Looking for Adventure

I feel the need for an adventure.

To my contradictory delight and consternation, I’ve been left to myself. My host and her three children have gone off on a two-week holiday. They’ve left the dog with family and have roped a neighbor in to come and feed the chickens and the rabbit.

The cat I let in and out as I see it and that’s okay. My responsibilities are negligible.

I’ve got the run of the house.

This is wonderful. And yet, somehow, the isolation, the solitude, isn’t quite what I want. On the one hand, yes absolutely, it is. I love having the kitchen to myself. I love being able to fill up the space under roof and between walls with my own being, habits, and routines. To make noise or silence as I see fit. I do like the freedom of living alone.

On the other, I’d also like the noise of a café, the bustle of a pub, the chance to eavesdrop on conversations and the opportunity to watch people do their people things, the quick ease to run to the store to get some fresh bananas if I need them, and access to points of interest whether historical or otherwise. I’d like some human interaction. On my own terms, of course. Not too much. But some.

What a lot of trouble I am.

What a contradictory beast.

What an inconsistent thing I’ve become.

The day before she left, my host graciously took me to the big store in town to load up on groceries. So, like in my times in the wilderness, with what I’ve stocked up on, I can be self-sufficient. I can get by with what I have.

I wake on my first day alone and feel the emptiness of the house like a gift.

Already, I’m using my time wisely; reading, writing, catching up on the administrative details of my life, staring out the windows at the changing cloudscape and the moving cows.  

This day, though, with the sun brightly shining, I feel cooped up. My thoughts are a jumbled mess and I have some writing-related decisions to make. I’ve got fictional lives to plan. Shoot, I’ve got my life to plan. Everything feels so serious. A walk will help sort me out. An adventure will be just the thing.

Not wanting an epic adventure, only a short, interesting-but-not-too-time-consuming one, I head toward the nearest village called Clashmore. I’ll go as far as the little bridge. Then I’ll see how I feel and what else I want to do. It’s a good enough plan.

The day is warm. The air is nice. I’ve got my sunglasses on and the road to myself. The trees stir in the wind. A flock of birds circles a patch of nearby field in a very buzzardly way and then, suddenly, as if called, they all fly off together. I come around a bend. Some cattle are lowing. A sound which is nothing like what I imagined when I was a child singing along to Christmas carols. This sound is more like a bullhorn, like a drawn out complaint. Maybe they have their lives to plan out too.

The longer I walk, the more at ease I feel. The restless energy I have to be productive and to achieve, achieve, always achieve is held at bay a little.

Meanwhile, I make it to the bridge. I lean my elbows upon the moss covered stone and gaze down to see what I can see.

A leaf twirls and glides through the water, graceful and carefree. As I observe its path, I forget my quintessence of dust. I smile. It’s these simple things, the watching of a leaf being carried down a stream, the shadow of a flitting butterfly, it’s these things that make me happy, that take me out of too much thinking and let me settle down.

These things.

The leaf drifts against a rock, wavers, folds into place over the sharp curves. Will it be carried on? Will it be stuck forever? Oh, the suspense!

As Willy Wonka said, “I hope it lasts.”

But as another saying goes, This too shall pass. And so it does. With the stream’s current to guide it on, the leaf is carried a little further into a growing, watery pile of other collected leaves, sticks, and organic matter. Its journey, for now, has come to an end.

Well, that was exciting.

With the nature show over, I look up and around.

I haven’t come quite prepared enough to go into Clashmore for more than a walk about. I’ve left my wallet behind. And I’m not feeling so energetic as to want to make my excursion longer than a small handful of miles.

Yet, still, one floating leaf is not distraction enough for today. It’s not adventure enough.

Not really knowing what else to do, I head back toward home. But when I come to the fork in the road, I go right instead of left. Why not? Why not see where all roads lead.

Some time later, when the pavement changes texture, I decide I’ve gone far enough with aimless, purposeless wandering. I turn around.

I haven’t retraced many of my steps when the sound of a car comes from behind me. I move over to give it plenty of road to drive upon, but it slows and stops.

An older man leans an elbow out the window and asks, “Are you going far?”

“I’m just out for a walk,” I say.

“It’s a nice day for it,” he says, or something like that.

