Homesickness.

My ticket home was booked earlier today. My amazing mother handled everything and is using some precious air miles to fly me from Dublin to London to Los Angeles and, finally, to San Francisco. I'll be home by midnight on April 4th, and I couldn't be more excited.

When I graduated college, I was determined to do something other than stay in Santa Cruz or move back home with my parents, and when that entailed moving across the country I honestly didn't think twice. Job opportunities were scarce, and facing the bottomless pit of job applications seemed so futile that, when my friend presented me with offer to move in with her parents in New York, my only thought was, sure- it wasn't like I had anything better to do. 

Except that I did. I had a spectacular boyfriend, amazing friends, a family that I actually got along with and enjoyed spending time with, an entire community and a home in one of the most beautiful towns in California. But I didn't see any of that- all I saw was the opportunity for a more exciting story.

I don't regret my time in New York one iota. I could write poems about that city for the rest of my life and never truly capture the mystique it instilled in me. It was ugly and beautiful and the reflection of millions of achieved and failed dreams and I loved it. But being there did teach me about the value of what I had left behind.

Before I got on that airplane, it hadn't even occurred to me that homesickness would be an issue, but before too long it became an accepted part of my life. I missed the support of my family, the companionship of my friends, and the unexpected quirks of a social life that I thrived on. I missed my best friend and boyfriend, and the wasted hours we spent together. I made some friends while I was there, but none of the relationships I forged could hold a candle to the trusted camaraderie that had been cultivated over years of mistakes, acceptance, and silliness.

By the time Conor came to visit me in New York, I ached for love, for someone who really knew me and all my faults to share this city I had fallen in love with. Our time together didn't disappoint, and by the time I got back to California I felt the relief of an addict. A week with my Santa Cruz family and a week with my mom and dad in my hometown filled me to the brim with gratefulness and appreciation for the people in my life. Every cup of coffee and night out left me on the verge of Oscar-acceptance style weeping- "Thank you, everyone I'm with -in fact, everyone in this bar- for making this life spectacular!"

I managed to subdue my qualms with excitement on my flight to Ireland. I was so excited for the opportunities I was about to have in a country I had always wanted to visit. I haven't been at all disappointed with the beauty of the landscape or the people, and I'm doing work I'm really passionate about. A lot of my highly skilled friends are working in coffeeshops and restaurants right now, and I'm in awe at the serendipity that led to my current surroundings. 

Still, I am anxious to return home. I've always believed in being where you are with the people you're with, and I continue to try and live by that rule every day, but it's more difficult now than it used to be. My heart is at home. I knew I would learn things about myself on these unexpected journeys, but I never thought this would be on the syllabus. 

There are a hundred places left in this world that I want to see, but since I've started my adventure I've learned where my true north is. 

A Million Shades of Green and Grey.

I feel like I should apologize for all the landscape photos in my posts, except it would sound something like, "I'm sorry, it's just so incredibly beautiful here and I can't stop wanting to capture nature in all its glory," which isn't really an apology, and in fact you can definitely expect more of the same for the next month or so. But seriously, how gorgeous is Ireland?! 


Last Saturday Noémie and I went on another roadtrip, this time to Sligo. Sligo's only about an hour and a half from Killala, but being adventurous we took everything but the main route to get there. We drove out on random "roads" (paths that happened to be wide enough to fit a car) looking for ocean. At one point we were driving along and spotted what looked like a crumbling tower. We took the next road and sure enough some ruin was slowly and forlornly weathering away. We climbed through the front door (not very difficult as you can see) and spent several creepy minutes inside.


On a side note, this kind of activity of finding some random yet exquisitely preserved and completely ignored monument just chilling in the Irish countryside is very common. I've asked Morag about this phenomenon, and she said that County Mayo is especially horrible at paying any attention to its history. These gorgeous and ancient buildings are given the minimum amount of safety precautions and then let alone. On one hand this is AWESOME because the 12-year-old inside of me freaks out at being able to fully explore a 600 year old abbey or an ancient watch tower no holes barred. On the other hand, I often wish there was some sort of plack or something letting me know a little about the building I'm crawling over. Still, it's very very cool.


Sligo was adorable and we got to watch some crazy people try to maneuver some midget kayaks up the river that ran through the town. We also drove out to Strandhill, a small village just south of Sligo.  We conquered a giant sand dune and were rewarded with spectacular views. Right around the bend was Connemara, home of some prehistoric tombs. Since it was off season, I described the site as "closed", but Noémie described it as "free" so we hopped the fence and had a look around. Our delinquency was rewarded with spectacular views... of what looked like piles of rocks. Oh well.


We drove back through the country and stopped by the lovely Lake Talt. Our day finally ended with a photoshoot I've been meaning to have in a beautiful cemetery I pass every day on the way to Ballina. In the last photo, everything about that statue was perfect (including carved buttons on his waistcoat) except for his face. Creepy, right?


P.S. Can you handle the cuteness of those cats we made friends with in Easky?! Because we couldn't. Especially me. I was barely able to hold it together long enough to take that photo.

the value of stuff.

in the past five years of my life, i have moved seven times. this week, i've been preparing for numero ocho, and i've been reflecting on what i've learned:

1. the amount of crap you will accumulate is directly proportional to how long you live in one place.

i moved yearly during college. each time i was faced with dedicating precious spring time hours to packing my junk in boxes, i adopted a strict and monkish dictum: if it's not absolutely vital to your happiness, it goes. i always wound up giving away or throwing away mounds of stuff i had no idea i'd tucked inconspicuously away (the amount of crapola i pulled out of the closet i lived in freshman year was especially shocking). pieces of costumes i'd worn to parties, old essays, photos of kids i'd parted ways with, broken things, dirty things, things i'd used once and had kept around 'just in case'- all the stuff that, unless you're lucky enough to be one of those fastidious people that thoroughly cleans their living spaces on the regular, gets pushed to the backs of drawers and stuck behind things you use every day. it's miraculous the stuff you'll learn to overlook the longer it decides to make camp. 

however, in the last year i've moved three times. during the periods of settlement, the memory of the previous move clung to me. fear of the impending forthcoming move and "stuff accumulation" became my constant companion. it became clear that if i owned something, it meant i had to move it. believe me, it changes how you look at shopping.

