When my daughter was born, she came alive into the world with only one tiny cry of surprise. Her little black eyes blinked. She saw nothing – but she saw everything that was important: she was loved; Mama was here; she was a person.
I saw for her; I saw her; I learned at twenty-five what it meant to see as a baby sees.
But baby wisdom fades as children grow, and mothers often see only risk where we could offer life.
Almost five years later, seeing had become my full time job, and it came with grown-up rules and professional obligations. I was slowly dying in pursuit of a safe sort of dream I’d forgotten as I learned to “see” only what “they” said was okay to see.
In April, when my husband hijacked my to-do list with a trip to Ireland, all my friends told me they “couldn’t wait to see all the pictures” (after all, a photographer does take pictures wherever she goes, right?), but even their enthusiasm couldn’t overpower the exhaustion that checked obligation with my baggage and left it at the claim.
Unless I could see beyond what I supposed to see and come alive, I wasn’t going to touch my camera.
I went to Ireland too many years tired.
I never sleep during the day. I don’t sleep on planes, or in cars, or on my first night in a new bed — yet in Ireland I slept like a baby. And when I woke, I felt like my daughter the night she was born, newborn to a vast world I couldn’t begin to define.
Was I inhaling for the first time?, I wondered as we rounded a mountain into full view of a rose-tinted sun gilding an impossibly green Atlantic.
How was I even here? My mind tried to make sense out of real people speaking the lyric tongue I’d imagined but never attempted. We wove round the Irish roads, up and down blackened hillsides burned for peat, through endless rolling pastures dotted with sheep.
I thought about crying.
The mountains fell into the sea; the thick pasture grass undulated like the waves that surrounded the island; the light sang a song known only to those who understand sorrow, fading in and out between and beyond the clouds.
We played games by the peat-brick fire in the parlor of our self-service cottage as we waited for the sun to set and let us burrow under cotton sheets and a bit of Irish lace.
We had our photos taken by the shore. I watched the an emerald bay bubble up over the white sand. I borrowed the camera to capture love I found there as I shivered my way back to the car.
I didn’t say much.
My heart was a riot.
I tried to journal, but I couldn’t write the lilt that had crept into my voice while I was there.
I was a writer lost for prose, a photographer breathing my thousand words, a person seeing through the eyes of a child.
My Ireland pictures weren’t what they were supposed to be. “They” might make rules for what you ought to see, but they don’t make rules for telling how you come alive.
I shot nothing – and everything in the nothing, piling colors on patterns and feeling, and mixing in my life.
I could see only pieces at a time. Growing old in Ireland would be the only way for me to take the whole of her into my heart.
Photos and post by Kelly Sauer.
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Maureen Doallas says
Gorgeous images that only you, Kelly, can make. Thank you for bringing them back to and sharing them with us. I think you’ll be going back to Ireland. It’s clear that country is deep in you.
Kelly Sauer says
It really did feel like coming home. The light was amazing…
Will Willingham says
Your Ireland pictures were exactly what they were supposed to be. The images, both in pictures and words, here are staggering, Kelly.
The eyes are such a thing to me. Yours see in a way the world needs to see.
Kelly Sauer says
I’ve held them back for so long, trying not to be ashamed of what I saw. I am glad for you here, wanting to see it, affirming my heart. 🙂
Will Willingham says
Your heart, Kelly — very affirmable. 😉
Claire says
i am waiting patiently…
that time, it was intense and flighty all at once.
buried deep within me.
come home to the light.
Kelly Sauer says
It was so crazy and real and amazing and quiet and cold and noisy and tiring and. Yes. We are coming back.
L. L. Barkat says
I literally shivered as I scrolled down to reveal some of these.
And that end line. Means so much to me. Just does. “Growing old in Ireland would be the only way for me to take the whole of her into my heart.”
Kelly Sauer says
I shivered when I saw you had shivered.
Pete said last night when he was looking over these that he loved how I hadn’t shot Ireland in green. But all I saw was the light…
Kimberlee Conway Ireton says
Kelly, so beautiful, your words, your photos, the light you saw and share with us here. Thank you.
