April 26, 1994

"Hey, Rocky! You're back! Where have you been? - "Around the world." - "What have you learned?" - "You can't escape."
                                              Johnny Hart - A  B.C. Comic

A Berraism, mine not Yogi's - wherever I go, there I am.  I did not come to Ireland to escape. I came for memories and happiness. But all I found was emptiness, loneliness, fear, anxiety, depression, despair, sadness and added rejection. Some pot of gold! What I learned was that I did come here to escape, but it is impossible to runaway from the annoyances and distortions of a disturbing and distrustful mind.

This morning I put my hands in my slicker's pocket and found the Lady of Knock medal I thought I lost. It is a beautiful day, bright, sunny and warm. I spent most of the morning at Thoor Ballylee, going through the museum and talking with the new curator, Mary Callanan.

Now, I am at Coole Park which is about three miles from Thoor Ballylee. It was once the home of Lady Gregory and is now a National Park and Refuge.  This is a picturesque place with woods and trails. Although the mansion and wild swans are long gone, the Autograph Tree still stands and the initials of Yeats, Shaw, O'Casey and Synge are still visible, though barely. It is not surprising that Yeats spent so much time here and found so much inspiration in its woods and wildlife.

There are no better places to spend my last day in Ireland than at Thoor Ballylee and Coole Park. As I look up a plane is flying across the sky - to Dublin? to Belfast? to London? Are there some people returning to a place they tried to escape from? Tomorrow an Aer Lingus 747 will take me across the Atlantic. What awaits me I do not know, what mt fate is I do not know. I am going back to known and the unknown, and I dread having to face either - because I am alone and afraid.

What else I found here is that the man I see in the mirror is a hopeless and homeless soul, without love and nothing to for anymore. The only escape is death and to confront its cold and callous consequences.

2:00pm   -   Coole Park   -  Gort, County Galway, Ireland

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

WHEN YOU KILL YOURSELF

When you kill yourself, this is what happens - you end your life and as you do you steal life from those that love you, destroy their dreams and devastate their lives of all hope. Their shattered souls and broken hearts will never heal, never mend. Your suicide will condemn them to a life sentence of endless nightmares. Their nights will be spent in a flood of tears, not until they fall asleep but until the sun rises - and a new day of sorrowful struggles and suffering begins, day after unending day. Your death will cause so much destructive damage to your family that it will be beyond repair. All will be ruin. They will remember the day you died every day in mournful misery, in sadness and sorrow, in hopelessness and helplessness - forever doomed to a life of agony and anguish. Their minds will ache in brutal pain as they abandon all hope of a peaceful life. Their lives will be spent wandering wearily, not knowing where they are or where they are going - because their life ended with
Read more

MOURNING FOR MY LIFE

  "I am in mourning for my life."  Anton Chekhov I mourn. Suicide has been part of my life since I was eleven years old. I have lost the two people I have loved the most in my life to suicide. I have lost childhood friends, classmates and neighbors. Suicide is a dark shadow from which I cannot escape - it may not always be visible but it is always there. As time passes. as I grow older, I have this fear - what I am most afraid of: that sometime in the future, I will wake up one morning and start a slow silent stroll towards suicide - or maybe I have been on that journey since I was eleven and don't even know it - as I am in mourning for my life. Contact: fortheheartcries@gmail.com  
Read more

SUICIDE: THE STORM BEFORE THE CALM

  The storm! The storm usually begins with feelings of sadness, a lack of interest, being withdrawn, a sense of loneliness. In time these feelings deepen into depression and despair - overwhelming and painful mental anguish engulfed in helplessness and hopelessness. Thoughts of suicide - and as the storm rages, intensifies, suicide becomes the solution.  Family and friends are worried by the unusual and uncharacteristic behavior - what to do? But once suicide is decided, plans made, a day decided - peacefulness prevails, the storm passes, all is calm - a sense of normalcy returns, family and friends are relieved and relaxed. But it is at this time that family and friends should be more attentive, most vigilant - for it is in this calmness that death often arrives. Contact: fortheheartcries.blogspot.com
Read more