There is a reason I left Ireland with a seagull tattoo. 

I love tattoos. Before Ireland I had 2 tattoos, both on my right arm. My first was of the willow tree that still stands in the yard of the home I grew up in, and the other is a highly detailed rendition of one of the cows on my family’s farm back in India. I got these because I knew that they were things I could never regret.

But 2 tattoos into life, I care a little less about what I put on my body permanently and more about a memory being recorded on my skin. It’s because I love it when people ask me about my tattoos. After all, that means I get to talk about the tree that has stood in my backyard since before I was born. I get to talk about how our crazy neighbor has tried to chop it down multiple times and how it still stands ever so gracefully. 

I tell people with pride about my family’s farm back in India and how they grow and dry their tobacco with the help of a heard of working cows, one of which was lucky enough to get into the frame of my camera for a perfect photo and now has ended up on my arm. No, I do not know her name. 

So what will I tell people when they ask about the seagull on the back of my left arm, just above my elbow? 

By the end of my trip, I knew I couldn’t leave without a tattoo. I wanted to remember these days by the water. How kind people were. How I’d never seen grass so green or breathed in air so pure. I couldn’t just get any old Ireland tattoo. No offense, but if I left with a shamrock or illustration of a pint of beer on my arm, take me back to Dublin because I belong in Kilmainham Jail. My tattoo had to mean something. But days were going by and I still had no idea what the heck I wanted. 

That is until our day in Doolin. 

“How can you take us to the prettiest place I’ve ever seen and expect us to only spend 15 minutes?”  I remember saying to Iain, our big ole bus driver as a group of us got on a few minutes late. Expecting to get reprimanded for our tardiness, Iain instead broke into a rare gap-toothed smile. Yes, how could one only spend 15 minutes here? 

Coming to this random rocky beach in Doolin wasn’t even part of today’s plan. It was a pit stop necessary because our sweet, sweet BnB host Maeve was still off in town when all 22 of us Americans pulled up in our big red charter bus to check into her houses. So, like taking children to the park to entertain them, Iain took us all to a little beach to entertain us in our down time. 

Almost immediately my eye was drawn to this hole in the rocks full of grass and the clearest water you’ve ever seen. I suddenly had the urge to shrink down into a tiny mermaid so I could call that place home. It was an enigma to me. How had something so perfect existed all this time and I was just finding out about it? 

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