Seamus simply said
Brendan
your son
needs to see this through.
And then he took a breath
and added
no matter how foolish.
Down and Out in Ballyconnell
Two more days of scouring the coast
and nothing to show for it
but a sunburnt nose
and diminished spirit.
So I decided to enter
my first Irish public house:
The Yeats Tavern
named after the poet
in Drumcliff.
The man behind the bar looked me over
when I asked for a pint of Guinness
and was about to turn me down
when a young man of about twenty
sat down beside me.
He looked sunburnt too and tired
and gave me a curious look.
Tom
he said to the bartender
Give this gentleman his pint.
It’s on me.
I thanked him and watched the ritual
of the slow and steady
pouring of the dark beer.
Thanks
I said to both Tom and the sunburnt guy.
You looked like you needed it
he said.
I’m Alfie.
He held out his hand.
Declan
I said, shaking it.
Declan, I detect in you unhappiness.
He had that Irish way
of pronouncing every syllable with precision.
I took my first sip of Guinness
and I think I frowned.
It was bitter.
I don’t know what I was expecting.
You detected correctly
I said
and this made Alfie laugh.
He ordered himself a Smithwick’s.
From away then?
he asked.
Yes.
What brings ya?
At first I didn’t know what to say
knowing it would sound silly.
A quest
I said finally.
Ah, yes.
The plot thickens.
Is it fame, fortune, or salvation?
Not really.
Then it must be a woman
he asserted.
I didn’t want to go there so I said
I’m looking for a beach
and he laughed.
Lots of beaches about.
This one is special.
Every beach is special.
Alfie explained that he was a surfer
and he had given up working for Google in Dublin.
I moved west, here to the coast
and never looked back.
I said
I’ve been to every beach around
but I haven’t found the right one
the one I’ve seen in a vision.
A vision quest, is it?
Name the beaches you’ve been to.
So I pulled the road map out of my back pocket
and pointed to them one by one.
Alfie studied the map
and then pointed to a spot.
You missed one
he said.
Streedagh.
I was there this morning.
Waves head high and glassy
and not a soul around.
Some of the best waves I ever surfed.
I wanted to ask more but was afraid
I’d discover yet another dead end.
And then Alfie finished his Smithwick’s
in three long gulps
shook my hand and was off.
Let me know if you find
what you’re looking for.
End of the rainbow and all that.
Streedagh
There were horses grazing in open pasture land
by the dunes.
They looked like they had been expecting me.
I got out of the car
and breathed in the cool salty air.
There was a cluster of houses at one end
but beyond that
the beach stretched out
for what looked like several empty miles.
I put on a jacket and began walking.
The Sand, the Sea, the Sky
At first it seemed
that it was just
another beach.
But as I walked
I felt
something.
A presence.
Three times
I stopped and turned around
expecting some thing
someone
to be there.
But it was all in my imagination.
I was a guy alone on a beach
with an addled brain
walking to nowhere.
The Cove
I had almost decided
to turn back
when I came to a small
rocky cove.
In the dunes
was the ruins of
an old
stone building.
I angled toward it
and touched a thick lichen-covered stone wall
or what was left of it
now only shoulder high.
A cottage
someone’s small
primitive hut really
long, long since
abandoned.
I knelt down
expecting maybe
to find some relic
some scrap or tool
but nothing.
And then as I stood up
and turned around
looking out onto the cove
and beyond to the mountains
and a distant shore
I recognized the view.
This had once been
the home
of that sad lonely soul
that fisherman
and his little boy.
Night
Each time I tried to leave the spot
something tugged me back.
I had this feeling
that if I left
I could never return.
Or if I did return
the ruins would be gone.
So I sat in the chill salt air
huddled by the stone wall
my knees to my chest.
I watched
as the sun set over the sea
and the stars came out
a canopy of a million points of light.
I felt giddy at first
in expectation of what I didn’t know.
Giddy, then a little fearful.
Wild creatures were about.
I could hear them
but I couldn’t see them.
And then
cold
and bored
and tired
I fell asleep.
And while I slept
I felt a new wave of overwhelming sadness
a paralyzing sense of loneliness
beyond what I had known before.
It felt like some kind of heavy weight
pressing down on me
and it would not go away
until I felt
the warmth
of the morning sun
on my face.
Morning
She was the first thing I saw
when I opened my eyes
; sitting directly in front of me.
You found me
she said.
I was afraid you wouldn’t.
Her arms were wrapped around her knees.
So was I
I said.
I knew you were here
in Ireland
and I wanted so much
to come to you
but I couldn’t.
I needed to stay close
to here.
Why?
Soon
she said.
I’ll explain soon.
I leaned forward and inched across the sand and stone
on my hands and knees
and then
I touched her face.
Checking to see if I’m real?
I felt her cheek with my fingers
touched her brow
and then ran my fingers through
her long dark hair
as she closed her dark eyes
and reached out to touch my face.
And then she leaned forward
and kissed me.
I sat upright and then pulled her toward me.
