Musings from Ireland

I forgot to mention that we also grabbed some sheep's wool from our walk on the shores of Dingle today. There were lots of sheep around, as I think I mentioned, and almost at every barbed wire fence or at every blackberry patch or thistle, you'd see tufts of wool. Sometimes it would be tiny amounts, and sometimes it would be great clumps swaying in the breeze. We grabbed some of that too, and I put it in my pocket with all the stones. So, while I do have two really awesome scarves and a hat (a checkered cap) and a Guinness shirt, I also have stones and sheep's wool from the shores of Ireland itself, which to me is much more meaningful. And photographs. And a brain full of images that I wasn't quick enough to take pictures of.

That's the other trouble with rushing around the pace we are. Even when we are not getting around under our own power, when we are being whisked off by a bus driver or something (which we are about 80% of our time here) we are seeing things so quickly. They rush past the window too soon. By the time I see it and say, oh! that's really strange/interesting/beautiful/something I'd like to paint/something that makes me laugh or would make Anthony laugh, it's gone. The things I did catch from the buses or even while on foot is a miracle that I got them, since sometimes even the time it takes to get the camera ready (turned on and un-lens-capped, if its out, and dug out of the bag, turned on and un-lens-capped if its stowed away) seems too long. There are things -- like graffiti, facial expressions, the man reading his newspaper with a magnifying glass in the bus station this morning, the wooden fish peddler stand, the cattle blocking our exit today on the shore -- that I couldn't take a photo of for whatever reason, which is fine but also not fine at the same time. I need to list these all in one massive notepad, and paint/draw them when I get home. Or as time goes on. I should any way, but it is easier to do so when one has a snapshot for reference. You always worry that the quality of your memory won't do the actual moment justice, that you won't quite ever capture the way that light was shining through the wineglass, or the way the moon looked from the window of the airplane as it shone out over the Atlantic ocean, or the precise color of the sunlight passing through the underside of those leaves.

But I suppose photos don't really do that either. We get stuck in this trap of thinking that they do, but everyone knows that even the most expensive lens with the sharpest focus taken with the greatest care will still never do it justice. Not like being there on that cliff, in that airplane, underneath that tree. And really every artist knows this -- when you draw, paint, or write about something though people may look at it and say oh wow you got it, that nails the idea right on the head, you know in your heart that you haven't quite got there. It was more. It was richer, sharper, more intense than this pale replication ever could hope to be. But you relent that this will suffice, that this gesture, thumbnail sketch, is enough to get you back to the way you felt at that time, and that maybe it will nudge someone in that direction. Maybe it will inspire them to experience whatever it was for themselves. Maybe. And if not, at least you have a tangible memory of it, here in this notebook. At least it can be something beautiful/strange/thought provoking for someone else to look at. The moment-of-inspiration, the thing that struck you silent, the thing that you experienced that touched you in a more profound way than something else, can begin to stand on it's own, take on its own life as it moves in its own direction. And this is very good.