When I was a child, I was scared of the ocean.
I grew up in Massachusetts and we would spend childhood summer days on the beaches of the Atlantic. It’s an imposing body of water– dark blue and still cold during the hottest months, salt waves crashing into rough sand beaches crowned with massive dunes. I did not understand the appeal of the ocean, back then. The Atlantic Ocean was a monster; it was the edge of the world. I preferred the kettle ponds and lakes in New England to our crashing, churning, wine-dark ocean.
I grew to love its darkness, its mystery, its largeness. Warm seas still seem like an amazing luxury– in Boston, our ocean grips and chills.
I found these thoughts racing through my head as I stood at the edge of the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland. It was the first destination on my Limerick trip and I’d spent most of the gray morning in a state of fitful napping on the bus. The rain was holding off, barely. As soon as I arrived and walked through the lush green path that leads to the visitor center, the cold ocean air cut through my layers and I started shivering. I barely noticed though, once the glorious cliffs rose up in front of me.
Curving along the edge of the ocean and dropping sheer down to the water below, they shimmered in the fog and I couldn’t stop staring, photographing, reveling.
Maybe the cliffs encouraged this reflection on the past, this introspective mood. The Cliffs of Moher are simply breathtaking, their sheer walls undulating against the dark waters to a vanishing point. They beckon. There is an hours-long walk that can be done along the cliffs’ edge; we (alas) did not have time for it, but I wanted so badly to spend the day weaving my way along the path. Maybe it’s the rawness or the contrast of the natural drop, but something about the Cliffs of Moher inspires.
As the navy waves unfurled in front of me, I felt this overwhelming feeling of connection, of viewing my former life through a looking-glass. Here I was, at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, the very one that had scared me so much as a child, but on the other shore. I had moved so far away from Boston and yet here I’d come back straight across to the edge of Europe and the only thing separating me from my former home was the glorious, expansive blue of the ocean.
In my mind, I sailed a tiny greeting across the water, back towards America. It was waiting for me on the other side of the expanse, palpable yet unreachable.
I grew up with this ocean. This same ocean, that other shore. The Cliffs of Moher stretched out towards the horizon. What an epic, strange feeling– in a bizarro-world way, I was nearly home.
I visited the Cliffs of Moher as part of the Limerick 2014 City of Culture tour, arranged and sponsored by Failte Ireland. All opinions are my own.
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