Maybe it’s my mind playing tricks on me as I approach the end to my semester in Ireland and prepare to go back to New England, but the changes I notice in my daily walks around campus are making the landscape remind me more and more of Wellesley’s campus. The trees are more bare, the ducks are still frolicking but have fewer and fewer other animal companions, the pond is not yet frozen over but I imagine I can see a color shift in the water as it gets colder. The lack of leaves on the plants surrounding it have stopped offering many distinguishing features, so the sticks and dried stalks blend together. They offer a blank canvas, upon which I can imagine a scene from Boston, from Germany, from North Carolina, from England, from Ukraine, you name it. To understand the storyline of the plans and animals on my campus, I must work harder to listen, see, smell, hear, the life, or I must create my own narrative superimposed on the romantically bleak picture in front of me. The grass is frosty and my sit spot is mostly very quiet, though the life I do notice is buzzing. Perhaps they, like me, are invigorated by colder weather, but more likely, they are rushing around from one place to another, conserving energy. The humans moving around me certainly are, scurrying from one warm building to the next, their outside time only a means to an end. It is a joy to sit in one place amidst that. The calm in the eye of the storm. That metaphor resonates with my academic and social life in Ireland right now as well. Sitting here, instead of studying in my room, running flashcards, writing essays, or otherwise working towards my six finals, I am stepping out of the tornado and intentionally into a still space, where my only job is to notice and reflect. Trying to balance squeezing out every last drop of this experience and finishing my semester strong, as well as transitioning back, has had me quite caught up in my stress. This moment, taking this time to let it swirl around me but staying (at least for a time) separate, removed, peaceful, is important to my experience as well. I struggle to relax if I don’t make it quite intentional.

This past weekend I took a day trip up to Northern Ireland with some friends from the rugby team. We had all been studying for two weeks, and have two weeks ahead of us, but this day was not for academics. We were driving three and a half hours each way to celebrate the end of a journey for a friend of my friend who was just finishing a five-month-long journey, backpack-skateboarding the entire Wild Atlantic Way, or western coast of Ireland. She was by far the first person to do it, and we were driving to her hometown to skate the last few kilometres together. We got up early and spent the morning exploring the Giant’s Causeway, only about twenty minutes away from our final destination. The entire day was so incredibly fulfilling. I learned the folklore of the natural formation, I hiked, I gasped at the most incredible colors, rocks, contrasts, sights sounds textures etc., we made silly art with the red clay, we celebrated the end to a courageous, grueling, transformational journey, we made friends out of strangers, we jumped in the freezing ocean, we revelled in the strength of the Irish community (and beyond, for people who came from Scotland!). I got to realize the geology I’ve been studying and cement my adoration for how the stories (folklorical and historical) of Ireland intertwine with the land. This all contributes to a vibrant culture that is inseparable from its location, and that informs the care and respect for local nature in the face of climate change and of resource theft/depletion at the hands of the UK.

This break, a day without any studying but full of learning, was so incredibly vital to my endurance through the rest of finals and to my feelings of gratitude and closure on my semester.