On the Verge is a free weekly newsletter shared every Sunday at 3pm.
You can also share excerpts of today’s On the Verge on social media, forward it to someone who might benefit, or text it to a friend. Thank you for reading.
This piece was written during my week-long stay in Ireland a few weeks ago.
The house looks exactly as it did the last time I saw it. I tried to flick through my phone to find a photo of the last time I was here, but found myself scrolling back through years of photos. Years. I’ve not been home in a very long time.
The house sits atop a long gravel driveway; one long bungalow with a set of picnic tables sitting outside. It was originally a big grassy field and then suddenly, in 1989, a home was built. On the right hand side of the driveway, the weeping beech tree sways in the wind. I fumble with the keys as B unloads our luggage and bags of groceries from our trip to Tescos. The familiar clunk of the four skeleton keys hanging together on a keyring with a little tag that says, “Keys to all the stuff that belong to the bank.” The house smells the same, I couldn’t tell you what it smells like, but it’s nostalgic. Everything looks as it did all those years ago.
I go around turning on all the lamps, the warm glow of each bulb lighting up segments of the room. My granddad’s green rocking chair on the right hand side has a book on it with another pile of books on the table beside it: one of Terry Pratchett’s many books, the latest Richard Osman murder novels and a few political pieces too. When I was about four, I climbed into the chair and settled in comfortably. My granddad, holding his newspaper, told me, sternly in his gruff voice to get out. I settled in further declaring, “This is my chair.” While cute back then, I don’t think I could make such a bold claim today.
There’s the three sofas in the middle of the room and a stove fireplace to keep us all toasty in the winter— I think the only thing that’s actually relatively new is the small, flat screen television and apple tv box that sits beside it. But the kitchen is what I remember the most. There’s the old electric Creda stove. It’s the only thing that is entirely black and I’m not sure if it’s from years of use or if that’s the colour it came in. It’s tiny, I’m most certain it couldn’t fit a full-size turkey if you were attempting to have Christmas dinner here. The microwave has yellowed with age, first purchased in 2002. Everything else is pristine and the same; the large bread tin with John Mccambridge Irish soda bread, the tin of tea bags. I rummage through each of the cabinets to see if the inside is the same as the outside. It is. There’s the USA Jacobs red tinned box, a staple in Irish cupboards since 1918, that has, to my surprise, actual biscuits in it. If there is one thing that an Irish household is never short of, it’s biscuits, butter, tea and milk. The essentials for life, really.
The wooden dinner table with thick wooden legs, originally painted dark green but now faded and chipped from years of wear remains untouched. It used to be my parents table, the table we had since before I was born. It’s as old if not older than me. That thought makes me smile. There’s the fridge that I’m taller than; I don’t remember feeling so large as I bend down to unload everything into it. The same fridge magnets sit on the fridge; photos of the family, a quote from God and several sassy quotes.
The dinner table, as in many households, was the heart of the house. A place for us to gather in the morning for breakfast to decide what the plan was for the day. There’d be boxes of muesli and weetabix, some fresh fruit available, a large serving of butter, softened and ready to be swiped across brown bread. Clonakilty sausages and rashers are charred in the oven while my granddad opens the back door because the room is filled with smoke. Inevitably the fire alarm in the hallway would go off and someone would be waving a tea towel to the ceiling to stop it.
In the evening, Nana, the chef of the family, cooked us all a meal — grilled salmon in a bit of butter and lemon, some steamed broccoli, and of course, baby potatoes. We’d all groan as my granddad, who sat at one end of the table, excessively salted his food before he even tried it; “Gerry, will you stop! That’s enough salt,” “No, no, it’s fine love.” My nan, too short for the table, would prop herself up with a few pillows and still have her arms out like chicken wings as she cut into her food. My dad, who sat at the other end of the table, would grin at all of us as he devoured his food in minutes.
This year has weirdly felt like a journey for returning home. In June, I went back to Singapore, a place that I spent my teen years. And now I’ve returned to another home. For as long as I can remember, I used to come to this house for two weeks every summer. As any typical teen dying to have a morsel of freedom, I didn’t always enjoy it. I wanted to travel, to see something different. I felt confined to the house. I hadn’t learnt to drive yet and the Cong Village, known famously for its setting in the John Wayne film, The Quiet Man, wasn’t something for a kid to shout about. With several pubs available and one historic Irish bookshop, the main enjoyment was actually feeding the ducks by the river.
I’m writing this from the tiny desk at the front door and as I look out at the front garden where the hydrangeas bloom, there’s a feeling of regret and disappointment in myself for disliking a place that I now truly love. I’ve been away for so long and now that I’m here, I don’t really want to leave. I walk through the house and feel nothing but nostalgia. The house is by no means perfect. A daddy long-leg ran out at me yesterday, the closet smells a bit of mildew, and there’s only one bathroom to share between eight people. But it’s home. It’s where you’ll find all the best memories, and the place to create new ones.
Perhaps this is what it means to truly grow up; you mature and change your perspective. You realise that the things you once hated, were stupid things to hate. It’s a melancholy feeling; when you finally appreciate what you had, you realise you’re unable to get back all that time you’d spent wishing for something different.