The first thing I checked when the Ryanair flight landed in Las Palmas was that I was in the right place. A few summers ago, a friend booked a family holiday to a tiny Canary Island called La Palma. Unfortunately, on landing, she realised she had made a crucial error involving the letter “s” while booking the flights and ended up in Las Palmas, capital of Gran Canaria.
Apparently such mistakes are more common than you might think, with some people who are meant to be in Las Palmas or La Palma sometimes landing even further away in Palma de Mallorca, which is part of the Balearics islands east of Spain. You’d be mithered with all the Palmas around these parts, so I was relieved, when the wheels hit the tarmac, to see signs outside indicating I was in the correct destination.
My friend from Galway has been living in Las Palmas for a while, so he’s basically a local with all the advantages of someone who knows where to find the most delicious tapas and the best part of the gorgeous city beach. We never went near any of the tourist traps, instead walking through the streets filled with people dressed up for carnival, babies mewling, children dancing.
I admire my friend. It takes guts and imagination to drop everything at home and make a new life somewhere else in your mid-50s. To locate yourself elsewhere, to set off on a brand new adventure. His own adventure involved a change of country, but other friends of a similar age have reinvented themselves in other ways with new jobs or relationships or all-consuming hobbies. It’s a reminder to avoid stagnation, a message about the importance of shaking things up.
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We talked about this as we strolled the promenade in Las Palmas, gazing out at the Atlantic Ocean. It was a dull day for the Canaries. With the light breeze, the vague threat of drizzle, the familiar tangy smell of the sea and gentle roar of the waves, it could have been Lahinch if you closed your eyes. “It’s the same ocean,” my friend said. “The best ocean,” I said.
He had to leave parts of his life behind, manage his ego, get used to a new version of himself. It was a challenge
Further along the coast, we bumped into a couple of his friends. When we told them we were going for a swim, they laughed their heads off in disbelief. At 20 degrees, it was far too cold for them. My friend said that people all over town were giving out about the weather. Coming from Ireland, it felt like a perfect summer’s day. The water was like velvet, pristine and just bracing enough. The beach at Las Palmas was spotless in the morning, the sand raked clean each night. As we floated on our backs in the best ocean, a man with a litter picker disposed of the occasional Portuguese Man O’ War jellyfish washed up on the sand.
Later we went to the Cathedral of Santa Ana in Vegueta, the pillars soaring up like the trunks of the Island’s palm trees, an organ player filling the place with ornate sounds. We walked past the place where Christopher Columbus first rolled into town, and we ate broken eggs and chorizo.
To make a change like this in your life, you have to get out of your own way. There was a transition for my friend. He had to leave parts of his life behind, manage his ego, get used to a new version of himself. It was a challenge, but the prize was profound. The prize was unfolding every day.
He talked late into the night, into the morning. About how he had worried at first that he was running away. And how to his great joy he realised the truth was he was running towards something else. Sometimes your place of arrival is not your actual destination.
Now, we have room for something else. If you don’t take something out, there’s no room for anything new to come in
As we talked about all of this, my friend recalled a mentor he was lucky to have as a young man, growing up in Mweenish, Co Galway. Padraic Casey was a fisherman who died too young. His wife Máirín always told stories about the gems he came out with. One of her favourites was the story about this one day she came home and the car, usually parked outside their home, was gone. When she asked Padraic about the car, he told her he’d loaned it to a friend who had to visit his father in hospital. Máirín was a bit put out. How would they cope without the car, with the errands they had to run, with the four children they had to bring here and bring there?
Padraic told her to come into the kitchen. He poured a glass of water up to the brim. “Now, what is that, Máirín?” he asked his wife. “It’s a full glass of water, Padraic,” she replied. Then he went back to the sink and poured a bit of the water out. “And now?” he said, before answering his own question. ”Now, we have room for something else. If you don’t take something out, there’s no room for anything new to come in.” He was talking about a car loaned to a friend. He was talking about life.
My Las-Palmas-by-way-of-Galway friend thinks of his new life the same way. He has had to get rid of some things, in order to make room for this other existence. In order for his life to grow and expand. Some of us would do well to remember Padraic’s full glass of water. And what might unfold when we are brave enough to pour some of it out.