slowly she turned

An introduction to a two week trip to the place I love more than any other.

This journey began in my mind last fall, when I decided to make it happen. My worry was that if I continued to wait, it might never happen, and it was up to me to fix that. The universe stepped in and provided a remote job from January to June, albeit one with work that I did not enjoy, but gave me the income that I could pay for this without financial strain, as long as I was relatively frugal. Granted, there were a few challenges in the months before I left, but those made it even more important to move forward.

How many times did I change my itinerary? I’ve lost count. The core of it was the week long mixed media workshop with Sandra Duran Wilson at the fabulous Essence of Mulranny studios in Mulranny, Mayo. I knew that since I was most likely going to travel solo, it was my chance to go and do exactly as I pleased, so I planned a week before the workshop on my own to the west coast, first flying to Shannon and drifting northwest to Achill Island for a few days, then taking the opportunity to change my flight to Dublin and immediately head to southwest Donegal.

It was the experience of a lifetime, and one of the best gifts I have ever given myself.

I begin my story with the first day on the ground in Dublin, and end it with the last full day in Dublin. I’ll do a post for each day and date it on that day. There may be multiple posts for a day. That’s how full this trip was. I am writing these posts in mid-August.

Note: in Ireland, there are multiple ways to spell place names – in English, Irish, and and unknown origin. I usually picked the spelling that I saw most often.