Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

-Mary Oliver from The Summer Day

Everyday If youre adrift, what holds you in place? What do you consider everyday? What, even in its brevity makes the world so good, so full? Well, theres the lilacs sweetening the air and the heady mustiness of the soil rising as it does in the first drops of summer rain and the knowledge of a world so green, so verdant that exists even when my eyes are closed and also, fried eggs perfectly salty and buttery and a bit crisp and so full of yolk ready to bear the burden of another day.

Who are we to say what will thrive and where. Palm trees, ferns, lush canopy, verdant and consuming. I wheel around and find myself in the middle of Ireland. Perpetual fallcool temperatures year round, but with enough rain to sustain tropical vegetation, Ireland provides an astounding habitat for all manner of plant life. *** Most of my research while trying to trace my branch of Brennans is based on the knowledge I have of my great, great, great grandfather, Thomas Brennan. He was born in County Carlow, Ireland in 1833. At 17 years old, in 1850, he sailed with his sister, Bridget, and little brother, Matthew, across the Atlantic to land in New York City in June of that year. *** Is the heartiness of the plants alone enough to determine what can cast its roots down and live? Because, certainly, not all plants introduced into a new environment survive, even if the plant seems hearty enough. Or what if the plant thrives in spite of its environment? Even if the surroundings are unfamiliar and even hostile, some plants push down their roots, taking hold of the precious little there, twining round and taking hold of even the loose grains, refusing, for even the smallest of minutes to let go.

*** From the years 1850-54 Thomas worked various jobs in New York and Vermont. Eventually, he moved to Michigan and was employed by the M.S.E railroad. By March of 1854, he finally settled in Illinois, living first in Springfield and working as a livery man for Abraham Lincoln before Lincolns presidency. He then turned to farming in

Williamsville just outside of Springfield. He farmed 20 acres of corn his first spring with a hoe and he then ran a threshing machine to a good profit after his harvest. *** Diversity enriches and supports life in any ecosystem. From aerial photographs, Ireland seems to be a quilted tapestry of varying shades of green, but when you look a little closer, you find an astounding number of beautifully painted wildflowers and plants, vivid as any rainforest. Blood red poppies, yellow, white, and shockingly violet blue wild pansies, even the delicately purple/pink Indian Balsam, not native to Ireland, but tenacious enough that it sometimes displaces even native flora- all paint a canvas of astonishing color and variety. These wild plants creep up and over the weathered ruins of castles, abbeys, and unmarked country graves; the plants steadily and slowly sublimate the centuries. *** By 1860, Patrick Brennan and the rest of Thomass immediate family, less his mother Ann who had either died before or during the trip, had relocated to the United States from Ireland as well. Patrick died sometime around 1860 and was buried at Calvary Cemetery in Springfield, leaving his eldest son, Thomas to care for his 4 siblings. In 1861, Thomas relocated to Elkhart, IL and married Mary Kavanaugh, also a Carlow county native, on September 29th of that year. Due to his previous years of back-breaking labor as a farmer, Thomas was able to lead a purely commercial life running a general store in Elkhart. My great, great grandfather, John Joseph, born in 1875, was the third of thirteen children born to Thomas and Mary. Some of my ancestors removed to Nebraska, but John Joseph, and most of his siblings remained in the Elkhart area.

*** Soil turned every year doesnt hide many secrets on the surface, but when dug through deeper and deeper still, proof of times passage is marked through the layers. If you throw yourself entirely at what the Earth can yield, you must see life as a mosaic of time. That tree here and here still, growing, after all, from only a small seed, first the trunk, then pushing up and out the branches, unfurling at last the fresh leaves, renewed for generations, generations, and generations. *** After having to leave Ireland, his native soil, and after 11 years of not knowing if he could ultimately thrive-performing various jobs and with painstaking labor, Thomas Brennan planted his roots in this ground; whereupon, holding his outstretched arms up to the sun, he sank deeper into the soil taking hold of what was there, and pulled his children up.

The Cornfield Jungle of stalks between the rows where the summer air is thick, walls of cicada song sprout up and up and up and around, wild, frantic, buzzing alive, alive, alive, then fade and slow to the lament of mourning doves and the trill of red-winged blackbirds.

The Field Sun-baked all day, parched between the rows, rough and cracked blistered with the heatimagine planting 20 acres with a hoe and a prayer. Hands outstretched to the sunstalks that bend and sway trying to catch the suns attention every moment, every day.

Fall The stalks wave a genial hello to the passersby. The wind rattles their brittle forms stirring the ghostsand they fly.

Ghosts That year that field that town that house that memory in this blood.

Irish Breakfast
How do you make toast transcendent? When toast is reality. When someone can be at home at his plate of food even if closing his eyes as he eats. What about the humble eggbearing the burden of the day, shouldering the responsibility of continued existence. Or tea? When you drink tea every morning, you can be anywhere you want to be when youre drinking it.

