“Following the Rainbow” (Ireland continued, May 2019)
After a crazy night upon arriving in Kilkenny, I set out to get to know it. Everything is foreign to me and I love it.
It is beautiful, fun, and lively. I spend time soaking in the colorful houses and the Castle that overlooks the town below. This island is full of an energy that seeps into me as I am blinded by the lush greenery.
Crazy things happen to me in this journey. As soon as I get to Waterford, which I decide is my next stop, I realize I have lost my journal. Panic! This journal holds not only the record of my days in Ireland, but all my thoughts and well kept secrets! I’m deeply attached to my journal. After frantically tracing and calling all the places where I could have left it, thankfully, someone had found it in Matt The Miller’s pub… it’s no wonder I forgot it there. I believe my head was elsewhere the night before. There really is no other option for me but to drive almost two hours back to Kilkenny to rescue it.
The funny thing is that I keep losing things in Ireland and finding them in the most unbelievable and interesting ways. In the days and weeks that pass I manage to lose and find my journal, my laptop, my camera, my coat, credit card, and a bunch of smaller items like hair scrunchies.
After retrieving my forgotten journal, I drive back to Waterford. I have just left the the romantic ruins of a small castle on a hilltop, when I happen upon the most incredibly beautiful and perfect rainbow I have ever seen. It is a complete arc from beginning to end, and the colors are just amazing. I stop to admire it. I just know that the camera cannot grasp the enormity of it. As I am standing there attempting to photograph it, a man on a bicycle stops to talk to me…he is also in awe. He tells me that he has lived in Ireland all his life and that he has never seen anything like this rainbow. I get back in the car and continue driving straight to it. It seemed that it was originating from a small loch up ahead. I get closer and closer, and closer still… until I am actually inside the rainbow. I am inside the rainbow. I savor the magic of this moment. I just know that an incredible and unique experience like this will never ever repeat itself. I feel so grateful for this gift. My soul has been touched and changed forever.
I am in the Mayo county at Ashford Castle… this is a real castle that is now a five star hotel; and I lose my sunglasses. I realize it when I get back in the car to continue my travels… I look everywhere but can’t find them. I mean… everyone was helping me look for them in the hotel. I pretty much give up and I’m already pulling off in my car when I hear a “tap tap” on my window. It is an older Scottish couple and she is holding my sunglasses! I mention to them how this kind of thing keeps happening to me. She just looks at me and says…”but of course it does…you are in Ireland and magic happens here!” Huh? I’m thinking that maybe there is a leprechaun having fun at my expense!; could it be I picked him up in the rainbow? Her husband then tells me “I hope you don’t lose your husband!” To this I quip back “oh… I lost him a while ago!” To which he says “Oh lassie… if you haven’t found him is because you haven’t wanted to.” He is so right! It dawns on me that he is so very right. Is like that line in the movie The Wedding Date that said, “every woman has the exact love life that she wants”. This is exactly what I want in this time in space and at this moment in my life…to be utterly and completely free.
