Packing for Irish weather

I was doing some research on things to bring, and coming across a million and one people who write to dress in "layers" and bring raincoats and whatnot. Then I found this.

The Irish attitude to weather is the ultimate triumph of optimism over experience: Every time it rains, we look up at the sky and are shocked and betrayed. Then we go out and buy a new umbrella.

This makes me happy. And for some reason reminds me of a book title I saw on our shelves once: The Improbable Irish. I'm not sure how, but there's a relation in my mind. Also, what a brilliant title.

But none of them permanently.

So if I should visit the moon,
Well I'd dance on a moonbeam and then
I would make a wish on a star:
And I'd wish I was home once again.

Well, I'd like to look down on the earth from above,
But I'd miss all the places and people I love.
So although I may go, I'll be coming home soon;
'Cause I don't want to live on the moon.

The Cities Inside Us

I came across this poem tonight and was slain by it. (Which, here, means that I fell in love with a string of words and have no fitting way to react other than to share it.) It conveys, quite elegantly, my nostalgia and excitement for the places I have gone and the places I'm going. So I thought I'd share it here.

The Cities Inside Us
by Alberto Rios

We live in secret cities
And we travel unmapped roads.

We speak words between us that we recognize
But which cannot be looked up.

They are our words.
They come from very far inside our mouths.

You and I, we are the secret citizens of the city
Inside us, and inside us

There go all the cars we have driven
And seen, there are all the people

We know and have known, there
Are all the places that are

But which used to be as well. This is where
They went. They did not disappear.

We each take a piece
Through the eye and through the ear.

It’s loud inside us, in here, and when we speak
In the outside world

We have to hope that some of that sound
Does not come out, that an arm

Does not reach out
In place of the tongue.

Can you come home to a place you've never been?

I know I'm not leaving for another 3 weeks, but I needed to take a break from other projects, so I decided to start this blog in preparation for the trip. While my other blog consists of ramblings on literally every subject under the sun, this one has one purpose: to document my adventures in Ireland. I leave on March 5th and will come home on May 2nd - making this the longest (but not quite the farthest) that I've been from home. Here, my friends, I will write about my journey and post pictures and other random things. It doesn't all feel quite real yet, but this blog is a start. I'm going. I'm really truly going!

I feel strange when I think about it that way - in the sense of leaving, I mean. It's frightening in those words, actually. So I've determined not to think of it like that. I answer my title question with a resounding YES - I'm not leaving my home to travel to Ireland. I've never been there, but I feel confident in the belief that a person is home if he is in a place that he loves.

So I'm not leaving. I'm going home.