A Journey of the Heart - Ireland

One year ago today I arrived in Ireland. I had left London on an Aer Lingus flight, Heathrow to Shannon, and it just seemed like another leg of our trip overseas. It was only in time that I realized that it wasn't just another part of a trip, though. I discovered something in Ireland that I didn't even know existed. I found something I didn't know was lost. I found a country I loved, a people I adored, and a desire to share that with the world - and that led me to begin writing again, after years of silence.

I had loved my time in London, of course, but there is something about Ireland so magical, so mystical, that it begs to be written about. It is something just beyond your ability to describe it in words, and yet you feel you must try. Every day in Ireland was a new adventure, but it was more than that. It was feeling my soul open.

I had struggled for some time after my mother's death, but by the time I arrived in Ireland I thought I had healed completely. I was almost there, but not quite - and I only realized it after finding Ireland. I discovered that the missing peace - a deliberate misspelling - was writing. And I'm not sure I ever would have found it without a country that inspired me, and that needed to be written about as it burned itself into my heart.

I plan to return to Ireland one day and spend a few months there. I'd like to write about the history, and the people. I'd like to write, most, though, about how a country can change you, even a country with which you have no connection through birth or heritage. I'd like to write about how you can find a place that leads you to discover things about yourself that had been hidden from view, and about how it can take you down roads you never even knew were there. I'd like to write about the winding roads in Ireland, and about how they can end not just in little towns and falling-down castles but in the joy of self-discovery. I'd like to write about a journey that wasn't to a country, but into my own heart. I'd like to write about all those things, but mostly I think I will write about Ireland - and about me. And if no one ever reads it that's okay, too, because what I learned in Ireland is that journeys, and writing, aren't about making someone else happy. They are about making yourself happy. That's what I found in Ireland, dear friends - and I will be forever grateful to a small emerald green island surrounded by blue ocean.