The Daydreamery

First post! I guess it’s fitting that it’s a long lost memory of when I went to Ireland as a child. All those pictures are lost in boxes, but thankfully Corrinne on Flickr has some great shots. (Link above!) So here goes.

——-

Outside the warehouse, past daddy’s work and the mill of friendly faces, there is an old double-decker bus. In some places, the red shine has faded to obscure and grayish sadness, and it sits squat and half buried in vines and wild flowers. It is left there, half smudged and blurred by wilderness, accepting its fate and slowly drowning in peonies. Light filters beneath the leaves but through the stubborn window frames you can see the table with its half eaten breakfast and abandoned card games.

There is a young man with a matchstick in his mouth pacing through the hazy fog outside. Or is it a copse of daisies? He could be swimming through the flower fields, that frown of concentration rippling out over petals. He is older than you, much so, yet he seems as young as any hero in the story books, so fresh and forward and you wonder if he still dreams of slaying dragons or if that has all disappeared through endless compromises. 

On the chessboard by your elbow, ivory pieces shimmer as if glazed with dew. Shimmering white and ancient, like lilies in a garden pond or white washed doors that line the gray and cobbled streets. It rains here all the time, they say. The gloomy, creamy clouds and their rains fuel the hills and valleys. The green. You’ve never seen anything like the green, the way it claws up buildings and throws itself across rolling hills, and weeds its way into respectable houses and sticks to all the boots and wheels that ever risked crossing through it.

It covers all and everything, except for the white cliffs and churning waves and golden sand and the soft chestnut of your pony’s hocks. He is short and stubborn, with a face like a grumpy child. You have stolen him from his grain to take him into the hills, to make him race along the waves like black beauty and while you whoop and holler into the wind you can feel his indignation and self-consciousness. He is only a pony. He is old and tired, and feels small, even with tiny you and your tiny legs squeezing around his belly.

This is his home and he finds it familiar, though to you the fresh splash of salt and thick smell of green will follow you home and forever stick to your skin. It will wear off with the ages, with other adventures, with the daily dredge of your normal day to day. But that green has filled up your eyes, the fog has enveloped you in its feather breath, the smell of air leaping off cliffs has permeated your very being. Though you may forget, it will never leave you. Close your eyes, and you shall see it all once again. That endless green, the white waves, and the soft muzzle of your smallest friend.

Image from: http://www.ejphoto.com/shetland_pony_page.htm