I am Atlantis.

someday we'll know why samson loved delilah...

does anybody know the way to Atlantis?

Because I feel that's where I belong right now. Swept away. Lost at sea. Disappeared.

I feel as if the whole world is someplace else. Like I'm on the outside, screaming and no one can hear me, see me, touch me. Help me.

i'm letting myself down by satisfying you...

walking up the hill tonight
and you have closed your eyes
i wish i didn't have to make
all those mistakes and be wise
please try to be patient
and know that i'm still learning
i'm sorry that you have to see
the strength inside me burning.

where are you my angel, now?
don't you see me crying?
i know that you can't do it all,
but you can't say i'm not trying.

escape

please don't tell me where we're going, just drive.
please don't tell me where we're going, I like to be surprised.

i imagine my life is a photograph....

More, from Ireland.

--

My second favourite place in Dublin is St. Stephen's Green. If I had decided to live in Dublin, I imagine I would have been forced to spend a lot of time there. Nestled in the heart of Dublins fair city is a giant very green park. People are sitting on the grass or on benches. Kids are feeding the ducks. There are people everywhere, since it's nice out, but it still manages to be quiet. Like a library or a bookstore, there's a concensus that one shouldn't be obtrusively loud. Not meditation quiet. But at least... slow and safe. Beside the monument for the Potato Famine, a boy is sitting against the trunk of a magnificient tree, sketching. Late afternoon, the sun is shining through the tree's leaves to make gorgeous patterns of dappled sun rays on the grass and the pathway.

In some ways, St. Stephen's Green is just another inner city park. But... it was really the only real spot in Dublin.

As you can tell, Dublin wasn't my favourite place. We did go on a gorgeous tour from Dublin though. We saw an old monastery, some castle ruins, the hill of Tara. Some beautiful celtic crosses. I loved this tour so much that I went on it twice. Once with Jez in the beginning, then with Kristen when she came. And not just because there's a restaurant on the hill of Tara that makes the best scones I've ever had (though that was part of it). Because even the second time I went I took hundreds of gorgeous pictures. Because it was just that breath taking.

The Hill of Tara wasn't all that much to see... but i you think about it it's amazing. To be standing there where they crowned hundreds of Irish High Kinds. I mean, right now it's just a hill with lots of sheep crap on the ground. But especially the second time I went.. I felt like I could feel something more. Ah, I'm a sucker from history and romantic legends.

The bus ride from Dublin to Galway was beautiful enough to convince me to move there. Before we even found a place I had secretly decided that that was where I wanted to be.

When you come in from Dublin, you hit the coast before you hit the city. And there's this little bay, all rocks when the tide's out, and an old castle looking out over it. It's gorgeous There are boats in the harbour. There are pools between the rocks. It's a really nice way to first see Galway, and, in my opinion, it only gets better.

Galways reminds me of Ottawa. I miss Ottawa, surprisingly. But Galway has the same sort of feel. It's a big city, but there's no dirty big city feeling. There are cobblestoned pedestrian streets full of buskers. When you walk down Shop St., you're likely to be accompanied by a saxophone or a keyboard. Or an accoustic guitar playing Coldplay. Or a four piece string quartet. Sometimes it's feels like being in a movie. And unlike Dublin, I feel like I belong. I don't feel like a tourist. I live here! People even ask my for directions. And most of the time I can give them, too.

Galway is so full of Irish culture. There's live Irish music. People playing tin whistles on the Oscar Wilde statue. Conversations conducted completely in Irish.

And it's got everything you expect from a seaside town too. Fish and chips. A promenade. A beach. Which you can drink on. At least, no one's ever stopped us. But the garda don't seem nearly as concerned about drinking in public as the police back home.

On the few sunny days this city has (it's one of the rainiest cities in Europe) the beach is gorgeous. And almost everyone's as pasty as me! Because they all have the Irish complexion and there's never any sun.

The rain took a while to get used to. You never leave the house without a jacket, as a rule. Even if it looks sunny, odds are that it will rain at least once before the day's out.

But I've always loved the rain and now that it's not as ridiculously cold, I don't mind the rain. And we even had a week of really nice heat. I should have brought more sweaters though. Of course, it's not even July yet. Hopefull it'll still get a little warmer.

We did two tous out of Galway. Both were amazing.

The first was the Cliffs of Moher. The day was really foggy and we didn't actually get to see the cliffs.. but the rest of the tour was worth it. We saw the limestone mountains and the famine walls. That part of the country is so interesting. The ground always seems to be made of stone. And ever now and then there are random hufe boulders sticking up. Our guide said they were left there by glaciers in the ice age. But they might as well be put there by a God of some sort. Musterious and with some deep spiritual meaning, like Stonehenge. I suddenly understoof how the ancient Irish were so religious and devoted to the earth. Things just look.. so much bigger than you. So planned, but beyond human understanding.

The other tour we took out of Galway was Connemara. I have this gorgeous picture from this lake we stopped beside. I got closer than everyone else to take the right shot. And I was just crouching there by the water and suddenly everything was so stil and quiet. The lake was smooth as glass. The picture was perfect, but the moment is what really stuck with me. It was as if I was inside of a photograph, really.

On that same tour we saw the Kylemore Abbey. It was one of my favourite places so far. I seriously would have been baptised Catholic and inducted as a nun right then and there if it meant I could live in Kylemore Abbey. It was beautiful. I couldn't stop taking pictures of it from every angle. I have over twenty of the exact same picture. Because every time I looked at it it seemed more beautiful and I was sure I hadn't quite captured it the last time.

more to come, some time.

Who am I? Somebody just tell me that much...

