Tale included in the collection " Ireland in 2010 Heart"
The bus moves between the dirt roads and narrow, surrounded by emerald green meadows. I look out the window the ocean horizon; a spot of gray sky blends with the low clouds.
impatient glance at the clock will not be long.
I left five days ago. In case I had put a few things: some skirts, trousers, comfortable for walking, a few shirts and three of those sweaters hand made in the course of knitting. Finally, above all else, an old K-way, where I needed to go.
The hard part was convincing my daughter and her husband had no intention of dying. They could not understand why I wanted to go back where I was born and raised. If not as a last wish before you close your eyes forever.
"Mom you really need at your age?"
"A week. Two, at most, and I'm coming here. "
I took the bag and clipped speech. Nothing and no one would make me change my mind.
To my nephew, the only one not to ask questions and look at me with envious eyes, the task to book your flight and a room for one night.
"For the other days you will have to make do, Grandma. Do you know what are the Bed and Breakfast? "He asked and was a bit 'offended when I was not able to hold back a laugh.
Dublin had welcomed me in the evening. The sky was heavy with clouds, broken here and there from the buildings. Light with my bag I walked among the lights of Temple Bar and the music kept barely inside the pub. A dinner in a small Irish local, and then in the room, with sleeping because you no longer, taking away from the memories.
The memories of my twenties and the desire to leave behind my little country. Then I dreamed of the freedom and life inspired by the rebel journals that I and my friends found nell'emporio of O'Shea. We believe that the Sixties you could not live in a remote county of Ireland, between endless expanses of peat, sheep and idle time to scan passengers every hour of the day. We did not want to be courted by stupid boys too tied to old traditions.
My father stopped talking when he realized that was not my whims of a teenager, but was talking seriously. And there was even my mother, the day he took the train to Dublin and from there a plane to my future. Despised them because I do not understand and made it unbearable to all three of my departure.
London, Paris and Rome, they called me. And I answered.
In the eternal city, I found a job, a house, a husband.
I gave a cut to my past, of my being Irish only had red hair, long and shaggy, and little freckles that surrounded my face. I forgot all of my land. Beginning to justify myself from having abandoned with the passage of time not to admit a mistake. Fifty
are many. Especially when the weight of each season melancholy, the choices of nostalgia with you and eats you bit by bit.
not ever abandon their roots. You can not pretend otherwise or ignore all those signs that life leaves us on the street.
The desire to return has given me a perfume heard a day at the beach in Ostia. I felt the same perfume every morning at home, when as a child I ran barefoot through the meadows, between the elves and fairies. When I remained poised on the dry stone walls surrounded by the wind and the smell of salt air and ocean, and when I stopped in the rain end, the fog of the moor and the next moment I admired the warm sun filtered three clouds. Did I mention the happiness of that time and for first time I regretted not being able to live two lives. An Irish and Italian.
That perfume was a reminder.
beginning weak, barely mentioned. Then I felt even when there was and has become something stronger than me.
I had to return.
No hurry, I savored the journey along the South: Cashel, Cork, Kinsale and the Old Head. And then up the coast, Dingle, Limerick, Galway, to direct the strip of land, island Island: Achill Island always curious with that painted on his face, like a tourist.
actually was filming what I had gradually lost what I had left to rest for a long time. Being Irish. Love those little things again guilty of pushed me away from this earth: the breakfasts plentiful and salted, the live music in pubs in front of a steaming bowl of Irish stew and Guinness, the magic language, incomprehensible to anyone not born in these places, discovering the kindness, the hospitality of the people infinite and without hesitation.
The bus continues through the dirt roads and narrow, surrounded by emerald green meadows speckled with warmer colors, yellow and brown.
I, standing firm at the door, I look at my house. Without nets or fences, open to all and a small garden at the back, protected from wind. As has always been.
My father comes up to me. On his each face is a sign of ninety who carry them, but the eyes are the same people who watched me grow and who did not see me becoming a woman.
It is serious and the fear of not having had a good idea to come up in here I'm struck me and shakes his legs.
's just a moment. On the check
lips a sweet smile that erases any worries. He stretches his arms and clenching, piano, because it is so fragile, and I'm afraid to hurt him.
"dhuit Dia, tá me ar ais .*" I say.
The words come out as if I had never stopped speaking Gaelic. It 's another little miracle in my country.
I do not wonder anymore. This is Ireland.
And I should know.
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