Dublin (Baile Átha Cliath), Republic of Ireland September 6th 2023 – Come Home Journal #18

A reckoning of the journey (turas) to tour Dancing Shadows in Ireland, a retrospective of my film works as part of the Come Home project.

It’s still Tuesday, always Tuesday, and grand means fine.

It’s actually Wednesday I realise later, much too late to consider the mid-week rise in anticipation. I love Mondays, days so full of promise and days and days to make things happen. Here though I am at the will of the land. I cannot make things happen here, but I can be ready when they do. I have done all I can from afar, now it is time to be near.

I love Tuesdays because they are so close to Mondays but with an added air of adventure. The journey begun, now it is time for deep diving.

It’s been a long haul kind of day. Planes and airports exclusively. That cold hard structure and infrastructure that hold us in the air and in shopping malls and in a type of stasis (like my sister kerry asking me to ‘stay sis’) where you can only stay. 18 hours of flights a grind. At the airport my son Merlyn writes to me:

It’s quite bizarre. And then comes the food cart. And endless drinks. 200 littles tvs running at once. The strange lighting. I find toilet queues on plans hilarious. The annoying banality of toilet lines nonetheless finding expression 10,000 above ground.”

And conversations that only strike because you stand or sit much closer together than you would on the ground. Moving is strange. The only sensation of movement is during turbulence. From a whisper to a scream. In socks over tight stockings. Picking your way through strangers bedrooms. Folks snoring or others trying to wake you to step over you.

I want to ask the woman beside me why she left Ireland to live in Melbourne. She’s watching an Elvis movie. I’ll wait. That’s easy on a plane. Creates much needed anticipation. I already know she and her partner are back to go to a friends wedding. Ten days of which at least four are travelling.

The quickest travel from Melbourne to Dublin is two flights; the first thirteen hours, two hours minimum at Dubai airport, second flight is seven hours. The term long haul doesn’t do it justice. The second flight is more devastating than the first, more horrendous, the body in spasms at the containment.

As we begin to land, a process of at least half an hour, our screens light up at once with flight evaluation forms. Click smiley faces, frowny faces. The guy in front of me clicks all almost frowny faces. He saves his worst for the staff. Extra frowny angry face. The staff were terrific, so calm, dignified. He had sat mesmerised playing tetris for seven hours except when he was demanding staff hurry with his food and attend his every need immediately. I want to reach over and click his smiley face.

I ask my neighbour why she left Ireland. She talks about the housing crisis.

The cost of living in my own country is beyond my reach. It’s our time though. We’re young. It’s time. Most of our friends have left.

I didn’t get her name but I got her understanding of life adventure and creating your own opportunities. And its her time, like many Irish, to leave, in search.

I share a taxi into the city with Emily. She’s Canadian, living in Leeds, studying midwifery.

We’re all from somewhere.

I tell her about work on the development of a concept of home, the Come Home project. She says her mum would love it. She’s meeting her mother and aunt in Dublin. I ask if they will be waiting for her at her accommodation. It’s late in the evening. She says they probably be at the pub!

Starving and in desperate need for physical propulsion, I go in search of, and find, my first chip! First of many.

IMAGE CREDIT: Chip Zero by Erin M McCuskey

The image journal can be found in this Collection – Ireland –  Flickr Album