MeliGoesRogue

Eirinn Go Bragh. This Was the last thing my papa bear wrote to me as I made my way across the pond to Ireland. That phrase became so real to me as I settled into the countryside and rambled my way through her cliffs and valleys. I would return to the Emerald Isle a few more times over the next years and soon that phrase would change into a state of mind.

I returned to England yesterday. Another country whose lands I continue to reach out to for comfort and understanding. Much like that first trip to Ireland, I landed and quickly embarked upon the very long drive to the other side of the coast. I underestimated the weariness not only of my body but my mind and soon I found myself pulling off the highway and resting my eyes for just a few moments, careful not to allow them to turn to sleep. I continued on this cycle for the next 6 hours, stopping to eat, to rest, to cry.

Then just like that the roads lowered their head in reverence and revealed the mighty ocean and the cliffs below.

I had once again arrived at the edge of the world. I parked my car on the roadside as instructed, convincing my American side that this was the custom, assuaging my own fear of my car being taken. I looked around before I began to follow the directions to my new home.

“Make your way down the path to the Monument”. I knew the path would be a bit difficult, it was noted there was uneven steps and metal rails to assist and yet what I found was a tunnel of trouble. Emerging from this unscathed would take an act of God. I pulled my overnight bag from its resting place on my suitcase, lowered the handle and lifted. I would have to navigate this path with no hands, but even more frightening there would be no room for fear, it is always in the fear that I “lose my balance, graze my knee, graze my heart”. I took my time, leaning when I could, stopping to determine the safest rock to step upon. Just as the fear began to creep down my head to my feet the bushes that had hedged me in subsided and before me was that little cottage made of glass at the Edge of the world waiting to hold me.

I waited as long as I could before I gave way to the closing of my eyes. Slumber would arrive before twilight. The shades around the window barely able to keep out the sun that still shone late into the evenings. It made me wish for more energy and yet it reminded me of the girl who could not sleep until the Sun had risen. I had folded her into my heart and yet here she was demanding to be remembered. Perhaps more desiring for my adult heart to comfort hers. I obliged and curled deep under the covers my arms cradling my head and belly. I would stay this way till my breathing paced and my mind drifted. Soon I was deep under the cover of slumber. I had expected to sleep like that first night in Ireland, so desperate had I been for sleep that soon I had passed the acceptable hours and my hosts worried if they should rile me from the North bedroom. It was 15 hours before my eyes opened. I had never slept that much in my life. How did I feel so safe in an unknown country, in a home that belonged to strangers? I’m not sure the answer has come yet, but in its place has been the understanding that my true rest comes when I am no longer in a place that knows my name. Home is the place where I most guard myself, I think that part is obvious. There are dangers there that don’t exist with the chasm of water between us. Here is where my heart finds its rest, where my soul converts its desires into words and tears that flow like a waterfall.

I think this is why writers and artists tend to be creatures of solitude. Our hearts and minds feel and think deeply and those around us usually shun us or belittle us and our inability to create what they perceive to be healthy relationships and connections. How do we do that when every action brings forth a bandy in which all the spectrum of emotions rest. Nothing is by accident and every word containing a kernel of truth. In some way writers are much like scientists. Testing theories and working to prove something. Locked in a laboratory the only discernible truth is the one made thru a series of discoveries that build on each other, creating a base of understanding. Most of the time this is the part of me that vexes (Bridgerton vibes) people greatly, even if they don’t realize what “it” is. It’s not that I think so little of people or so highly of myself. It is that I have seen how far people will run to not hold their own pain let alone someone else’s.

Ok you know the deal by now….I jump around. When I was younger I developed a reputation for being a good listener. My mother called me “Mumford” ( I’ve discussed this before). My Godmother used to say I was a therapist without a degree. These are things they said about me as a young child. How had I so quickly adapted to listening to others, empathizing and offering comfort and at times guidance. When you are very young and are taught or told to keep secrets, you realize how devastated people must be in the world if they are all doing the same. I became willing to be a safe place for people because I didn’t have to imagine their desperation, I was living it. As I aged the weight of all these truths began to show, I became incredibly despondent and reckless. I had lost respect for the concept of family and friendship. I had found that they all betrayed and the safest place was within.

I’m not quite sure when I emerged from this unpaid position, I think some would say I merely went part time. Ireland was the first time I let nature be my Mumford. I cried out on roads, in tunnels, on cliffs and of course in pubs. A lifetime of emotions sprang forth from me in the safest place in the world. In the years that followed I would continue to travel annually my “big trips” as they were often referred too.

Three years ago I took a trip to France that resembled my first one. I rented a car and drove as many hundreds of miles of the French countryside that I could. Sightseeing by day and introspecting by night. At the start of the journey I had acquired a partner in crime, although he was not physically by my side I carried him with me, every night his voice was the last I would hear. I never took so many pictures of myself on a trip. There was a bliss, a certainty, a light in my eyes that I had not seen for such a long time. Words flowed but they were filled with love and hope. Wow that word was hard to write. I have lived so long without it. It’s not true by the way what they say that you can’t live without hope. You can be alive without it but thriving is out of the question, you simply exist passing thru the world and waiting for its end. See this is what I mean – some of you will read this and think “how dramatic”, but the truth is that perception truly is reality. The experiences that had made me a great listener had also made me a recluse of heart, mind and body. It was in France that I thought I had found a safe place in someone else but soon it would turn danger as so many others had before.

I was going to return to France this year as a do over. To try to make memories that weren’t colored by his name and his voice and all the things we had promised. But I could not return just yet, I needed more tears to fall before my eyes would clear and I could see the world without the blurring and pressing of Kleenex against my cheek. England would have to do.

I write this from the floor of the living room. The French doors before me opened wide while the rain stays just beyond the roof line. The wind is cold and the haze that hovers above the ocean causes its division with the sky to be indistinguishable. When

I began the sun was still shining and the tide had almost returned to its position tight against the cliff face, now the only light is from my screen, the water falling all around me. I am tired again. My mothers voice the last decibels ringing in my ears, gravity pulling me deeper onto the floorboards and the wine has finally made its way to my nervous system. Sleep beckons and I must oblige.

I leave this here – something I heard long ago that might finally be making sense. “Weigh the balance of the closeness you could form against your own vulnerability”.

Meli Go Bragh