There will come a time very soon when my feet will once again be planted on United States soil, and someone will ask me with more enthusiasm than my weary body can bear, “And what of Ireland?”

“What of it?” I’ll say, then my mind will drift back to Armagh, that city to which I referred so fondly as home for a time.  The first day I stepped foot in that city, I took off my shoes and felt its stone beneath my feet.  I was a stranger in a strange land on that day, but the strangeness has now faded away.

When I’m home I will tell my family and friends about the street names and symbols carved into the ground, the memories branded within the city’s deep history.  I will, of course, miss the church steeples peeking over other buildings, I’ll miss potato bread and the striped chairs of Ember’s restaurant.  I’ll miss seeing Saint Patrick’s Catholic Cathedral from my habitual place in the hostel’s quiet room, and the way it gently faded into the darkness when the late Irish night set in.  I’ll miss daily ice creams, and the garden that became my inspiration, and the absolute majesty of the sacred hill at Navan.  I’ll miss having time set aside to write, and having people to bounce ideas off, and I’ll miss my stack of books at the Irish Studies’ Library, which remained always in their place on the table, waiting in vain for my final return.  What I might miss most is the church bells, echoing every fifteen minutes across Armagh’s seven hills.  The sound became more and more faded as my time in the city passed, but even as I stood watching my last Irish sunset, I tuned my ears to their music.

There is one thing, however, I will miss more than even those beloved bells.

Though this journey was all about practicing the craft of storytelling, no words could suffice to express what remains; so I will end this tale, not with an epitaph or a last pithy phrase, but with the only thing that can speak a thousand words.

This is what I shall miss above all else.

Happy journeys, my friends.  May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind always be at your back, may the suns shine warm upon your face, and may the rains fall softly upon your fields.