Emigration Diary: Last Nights in Town

Orifinally written for ramp.ie as part of the Emigration Diary series

 

 We’re in the last few days now before the great odyssey and most of our goodbyes have been said. We’ve moved out of our house and are staying with rather bemused but very accommodating relatives in the house where I spent much of my childhood. The kids have constructed an unrestricted Nintendo nest in the boxroom and my husband has set up a round-the-clock online sales studio in the sitting room. It’s really quite fascinating what people will buy and I’m completely gobsmacked by the sheer number of things we possessed. I wasn’t even aware of half of the curios. There is a third skip in the front garden. It waits hungry-mouthed for any junk that is leftover on Thursday.

As George suddenly leapt into action and finally started shedding his load, I moved beyond the packing-repacking panic into a fairly mellow apathy. We are getting on that plane on Friday morning regardless of if we are ready or not. The miserable damp weather we’ve been having is playing no minor contribution to this attitude. I will feel the deliciously sticky New York summer heat on my skin on Friday afternoon if I have to go with nothing but a bikini in my handbag. It would be nice if we could get rid of the car before that though. It’s a teeny bit valuable for the skip and sadly, it won’t fit in my suitcase.

We had a little farewell do with friends last Friday which went on till the wee hours. It was rather romantic after the hugs,vodka and tears, to walk down the brightening, eerily empty Grafton St. accompanied by the dawn chorus and to watch the fast-food wrappers of the night before get carried away by seagulls before they could be swallowed by the street sweeper. These are the sights and sounds I most associate with our courtship many moons ago. We stopped at the end, had a kiss and waved goodbye to our Dublin scene. Then we fell into a taxi.

I found this picture while I was packing and thought it appropriate for this last post before our voyage. It was taken at a funfair in Germany. We were newly engaged and I was five months pregnant with my eldest son. I had been prevented from going on almost every ride by a red circle with a line through a stork. George suggested the photo to cheer me up. We joked that we would confuse our kids with tales of the olden days. It never occurred to me that circumstances may conspire for it to be taken as gospel in future generations.

So, I guess this is it. So long old country. Stay well. I’ll resist adding a certain John Denver track to this and I’ll talk to you all shortly from the other side.