“It’s really nice,” I agree, and then carry on with weather talk to say, “I think it might rain a bit later on.”

“Hmm,” he says, or maybe he says “aye” like the Scottish do. His accent is nicely Irish and he speaks with a soft, burring mumbling that’s a bit hard to follow. “Aye, we need it.” He starts to move forward again, talking still to me as the car inches on and away. “I thought maybe you were heading into Clashmore.”

“Thank you,” I say. For the implied offer of a ride, for the kindness, for the human connection.

It’s a little thing, but it’s enough to make me happy again. A leaf. A very short conversation. Enough for now. Content, I go back home and do all those solitary, writerly things that I so often do. That I’m supposed to do. That I enjoy doing.

With the morning comes a gusty rain. I take my time with my coffee. I take my time with my breakfast. I do my writing first thing. When the clouds break, I feel the itch to move. I pack my bag with water and put together some snacks.

Once again, I go out looking for an adventure.

This time I’m heading toward the big town.

Youghal, pronounced Yooull, is like the big city to me, filled with people, shops, buses even. From Youghal the whole world could be reached. It’s just a matter of getting there.

Much like the day before, I’ve decided, once again, to only go as far as a bridge. I’m not sure I want to walk all the way into town and then all the way back home. It’s not exactly that I’m lazy, it’s more the combination of the time and the miles and the energy and my complete lack of a clear and defined end goal.

Where’s my purpose? Where’s my strong sense of purposeful direction?

As I walk, I hug the inside of the road near the spiky hedges, trying to be both visible and out of the way of the passing cars. There’s a fair amount of isolated traffic on this small road. The bridge road, when I reach it, is busy. The bridge itself is even busier. Dare I cross it?

Of course, I do. What’s this strange reluctance I’m feeling? Oh, I know. It’s that strange feeling of not being sure where and how I fit in. Can’t I just be myself no matter where I am? Sure, but I’m still the new kid in town. Ireland is still unknown to me.

See, too much time alone to think.

Anyway, there’s a sidewalk on each side of the bridge. It’s the easiest, safest walking path in this part of the world so far.

Even so, not quite committed to going across, I stand for a moment at the edge of the little road and gaze beyond the bridge at the low tide water, at the buildings that stand across the way and speak out Town with their height and thickness and presence. I bring my gaze back closer. As I evaluate the bridge, I see something. A blue box with words on it. I take out my camera and zoom in. Diner, it says.

That’s like a café.

I’ll cross the bridge after all and go to the diner.

So I do.

The diner is in a little blue trailer off the side of the busy road which goes in and out of Youghal. As I approach, I see the name and I almost laugh out loud. JJ’s American Style Truck Stop.

Go figure.

I scan the menu placard conveniently placed outside and think I’ve got nothing to lose. Wasn’t I wanting something like this?

I go in and take a look around.

The inside wall is decorated with quippy sayings like: At this Location in 1836, absolutely nothing happened, and with old State license plates: New York, Texas, Kentucky, Arizona, Oregon, Oklahoma.

I feel like I could be in East Texas at some greasy spoon diner. I order some chips and a cappuccino and sit to see if I am or not. Isn’t this Ireland?

The two men next to me are speaking and I’m reassured. Their accents are not American. And they might even be speaking Irish. I can’t eavesdrop well enough over the background noise of music, voices, and traffic to really listen in, but I’m appeased.

I had a friend once tell me that I was helping her be human. Which was a funny thing to say. But now, here, I feel that this little adventure across the Youghal Bridge is helping me be human too. It’s so easy to feel out of touch. To feel too distant, too out in the country, too far away. It’s so easy to become a hermit and forget what it means to interact with others. I can so easily forget how to move beyond the little piece of the world I find myself in.

I’m glad for the reminder that I’m not limited to one small place. The world is accessible. The world is here. The world is what I make of it.

Well, tomorrow or the next day, I’ll plan a real adventure and venture out further and farther. Maybe I’ll figure out how to get to the castle ruins I’ve seen from the wrong side of the river. Maybe I’ll make it all the way into Youghal on my own two feet. Maybe I’ll even take a bus somewhere. God help me, I’ll do something that will be worth writing home about.