Galway Girl

Maya and I get our days off to line up and we hop on a bus to Galway. She's got a busker friend from Portugal who lives there and is happy to have us crash on his couch. Fabio The Fiddler.
We arrive to a beautiful, sunny day (which is quite rare), and it doesn't take long to find the racket of the Galway Street Club (a large busker group) flowing down the street.
What a rag tag group.
They look like pirates, with gravelly voices to match, and I immediately love them. I want to be friends with all these people. Their music is lively and energetic, and we bounce around for a bit until they're done.

We go to the pub with them that night, and Maya keeps telling all the musicians that I play guitar really well. A claim which is certainly not true, but I've told her that I want to get more into music, and she's trying her damnedest to make it happen.
"She also spins fire!" She tells a few of them.
"Oh, yeah?" Johnny's attention is caught. The most Irish man I've ever met, with flaming red hair down to his waist, and a fiery attitude to match. "Bring your stuff back with you next time. Come busk!"
"Yeah, I'd love to! Do you wanna play for me?"
"Hell no," he states immediately.
Oh.
"But I'll find you a speaker," he continues. "Just put on a play list or something."
"It's not personal," Steven follows up, the Swiss guitar player of the group. "If you play with us, you'll get a full share, definitely, but everyone needs to prove they can stand on their own around here first. Play with a speaker, make some money for yourself, have fun. Maybe after that we can join forces."
And it makes sense, of course. You can't have someone taking up a share if they aren't bringing anything in. It's a group, but it's a group comprised of a bunch of street kids. Gotta be able to hold your own around here.
"Absolutely! Well, if you can find me a speaker, that'd be an incredible help. I'd definitely like to come back."
"Do it. I'm sure you can stay with Fabio again whenever you come," Johnny says. "I've got a couch, too. Pauly's got a couch." He squeezes the shoulder of another musician besides him, who turns to join the conversation.
"We've all got couches!" Pauly exclaims. "Come stay with whoever!" And he wraps me in a hug.
And I'm in! I find myself grinning at the rag tag pirates. I feel like knowing these guys could be the start of a whole new adventure.

We escape the lock in at the pub, and stumble into the cool night air, following Fabio back to his house.
"I'm a bit hungry," Fabio says. "If it's alright, we can stop at the bins and have a look?"
We cut through the dark to the back of the grocery, and lift the lids of the trash cans, searching with phone lights.
Yogurt, cheese, crisps, muffins, and we're off again.
"Those bins keep me fed through winter. 90% of my food comes from there."
We feast back at the house and I think about how easy it was to get this food, and how difficult we make it in the states. Padlocks and barbwire surrounding our dumpsters.
So stupid.
Just let us take it.

We wander into the music shop in the center of town, and into the guitar section. I pick up the baby guitar and start to pluck a few chords. How I've missed playing...
Maybe it's the influence of spending time with so many musicians, I'm not sure, but every instinct says to buy this guitar.
"Get it," Maya says. "It's only 80 euros."
"Yeah, it's not the price, it's just...how would I travel with that? Seems like such a pain in the ass."
"Well, yeah...but you already travel with a hula hoop. Come on."
It's true...I could be a one woman show with both things, I joke with Maya.
But I let reason win for the moment.
For the moment.
On the bus ride back to Clifden I  can't stop thinking about that little guitar. Everything is a pain in the ass to take with me, isn't it? It's just what I care to keep around.
I'll be back for you, little one.

There is such a simple moment from my time in Vienna which stands out so clearly to me. A text message from Lukas while I was staying with him.
"Are you home?"
Why does this stand out, you may wonder...
Let's flash back even further, back to March. To a moment with my mom, as we spoke about the potential of being homesick, and she said to me, "You have no home anymore, where will you miss? You're homeless now, welcome to freedom."
And at the time, I agreed with her. I was homeless.
But by the time I was back in Vienna, and asked this incredibly simple, common question, to which I responded, "yes", with no hesitation, I realized something so important.
I wasn't homeless.
I was home.
Always.
Each hostel room.
Each workaway.
Each friends house.
I was home.

