Monday, September 06, 2010

Burren: The Close View

Here, as promised, are some of the closer details I caught during our walks on the Burren.  I learned the names of the unfamiliar flowers while I was there, but in the intervening two months I've forgotten most of them.  Help, as always, is much appreciated. 

The Ireland trip is already feeling like it was a dream.  Hell, the month I just spent working in Eastern Washington feels like it happened a gazillion years ago, to some other lucky bastard.  With all the globe-trotting I've been doing recently (and this past year broke all personal records for plane travel alone), it's a little disconcerting how quickly places start to seem unreal.  I discussed this with my friend Mark while I was in Twisp, since at that point, New York seemed like an impossibility.  I seriously thought I had lived there?  For like, fifteen freakin' years?  Me?  Gimme a break. 
Here I am though, back in Manhattan.  Like, in my apartment, and everything.  Whacky. 

I'm not sure what this tendency towards amnesia says about me.  Maybe it's a zen thing, a recognition that only this place and time, the one I'm in right now, is real. 

Yeah, why don't we go with that?  What the hell. 

Not sure what these photos are in aid of then, though.  Or this blog.  Hm. 
Words still aren't coming easily for me.  I'm still having to take it slowly.  Still not sure what all this gallivanting adds up to.  But damn it has been a lot of fun.  I'm off to Maine this week, for a few days.  More walking.  More looking.  More conversations and glasses of wine with loved ones.  I may not know what all this adds up to, but I do know I'm one lucky bastard.   
   

5 comments:

Greg said...

You won't need me to identify the violets, surely, but those are primroses growing beside them in that first floral image (lovely shot!).

I wish I could ID the purple spike, which is shaped like a hyacinth, but isn't that. The blues might be gentian. I do know the single purple flower is cranesbill, AKA, perennial geranium.

We seem to be similarly at loose ends (heh) lately - I've had a most delightful summer like you, and have collected scads of photos along the way, but still making sense of the lessons (if any) which came my way during my metaphoric journeys. Time will tell, eh?

Meanwhile, isn't that a pigflower?

Jess said...

Okay, flower names... Here goes...

In the first flower photo, I call the ones on the left "the purple ones" and the ones on the right "the pale yellow ones with the dark yellow centers." Shall I keep going? Marc is usually rolling his eyes and walking away from me at this point, but tell me if this is helping! I can explain the rest of the flowers! ;)

Patrick said...

Jess: you'll like the fact that my sister and I named one flower (you can see them in the ninth image) the fried eggs. If you enlarge, you'll see what we mean.

Jess said...

Well done! ;)

Butterfly Mage said...

Neat staircase!

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