I said.
This is my other special place
where I reconnect.
You do a lot of reconnecting.
I need to in order to survive.
It gets lonely
very lonely.
Why?
Not yet
she said.
Not yet.
Research
The voice was gone.
She was gone.
The images
however
were burned into my memory.
I went home
and got online
hoping to track down those images.
I started with beaches.
Do you know how many beaches there are in the world?
A lot. And no one knows the exact number
but some crazy math guy posted what he believes to be
the number of grains of sand in all the world’s beaches
which is 5,000 billion billion
or 5 sextillion.
Now you know.
But I digress.
I looked at what seemed like
a thousand
internet images of beaches
but nothing like what I had seen.
All I could figure out from memory
was that it was not a tropical beach
or an arctic beach
or a desert beach
which still left a lot of beaches.
So I gave up on that.
Boy on a Mission
I figured I’d run into the same thing
if I went looking for mountains
so instead, I decided
to look for
piles of rocks.
And
lo and behold
I saw a pile of rocks
like the one I had seen in my head.
A huge pile of rocks
the size of a building
that was man-made
and it had a name.
The pile of rocks
was called a cairn.
Not Just a Pile of Rocks
In ancient times in some parts of the world
people were buried on hilltops or in fields
under a pile of rocks.
Guess it seemed like the thing to do
around 6,000 years ago.
In parts of Europe, the cairns were built with passages
portals to the spiritual world
for the dead.
I saw pictures of them in England
and Scotland and France
and then Ireland.
And then I remembered
an old family photo
of my crazy Uncle Seamus
with my grandfather
standing beside a tall pile of rocks
not like the one in my head
but a pile of rocks nonetheless.
Uncle Seamus Remembered
He was my mother’s brother
and he didn’t have Skype or internet
or anything like that
but he did have a phone.
I’d been close to him when I was a kid.
Crazy Uncle Seamus, my father called him.
He’d moved here from the west coast of Ireland
to try living in North America
but he didn’t like it:
too crowded
too fast
too North American
bad beer
everything was metal and plastic.
I likes sea and sky
and empty fields
he said
and not much else.
He told me that I should stay in touch
with my Irish heritage.
You are the only son
of an only son
of an only son
of an only son
and that
makes you special.
I didn’t really know why
but I got the point.
Just always remember
Declan
It’s your adventure
so you be the hero.
He and my father didn’t get along even though my father had grown up near Seamus in County Sligo, Ireland. My mother was from there as well, of course. We were an all-Irish family but my father rejected everything about the place and swore it was behind him and he — or any of us — would never go back.
I was sad when Seamus moved back
to his old stone house in Ballyconnell
near the city of Sligo in Ireland.
And then we lost touch
and he just seemed like someone
living in another world.
The Phone Call
I had to look up how to call Ireland
and finally got it right.
Dial 011 and then 353.
It was 10 o’clock at night here
and I wasn’t thinking about time zones.
Holy Mother of God
he answered.
Who would be calling me
at two o’clock in the morning?
I didn’t know what to say at first.
It’s me
I finally blurted out.
Me? Who is me?
If you’re not the Pope
or Saint Patrick himself
then I don’t want to talk to ya.
Uncle Seamus, it’s me.
What?
Declan.
Jesus, boy. Declan.
Is something wrong?
No. Not really.
There was some coughing and throat clearing.
Well, then.
How are things?
And Then Something Strange Happened
Before I could say anything
I suddenly felt very
very
strange.
I wanted to try to fill in the time
the years
since Uncle Seamus had left.
But I didn’t know where to begin.
It was like all my life I was a stranger
living among strangers
an observer watching me go through the motions
from a great distance.
Hello?
Seamus said.
Declan, you there?
The fog began to clear.
I saw the mountaintop again.
Sorry
I said.
It’s just that
Just what?
I didn’t know what I had to say
or why I was even calling him
so I reported the only thing
that was now sweeping through my mind.
I think I’m in love.
Well then
he said.
It was worth
waking up for
after all.
The Story So Far
I told Seamus everything:
the voice
the girl
the sea
the beach
the mountaintop
and the pile of rocks — the cairn
The problem is
I said
now that she’s found me
I feel less connected to
anything here.
Not even my own life.
I feel like I don’t
belong here.
I took a gulp of air.
And worse yet
she’s just a voice
an image in my head.
I can’t be with her
or touch her.
I can’t …
Hold your horses
Uncle Seamus said.
Describe
that pile of rocks.
So I did.
Knocknarea
he said suddenly.
Queen Maeve’s tomb.
You’ll need to get over here
as quickly as you can.
There’s no way around it.
My Parents’ Ireland
My mother knew everything
there was to know about her old home
old Irish beliefs and superstitions
stones that had magic powers
Irish saints and the ancient people.
But my father on the other hand
seemed to hate and reject everything
about the country
he was born in.
I grew up in poverty
he said.
We were held back
trapped by silly beliefs
and religion
and tradition
and ridiculous stories
and stupid songs
and fiddle players
and drink.
The only thing that can save Ireland
is science.
And maybe even science
can’t save those bloody bumpkins.
And that’s what he had to say about Ireland.
My Irish Blood
My father wouldn’t allow books about Ireland in the house
and Uncle Seamus (while he was here)
was an embarrassment
until he abandoned us for the stone house in Ballyconnell
and I couldn’t see why being the single son of a single son, etc.
was important.
