Let me just tell you, I can’t believe I’m here, last week of September, cycling at high speed down country roads with random insects hitting me in the face, sun still shining. It’s like nature is being extra kind and giving just a few more weeks of summer before it gets dark at 4pm. The leaves are starting to coat the ground and it’s been foggy, but we have had some fantastic days lately.
Being at home in the country is fantastic, and coming to
Ireland for these few weeks (maybe months, if I ever get a driving test date
finalised) has, so far, been an excellent decision. I’ve been spending a lot of
time on the roads because I want to get fitter to try and do a triathlon in a
few months. I’ve been out walking and jogging every day.
When I was younger I hated the countryside. I thought it was
so boring to be surrounded by fields and trees, I just wanted to live in a town
or city and actually be able to walk to friends’ houses. I wanted to socialise
and be around people, not cows. I itched to be saturated in the feelings of
urban things; paper coffee cups and take-out sandwiches, department stores and
cobbled streets and city buses. Then I started spending time in cities, living
in apartments and taking those city buses, and let me tell you, their quality
varies hugely depending on their final destination. I’d walk around the most
crowded parts of cities and let the feeling of being surrounded by people wash
over me. I felt at home.
In the past year, though, something changed, and now I don’t
want to be in cities anymore. Fumes, traffic, crowded streets, endless shops,
endless streams of people, none of these things excite me. I want to get away
from people, faceless, nameless numbers. I want to work on my existing relationships
and be surrounded by positivity, not sit pressed against a stranger on the
Tube. I want green fields and dusk on country roads and fresh air. Maybe it’s a
natural progression of growing up (finally), maybe it’s the fact that the guy I
spend most of my time with is highly cynical of all things commercial. Maybe I’m
just realising what’s really important in life, and it isn’t what you get in a
Penneys’ bag for €3.
Yesterday I was cycling around the block, and it was a
gorgeous day, and I just felt so, alive, you know? One of those rare moments
when you know you feel so good that you know it’s special, and won’t come again
for a time. Everything was perfect. It was about 15 degrees, no wind, I was
cycling downhill, 5.30pm and the sun was just setting off towards the western
corner of the sky. I saw a group of pheasants rushing down a field lane, flocks
of birds hovering above a freshly ploughed field, cut grass smell, country
manure smell, cabbages and potatoes and rows of green fields. I saw horses,
cows, neighbourhood dogs in varying sizes and temperaments, mostly verging on
cranky and territorial.
It was fantastic, and I’m so lucky to be here, living at
all. There’s been a bit of bad news in the last couple of weeks, and maybe I’m
just sentimental because of it, but I really feel so glad to be here. In a
world that is so random and, at times, just so senselessly cruel, that I am
here, with so many good things, well I just feel very lucky indeed.
I have no nice pictures today, just plenty of good wishes. Slán go fóill!