The Little Irish Sketchbook

The bluebell's price

bluecrow — Wed, 27 May 2015 19:17:00 GMT

I’m going to pay for it. Oh yes, I’m going to pay for it sooo much. I take one last look at the hour on my laptop and I’m out.

The day you realize that you got only 24 hours a day is the day you leave your teen years behind to enter adulthood. For some it doesn’t make much of a difference; for others, like me, it means a pang of extra guilt whenever you leave home with some unfinished work to do.

On tourist guides of Belgium, under the label of “natural attraction”, you’re bound to find mention to the Hallerbos forest where, between April and May, tourists can enjoy the vision of the bluebell’s blossoming. Those little flowers cover the undergrowth with wide blankets of soft blue and iridescent violet, making the forest look like a picture from some old fairytale. You almost expect to see unicorns and princesses stroll around the forest, leaving no trace of their passage. Normal people does, however, leave traces, therefore the forest is protected, and common human beings are not allowed to leave the signed paths.

Listening to a podcast from the BBC, regarding afghan cameleers emigrated in Australia, I finally find myself in the green. And the yellow, and the blue, and the orange. The Sonian forest was, long ago, one with the Hallerbos forest. Nowadays It is, somehow, less touristic in nature, being so close to Brussel that a short stroll from the ULB campus takes you right at its beginning. Yet its 4.421 hectares give you all the space you need to find yourself alone, looking through the bushes and walking near ponds shaded by tall brown-gray trees.

As I walk and listen to an old song whose words have lost meaning in the transition from a continent to another, I look for some extra meaning in my little walk. I find it quite easily, not restricted, as I’ve been weeks before, to walk on the signed paths. Hyacinthoides non-scripta, commonly known as “bluebell”, looks back at me in the grass between the branches of an old fallen tree. Here it doesn’t make those beautiful mats I saw in Hallerbos, still such finding gives me the same glorious impression.

Much later I find myself checking, with sleepy eyes, the article for the hundredth time. I check the word counter, quickly check William Strunk’s “Elements of style”, and decide to finally submit my entry.

I copy-paste the work on the submission form, read the last paragraph and end the submission procedure.

It will take me a good night sleep, and a review of my entry, to find out that I lost half of the formatting in the copy-paste process. Had I been less tired, I would have noticed it in time.

I paid, oh yes, I paid. Few hours of freedom may have such a high price!

Photos: photo stories

bluecrow — Wed, 27 May 2015 10:36:00 GMT

photos for stories

Photos: ID

bluecrow — Fri, 15 May 2015 07:42:00 GMT

ID images

Aran memories

bluecrow — Fri, 15 May 2015 06:28:22 GMT

Imperfections make everything more interesting. They may be no bigger than a question mark on a map, no longer than one night without accommodation, but they can turn your whole trip upside-down. Or, as it is, move it to the other side of the island.
When my plane landed in Dublin, I decided I had no time to waste: if a detour had to be done in the middle of my trip, I could as well do it right there and then. I jumped on a bus for Galway, unknowingly giving a kick to my whole plan.
I guess it was for the pictures and other reminiscences from my old geography book that I found myself on the Aran islands. I may, at that time, have forgotten all about the curraghs (Aran fishing boats), the cunning way fields have been made on the rocks, and the traditional extraction of iodine from kelps, but I guess I could hear the breathing of Poll na bPeist, the Serpent’s Cave, in my heart, even through second hand words of a second hand school book.

It was the first time I travelled with a sketchbook. My travel sketches were very rough depictions of what I saw but, even through them, I can still feel how the sea itself painted every corner of those islands, from the blackish cliffs down to the last blade of grass, giving them a peculiar hue of blue.
One of the things I learned from that trip is that hostel’s kitchens are the perfect place to make acquaintances. There I met two German girls who thought me about Irish folk dance, a French girl with whom I enjoyed pub’s live music, and that incredible group, on Inishmore, of people from all around the world. We were from Italy, Germany, Norway, Hawaii, Israel, Canada, and Ireland enjoying a taste of middle-east asian food. That night I found the travel mates for the next day trip to Dún Dúchathair, the Black Fort.
It’s no wonder that is still debated whether the function of many archaeological sites on the island is defensive or ceremonial: Inishmore inspires religious meditation and, at the same time, shows a stony dedication to defending Ireland from the violence of the Atlantic waves. We felt it, while looking at water of such a deep blue-black that my attempts to reproduce it got close to punching a hole in my sketchbook.

On our way back, lost in the tangled system of walls and fields that surrounded the Fort, I realized how much I owed to that small imperfection in my travel plan, which got me on a totally different path and made me live such a beautiful experience.

Imperfections can be perfect opportunities.