ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE: CELEBRATING SEVEN AMBITIOUS YEARS!

A series of essays....

VISITING MOLLY GALLIVAN’S COTTAGE AND
TRADITIONAL FARM IN KENMARE, IRELAND

....as seen through my eyes!

By: Jacqueline E Hughes

Two years ago we were driving through, hiking deep into forests, absorbing every possibility within unforgettable cities, and enjoying the company of the locals from Edinburgh, Scotland and across the Irish Sea to Dublin City and over the mainland of Ireland to the Wild Atlantic Way! 

I’ve written about this particular trip quite often but, there are always many stories left to share and subtle nuances left open to personal interpretation by the four of us, lucky friends and travelers, who decided that sharing three weeks together, discovering more about each other, ourselves, incorporating new and familiar places into our itinerary, and creating lasting memories...were very good things to do.

Little did we know, back in those busy and amazing days of travel, that in a little over fourteen months time, the prospect of and privilege to be able to travel to other countries would be unavailable to us. The USA, along with the entire world, would become embedded in a new, harsh reality of epic proportions: The SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic. Today, the world has had to cope with over one million deaths due to this virtually unknown and deadly disease.

CONNEMARA NATIONAL PARK

NEAR BALLYCASTLE, IRELAND

Like many of us who enjoy a ‘flight into a fresh adventure,’ right now we must cling to our memories and photos. We must stay healthy and keep others healthy, as well, yet remain diligent when it comes to dreaming about a future filled with more exciting and bold experiences. Now is an opportune time to sketch or paint one of your favorite moments from a previous escapade. Write a poem or a short story about your trips. Or, pursue the possibility of creating a novel based upon your time spent in a different place, within a new culture while living among the people who inhabit these special spaces. Pick-up that musical instrument you’ve been longing to learn how to play...if you only had the time. Well, now you do. Remember, anything is possible if we choose to make it happen.

Seven years ago, in September of 2013, Dan and I had just returned from another special visit to the Wild Atlantic Way along the West Coast of Ireland when I decided that all of our amazing experiences required a greater audience to share them with. We climbed a mountain that trip, for goodness sakes! Climbing to the peak of Diamond Hill was highly noteworthy in my opinion. This idea helped create the birth of my Moving On...(insert year) Blog site. I entwined my words with the photography I’d taken along my adventures and created a colorful marriage between them, meant to be read and enjoyed by anyone and all who wished to tune-in to the segments of life that gave me so much excitement and lasting pleasure.

ADRIAN O’CONNOR AND ME...
HE IS ONE OF THE MAIN REASONS FOR
BEGINNING  MY BLOG SEVEN YEARS AGO

CRAGGY ISLAND B&B IN DOOLIN, IRELAND
WHERE WE FIRST MET ADRIAN

So, this month I am very proud to mark today’s post as the 330th published story in my little series of “essays as seen through my eyes.” Cue the balloons, confetti, and cake, please!

It takes a little while to grow-up, mature, and find your way into whatever you do in this life. It has been no different while watching my blog weave its way into a combustible world made-up of cyber populous and opinion. However, even the ‘growing pains’ have been enlightening and most encouraging. If I thought that simply setting-up my site on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest was a hefty challenge, it was soon to be discovered that keeping it there was the greater confrontation, especially within the past four or more years of intense cyber control (hacking) by foreign entities. 

Due to the fact that the original format for the Blog itself, travel writing, has morphed into so much more, like sharing my thoughts about life’s challenges, the need for more love expressed in our lives, experimentation with different writing styles and mediums, stories about lives past and present, and the inevitable and consuming passion I have for today’s political scene, I am very pleased. I often say that the enjoyable part of each week is sitting quietly, eyes generally closed, and contemplating what to write about for a Thursday morning publication. And, yes, I have been known to get out of bed at three in the morning to go write down ideas I had either been dreaming about, or ones that kept me from falling asleep in the first place. 