2. things, with a few rare exceptions, are not memories.

all that stuff i mentioned under lesson #1? i'd kept most of it around because at the time, it meant something to me. we are a species that likes our mementos. we keep ticket stubs from concerts, bottle caps from a beach bonfire, place cards from weddings. it's fine if you're a person, like me, who likes to hold on to a little bit of the moments we've treasured. but guess what? that stuff is a pain in the bazeejus to move from place to place. and more than once, i've completely forgotten why i decided some random thing was so important to me at one time. i keep one shoebox for the little things that really are special, but with space at a premium, it forces me to consider long and hard which souvenirs are worth keeping. i've found that most of my great memories stand on their own, and don't need anything to hold them up. for the all the rest, i've learned to take pictures like a crazy person, and back up my hard drive.

and finally, the cold, hard truth...

3. stuff costs money. 

every time i've had to purge my bellongings before i move, i end up throwing away and donating a ton of stuff. it's heartbreaking, because even though i spent my own cash on those items, somehow between then and now they've come to mean nothing to me. i've also discovered that most things have no resale value to speak of. it does feel good to donate to the needy, but a few boxes every year? from one person? after being affronted with a physical symbol of my waste time and time again, i knew my lifestyle had to change.

i've grown to loathe the impulse buy. if i spot something i think i want, i've made a habit of walking around for 20 minutes to see if i still "need" it. more often than not, the feeling fades.

i've also developed a sense of value for the items that i buy. firstly, i assess whether or not an item i've been lusting after is really worth the price. just because i want it, does not mean that money is no object. on the other hand, if i want something to last me a long time, i buy the best quality i can afford. i end up saving money in the long run because i don't have to replace it. 

"stuff accumulation" has become my enemy, but i'm still learning how to practice avoiding it. my constant goal is to be able to put everything i own into my tiny acura and be able to hit the road at a moment's notice. as i size up the pile once again, i know i still have a ways to go. 

but at least my suitcase zips.

JFK->SFO->JFK->DAA.

oh. hey. fancy seeing me here. it's been a seriously long while. 

reader, if you do exist, i'm amazed you're here too. to even for one minute think that anyone would, after this obscene amount of time, ever wistfully type my long-forgotten url into their search bar, hoping for how ever long their internet connection takes to bring them to my small and dusty corner of the internet that perhaps that one girl they used to know or read had written something about what she'd worn that day and maybe posted an amateurishly posed photograph or two, only to have their hopes crushed because, apparently, she continues to be stuck in some sort of limbo where she is perpetually vacationing in l.a., is far, far more than i would expect. or hope. or dare to dream. i am just not that cool.

you do deserve the full story though. but maybe later. it's been six months after all, and a lot has happened. the frame work for the story is that i moved to new york city. well, i moved to yonkers. and although my abode was a scant three miles from the bronx, and it only took me 30 minutes to step out into grand central, yonkers cannot be considered part of the big apple. i did spend an awful lot of time in the city. i loved it mostly. i was frustrated quite a bit too. it struck a note of poetry and adventure within me and a KO to my bank account. it was great. i promise i'll tell the best stories when the moment's right. but i don't really have time right now because i have to take stock of my life and possessions again before i head off to ireland for a few months.

yup. land o' ire here i come.

it happened like this:

shipping your stuff across the country is awful. really. it's so horrible that between that sentence and this one i spent a good five minutes trying to illustrate how horrible it is with a metaphor, but after running through my cache of things that really really really really suck, including writing a twenty page term paper the night before, having the flu on a bright and beautiful saturday, and realizing that you've traveled for an hour in the wrong direction, i still couldn't think of anything that accurately compares. again, i promise, more on how much shipping things sucks and why i'll never do it again later.

also, when you move across the country, without a doubt the u.s. postal service will screw up your forwarding address and end up sending your stuff all over the neighborhood. after a week of not receiving a certain magazine, i decided i'd follow my housemate's suspicion and go next door to see if it had been mailed there by mistake. it had, and while we were chatting up my new neighbor, a slightly frazzled woman comes down the stairs, dragging a large suitcase and looking like she was pretty sure she'd forgotten something but couldn't remember where or what. my neighbor explained that she was a friend and historical fiction writer who was promoting her newest novel in the city. the lady-novelist introduced herself as morag (pen name: kate kerrigan) and explained that she was about to take a research trip to fire island for her next work. what popped out of my mouth next may have been my single most enlightened bit of self-promotion to date:

"wow! you write historical fiction? i'm a history major. do you need an intern?"

and she did!

i helped her out as best i could while she was promoting her novel, Ellis Island, in new york, and started doing research projects for her when she returned to ireland, where she lives with her husband and two sons. we ended up really hitting it off, and she liked the work i was doing for her, and turned out to be a totally fascinating lady, and while i was doing my best to do my best and not be completely ga-ga at the opportunity i had been given, she up and invites me to come and do research for her over in ireland while she finishes her next book. how crazy is that?! 

so that's where i'm going. on monday. and i haven't even begun to pack. again.

and that's why i'm back. my life is a little more interesting since we last saw each other, and working for a novelist has inspired me to start writing a little bit more. i'm excited to catalog my adventures for myself, my family, and my growing network of friends around the world.