And it probably wasn’t.
My father said all the single son stuff
about him and me
was “bollocks and shite.”
But I wondered sometimes when I was young
what life would have been like for me
if I’d grown up in Ireland.
And now it was in my head again
because she was in my head.
And if the cairn made any sense
if Uncle Seamus made any sense
then Rebecca
was Irish
and if she was Irish, I wondered
does that mean she is real?
And if she is real
then …
Then what?
Eight Things Not to Do in Ireland
(Learned from an unreliable source on the internet late at night.)
1. Don’t claim to be Irish if you didn’t grow up there.
2. Don’t fake an Irish accent.
3. Don’t ask about leprechauns.
4. Don’t ask about “the Troubles.”
(I had to look up what the Troubles were and
oh boy, they were definitely troubles.)
5. Don’t ever try to sing “Danny Boy.”
6. Don’t kiss the Blarney Stone.
(Locals pee on it at night when the tourists aren’t around.)
7. Don’t ask for corned beef and cabbage.
8. Don’t ask anyone for directions.
(Unless you are prepared to hear their life story.)
One Thing To Do in Ireland
Go visit “thin places.”
(Learned later that night after falling asleep
and waking up to the voice of Rebecca
in my head.)
Girl in My Bedroom
I had fallen asleep
yes at my computer
and she woke me up.
I was in my underwear
as I heard her voice
and began to see her come into focus
(as the whole room seemed to go out of focus).
Yikes
I said out loud.
What?
she said
You think I’ve never seen a boy
in boxer shorts?
I felt my face go red
and scrambled around the room
to find my pants.
You’re from Ireland
I said
not from some other planet.
Are you disappointed?
No. It’s just …
Just what?
Well, if you are from Ireland
and you were trying to contact me
why didn’t you just jump on a plane
and come meet me?
I can’t do that.
Why?
I’m different
she said it firmly
and didn’t explain
so I didn’t ask.
Tell me about thin places
I said.
Her face lit up and her eyes widened.
These are places where they say
the spirit world and the physical world
are close together.
Sacred places
ancient burial sites.
Like mountaintops with cairns?
You’ve been doing your homework.
I told her about my conversation with Uncle Seamus.
You called Ireland?
On the phone. I forgot about time zones.
Time zones are interesting.
If you understand time zones
you’ll eventually figure out there are
other kinds of “zones” as well.
Now I’m a little scared.
Don’t be.
Hey.
Hey what?
Why don’t you tell me your phone number
I said
and I’ll call you.
Then we can really talk.
I don’t have a phone.
Skype?
No.
Email?
No.
You’re a little behind with your technology.
(Maybe I was thinking of my dad’s version of Ireland.)
Just the opposite
she said.
I’m way ahead.
You can hear me, right?
See me?
That’s true.
Then who needs smartphones or email?
Travel
I want you to close your eyes
she said.
I’m going to take you somewhere else.
So I closed my eyes
and suddenly felt like I was falling down a dark endless shaft.
Don’t be scared
Rebecca said.
That feeling will go away.
And it did.
Now open your eyes
but don’t really open your eyes.
Strangely, that made sense.
And with my open eyes but eyes still shut
I saw
a little old stone cottage
Where am I?
Shush. Just look and listen.
The stone cottage was by a rocky shoreline
on a small cove of some sort.
There was a funny little boat by the shore
and there were fishnets drying on rocks.
The sun was hidden by cloud
and it was drizzling a little
and I heard gulls and lapping waves
and smelled something funny
something burning.
Must have been the smoke from the chimney.
Just then
a man opened the door of the cottage and stepped out
a youngish man smoking a pipe
and he looked up at the sky
as if expecting something.
&n
bsp; I noticed then there were no other cottages
no other people
nothing
but grey drippy sky and grey choppy sea
and stone
and then a boy
of about eight
came out of the house
and stood beside the man
who must have been his father.
I waited.
I thought there might be a wife
a mother
but there was no one else.
And then the man turned toward me
as if he knew I was watching.
His eyes were very blue, very intense
and his face
was filled with sadness
as he put his hand
on his son’s shoulder.
The boy did not turn toward me
but the man’s face
told me a story:
here was the loneliest man
in the world.
Loneliness Squared
When I woke up the next morning
nothing felt right.
Everything seemed wrong:
my thoughts
the room around me
the sky outside my window.
I looked at my hands
like I’d never seen them before.
What was happening to me?
More than ever, I felt
I didn’t belong here
only now it was amplified, multiplied
to a point I cannot describe.
I felt like I had somehow been infected
by the loneliness of the man I had seen by the shoreline.
Rebecca had done this to me.
Why?
I had no answers.
The loneliness I now felt
seemed worse because she was not here with me.
Was this some bizarre kind of witchcraft?
Was she a witch?
I didn’t believe in witches.
Rebecca
I silently begged.
Save me from this
this feeling.
English Class
I tried to shake the loneliness
by talking to kids at school
but I wasn’t good at it.
I kept saying stupid things
and kids gave me looks
so I gave up
trying to communicate
with them.
Rebecca didn’t return until English
in the middle of Mr. Frye reading
from Julius Caesar by Shakespeare.
“Men at some time are masters of their fates. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.”