“WE MADE IT!” TO THE SUMMIT
OF DIAMOND HILL IN CONNEMARA 
NATIONAL PARK...

I love and thoroughly enjoy the freedom of having a weekly Blog! What better way to get things off of my chest (without harming anyone else), and express the pure joy that living life to its fullest has to offer us. For this freedom of expression alone, I am eternally grateful. However, the fallout from this freedom has been having my Facebook Author and Writer’s Pages taken off by the powers that be with nary an explanation as to precisely why! If you happen to be checking the contents of this post my Facebook editors, please make the time to answer my inquiries and tell me whom I have offended. I guess we will always be just one click away from or own obscurity...if we choose to give anything that much power over us. There will always be ‘other fish in the sea,’ as the old saying goes.

In a pandemic world we must plan our days accordingly: Which day to visit the grocery store, when it’s the best time to catch-up on the news or shows we’ve previously recorded, or how many hours we must set aside to work on the total amount of words we must write for that day. Anyway, this happens to be my world right now. For writers everywhere who are taking advantage of this solitary time to complete the next chapter in your life’s story, be grateful for this mandatory isolation. We have been afforded the ideal scenario to do what we do best while caring about the safety of others at the same time. 

May this post serve to wish our friends, Marsha and Michael, a very happy two-year anniversary of time well spent together in the monumental settings of Scotland and Ireland. Unforgettable, indeed! My persistence and love for the written word is celebrated, as well as I note the last seven years of weekly essays written on my trusty i-Pad(s) just for you, my faithful readers. It has been a pleasure sharing my personal thoughts with you and, with any luck, I will continue to be around doing this for many years to come. Thank you for ‘The Read,’ ‘The Insightful Comments,’ and ‘The Many Shares’ along the way.

Stay healthy and safe. I am hoping that Tuesday night’s Presidential Debate has not left an indelible black mark on your soul. If anything, it’s explained how important it is for everyone to go out and make your vote count!

Copyright © 2020 by Jacqueline E Hughes

All rights reserved

Photo Copyright © 2020 by Jacqueline E Hughes

All rights reserved

THE BOOK SHOP

TAKE A MOMENT TO ASK YOURSELF WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU WERE BORED!

A series of essays.....

OPENING UP TO A WHOLE NEW WORLD OF POSSIBILITIES ~~~

.....as seen through my eyes!

By: Jacqueline E. Hughes

If our life always felt settled, safe, and warm, as it may have, at some point, back in our youth, then our world would be extremely small, exceptionally limited, and notoriously boring! Fortunately, for many of us, life is anything but boring.

I chuckle to myself as I use the ‘b’ word in conjunction with my thoughts because it tends to be such a harmless and childlike word describing a time when, for several ‘odd’ moments of its waking hours, the youthful mind plays with the art of meditation; it filters out the rest of the world and becomes, blissfully, blank. Being bored is the filler, the chinking between the stacked logs of a less finished structure, that cushions the gap between simply being an innocent child instinctively living for the sake of having fun and trying to make sense of the world that is yet to come.

As young adults, and having lapped that classic, red Radio Flyer many times over, the childhood loop of boredom gives way to new responsibilities with more mature scenarios, making way for higher education, employment, and even the art of falling in love 😍. Work patterns emerge, whether we work from home, an office or cubicle, or out of our own vehicle, we work to get paid in order to pay our bills, raise a family, pay off student loans, play hard....and, eventually, retire with grace and dignity. During this particular phase of life, we can only dream about being bored!

Quite often, mankind meets with obstacles that are unpredictable and life changing. 

Some of us may be struggling with ill health ourselves or, dealing with the illness of a loved one or friend. Naturally, at this point, our focus would be on rectifying this position by any means possible......and, this alone can take up most of our time and energy. This may not be the challenge we had always hoped for in our lives, however, it would be one we must acknowledge, attempt to understand, but never allow losing the fight to be an option. And, if compromise is the ultimate balance negotiator, its important to allow the light to stream in from the tiny cracks that have, inevitably, formed on the exterior and allow it to fill our heart and being with its warmth, its strength, and its love.