I just was reading my journal from this summer. Because I have two essays and a huge journalism article due this week. So, obviously, I'm procrastinating. I got to cross two things off of my list of 100 things to do before I die. #68: Feel infinite. #60: Get a tattoo.

So I found the entries I had written about Ireland. And I really liked them, looking back. So I decided I would start posting them here. Enjoy.

--

Dublin was a city you couldn't help but get lost in. It seemed that even when we were going in the right direction, we ended up in the wrong place.
Dublin was a city of too many people - very few of whom were actually Irish. There were almost no crosswalks and the ones there were were never obeyed by cars or pedestrians.
The did, however, have very useful signs painted on the roads saying LOOK RIGHT or LOOK LEFT, to give all the tourists an idea of where the cars might be coming from.
Once you've figured out where most things are in Dublin, it becomes liveable. It was expensive as all hell, but it was good craic.
Staying in a hostel on a street called Aungier (actually pronounced ayn-ger, not, I was told repeatedly, on-gier) we met people from all over the world. Most were just passing though, struggling under the weight of backpacks almost as big as themselves.
Two girls we met, Sarah and Candle, shared our room for a couple of nights. I marvelled that the skinny little things could even lift their bags, let alone carry them around Ireland, to Lithuania and all through Europe. They were American. We met some Canadian backpackers, too. Sharon, Graham and Jeremy. It was one of those weird situations where we only knew them for one night, but by the end of we were hanging out like old friends.
Javier slept on the bunk underneath Jez for almost the entire time. He had a habit of walking in just as I was daring to take off my shirt. Inconvenient. But, he reassured me, "I am not a pervert or anything...!" And he wasn't. He was a sweet guy who'd recently fallen in love with an Australian girl who chose a drunk over him. He was from a beautiful coastal town in Spain. He showed us pictures on my laptop. At the time - early May - in Dublin, it had been pouring rain and cold for days. And, looking at the pictures of people on beautiful sandy beaches, I had to wonder why he'd left. He even spoke of the town with love. But I guess we all need a change. And none of us realize what we have until we leave.
Dublin has bars that are older than my entire country. Dublin has beer with lunch. Dublin has the Temple Bar district. We drank our fair share of pints in Temple Bar. The joy of Heineken. There were more tourists than anything. One night, all five of us girls in the bathroom were from Canada. But there were some Dubliners around. Mostly, I'm sure, to pick up tourists. But damned if I could understand more than a third of what they were saying, with the thick accent and loud music.
Dublin is a place where you find lots of other people. But not, I could tell, where you'd ever be able to find yourself. In the crowded streets and pubs, I knew I'd always be perpetually lost.
I'd two favourite places in Dublin. One I saw the first day I was there. The other I never saw until I went back with Kristen.
The first thing I loved about St. Patrick's Cathedral was how it reminded me of being in France. It was another gorgeous, magnificent church. But as son as you step inside the gates, you see that it's flavour is purely Irish. Along the fence there are plaques dedicated to Ireland's most famous writers and their work. A church for the Bards. Joyce, Yeats.
There's a liberty bell that mostly looks like a huge hunk of metal. A little sign saying "Here is the sight of the well St. Patrick used to baptise the Irish." Just a sign. Small, white, wood.
There's a fountain, too. A small Irish boy was leaning in so far, I thought for sure he'd tumble in. No one else seemed concerned. I moved closer, just in case. Turns out the boy was filling his bucket with water from the fountain. And he seemed to have found a perfectly safe system - as precarious as it had seemed to me. He was leaning against the drain grate with one hand. His feet were in the air, but he didn't slip at all. His family, nearby, didn't seem the least bit concerned. Apparently, this is normal. Either that or their rugby game was more interesting.
The thing about European churches is that when I walk in, as a non-religious person, I suddenly understand how a person can feel a connection with God. Because it's beautiful. Cathedrals are certainly the most striking art. These buildings were designed to inspire - not simply to function. This is where, for me, architectures transcends into art. The ceilings, the stained glass, the gold candlesticks and wooden pews... There's so much beauty that it's like looking at a sunset. You know there must be something bigger because beauty can't be merely human. The fact that these cathedrals are man made makes a great argument for organized religion. Religious or not, you can't help but feel spiritual in a place like St. Patrick's Cathedral.

c'est tout, pour maintenant.

beneath the sheets of paper...

I'm going to write a book.

Eventually.

And when I do, it will be as good as White Oleander and Girl Meets Boy and Weight and Perks of Being a Wallflower and Judith Tarr books.

haha.

I wish. But I've also decided that that's not going to STOP me from writing a book. Apparently I should move to Scotland, since that's were a lot of the Myth series writers are from. Maybe I could stalk them?

true love

"Rings that widen on the surface of a loch, above a thrown-in stone. A drink of water offered to a thirsty traveller on the road. Nothing more that what happens when things come together, when hydrogen, say, meets oxygen, or a story from then meets a story from now, or a stone meets water meets girl meets boy meets bird meets hand meets wing meets bone meets light meets dark meets eye meets world meets grain of sand meets thirst meets hunger meets need meets dream meets real meets same meets different meets death meets life meets end meets beginning all over again, the story of nature itself, ever-inventive, making one thing out of another, and one thing into another, and nothing lasts and nothing's lost, and nothing ever perishes, and things will always change, and things will always be different, because things can always be different." -Girl Meets Boy, Ali Smith

good music is music to live by. good music is music that when you listen, you image scenes from the movie your life playing.

good music is feeling infinite.

good music is Dear Prudence in your best friend's car driving through the Fort Pitt tunnel, imagining you're in a scene from Perks of Being a Wallflower.

step into my quiet violence

"And it was in her also to twist a sentance into a song, if she chose to sing at all." -Away, Jane Urquhart