throw a stone and watch the ripples flow…

so last night at around quarter to nine i had a lovely experience with overly aggressive girls who looked to be about fifteen. they could have been older, but they looked fifteen and they were about my height.

i was walking down the rock road to meet a few people at the punch bowl, which is pretty much right across from the dart station. so as i was walking up, i saw tim in front of me, walking up from the dart station. there were a three girls following him, but i wasn’t really paying attention and hannah rang me just then to say she was just up the road, so i stopped for a moment to chat with her. by the time i hung up, tim had crossed the road and gone into the punch bowl and the girls were walking towards me.

so i kept walking towards the intersection, and all the sudden one of the girls was blocking my way. at first i thought she’d accidentally walked into me, so i tried to get around her, but when she wouldn’t let me i looked up.
‘give me two euro,’ she said.
i blanked. not very demanding, this one. but seriously? in broad daylight? with pretty heavy traffic? ‘i don’t have two euro,’ i said and tried to get past her again.
‘i said,’ she pushed me a little, ‘give me two euro.’
i didn’t want to push her, but i needed her to move and figured i had enough time to get to the light and cross the road, so i told her to feck off.
which probably wasn’t the wisest idea, but i didn’t know what else to do. she kind of stepped back a little, looked a little shocked. ‘did you just tell me to feck off?’
but she’d moved, which was what i wanted, so i ignored her and kept walking, reached the traffic light.

there was a flock of cars moving towards us and just after that enough space between for me to cross, so i wasn’t terribly worried, but then the girl’s two friends started advancing towards me, and i’m not going to lie, my heart started beating a little faster.

they weren’t knackers – at least by their accents – sounded like they could be D4s, but they didn’t have make-up caked on their faces. but the thought did cross my mind that they possibly could pull a knife. that may be a bit ludicrous though, broad daylight, heavy traffic, etc…

but anyway, the two came up and started pushing me around, saying ‘who’re you telling to feck off?’ and i just ignored them, even though i was starting to get angry, waiting for that flock of cars to pass. and then one of them full on slapped me.

thank goodness the road was clear to cross because i think at that point i could have erupted a bit. i pushed her away from me, stepped to the edge of the road, glared at her, and said, ‘don’t touch me again.’
‘or you’ll what?’ she yelled as i crossed.

thankfully they didn’t follow me, but i was seething and my face was stinging. apart from that a part of me really wanted to go and prove to her that it hadn’t been an empty threat and that i am the incredible hulk and they do not want to make me angry. and the other part of me was a little upset and a little scared, and a lot angry.

tim came running out at that point, said he’d just seen them with me through the window. apparently, they’d been on the dart with him and gotten out with him, and started pushing him around as well. the whole side of his face was red too. apparently your one favours the left pretty heavily.

when everyone else arrived we made light of it, turned it into sort of a joke, but i’m not going to lie, i was a bit shaken. even though it wasn’t so terribly serious – broad daylight and there were cars. and people in them. lots of people. and a man just down the road who looked like he picked up his pace when he saw them coming toward me. and by the sound of it tim had it a little worse than i did as well. so really, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

anyway, i should probably get on to packing…want to get something done before frisbee…

and another encounter has come and passed, at least the sonship part of it. it seems every year i go thinking there’s no way i’ll be able to become as attached to the new group as the last…and every year without fail by the end there i am just as much so as ever.

time is going too quickly. this morning leaving the y was a flurry, i could hardly believe that the sonship part of encounter was over. and now i look at the calendar and i see there is very little time left and i begin to panic a little every time i think about it.

last night we played one last frisbee game - got all hot and sweaty and then rushed into the sea – which was of course shockingly freezing and yet we stayed in a good twenty minutes – and then ran (as best as we could seeing as our muscles were not functioning properly) to shower, from there gathered to go to the pub, from the pub sat in the y, talking, with alec playing guitar. perfectly wonderful typical evening in greystones.

i always love getting out of the sea – the initial heat and burning sensation when you pull yourself out - and then the gradual hardening of muscles so that they’re sore and unable to move, then the shivering and shaking - but it’s not even that…it’s that i guess i feel so much more aware of everything after i’ve gotten out of the sea – the air, not the breeze, the actual air, the touch of the street on bare feet, the feel of the towel. it’s like my skin is an actual being unto itself – living and breathing and thinking and believing.

they weren’t cows inside. they were waiting to be, but they forgot. now they see sky again and they remember what they are. 

some days i believe in people more strongly than others. these past two weeks it has been believing in people every day. tonight, though, i sit and think this week may not be so wonderful. tonight i sit and dread not believing in people.
i love believing in people. and it makes it that much harder on the days where it is difficult to believe.

there is such a lovely poetry of being with people…of experiencing people and how they’ve changed and moved in four years, four summers. three, even. or even simply two weeks.

i wish i was going on an o-team. everyone asks. it is hard, being with people, and then watching them go off with each other, experience things and situations and everything together, and come back all the tighter, closer.

four weeks is a very short time.