ireland

spring oozes from the february clouds of dublin as undecided snow rain. i’m easily caught up in the melodrama of runways and letters home. i am travelling alone and i under-packed one bag. my sense of adventure nods with approval. i need to walk for long hours, to sort through the imagined chaos of the city created upon arrival by me.
i go back and forth across the bridges of the liffey, my coat smelling in the wet. in between the landmarks, buildings are being torn down. construction workers step over their lunch wrappers and go back to rebuilding a metropolitan. chain stores grab at the old fishing villages, where resistance has been unravelled by ambivalence and poverty. i feel myself shrinking in the generous urban spaces, in the constant cold. my solitude feels desperate here, like a broken window covered in plastic.
on the third day i decide i need to see land that hasn't been measured for urban furnishings yet. the girl with the swedish accent and perfume asks me what i'm going to do. i bend over to get my shoes that will do and i'm going to howth because it doesn't look that far on the map.
in the suburbs of dublin, there are cars and television. there's inky green moss on the trees. the tradition i was looking for in dublin has been haphazardly tucked away here in mailboxes and church ruins.
i put in three hours of trekking before i reach the borders of howth. the sidewalk shakes off the matching garbage can and turns into a path that runs towards the water. the dublin bay climbs onto the salty skirts of the ocean. the mountains of dun loagdaire and dublin rise on my right. the toasted wheat pastures of howth on the left gently bump the sky.
i walk more to the cliffs, perched like sleepy hermits along the beach and climb up their rocky, knobbly knees.
a man approachs. stops next to me, squinting in the sun with hands and a camera on his hips. he's got sweat on his designer glasses. he asks me, in the heavy tones of a german accent, if i am going further and i shake my head.
we share the one, thin path back and he is aghast that i am turning around so soon.
"too bad we did not meet earlier. i could’ve taken you to the other side of the peninsula. but now, you must get home before dark and I must make dal for my irish friends.”
he praise mes, though, for walking so far, for travelling alone, and for reading poetry.
“i think you should live in europe. it is much more interesting.”
i'm not really sure how to reply or whether i am even supposed to. i tell him it was something i could say i would like to do.
“you could write here and i would envy you. i don’t have enough grasp on any of the languages to speak to write expressively. to express myself.” i nod, feel the same. thinking of how difficult it is to extract images from myself, that don't get pale and dull after i've been carrying them around for a while, trying to find the right sentence to put them in. i agree to walk him to the train station and write down my e-mail.
we are consoled by the landscape, the crumbling walls and the humped cattle. and the laughing sea that lets us come and go as we please, that never asks our names. but it brings us to those who do, who save us from drowning in the crowd.

Dublin, Ireland