As I never got the chance to post this in Ireland, I’m doing so now. It is a reflection upon colour and how it gave me pause, which in turn led to speculation about what ‘place’ was. Here are my observances, recorded on the side of the road, somewhere between Galway and Doolin.
It finally hit me, as I was driving over just one of many hills?there are so many fences because there are so many rocks. I assume this is simply common knowledge, and therefore never stated, because in all my research and travel, I?ve never once come across for an explanation for the innumerable stone fences that makes this country the patchwork quilt that it is.
It?s not just the stonework that makes this land so varied, yet highly patterned and invested with so much natural regularity. At first glance, there seems to be but three colors here: blue, green, and grey. Look again. The sky, easily wider here than in most parts of the world, floats above the island in finely nuanced shades: nearly white just at the cloud line, hovering with an aerial jet fastness of the blue of the stratosphere, then met again with the solid and trustworthy heights of deep blue.
The land, dressed with the finery of nature?s clothing, ranges from a light, almost yellow flavour of green to the deepest shade of green shadow. Truly, Ireland is the land of a thousand greens.
As I sit here looking across a narrow valley (crossed by the usual network of fences and trees), I can see the wind?s movements across the grasses, a yellow unison of spectacular brilliance, despite its simplicity. Closer to me, the grass takes on a deeper shade, solemn and dignified.
Even more fascinating to me is the way the grass looks from one patch to the other. Here, the grass seems vibrant. And here, beside it, separated only by an invisible boundary, is a softer glowing green, and across from it, even deeper still, echoing through nature the layers of complexity which is built even into this small island.
Colours don?t seem to be on many people?s minds here. Perhaps they?re used to the daily helpings of grey stone and green hills set against a heavenly sky. Now that I think about it, most people that I?ve met were almost apologetic in one way or another. The night I stayed in Clifton, the woman who ran the hostel said she regretted the weather wasn?t better for me, and hoped it would clear up on the morrow. Other people just ignore the land about them, seemingly forgetful of where they are.
I suppose we all do this to some extent. We live in a place, become accustomed to its appeal, and soon come to forget that, remembering only the bad things about it. What gives a place its ?Placeness?? What makes Ireland ?Ireland?? I don?t ask to confuse, only to posit this suggestion.
A place is created through how we see it, how we remember it. As a place, Ireland is, for me, a land of colours. It is a palette of many varied hues and shades; simple colors that do nothing more than exist, yet in their simple arrangement, it reminds me to reflect on all my familiar haunts of knowing and remembering, even as pass? and, well, familiar they have come to be. Because of Ireland, I think I have a greater appreciation of their indelible mark upon my mind and heart. For you see, they?re places too.