hull in my head

I didn’t know what to expect from a place called Sligo. To be honest, it’s a name that conjures up in my mind some smelly little blip on a stale map that just gets passed over, an image completely opposite of how Sam described his hometown. But then again some of Sam’s ideas and opinions are not the most conventional so you never really know. Suffice to say it was with some excitement that, a few days after London, I was boarding a plan bound for Ireland, to see this unflatteringly named town first hand.

I took the bus up from Dublin, and while doing so realized that although I’d been to Ireland lots of times this past year, this was the first time I had actually left the boundaries of the city. I noted this with some shame. After all, Ireland looks so lovely in all the pictures I have seen, I should have been going out and seeing more, but then again some of the coolest people I’ve met on the planet live in Dublin so why waste time not hanging out with them? It was a predicament that I hadn’t found the balance to until that morning. The solution, see other bits of Ireland WITH your Dublin friends.

So that’s what I did, even managing to make new Dublin friends in the process. We only spent the weekend in Sligo but still packed it full of great times. Sligo was actually much prettier then I had imagined, despite the rainy weather, and had this great quaint feel that only small coastal towns can have. We camped in the Horler’s (secret) traditional spot which was interesting. Mostly because Sam failed to mention that we’d be camping when he told be of the weekend. So I had no tent, sleeping bag, only the clothes I was wearing, etc. Ultimately I slept in Melissa’s rental car.

But in two days we toured the town, built shelters, went on walks in the wilderness and coast, some surfed, cooked for each other, went very late night swimming in the rain, and passed a guitar and bottle of whisky around a campfire. It was the best.

I wish you could have been there, standing around that fire with friends, all still warming from jumping in ice cold water, sipping on Tom’s generously donated top-shelf Irish whisky, watching the sparks and flickers of the fire float upwards blending into the full night’s sky of stars, and hearing Sam’s high, hollowly tenor, singing warm melodies that you can’t believe he’s written. If you were there you’d have been reminded that despite being weary of the world, you’re not alone, reminded that beauty comes in simple things, and that you’ve got to capture and hold onto those moments. Or maybe you’d have already fallen asleep…. Who knows?

I left Sligo a bit envious of Sam, for one that he grew up in the circumstance that he did. Living on the Irish coast, being part of cool and artistic family that exudes a kind of quite confidence in perfect, uncompromising, naturalness. A unique bunch that I picture were tight knit while growing up and going on nifty little adventures. I envisioned the Horler kids, all a bit shaggy-haired, piling into an old VW minibus to go have a summery picnic where we all camped. I don’t know how accurate this imagining is but I like to think it’s true.

But I was more envious of Sam because he got to show off and tour his hometown to his friends. The whole weekend it really made me wish everyone in the gang would come visit Seattle and I could point to things with pride and smiles full of adolescent reminiscing. They could meet my family, my old friends, see the spots where so many memories are attached and yet still have room to make our own new ones.

I hope it happens.