Home is where your Wifi connects automatically.
To me this is an infinitely ironic statement because my home, the one where I was born, raised, taught, etc. never had Wifi. So instead, my Wifi connects automatically when I’m on the road. Places like Pittsburgh where I’ve over-nighted with friends again and again over the years and my laptop is welcome on their network. Coffee shops I used to write at habitually, taking advantage of their bandwidth to abuse Pandora remorselessly. Even out here in good old Ireland my browsing is enabled on a couple of foreign yet familiar hubs. The Finan family plot in the country knows me well, I just have to open up FireFox and away we go. Finally, here in Galway where I write from currently, I am registered perennially.
These are the little things that let me know I am welcome here. In other ways I have to work at it, like the coffee pot. Tea is the national drink here, do not be fooled by Guinness advertisements, and it is ubiquitous in Irish homes. Not that it comes naturally to me but I do acclimate to the leafy brew once a bit of milk makes it way into the equation and on the down low a spoonful of sugar every now and then when I’m feeling feisty. And sure, I get offered a cup of ‘coffee’ every now and then in a home, but I use the parenthesis because in truth freeze dried coffee is like artificial flowers in your apology bouquet, a fine gesture but not winning you any points. So I got myself a little red French press and while it does lack the full bodied roasted perfection of my old counter-top percolation unit it still achieves the effect of filling a boy up and doing a body good in the morning.
Secondly there is the wardrobe, which, I admit, is too big for the room and was kind of a pain in the hole when it came to arranging effectively. But it was a good price on ‘Done Deal’ Erin’s equivalent of Craigslist and everything of mine does fit inside. I don’t think Reg is quite gone on it and I don’t blame her for it was better in concept than it is in practice. But all the same I am fond of it, admiring the veneer and running my hand over the finials with their carved flower petals, when I look upon it I’m reminded of a great sarcophagus, it looms and entombs with its great swinging doors adorned in a grand old style. I’m not particularly looking forward to moving it again when we find a better apartment, an upgrade that has to come after we find work and get me driving, but some day I see it finding a place in our mud room at the house in Laragh, Filled with wellies and overcoats, shelves stacked with mismatched gloves and random scarves, rain hats hanging from the hooks and maybe an old shotgun leaning in the back. Every time I open it there’s the potential for an adventure across the country, some day.
Back to the driving though. I’ve been allowed to drive properly once so far. Not too far but actually interacting with other cars and navigating the tarmac like a real adult. Other than that I’ve moved the car in and out of its parking spot a few times when the weather is too inclement for Reg to venture out and do it herself. Every time she hands me the keys a little giddy smile creeps up from my belly, over our years we’ve never quite copped to driving in each other’s countries becoming permanent passengers on foreign soil. The process of getting me used to driving is equal parts acclimating me to the stick shift being on the left, looking the other direction before pulling out, passing in the right lane, and getting Regina comfortable with letting me pilot her beloved, and sometimes accursed, Ford; Isaac. We’ll get there eventually, I have patience and she has the watchful eye of an older sister telling me when to shift gears and checking my blind spot.
Galway city hasn’t changed all that much, most all of the old pubs are still standing, institutions like Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop seem to be eternal, I don’t have much reason to go to the University anymore but I walked by the other day and it hadn’t fallen over. I know I can get a good haircut at the same salon Regina uses for a fair price, I know which off licenses will have what booze at approximately what price, I know where the Garda station is and soon I’ll be familiar with the social services office when I go in to get my PPS number, the cousin of our SSN. We found a nice local butcher and the kitchen is starting to serve my needs now that we have a few cutting boards enough knives to fill a wood block. I know which busses will bring me in to town and how long it takes to walk from here to the bay. In short I’m starting to function like a normal human being again and it feels good.
I still pine for a few things, some musical instrument to occupy my time, the wall of books, the cabinet of DVDs, just the way my butt fit into the old couch, all of the ephemera of a life lived for a quarter century which gleams in my future like a sunset’s promise to rise again on a new day. Lacking all of that I have the thing that makes me feel most at home, my wife. We spent nine months apart, as you may know, and in all honesty it was a bit frightening to come together after such a long break. As much as you can skype and chat and plan away your days of bliss together through emails it’s a whole different bag of ferrets to go down that road hand in hand in real terms. Added to the calamity of it was a wedding we had to pull off in just one month’s time, there was a great potential for our romance, our personalities, our love to fall through the cracks. But then there was the first day, the first hours, the first minutes, that first kiss. Somehow in the midst of your life being tossed into chaos, of great upheaval and turmoil, sound and the fury, that kiss was coming home.
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