Feeling Small in a Big World

Always up for an adventure, we took the sea and land route on the west coast of Ireland to see the magnificent 700 foot Cliffs of Moher.

As we are approaching on the boat, Trevor says "those look like the Cliffs of Insanity." We have seen Princess Bride too many times to count, and we had to agree this looked like the cliffs where Vezzini the Sicilan, Fezzik, and Inigo bring the kidnapped Princess Buttercup (We looked it up later and sure enough, they filmed the movie at these very cliffs in '87)

I have no idea how surfers surf the 35 foot waves that smash against the cliffs but they do and some even survive! Bobbing in the boat below and looking up at the sheer rock face with its layer of black shale and sandstone made me feel very insignificant in a good way.

This Great Sea Stack is full of adorable Puffins and Razorbills who come to lay their nests in the 300 million year-old sea cliffs.

First King of Ireland's relatives built this small lookout at the top of the cliffs called O'Brien's Tower .

At the top of the Cliffs of Moher the winds blowing off the Atlantic in the Spring are so strong your eyes water and your ears sting but it is worth every minute of it. Your eyes would water anyway just looking at something so ruggedly beautiful.

We took a stroll along the cliff edge toward "Hag's Head" and came across a memorial for all the lost lives at the cliffs. There are no fences to keep you from falling off so it can be very dangerous with the wind. There was a huge sign that said 'please do not continue because of the danger' and yet we watched people continue on and not break their stride. (Of course I couldn't help but think of the Irish legend I had just read in the visitor center of the witch Mal who chased a handsome man toward the same southern end of the cliffs and lost her footing and was dashed upon the rocks below. Hag's Head promontory point, the shape a woman's head, was named after her...but the point is that she FELL!)

So after deliberation, we continued on. This shot was about as daring as I could take of the Moores on the edge of the Moher. (You can see O'Brien's tower on the ridge behind them)

The path narrowed, and as much as I wanted to go forward and explore, I couldn't bear the idea of losing one of my children. I told the kids there would be times in their lives that they would have to make the choice to either dance with danger or play it safe and I wanted them to live long enough to make those decisions on their own...so we turned around and headed back.

I watched Trevor pause here and look at the 'low road' with the unstable shale. I know he wanted to film the waves crashing below and this was the only place to do it. He turned slightly and looked at me--- and on his own chose the 'high road' without me saying a word (which is good as my stomach was in my throat as I saw him lean, and I wouldn't have gotten an utterance out!)

When you are a teenager, you feel larger than life and getting hurt, to quote Vizzini is "INCONCEIVABLE." I was glad for this opportunity to be reminded how fragile life is, to see how truly minute and inconsequential we are compared to a huge ocean or towering cliff but to also see how our choices stack up day after day, year after year and make our character 700 ft tall or barely sea level.