Kelly Sauer says
Thank you, Kimberlee – I’m always a little afraid of beautiful, but the light, it makes it something I can’t help sharing. I am glad to meet you here.
Donna says
Kelly, this is so …. I don’t know… I have no words, but it touched me – your words and your images. Thank you for sharing this close to your heart story….
Kelly Sauer says
Donna – I could barely find words to go with the images. Thank you for seeing my heart in it. That means more than the story, I think.
Nancy Franson says
Stunning, Kelly. Truly. And, I swear, I could hear lilt in your words.
And who are they, anyway? The people who tell us what to see and write and say? You sure showed them.
Kelly Sauer says
I did, did I? Love you Nancy…
Danielle says
That third picture with the gold light and gold blossoms. Took my breath away!
“I went to Ireland too many years tired.”
Ahh, that line, I felt it with you. Hope you were rejuvinated in your core.
Kelly Sauer says
You need an Ireland trip just now, don’t you, friend?
Danielle says
*rejuvenated* 🙂
Joy says
Oh, Kelly. My heart just skipped a few beats, and I’m speechless here. How you see….
Kelly Sauer says
It’s a quiet space, isn’t it?
Tania Runyan says
I love how these pictures take us by surprise. Not the typical “Irish” shots. . .so warm, so golden.
Kelly Sauer says
Tania, it surprised me too! I think that’s why I spent so much time on the warmth – especially since it was soooo cold when we visited! I bought a wool sweater there (after never wearing wool before!) and fell completely in love with it.
sarah says
Gorgeous photos which show a softness, a calm warmth, and a golden light to the country. I never knew that existed, I always felt it was pearly and haunting and wild and cold.
Kelly Sauer says
It really was quite pearly and haunting and wild and cold, so I looked for the warm. It was such a comforting wild in a way. Sarah, you really must go sometime…
Laurie Flanigan says
Beautiful words and pictures. Thank you. You touched something deep inside me.
Kelly Sauer says
Perhaps it was me. Perhaps it was Ireland. I am glad it was touched, anyway.
Party says
Kelly. Magnificent. I would read your book one thousand times. Please write it soon. xo
Kelly Sauer says
I’ve a bit of learning to do before I write it, but I’ll write it. Just for you. I promise.
aprille says
A visit to the West coast of Ireland is the ultimate ‘refresher course’ in the art of living and seeing.
The ‘inhaling….’ struck a chord: the air is so soothing, like it is gaseous Valium. I filled a 5 litre water bottle with it and sniffed that sparingly when I got home 🙂
Kelly Sauer says
Oh I love that, aprille! I wish I had thought of it, taking the air home with me!
Rosanne Osborne says
inhaling
http://poetryhawk.blogspot.com/2012/07/was-i-inhaling-for-first-time.html
Kelly Sauer says
Breathtaking…
Megan Willome says
You know, of course, that I was in Northern Ireland while you were in the Republic of Ireland. I’m still having trouble writing about it, beyond the professional obligations that sent me there, but maybe your words are a clue: “the light sang a song known only to those who understand sorrow…”
Kelly Sauer says
I’m wondering if that isn’t the truest line in this whole piece, Megan. It is not easy to write about Ireland.
SimplyDarlene says
Miss Kelly, what beauty you’ve shared.
I’m currently reading a 5-book series (intended for youth) during the Viking era, as told from the perspective of a teenage, Irish lass…
What is it about those curtains in that image with all the color?
Blessings.
Kelly Sauer says
Ha – if I knew what it was, I probably wouldn’t have photographed it, D!
Your series sounds so interesting! What is it?
SimplyDarlene says
Miss Kelly,
It’s a Moody Publishers book series called Viking Quest by Lois Walfred Johnson.
http://www.christianbook.com/viking-quest-volumes-1-5-paperback/lois-johnson/pd/431153
Blessings,
Darlene
davis says
oh that lace…that lacy lace…
Kelly Sauer says
I love how you know…