Ireland.

I don’t know if I’ve ever gotten attached to a place so quickly, so deeply as I did with Ireland. Usually after several days on vacation, I begin to miss home – my house, my dogs, my routine, my privacy. Even if I’m having fun, I love coming home. I didn’t have that problem with Ireland because, quite simply, it felt like home already. I believe that Jimmy and I could have moved into any of the eight B&Bs we stayed in, remained a year, and been perfectly happy. After staying two nights at one inn, we already established our neighborhood restaurant, our reading spot in the garden, and the dog even followed us around. It truly felt like home.

Ireland is full of God showing off. It requires your total attention to take in – all at once, you see endless green fields, interrupted only by wildflowers and large stones, mountains, streams and rivers, and big puffy clouds glowing against a brilliant blue sky. The land is too beautiful for words or even pictures to capture. You hear sheep baaah-ing, birds in constant song, water rippling by. I wanted to grab everyone I have ever met to say, “Look at it. Just look at it.” We would sit quietly, looking all about us, realizing the inadequacy of words. An Irishman told us that it was the tragic irony of Ireland – God gave them a beautiful land, but made the land unsuitable to live from. When you see the large stones everywhere – and I do mean everywhere – you understand. To shallow tourists like me, they’re a rustic touch to an elegant landscape. To farmers, they’re a hell of a problem.

Another irony is that Ireland’s poor economy seems to have been a powerful factor in maintaining its unique beauty. So much beauty is there to stumble upon; it’s not marketed. Old stone mansions, left crumbling to the elements, dot the countryside as nature reclaims them. The roofs are long gone, ivy climbs the walls, trees sometimes grow inside. It’s sadly, sweetly romantic. They’re only there because it cost too much to tear them down, and entirely too much to restore. Sometimes one of these old mansions rises from a farmer's fields, a reminder of the land’s past while the present persists around it. It made Ireland feel so much more authentic than the States. Most American beauty and romance seems manufactured; even when it’s found naturally, the accompanying billboards and gift shops and fast food franchises make it seem so… fake. If we have something beautiful, we know how to make a buck from it, to jazz it up in a vain attempt to improve on nature. It’s pageant beauty; once the make-up is over-applied, the hair teased, the boobs inflated, it’s not as pretty anymore. But Ireland. Ireland’s a natural beauty. Ireland’s the one you fall in love with.

Things are changing in Ireland; the mid-nineties marked its economic resurgence and interest to investors. What does one do with such beautifully preserved land? Develop it, of course. Word passes of Dublin-area farmers selling their land for millions to foreign developers; the farmers out west spoke of this with a sense of melancholy because they would probably reluctantly succumb to the Faustian offer as well. Not many of us could resist it. As the economy enters its boom, I envision a frightening flash of the Ireland yet to come… the remains of the old stone mansions torn down for townhouses, perhaps a McDonalds. The landscape interrupted by generic architecture, or God forbid, vinyl siding. The mere thought made me so sick to my stomach I could have vomited. Not here. Not this.

The people we met were as beautiful as the land. There was John, a bartender at a Westport pub who allowed a group of us to stay for hours after closing for free pints and unforgettable conversation. When one man discussed his new working hours, I asked him what his new job was, to his obvious discomfort. He was a graphic designer, which piqued my interest. But he said that people there don’t care about what your job is, and they don’t much like talking about it. It’s not what you do that matters to your friends, but how much time you have after work for a long dinner with your family and time in a pub with your friends for some craic (“craic” is the Irish word for fun, fellowship, and you hear it often: “it’s all about the craic”). The views I heard that night on American politics were so different than anything I’ve heard, so far removed from the American paradigm, that I still dwell on them (“The American god is money. American politics isn’t democracy, it’s capitalism.” “American imperialism far surpassed nineteenth-century English imperialism, only American imperialism was largely accomplished without a battle. The Irish just want to live their lives, they don’t try to make money by selling their lifestyle to the rest of the world.”). The discussion ranged from history to music to football (the real football, of course). The people were enviably smart and well read. I’ve never experienced such intelligent, friendly discussion in a bar.

And there was Linda, a pretty , light-hearted, twenty-something Parisian who recently came to Dublin for a new way of life. She works in a cheese shop, she travels any chance she gets. She’s part of a movement in Dublin to return to a slower life, a slower pace. When talking about people who spend life fretting about jobs or clothes or money, she would simply flick her wrist as if shooing a fly from her face, and exclaim, “Ugh! Victims of the worrrrld!”

There was Mary, who ran one of our B&Bs and was one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met. She told stories about people who had come to her inn, including the man from the States who has stayed there every year for fifteen years. He couldn’t make it this year, so he her sent a small framed picture of his hometown. It was an inexpensive plastic framed picture of the St. Louis Arch, but she displayed it in her beautiful breakfast room, along her china tea sets and trinkets, with great appreciation of this token of his generosity. “Look at it! Wasn’t it so nice of him?” When we complemented her inn, her food, she would beam. This was a woman with deep appreciation and gratitude. She mentioned she was looking for a girl to help her cook and clean around the inn, and I wanted so much to apply on the spot. Send the dogs over, Mom! We’re not coming home!

Each morning would start at the B&B or farmhouse with a killer breakfast, and if we were lucky, we’d meet fellow guests and hear about their trips. During the day, we would tour castles, abbeys; hike wooded trails or even up a mountain; explore a cave; walk along the coast; drive past indescribable landscapes, taking time to get out of the car to sit and attentively be in the moment. During the evenings, we sat in pubs for some craic, to talk, listen to music, and once again say, “Can you believe we’re here? I can’t believe we’re here.” The awe-struck feeling never ended… at a waterfall, mountaintop, in a garden or at a pub, it was always, “Can you believe we’re here?”

I suppose the best vacations are those that leave you a little changed. Anyone can go to a beach and feel un-stressed. But to go to a new country, to expose myself to a new culture, to fall in love with a land and its people… it wasn’t about experiencing a relaxing week but tasting a new life in order to improve my old one: to limit the role of work, to appreciate the importance of a weekday evening in a pub with friends, to spend less time preparing and more time doing. It makes past versions of myself, my past priorities, seem a little silly. (Agghhh, victim of the worrrrld!)

While in Ireland, I recalled a Joan Didion line, as I often do during important life moments. She wrote, “A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively.” And now I can understand why Ireland belongs so strongly to so many people. We were there for just nine days, but it partly belongs to us now as well. It was our honeymoon, the time of falling in love with each other all over again. Only ours was a ménage de trois – we fell in love with Ireland, and I think she loves us back.