I'm not sure I could be much farther than I am from the land of my birth here in Mexico City. The air is thin, hot and dusty. I live high above sea level now, surrounded by mountains down whose slopes descend black storm clouds bringing rains that wash in great torrents through the steep streets of packed earth and stone.
The water releases a smell that always reminds me of Dublin after a summer shower, although this is thicker, more pungent. As I write the chimes from the bell tower peal out across the town, and I can hear the street dogs barking.
I was born by the sea, and as I grew up it was a constant presence, likely to spring into view at the turn of a corner or the cresting of a hill. I miss it sometimes in a way I never expected. It was a calming presence that I never thought I would be without.
Now I must travel for a day and a night by bus for the solace I find in watching the waves. Even then it’s different. The voice of the wide Pacific is not the same as the Atlantic or the calm Irish Sea. It doesn’t hold the comfort of home.
It takes two days to reach my parents’ house from here, cooped up in economy class with seats that are too small to sleep in. When I arrive the place I find is not the place that I left, back in 2010. Dublin has changed in many subtle ways that add up to an enormous difference.
Most of my friends aren't there any more. I see a street corner or a pub that stirs a fond memory, but then I realise that the people I shared it with are in London, the United States, Australia.
Not all change is for the worse, and not all sadness is an evil, but sometimes I can’t help longing for the past. I carry these old friends around in my pocket. They are reduced to text, but their personalities jump from the screen as WhatsApp replaces the pub as the venue for the craic. I’m glad I don’t have to rely on sparse letters for news from home, as it was in the old days. I’m glad I don’t have to wonder if they are alive or dead.
The Irish I have met abroad are a strange mix. The younger ones are economic migrants who resent having to leave their families to find work. But some of the older ones are more like refugees. They left a place that was too conservative to accept them for who they are. I hope they heard the cry of equality that arose back home in May last year, when the marriage-equality referendum was passed. I hope it was some solace to them.
Now, as I chip away at Spanish, like a sculptor not knowing what he’ll unearth with his chisel, I realise how much I took the cúpla focal for granted as a child. I had no inkling of the importance a language has in shaping your identity. When I meet a Welshman whose first language is Welsh I wonder what betrayals and failures robbed us of our tongue.
After all these years abroad I still feel deeply connected to the land I left behind. I think of the rich smell of muddy playing fields in spring, the strong scent of cut grass in the long evenings of summer, the dying leaves and smoky aroma of autumn and the warm fires and the laughter of friends in winter. But the truth is that I think of all this as my past. I’m not sure it will ever be like that again.
Here, as she lies in the bed next to me, breathing steadily in the sunlight that pours past the white curtains, and the bells echo through the morning, and the scent of fresh bread hangs in the already warm air, I wonder, is home here now?
Simon Boylan is an author and playwright. He left Dublin in 2010 for Brussels, and now lives in Mexico City.
