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The Cliffs of Moher, in Ireland’s storied west, are among the country’s most famous landscapes. By Shelley Cameron-McCarron
“Mom! Mom, you’re not going reach,” my 17-year-old daughter, Leah, calls as I hug a thick granite Celtic cross in the ghostly beauty of a 6th-century saint’s retreat in Glendalough, Ireland. Grudgingly, I release St. Kevin’s “wishing cross,” and we break into unruly giggles.
We’re here, in County Wicklow, an hour south of Dublin, in the ruins of one of Ireland’s most important monastic sites. The hermit monk St. Kevin was so taken by the remoteness and serenity of this glacial valley between two lakes that he established his own sanctuary. Today, the settlement still retains a 10th-century round tower, astonishingly evocative stone churches, and toppling tombstones in a working cemetery.
Ian, our Wild Rover Tours guide, has let us loose, but not before sharing a legend: Anyone able to wrap their arms around the fabled cross will have a long-held desire come true.
Not just luck — Irish luck. And that’s exactly what I want on this bittersweet mother-daughter trip, at a time when everything in our lives seems to be changing. But I can’t reach.
Glendalough, located in a serene glacial valley, is one of Ireland’s most important monastic sites.
By eugene_remizov Eugene Remizov /
We wander into nearby Glendalough forest, and I’m filled with an emotion I didn’t expect. Solace.
Sunlight slips among gnarled trees, making them glow like phantoms, and the moss creeping over boulders and tree trunks is a shimmering rich green I’ve never seen before. Whispers of wishes and needs and Celtic luck mix in my mind, amid this eerie beauty, making all seem possible.
We’ve come to Ireland — mother and daughter — because my baby’s leaving. She graduates high school this year and will follow her sisters into the wider world, leaving my husband and me kid-free. Is 20-odd years ever enough to be deep in the parenting trenches? No. No, it’s not.
I’m going to miss this girl. I miss her sisters. Motherhood’s been the best gig, and I’m not ready for its daily routines to be over. Nest? Empty. But amid my premature heartache: there’s joy, too. My girls, for so long “the wee three,” are ready for more, and maybe I am, too. But I’m not about to miss this time on the mother road.
Over nine days of travelling with my daughter — just the two of us — there’s minimal side-eye (I won’t miss that) and so much side-splitting laughter. Freed from routine, we’re given time without distraction, time to be better versions of ourselves.
We’re more joyful, more present, as we stand in the cobbled glory of Dublin’s Trinity College, sign our names to Belfast’s Peace Wall, scramble over cliffs in the country’s north with only showy yellow gorse separating land and sea, and stuff ourselves into lively pubs for hearty meals.
I love it all, but it’s the togetherness I cherish in even the smallest moments: shoring each other over slick basalt stones for photo ops at Giant’s Causeway; banging our bags, feeling frustratingly lost, through narrow pub doors for directions (and being wholly revived by a helpful, perfect barkeep with a charm-school smile); going on shopping sprees to Penneys, Ireland’s obsession and now ours, too.
We can’t see all of Ireland, so we base ourselves in Dublin, mixing city and country jaunts. We split our time, beginning on the River Liffey’s north side, at Hotel Riu Plaza The Gresham on central O’Connell Street, Dublin’s main thoroughfare, where you can still see bullet holes from the 1916 Easter Rising in the General Post Office. Then, to explore the south side, we move to the boutique Fitzwilliam Hotel Dublin, adjacent leafy St. Stephen’s Green and bustling Grafton Street.
The Cliffs of Moher, in Ireland’s storied west, are among the country’s most famous landscapes.
By Shelley Cameron-McCarron
One early, still-dark morning, we board a tour bus to the Cliffs of Moher, a three-hour drive away, in Ireland’s storied west. My daughter’s head falls gently on my shoulder. I say nothing, pulling her closer as I’ve done so often. “I’m so sleepy,” she murmurs as spring fields dotted with adorable lambs spool by.
The sheer cliffs facing the Atlantic started life as a river delta and, 300 million years ago, were part of the supercontinent Pangea. Today, this is a place of starting beauty and unusual flora and fauna, including Atlantic puffins, and basking sharks in the water below. From the visitor centre, built Hobbit-like into the hillside, to the fiddler serenade on the wind-whipped cliffs, everything astonishes.
The awe on my kid’s face is priceless as we gape at the cliffs’ Horcrux Cave, of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” fame, and pass the Leap of Foals, where legend holds that Druids, distraught with Christianity’s arrival, spelled themselves to sleep 100 years. Awakening to find the religion further entrenched, they transformed into horses and leapt off the cliffs to their death.
As we drive through County Clare, heading to Galway, we marvel at the scenery, shuttling through the alien, moonlike Burren region, spotting castles and cows in this impossibly harsh yet beautiful limestone landscape. Cracks and crevices in the rocks draw botanists, geologists and storytellers. Long linked with mythology, Ireland’s west, some say, holds portals to the spirit world.
In Galway, padded with pubs and claddagh ring shops, my girl gushes, “There are so many cute boys our age,” forgetting we’re not BFFs as we walk and talk. “Our age?” I laugh, nudging her shoulder.
Another day, in the midlands, in medieval Kilkenny, where residents eat, sleep and dream hurling, I take a mother-daughter selfie. I’m smiling. She’s shielding her face. Keep it, she says. It’s funny.
Ah, tiny treasures.
A view of the Irish coastline.
By Shelley Cameron-McCarron
I shine at mothering, not at letting go. But on this trip to Ireland, I’m learning both. As I try, and fail, to wrap my arms around St. Kevin’s wishing cross, I realize it’s OK: Things change. Life brings new rhythms.
Arm in arm, as Leah and I travel this sheep-filled countryside, seeking out coffee shops and crumbling castles, my kid playing “Too Sweet,” the new Hozier drop, on repeat, we start to seep into and fill the quiet spaces in each other, a sense of mutual appreciation clicking into place. We’re like lost-and-found puzzle pieces.
I think of relationships, fluid and shifting, and start to understand that there’s more to come. I need to loosen my reach to let my kids grow — and to see how they return, in evolving closeness, wanting time together in new ways. I may not always get what I wish for, but always, always, at the core, I’m happy to still be Mom.
来源链接：
https://www.toronto.com/things-to-do/travel/on-a-bittersweet-mother-daughter-trip-to-ireland-i-tried-to-accept-a-soon-to/article_5c3ca325-c658-53cd-af21-e9f3e3d18409.html
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