writer’s retreat | Dare Boldly

Believing deeply that getting lost often paves the path to self-discovery, my latest escapade began as many do: serendipitously. I had just dropped off a gratitude gift to the delightful Frank and Natalie, the host of the Irish Ladies’ Book Club, and the kind couple who assisted during my flat tire ordeal. After coffee and Frank’s glowing recommendation, I set off to explore the Millenium Cross.

True to form, I soon found myself bewilderingly off-course.

Instead of hiking towards the Cross, I stumbled upon the haunting site of The Graves of the Leinstermen. This is where, according to legend, early in the 11th Century, the King of Leinster was ambushed and killed en route to Kincora to woo King Boru’s daughter. King Boru’s wife, opposed to the union, had conspired his demise, ordering her husband’s men to set up an ambush on the trail.

Thinking I was walking towards the Cross, I set off with gusto and began an uphill trek into the Arras mountains. But between the foreboding clouds hinting at rain and the absence of my trusty knee brace, I soon had second thoughts. About 15 minutes in, on a slippery, mud-caked path, my instincts screamed for retreat.

I trudged back. At my car, I asked the guidance from a passerby. Did the road continue on and lead me back towards Portroe, where I needed to be by 5pm without having to take the road already travelled?

She reassured me it did and armed with her directions, I once again set off, forward. I thought I was following her directions but… what felt like the correct left turn soon turned into a narrow muddy and treacherous path leading downhill through dense woods. With my tires sliding precariously on the steep, muddy decline and my heart in mouth. I pulled on the handbrade and came to a stop.

I knew this couldn’t be the right road but I had few alternatives. The narrow forest-lined trail offered no exit, save to cautiously move forward. Easing off the clutch, shifting into first girl, I began to inch slowly forward.

Then, almost out of a scene from an old movie, a bend led me into a dead end leading to a decript yard littered with relics of old machines, children’s toys, furniture and other objects that had lost thier connection to whatever they may have been, complete with, a weather-beaten stone cottage.

It felt like I had been thrust into an eerie Irish rendition of “Deliverance”.

My intuition suggested caution, but the need to turn around urged me towards that timeworn cottage. Its gate moaned with age as I stepped through, and angry dogs could be heard growling and barking from beyond the door. The suspense was palpable as I knocked, half-expecting an ominous response. But silence, except for the incessant barking, filled the air.

Getting no response to my knocking, and urged on by my fear the dogs might break through the door, I raced back to the car, drove it into the yard, turned around. All the while, half expecting a grizzled face to suddenly appear at the driver’s winder, waving a double barrel shotgun, screaming at me to go away!

Heart pounding, adrenalin coursing, I sped away, as fast as the muddy track and steep incline would allow, grateful for the escape.

Over a delicious dinner prepared by my gracious host, Pippa of the Half Door Cottage, she later confirmed my unease about that mysterious place.

As I told her the story of the woods I’d become lost in, her eyes grew wide and she shuddered visibly. She knew exactly where I’d ended up. “You don’t want to be meeting with those folk,” she cautioned. And in hushed voice she added, “It’s rumoured there’s a lot of clandestine activity going on in those woods.”

But here’s the thing, as thrilling as that experience was, my journey wasn’t all danger and suspense. That evening, after dinner, we headed to the opening of the Dromineer Nenagh Literary Festival. By sheer coincidence, my trip to Ireland and the Half Door Writer’s Retreat overlapped with this literary feast.

The readings, by Vona Groarke and Kit de Waal, felt transformative. It was as if a grand door to an entirely new literary adventure swung open before me.

Life’s detours, both literal and literary, continue to prove enlightening. Whether finding ancient graves, narrowly escaping a Deliverance encounter in ominous woods, or being inspired by poetic readings, every twist and turn deepens my belief: “It doesn’t matter how or where adventure unfolds, when approached with optimism and arms wide open to the possibility of the best, every outcome is a blessing.

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!