There's a Metallica line, "Wherever I may roam, where I lay my head is home."
I've always related to this. Felt it was true. From a lifetime of traveling, I connected with it early on. But on this trip...I think I've finally proven it to myself. I've relaxed into situations I never would have been happy with in the past. I've decided to be at home in all places and times.
I'm sure I've said it before, but home is where the heart is...and mine is finally within me.
"Are you home?"
Yes...yes, I am. Always.
Living out of my backpack, being "homeless", that felt like freedom. But it was an illusion. Being at home no matter where I am...that's true freedom.
Adaptability is the name of the game.

I sit at the edge of the river and watch the water cascade down the rocks, rumbling loudly. I feel, rather than hear, a presence at my back and turn to find Oraccio, one of my roommates from Italy, standing above me on the bank.
"You want to be alone?" He asks.
"No, it's okay."
He comes to sit beside me, and I continue staring at the water.
This is one of the things I love about pretty much everyone I've met traveling. One of the things I am so grateful for. They understand and respect the need for solitude. I know I could have said, "Yes, I want to be alone", and he would have understood without being offended. This is so important in life.
People seem to take these things so personally, but it's not. We all need time. I wish everyone, myself included, could be more comfortable asking for it, without fearing hurting another person. Or without being hurt.

We walk the few kilometers back to town from the waterfall as the night descends upon us. Luke pulls out his speaker and plays Monotonia by The Growlers as we walk single file down the wrong side of the road, Maya and I swinging our heads and dancing with our arms outstretched as we go. I feel we've just stepped into an 80's movie.

I sit on the bar stool of Macdara's, finishing up some writing. This place has quickly become my living room (not surprising, since I live upstairs), and I often find myself in the bar in my pajamas mid-afternoon while nice families of tourist are eating lunch and looking at me strangely. Dave, the main barman, comes in and plops himself beside me on a stool.
"What're ya workin' on?" He leans over to glimpse my screen.
"Just finishing up this week's blog. It's gonna be strange writing while here. First time my adventure has gotten to such a consistent point."
"Yeah, it's hard to make a routine life sound interesting, isn't it?"
And he's right...in a sense. But my "routine" consists of walking for miles around gorgeous lands before work in the mornings. Interesting conversations with locals and friends while we sip coffee or tea or Guinness. Cute shops. Gorgeous landscapes. Frequent going away parties, girl's nights, tattoo nights, staff parties, pajama parties, and because we want to parties.
I thought coming somewhere small would mean a quiet existence, but there seems to be more to do in Clifden than I can keep up with. Open invitations every night for one thing or another.
And maybe it's hard to write about, but my routine is anything but boring.

Though I feel my time here has just begun, with the season winding down, goodbye's have already started. People are starting to file back to their normal lives, slowly, and just like the Camino, I'm over here feeling strange as I wish my friends safe travels home. I wonder what it feels like, to be going home.
Goodbye never feels like goodbye. It always feels like "see you later." Maybe some of you, I will. Others, never again. Life is funny that way. Just be grateful for the time you have.

Dave shows me a spot right outside the center of town where the river flows and the nature is beautiful.
"Here," he directs my position. "Stand here, palms out toward the tree. Now, you can ask yes or no questions. If you feel a twinge in your knees, it's a 'yes'. If you feel a push back in your chest, it's a 'no'. Should be pretty clear. Okay?" He turns away from me and toward the tree, extending his hands at his side, and I am overwhelmed with joy.
Only in Ireland will you find tough, I'll-kick-your-ass-if-you-look-at-me-wrong, metalhead bartenders, who also go into the forest and ask the trees for advice.
I should have expected that in a country where they put tiny doors outside their normal ones so that the fairies can get in and out as they please.
I want all the magical creatures in my life, please and thank you.
I think I've come to the right place.