this morning i got up at 7. that's right, 7! i had a cold hostel breakfast and some strong hostel coffee, and ventured out of the quiet cobblestone neighborhood my bed is housed in and began a day which consisted mostly of the following, in rotation: walking somewhere pretty (the river, Trinity, St. Stephen's Green, Dame St., Phoenix Park). Sitting there and writing and thinking. Buying something tiny to eat or drink from a Spar or a Londis. Walking somewhere else pretty and sitting there and eating it. My favorite thing about traveling, probably, is being able to mesh with a crowd and walk with purpose. I like to get aimlessly lost but walk as if I know where I'm going, anyways, without fear or hesitation, taking sharp turns whenever the whim strikes. Dublin is a good place for doing this, because everywhere is only a ten to forty minute walk from everywhere else.

in the afternoon, i took the Dart out to Howth to take in the sea air, an ill-advised double espresso, and the sunset. Whit and I went to Howth the last time I was in Ireland, in the rain. Today it was all beautiful light and wispy clouds. The slogan of Howth is "Howth is Magic," except all the words are run together so it's also easily read as how-this-magic. how this magic? Howth is surprising because there are a lot of bright, hip-ass, old-school tags thrown up alongside the harbor and the train station. Tags like "Crept" done up in fuschia and lime green. There are also these bizarre palm-like trees everywhere that don't seem like they belong in the North. Howth smells of fish, the clean clean salty kind, the translucent pink kind. I walked past rows and rows of fish markets and wished I had a place to take a fish back to, to cook; past many girls in leather boots and short wool skirts like mine, silhouetted against the dying light, atop the harbor wall. I walked past a point in the harbor where a cluster of children lay giggling, their hands over the side of the wall, looked down and saw many big sad seals, staring at us and flapping their big sad arms. As I took a brisk walk along the curved pier, the open sea to one side, I was heartened to see a number of older women with canes clambering up the steep steps to the top of the wall to take their daily constitutionals. They are not faint of heart, these Irish.

My day has been twelve hours long so far, and I am trying to figure out how to make it longer. I may be the kind of girl who does a lot of things by herself, but I am not yet the kind of girl who goes out to a bar in a strange city by herself on a Saturday when there is a football match with high stakes on, and crowds of rowdy men wearing Irish flags around their shoulders roam the streets. Instead, I think it is tea and early bed and perhaps a rousing game of "how do we close this bloody window?" with my cheery Argentinian roommate, for me.

One of the mixed blessings of being by myself, something that I knew was coming and needed to come, but never gets easier, is that it peels back the layers and exposes all the raw inner wounds. These are invariably many and unexpected in subject, but I'm not surprised when they show up anymore, or how, and even though they never get easier to deal with, it helps to be alone and to not have anyone to put on a brave face for, and to have the knowledge that clasping my hands over my stomach and counting my breaths as I lurch through them is always, always successful. I have had more than a few moments, already, of wondering what exactly I am doing with myself and if I should go home - and my heart begins to race, and I start to feel weak, and I walk faster, and then I turn onto Grafton St., the electric pulse of Dublin, buoyed by the rush of pedestrians and a street band called The Riptide Movement, and the bolt of lightning to my nerves is eased and forgotten.

Today I was again surprised by my own image in a mirror - today not so pale, lips not as scarred, circles not as dark. I looked alive, and happy, and my eyes sparkled back at me. I wonder how many more times I will be surprised.

Tomorrow I am catching a lift to Cork with the boyfriend of a very friendly person I met through Couchsurfing. There I will meet up with the lovely Claudia Meium, she of cheerful grins and curly blond mane, and we will take on the coast (and maybe the world).

Much love to all
S