll nearly die from mortification and being now known
As not only the foreigner, but the one raising hell upon arrival.
My hands are learning how to shape willow into baskets.
I love how I can find friends anywhere, changing plans
Every time I’m re-remembering that one pint is never
One pint.
That sometimes the barman will admit the next day
The Green Spot was really Jameson
My story is that I despise Jameson, but after a few pints, it’s all the same.
Irish men can be absolutely unhinged in ways I never knew
Like wanting a child, just for the craic.
I can name my abuse as a child more freely here,
Having met survivor after survivor - sharing the truth upon first meeting.
The way our bodies were groomed and violated at 5, 8, 11
We can have our very own buailteachas, scaling a pathless mountain after a pub blow out
& find beauty past the hangover.
Marveling together at how much life is on the other side
Of letting the secret go.
As the grief of the coming winter creeps back in
I now know when the rain and wind return,
I can still find beauty, even as I’m pelted and thrown asunder.
As the daylight shrinks, my familiar rhythm of ache this time of year returns.
It’s softened by calling in to friends to share news & karoke with neighbors.
The ever full trays of foraged treasures to tide my spirits through the darkness ahead.
At the moment, there’s hawthorne berries, field mushrooms, and dilisk drying in my tiny kitchen.
As I brace for the test of my first Irish winter, I write these learnings so I don’t forget;
The light always comes back.
