A place and time to weave new tales

I knew I wasn't in Ohio anymore when I walked out the door of the airport and smelled the pungent odor of peat fires and saw cars driving on the "wrong" side of the road. I had left the familiar cornfields and mooing cows for the land of 40 shades of green and Frank McCourt. Ireland.

This was a professional trip with a personal quest. I had come to the Emerald Isle to attend a writer's retreat, with hopes of finding my writing voice, which had been drowned out by thumping car speakers, cellphones that don't ring but squeak awful ditties, and questions from my offspring such as, "Why did you put onions in the meatloaf?"

After 30 seconds of instruction from the rental car agent, I was given keys to my Ford Fiesta.

"Do you have a place I can practice driving?" I asked.

"No," he answered. "Just watch the roundabouts."

Away I drove, chanting my mantra, "Stay on the left."

I began to wonder if this trip was really a good idea. But after a nice night at a bed and breakfast, I felt more hopeful. Soon I was off and venturing down every back road I could find.

As recommended by Sue Booth-Forbes, the owner of the Anam Cara Writer's and Artist's Retreat where I had come to stay, I was taking a few days prior to my arrival to journey through Ireland. She had said that doing so would help eliminate a feeling while at the retreat that I really should be out seeing the country.

She was right.

When I arrived at Anam Cara, the writers who were in residence were heading out to the Bantry Fair. Having become a full-fledged Irish driver, I volunteered to drive.

By the time we had seen the world champion sheep shearer and watched future Riverdancers tapping their toes off, I had become "best friends" with a folk singer from England, a blues singer from Chicago, an actress from California, a writer from the Midwest, and another writer from London.... And that was long before we performed "West Side Story" in Ms. Booth-Forbes's living room.

At the retreat I was ensconced in a room with a spacious window that opened to a view that would be the envy of any writer, artist, or dreamer. Peaceful fields crawled down to Coulagh Bay.

A desk stood under the window. A queen-size bed was surrounded by bookshelves. That meant works such as "Letters Home," by Sylvia Plath, "My Dream of You," by Nuala O'Faolain, "Paddy Indian," by Cauvery Madhavan (written for the most part while in residence at Anam Cara), and "After Rain," by William Trevor, were a finger's reach away.

First thing each morning, Booth-Forbes walked to the heart of the house, the kitchen, and cooked breakfast for her charges. She's a former Boston editor who, after a change in marital status, decided to follow her dream and move to Ireland to create an environment where writers and artists could come to find and hear their muse. She serves as part friend, part editor, part travel guide, and part midwife in each resident's hoped-for creative rebirth.

She's also an excellent cook. Throughout my two-week stay, Booth-Forbes made sure we started our days with omelets, French toast, and a mean bowl of oatmeal topped with sultanas.

Then writers and artists filtered back to their rooms to get to work with their laptops or paintbrushes.

Some chose to work in the glass conservatory that overlooks the garden and the henhouse that's home to "the ladies" who provide those golden-yolked eggs for the omelets.

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