If the Ground Should Break

I listened to the heavy rain meet the water proofing of my jacket and roll off. The mud squished and grabbed at my feet as I pursued the edge of the path and wondered how I had been the only one to break from the trail at the Causeway. My Wellies were pooling with water drops from the high weeds at the edge of this historical setting.

I looked out beyond the cliff. I’d never seen the ocean like this before. I’d never really seen the ocean at all. It was entirely out of reach and too big, a black hole in contrast to the blinding green meadows at my level. The ocean was like a deep blue hopelessness that I didn’t want to give in to, I just respected that it was nature. Standing firm to the ground I was mesmerized by the rhythm of the waves. I couldn’t see them break below me. There was a whole world below the cliff and the thatched blades of grass at my feet. I couldn’t see and wasn’t allowed to see. I just had to trust that it was there, down at the water’s edge where what I envisioned met what nature was doing. The whole world was moving, shaking, swaying but somehow I was motionless and on top of a cliff.

It was a moment in danger of being missed, a mark on the path that I hadn’t known how to get to. The adrenaline made my hands clench my heavy pack while I inched closer, trying to bring myself to a respectable viewing spot. The energetic fear that came out of my forward lean turned out to be musical.

My voice didn’t compete with the weather; it felt natural, giving noise to my existence off key and loudly. So I sang, skipping verses and blending songs. I raised hell alone in the grass. I shouted and whooped, yelling at the ocean that couldn’t say anything back. I was entitled to a new reality at this height above the water, but I did it with nausea slightly brewing in my stomach knowing that gravity could take me.

One broken heart, a plane ticket to study abroad, three buses and a blue raincoat led me to the edge of Ireland. I imagined that I could see London from where I was standing and turning behind me America was beckoning me to come home. I was sandwiched between beauty and frustration. I had ducked under a fence that divided mechanical tourism and discovering my own feet. All I could do was embrace the goose bumps. Finding a path where I felt terrified but knew it was where I was supposed to stand. I found a way to be weird and whole at the same time forgetting how I much it drained me to get there. I was free and nomadic- strangely alive.