A sense of place

I never went to school or earned a living here. I never kissed a girl, danced, won or lost a love here. I never played for or coached a local team, or even followed its fortunes (though once , when very young, I remember an inter club hurling match on a bright , hot, late summer evening that seemed to have all the drama, excitement, fear and blood of the Colosseum).

Yet this place has held me in its thrall for as long as can I remember. Turning off the road just past Kinnegad, my heart rises in my chest and a sense of belonging takes hold of me, or rather steps out of the verges to travel the road beside me. Guiding me.

Its not alone. Its companion, steps from the shadows too and walks the road, a pace behind. A sense of sadness, and loss. For while the roads and hump backed bridges are welcoming and familiar, beyond the trees, an ancient house sits hidden. Ever present in my memories , my dreams, in the deepest loves of my heart, and yet utterly absent from the daily reality of my life.

Outside the village, though no longer separate, the graveyard is my childhood's harbour. Its heat reminds me of grown up's hissed warnings against the burning sun, though my Mother always felt a chill, swore the temperature dropped at the gate. Names of men who died ancient, are as reassuring as the polished stones and mossed crosses that bear them. Full lives, lived fully in a simple place.

Other names catch my eye, unfamiliar, new. Not from the web lines that link the plots and generations, weaving and interweaving through the history of this place. Plastic toys, guitar shaped wreaths, heart signed messages and head stones necklaced with rosaries tell of shorter, sadder stories. The rapid grief filling of the graveyard, a meter of the villages new life.

I watch my Father tend her garden, my Brother moving amongst the pots, watering, each with care, as if he were feeding chickens, as her grandchildren play amongst the headstones and tumble in the shrinking patch of green, that waits.

That sense of belonging waves me off at Mr's Quinn's. Sometimes she looks like Kathy Allen: blue shop coat; hair net; clipping scissors jutting from her pocket. Or maybe Johnny, in his wellingtons and tweed. Cap raised above his brow to shield his eyes from the sun. Or white haired Aunt Mamie turning back at the gate and walking slowly toward the house offering an arm to Kathy, as if they needed it. "She must think I'm old" she'd say in gentle rebuke, confident of her companion's deafness.

The sense of loss is younger and stays the road.