She seemed to melt into my arms
into me
as we lay on the ground inside the ruins of that house
alone in our perfect little world
where language seemed obsolete.
Rebecca
This place?
I asked.
Why here?
This is my home
my history.
I came ashore
there.
She pointed to the cove
the water sparkling in the morning sunlight
with perfectly sculpted waves rolling shoreward.
Where did you come from?
She pointed again to the sea.
These ruins
I said.
This was the stone hut
where that man stood
with his son?
She nodded.
You planted that image in my head, right?
She nodded again.
Why?
So you’d find me.
The Past
Part of me wanted to stop asking questions.
I had found her.
We were together.
What else mattered?
But my mind was filled with the need to know more
to know everything.
I went to the mountain
I said.
Knocknarea
just like you showed me.
Why didn’t you meet me there?
I couldn’t.
I needed to stay here.
Who was the man I saw in the dream?
He was my husband.
Your husband?
A wave like some kind of
cruel electric shock
passed through my brain.
This made no sense.
I couldn’t believe what she had just told me.
And the boy?
He’s your son?
No. Not mine. His.
I don’t understand.
That was all a very long time ago.
I still don’t understand.
How long?
Three hundred years.
Time
Are you some kind of time traveller?
I asked.
We all travel through time, Declan.
But no. Not like that.
Does this have something to do
with the bridge you told me about?
It was the connection I made
with you.
You were the one
I was waiting for.
Why me?
It’s what I sensed in you
what I felt.
You were somehow
not of this time.
And you were searching for something.
What was I searching for?
You didn’t know what it was.
And then I found
you.
There were several seconds of silence
and then she smiled and said
The truth is
I found you.
But how can you …
How can I be so old?
She looked to be sixteen, maybe seventeen.
I nodded.
Time is a strange thing, Declan.
I’ll try to explain.
Rebecca’s Tale
I came from the sea.
I was not the first.
There were many like me.
The man I introduced you to in your dream
was Liam
a fisherman
whom I had seen at sea many times.
He was a good man
a kind man
and then his wife died.
I felt his pain
so intensely
that I chose to come ashore
to change my form.
He needed me.
His son needed me.
Belief
This was three hundred years ago?
I asked.
Yes.
And you were
not human?
I became human
when
I felt the tug
an overwhelming need
to save this man and his son
from their loneliness and pain.
In my world
the world I came from
such things are possible.
What were you before you became human?
You will not understand if I tell you.
I don’t understand any of this
but I do know I am here with you now
and don’t want to lose you.
And I do want to understand.
I was a roane
she said in that beautiful odd way of hers
a selchidh.
I lived in the Domnu
the deep ocean
with my kind.
I was a seal.
When we go through the change
and come ashore
they call us selkies
Belief
This was three hundred years ago?
I asked.
Yes.
And you were
not human?
I became human
when
I felt the tug
an overwhelming need
to save this man and his son
from their loneliness and pain.
In my world
the world I came from
such things are possible.
What were you before you became human?
You will not understand if I tell you.
I don’t understand any of this
but I do know I am here with you now
and don’t want to lose you.
And I do want to understand.
I was a roane
she said in that beautiful odd way of hers
a selchidh.
I lived in the Domnu
the deep ocean
with my kind.
I was a seal.
When we go through the change
and come ashore
they call us selkies.
Liam
She told me of Liam
truly a good man if ever there was one
and how he accepted her as a gift from the sea
how she adapted to his rough life ashore
and helped rais
e his son, Fergus.
But Liam grew older
and Rebecca did not.
Liam accepted this and loved her with all his heart
but
as Fergus got older
he grew to fear her
and thought she was a witch.
Fergus moved away when he was twenty-one
and never spoke to his father
again.
I watched as Liam aged
Rebecca said
and the sadness grew within me.
I watched as he suffered
from the hard work of hauling nets
and dragging his currach ashore.
I loved him very much
and the pain I felt as he grew old and sick
was the price I paid for saving him from
his loneliness.
Life at Streedagh
They had lived very much alone at Streedagh
and Rebecca was happy to live close to the shore
by the sea where she had come from.
If anyone passed by
they would just see a figure in an old woman’s clothing
bent over or with her face covered.
Few cared about Liam after his son moved on
and if anyone spoke of “his woman”
they would say she was crazy
and all were glad
she kept to herself
out of the way of society.
When Liam died
she buried him in the dunes.
One day
Fergus returned
and blamed Rebecca for Liam’s death.
He saw that still she had not aged
and he spit on her
then left
and began spreading the rumours
that she was a witch.
Rebecca Speaks
I had to leave.
I had no choice.
I could not go back to the sea
even though
I longed for the comfort of the deep.
But I was in human form
and could not change back
until I found someone with whom
I could create
a strong enough emotional bond
to save me from what I’d become.
A wandering lost soul
hiding from the world
a world
where I did not belong.
I searched for a very long time.
With my thoughts
I spoke to some who
I thought could help.
But none could.
And then you came to me.
I saw you first in a dream.
And then I found you
and spoke to you.
I believed that creating the bridge
Thin Places Page 6