Where I long to be

A year ago today I returned from a month in Ireland during some of the strongest storms and highest tides on record for that part of the world. Winter on the west coast is tremendously windy and bone-chillingly damp, constantly fluctuating between bright sunny skies and pelting rains. At the same time, it remains spectacularly green, laced in never-ending rainbows. Nature amplified.

Originally, I planned to stay two weeks to visit my son who was studying nearby at the Burren College of Art (below), and also to work on my latest book, a story I was struggling to tell.
 





The rent for my simple cottage was inexpensive and I lived on delicious soups & stews from the corner pub, where a peat fire continually burned. Every afternoon, no matter the weather, I walked and walked across farms, up dirt roads, down hidden trails, and along the sea.

Within a few days, people in the village began to recognize me as the outsider and often asked how I was getting on. A bus north to Galway and south to the Cliffs of Moher ran daily if I needed a break. I  had developed a routine and it was working.

At the end of two weeks I was close to finishing the first draft, so I made a crazy decision and extended my trip another two weeks, something I’ve never done before. But I was officially in the zone – and anyone who writes fiction for a living knows how precious that rare space can be. And something else had happened…. I had fallen in love with Ireland, and I couldn’t bring myself to leave.

 

I know of no English word to describe the way I feel about this ancient island, but in Portuguese the word is “saudade” – an inexplicable deep longing for some one or some time or some place no longer with you, a yearning for something that might have been.

 Is there a place where you long to be?