Upstate New York in the summer is like the jungle compared to Ireland. So thick with trees, so rough around the edges, so hot. I got stuck in traffic on the way home. People are busy, always busy, all the time. Looking back at Ireland, it was so different. I hadn’t noticed how much until I got back. In Ireland, I was occupied by my obligations as a student. I got up late a lot of the time, which was kind of a disappointment in retrospect. I loved it there, yet I couldn’t bring myself to go see it. To go live it.

I made friends over there. With my classmates, with the locals, all the same. A good number of my classmates, of my friends, are from Baltimore. But there’s a good number who weren’t. A good number who I may not see again. I left a lot behind. I left my name on the Belfast Peace Wall, the top of the dresser in the Armagh Youth Hostel, in the minds of others, and their names have been left in my mind, and even those who will remain nameless to me, they’ve left an impression of themselves in my memory.

In the airport, as I awaited my plane, it dawned me that I was leaving. Questions began to rise. Was that it? Could something like this happen again? Had I made the most of it? All I could do in the airport was choke on emotions and hear this song resonate within my skull so strongly, I’d swear someone sitting nearby could hear it. Did I leave behind all those hills I climbed, all those unturned pages, all those poets and playwrights, the parrot in the hole in the wall, the ancient hills where stories were once made, the blue skies, the gloomy gray clouds, the pure green grass, the tall wheat fields, the shapely stepping stones, the rickety rope bridges, the lazy days, and the green isle? Did I leave it all behind? Will I ever go back?

I’m no poet, but the only answer I can think to answer those questions is;

Wanderlust, wanderlust, take me home.
Wherever that be, wherever we go.