Navan
This is a place I’ve not been in since I was three years old. And I know it. I’ve always known it. But I didn’t understand this until I came back. A small country town, on the main road to other places. Bigger places. Cities and other, small country towns. I feel as though I have put on a old warm friendly winter coat. I snuggle into it and pull the collar up around my ears.
While I lived in other places, I know now, I was looking for this place. Every time I went on holiday, I chose a place that nestled in hills with trees on the rim. And somewhere a river was running. Gently or fiercely, the sound of water. Here I am safe and comfortable. Boundaried. Like being in my mother’s womb again.
I’m looking for the house where I lived. There were three of us then. Mammy, Daddy and me. My mother told me she used to go for long walks by the river, and home through the woods. I cannot live without trees, the sound of water, and a hill or two to fence my life. I ask the way. – Just up from the market square – she says. – And it is up, are you used to hills?
Am I used to hills? Put me on flat land and I lose my sense of direction. Flat land goes on too much, creates a need in me to keep going, to find the hills.
And then I am there. I know the house, I know the door. A fanlight window spread above the door. I know this from the inside, when I was tiny playing with the sunlight streaming into the hall and dancing on the floor. I’d try to catch the light as I played on the floor.
Reaching out I touch the door. For a moment I can see my mother opening the door and coming out. Both of us wrapped up for the weather. Just standing there lost between time. And then I realised that people may be watching this stranger, and wondering. I won’t knock now, another time I say as I walk away. And I’m not a stranger. Not any more.
Down by the river, I can feel Mammy, my memories now flooding clearer; how she threw the stones, skipping them across the river to the other side, - see Blackbird see – she say, every time a stone made it to the other bank. And when they sank, - another go. When the Magpies glided out of the trees she would sing, One for a girl, two for a boy….
If you’re here now I tell her, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t understand you. But you didn’t understand me. You were too busy trying to keep me safe, when I wanted to try out my life. I know, you didn’t want me to be hurt. God I must have been a teenager from Hell. I fought you and you fought me. I was scared, I felt suffocated. I couldn’t give you happiness. You seemed to think that as life went nothing improved, I wanted to believe things got better.
Mammy was homesick. She missed the mountains, they were visible from any place in her home town. She would sit in the river bank and tell me the story of the “Long Womans Grave”.
While I lived in other places, I know now, I was looking for this place. Every time I went on holiday, I chose a place that nestled in hills with trees on the rim. And somewhere a river was running. Gently or fiercely, the sound of water. Here I am safe and comfortable. Boundaried. Like being in my mother’s womb again.
I’m looking for the house where I lived. There were three of us then. Mammy, Daddy and me. My mother told me she used to go for long walks by the river, and home through the woods. I cannot live without trees, the sound of water, and a hill or two to fence my life. I ask the way. – Just up from the market square – she says. – And it is up, are you used to hills?
Am I used to hills? Put me on flat land and I lose my sense of direction. Flat land goes on too much, creates a need in me to keep going, to find the hills.
And then I am there. I know the house, I know the door. A fanlight window spread above the door. I know this from the inside, when I was tiny playing with the sunlight streaming into the hall and dancing on the floor. I’d try to catch the light as I played on the floor.
Reaching out I touch the door. For a moment I can see my mother opening the door and coming out. Both of us wrapped up for the weather. Just standing there lost between time. And then I realised that people may be watching this stranger, and wondering. I won’t knock now, another time I say as I walk away. And I’m not a stranger. Not any more.
Down by the river, I can feel Mammy, my memories now flooding clearer; how she threw the stones, skipping them across the river to the other side, - see Blackbird see – she say, every time a stone made it to the other bank. And when they sank, - another go. When the Magpies glided out of the trees she would sing, One for a girl, two for a boy….
If you’re here now I tell her, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t understand you. But you didn’t understand me. You were too busy trying to keep me safe, when I wanted to try out my life. I know, you didn’t want me to be hurt. God I must have been a teenager from Hell. I fought you and you fought me. I was scared, I felt suffocated. I couldn’t give you happiness. You seemed to think that as life went nothing improved, I wanted to believe things got better.
Mammy was homesick. She missed the mountains, they were visible from any place in her home town. She would sit in the river bank and tell me the story of the “Long Womans Grave”.
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