People may seldom think that food is a memory-making experience of a trip, unless it is a spectacular meal or an expensive or utterly shocking meal. An Irish breakfast, on the surface is not particularly spectacular, expensive or in any way shocking to Americans certainly. However, the humble virtue of its being routine and uniform in pretty much all of the bed and breakfasts we called home while in Ireland, makes it the most easily reproducible part of our trip anytime we happen to be feeling nostalgic. Anytime I want to be in Ireland again I can fry up a couple of eggs, make a loaf of brown bread to make toast out of, have a cup of Irish breakfast tea, and I can pretend Im in our hostesss Ann, or Mary, or Sheilas dining room again. My grandma, I, and my cousins of varying degrees all gathered at these womens tables every morning for a week to pretty much the same breakfast everyday before heading out to start each days adventures. In Ireland, I learned my grandmother wont eat eggs. 27 years of existence, and I have to travel to another country with her to find this out. I would eat her portion as well as my own because, to me, life doesnt get much better than when I have a fried egg on my plate. My dads first cousin, Pat, my second cousins, Denise and Katie, I cant say that Ive ever had breakfast with these women in my life. But, it was nice to get to know these ladies on this level. Its always nice to have breakfast with family. Perhaps it was the case with the Brennans that they found comfort in eating the same kinds of foods in America that they had been used to in Ireland-it certainly could have brought a bit of home back for them the same way it brings my trips home for me.

They would have been at home with each others habits at the table and could have been back in Carlow for the briefest of moments while eating their meal together. Not everyone may be as particularly passionate as I am about food, breakfast food at that, but it is a universal tie that bonds all of the human race. Very simply, our existence necessitates the consumption of food and no where else than in a plate of food are a persons sense memories so captivated. Our breakfasts in Ireland were homey, friendly, and full of possibility. The soul and story of every Irish woman is in her brown bread; it is her past and her present and certainly something that wouldve sustained and comforted my ancestors once theyd left their home and come to settle in this nation.

Driving/Perception
How do you open your heart to whats out there? How do you take it in? How do you perceive a landscape, so lush and full as this? How do you travel down a road and compare it to everything you once knew-the pattern of the past and the portrait of the present? Do you let the landscape stitch its way across your heart? What kind of imprint will you leave behind?

That bend in the road only a dream or maybe this road looks familiar, a childhood path, a turn, a clump of trees, or where the road forks, paths diverge.

What do you see when you drive through an unfamiliar territory? Do you notice the same kinds of trees, grasses, flowers that you have at home? What you see depends very much on closely you are willing to look.

We spent, very literally, about a third of our trip in the car driving from one sight to the next, doubling back and moving forward again (the signs along the sides of the road are sparse and not always very visible) so again, part of our journey that might not be the most significant memory is nevertheless very much part of our experience. In the car is where we told each other family stories and made connections, really listening to each other. I learned about my grandma and her sisters and the kind of life they led as children in Elkhart. I learned more about the kind of family we have in this Brennan heritage. In the car is also where we took in most of the countryside, even if it was through a car window and at a quick pace. The mountains, rolling green pastures and the multitude of people whisk past me again if I close my eyes and think hard enough about it. In the car is where the roots of these memories lie; it was in the traveling that made the fruition of the memory-making destination possible. I just wonder if there were any places along the roads in Illinois that seemed very familiar to my Irish ancestors. If a particular way a tree stood out against the landscape in Elkhart was so reminiscent of a scene in Kilmissan that it could have induced dejavous. I hope so. I hope that there was something about this little town in Illinois that could have reminded Thomas and his siblings of their tiny town in Carlow county. I felt very at home while driving through Ireland, that sleepy, very comfortable feeling a child might have when nestled up with something familiar. I felt as though the landscape had something very important to tell me, even beyond the glass and frame of the car window.

I felt like there was something out there, welcoming me, something of who I am-under that fern perhaps, or in the trunk of that palm tree, reminding me, I too, once had a past here.

Flora
How does new life take hold here? Will it burst forth exuberant and bold? Or will it peek up from the ground, slowly, cautiously before planting its hands down, pulling itself up out of the Earth, unfurling, carefully, finally, making itself at home.

When a non-native plant is introduced to foreign soil, how hard does it have to work to acclimate itself to the region? How hard do those roots have to push down, down, down further still to take hold of this bit of Earth they are unfamiliar with? How long does that plant have to grow here to be considered part of the landscape, no longer a foreign object or an anomaly amongst the natives? How many seeds must that 1 tree have to throw down and how many have to grow for that tree to be successful here? How many lifetimes must come and go for this otherness to fade? How many generations of sunrises must that tree see before this is home? The grounds at Huntington Castle and the landscaping of our bed and breakfast in Carlow included palm trees-large, imposing, and very striking to me. The only other place Id seen palm trees in real life is in Florida. Ireland is about the farthest away from a tropical clime that you can get. I guess thats why they are so striking to me. They are totally unexpected. I tried to inspect the plant life as closely as I could while we were there. Anywhere we walked I tried to see with a bugs eyes but I suppose my vision would be blurred by modernity. Ive never had to break the ground in my hands for the necessity of growing food. Just because I have a garden doesnt mean that I understand the urgency of making things grow. I had the luxury of visiting that beautiful country and appreciating it for what it was. Thomas Brennan and the others of the Brennan clan had to take the opportunity to live in this beautiful country and make the soil work for them.