Sitting at the airport in one of my favourite restaurants. Vin Room opened here at the International Terminal at the very beginning of Covid lockdowns.

The worry was, it wouldn’t make it. Believe me. It’s thriving.

I am too.

Despite…. well why worry about the despites or in spite ofs or the if only this was that way or that way.

The fact is, life is as it is and I am on my way to Ireland for 10 days of respite, restoration and respiration. Breath comes deep as I anticipate 10 days of aloneness, writing time, wandering time, and just pure delight time.

This is my for me, by me, with me 70th birthday gift to me.

It appeared as if it was spontaneous but the fact is, I’d been deliberating, wondering, contemplating this trip for quite some time.

I wanted to go but concern for my beloved, wanting to do something with my daughters, just wanting to ensure the rest of the world was okay before I took off on some unknown destination kind of trip, caused me to falter and wait, and consider and wait some more.

And then, one morning in September, I just did it. I booked a flight. didn’t really think about dates — do you know Canadian Thanksgiving is on the 9th and I don’t return until the 10th? Yeah. Like. Who’s going to do the big dinner and all that jazz?

But I digress. There I was, sitting at my desk in my studio, writing a strategic plan for the not-for-profit I’m working for when a voice inside my head whispered… Just Do It!

And so I did. Just do it.

I picked up my phone, opened my Westjet app and check on flights to Dublin. And booked one.

I had no idea what I’d do once I got there. No plan. No idea of where to go, what to see, what to do. All I knew was I was flying to Dublin on Saturday, September 30. End of story.

I’m a little more prepared now. I have a car booked at the airport for when I arrive tomorrow morning. I’ll drive two and a half hours west towards the ocean. When I reach my destination at the Half Door Writer’s Retreat, I’ll park my car, unload my luggage (one bag) and ensconse myself for a beautiful sojourn on the shore of Lough Derg, just beyond the town of Nenagh. There, I’ll write, and wander, drive and tour, write some more and ponder life, love, and the beauty of being immersed in the Irish countryside.

My father is Irish. His father and brother immigrated to Canada in the 1920s but never left their homeland behind. It always lived in their hearts, his Uncle Pat’s Irish brough never softening.

My grandfather returned to the Emerald Isle a lot, eventually, settling in London where my father was born.

It’s a long convuluted journey. My paternal grandmother was Jewish. The union did not last and if I read the letters she wrote to a sister correctly, their differeing faith had lots to do with it. When my grandparents divorced when my father was 8, they shipped him off to boarding school from London to Gravelbourg Saskatchewan which on a certain level explains his enchantment with my French speaking mother. Gravelbourg is a small enclave of French culture deep in the wheatfields of prairie bound south eastern Saskatchewan.

And still, I digress.

It must be the wine. I’m hoping it will put me to sleep on my flight so that when I arrive in Dublin at 11am tomorrow morning Dublin time, I’ll be refreshed and rejuvenated. Ready to take on this adventure.

Wish me luck.

I’m off!