For years I have been reading books about The Great Blasket Island. It is a very small island in a very large ocean and part of a beautiful country that carries a legacy of brilliant authors, poets and musicians. To say the utmost-very-least, I am infatuated with it. The size of this island is: 1.656 mi². It has not been fully inhabited since the 1950’s. There are people better than I that have written about its history, its people, its beauty.
I dreamed of going there.
In 2019 I did go there.
It reinforced everything I had ever read about it. From the words of people who lived there, survived there, had opinions there, danced and sang there, existed there. Great writers: Peig Sayers, Tomás Ó Criomhthain/Tomas O’Crohan, Maurice O’Sullivan and more.
Their words pulled me, tore at me and harnessed me to a dream to be there.
My time there was very short. I did spend the night, in Peig Sayers cottage. I sat in the cottage she last lived in on the island before leaving. I stared through the windows, at the ocean, at the seals, at the sky. At the world that she and the other islanders would have seen upon waking every morning. I walked the paths, I wondered the village, I loved it even more. I could imagine her life because of the words she left behind.
I dreamed of what it would be like to live there. Even for a short time. I stayed awake as long as I could while there. I didn’t want to sleep my time away. I took many videos of the night, hearing the wind talk to the island, and the fire crackling for my attention.
When I returned home the island didn’t leave me alone. I would go to bed at night and lie there imaging the wind, the crackle of the fire and the island still speaking to me. I spent months going to sleep with the idea of living there and what it would be like, creating a wish to help me fall asleep. It became so powerfully implanted in my thoughts I would dream about it. I started to write it down. I decided it was like a journal of a wish. Being able to live in this world I had such a short glimpse of.
I wrote about ‘me’ though it isn’t me. It’s the journal of a wish of who I would be if I did this. If I could do this. I based my ‘wish’ on my experience.
Here I am sitting at a cottage on the island. Interesting little fact about me, I am not fond of the color yellow. But the color of this door called me. The cottage I created in my writing, to live in during my wish is not this cottage, but the color of the door is what kept popping up in my head.
Sitting right here, and in other places along the island, are some of my most peaceful moments in life. I can’t believe my good fortune to have been there, to breathe that air. To see those views. To walk those paths.
So. I wrote. I created a journal of a wish if I was the kind of person who would pack up, give or sell everything I have to leave one life and start another.
I don’t count myself among the greats who have written from Ireland, from the Aran Islands (the start of my fascination with Ireland’s beautiful islands), from the Great Blasket Island. But I went there. I wrote there. And in my imagination, those who lived there and wrote from there would understand my desire to do the same.
The name of my book is Yellow Door, The Journal of a Wish.
If you have any desire to do so, here are the links to the book currently at lulu.com. It will be available on amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com but that won’t occur for another 4 weeks or so.
Paperback:
eBook:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/c-faherty-brown/yellow-door-journal-of-a-wish/ebook/product-24393273.html
And if you ever get a chance to read Yellow Book I would greatly appreciate a review.
Thank you. And I hope you have a wish or a dream that keeps your imagination fully engaged and enhances your dreams.
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The Chatter Blog 