If being an adult takes on the responsibilities of life including listening to others, filtering out  good from evil, caring for the health and well-being of those around you, making mature decisions that will help create a healthier, more wholesome world to live in....many adults today have missed the boat on this one. Sadly, this includes a large percentage of the people we’ve elected to govern us in Washington D.C. 

No, I am not taking that course right now. I’m feeling way too good to be pulling myself down into that deep abyss, heaving swamp of depression, deep ocean of lost dreams and acute selfishness, only to find myself adrift upon a sea of uncertainty. Not today!

This morning I’m feeling too good for that because a few nights ago we pushed the ‘ENTER’ button and signed-up for an excursion into two exciting worlds, one yet unknown, Scotland, and the other a continuance of what has proven to be a place we are highly attracted to for many amazing reasons, Ireland. Normally, I am apprehensive about committing so much effort and money into securing airfare for a future trip. (Many of us know how the Internet has made this exceedingly simple to do.) But, not this time. 

My gut tells me this is the right thing to do and this trip promises to be the cherry-on-top of a very busy and eventful year for the two of us. As many of you may know, not only are we remodeling our home in Michigan, but we’re executing a major overhaul of our home here in Orlando with the idea of readying it for resale within the next few months. Timing is everything considering Dan is set to retire in August and it would be nice to have one house 🏡 ready to move into and the other conveniently sold and out of sight and mind. 

Hopefully, we will have sold our property located in North Carolina, as well. Believe me, fingers and toes are crossed with solemn prayers to Saint Joseph said each day for good measure with this one. Survival is having to amputate old dreams yet be strong enough to staunch the flow of life’s blood in order to insure that life can move on. (We’re still having to work a bit on this.)

Moving from one place to another is often grounds for heartache and headaches; having over two thousand miles between the two could turn it into a full-blown migraine in the months to come. We will not be having a company move us back up to Michigan as we did over twenty years ago when we moved down to Orlando from Michigan to follow Dan’s employment opportunities.

I wake each day categorizing our ‘stuff’ and asking myself where this piece might find a new home in our little yellow cottage. Or, explaining to myself the reasons why there’s no way this table will ever fit up there! And, sadly, this third item will just have to be included in our community garage sale in May. Since I like to refurbish things and charm new life into them, many pieces will fit nicely into our new world even if they must be stored for a short time before the new addition is completed on the cottage. 

All of the roads leading us into the immediate future guide us toward a monumental celebration in September; the pièce de résistance, if you will: Travel! While utilizing our purest and most unselfish minds, and sharing an ideology developed and skillfully honed via our personalities coupled with those of our good friends of like philosophy and world views, I predict that this trip is going to be a blast!

 Even though we may be semi-settled, if only in our minds, and safe and warm for the time being, there’s a lot of change happening and each day that goes by reflects upon this fact. Decisions have to be made immediately. There’s no more putting things off until next year because ‘next year’ is here today. It’s time to pull-on our ‘Big Person’ pants 👖 and be open-minded and strong throughout the process, never forgetting to listen to one another along the way. This will help make life considerably easier for both Dan and myself.

So, with all of this to look forward to, for better or for worse, whichever the case may be, there’s one last thing I can think of to say as this year swiftly progresses with each breath I take.....The word ‘boring’ certainly has no room in our lives this year! 2018 promises to be a busy one but, with the added incentive of traveling to Scotland and Ireland dangling like a juicy carrot right before our eyes, we should be just fine.

LIFE IS AN ADVENTURE.....ENJOY EACH MOMENT!

Courtesy: IrishCentral.com

Copyright © 2018 by Jacqueline E. Hughes

All rights reserved