Where My Heart Lies.

Lately, as though standing still amidst a cascade, a tumult of warm rushing days, like bright ribbons that flutter and flick around us bringing outings and jaunts of the loveliest kinds, rekindling of friendships, forging new ones, I find my moments to pause, to take a breather, and literally breathe, watching the beautiful, colourful maelstrom of days that tumble on around us.

In amongst our days we have found ourselves weaving our way back and forth, up and down the coast, up and down this dear stretch of earth we are blessed to live in, south to wondrous beaches that are out of this world, north for an hour to our favourite city, and there, in between, nestled in a harbour, our home town.

And although we have not lived there for 15 years, this place has our hearts still, and I forget just how deeply rooted it is, and spending time there, more than fleeting visits to grandparents, has the effect of something like a burr that clings to us, burrows into our skin, finds our blood and floods our senses, and even as I write this I feel it, a flutter in my stomach. A memory.

Photo by My Only Girl.

So we climb our hill and lie in the sun, gaze out over the bay, and it is like an imprint somewhere deep inside me that possess me from the inside out, stirs up an unfathomable longing that cannot be shaken for days.

And yet....

....then we return home, to this little house just a few miles down the coast, where the sea booms down the chimneys, and jackdaws roost, the wind moans through the walls and whispers of ships and whales, where the reeds sweep and toss, cluster round us like old friends, murmuring words in our ears like 'comfort' and 'snug'.

And as the evening gathers, and the light slides along these walls of ours, I sink into the quiet that creeps out from the shadows as the children dash into the garden for the last bit of sunshine, I sit and listen to their voices, the laughter, that floats in the open window like little boats on the sounds of the sea, and a breeze stirs the curtain.

And as night finally settles in, I contemplate how it is possible to love two places equally, and that if I did leave here and go back, I would be no better off, for I would still love two places equally and it would simply be a mirror of now.

Photo by Líosa.

So we will quietly carry on loving two places, and watch the sun set over the mountains, the same mountains of home, and yes, actually, in the greater map of the world, they are, after all, one and the same.

All Is Full Of Love.

Is it really another year gone by?

Twenty years today.
We stood on this shore at dawn, stood side by side and made a promise in our hearts.

We stood in a place, this place that is rooted deep in both of us,
and did I feel the sands of time sweep around us, take us back into sunny days of our childhoods when we perhaps sat side by side here unbeknownst? Had we but known, when we came here in swaggering, loud adolescent swarms, young bodies plunging off the pier into head-shrinking cold, into an underwater world alive with slippery, grasping tendrils of seaweed, had we but known. Was that you over there? Did we glance, our eyes briefly meeting in flirting, innocent glimpses, unknowing how our paths were bound to cross?
At what point did our threads begin to weave together?

Time and distance notwithstanding, this place, this town we cannot shake.
Maybe it's thread is too strong in the weave of our story,
maybe we go deeper here than we know.

Were the colourful threads always here, bound together even before we knew?

Here today we stand again. 

And yes I feel those sands of time blow across my skin, twenty more years. Years of our own children playing in the sand, jumping in the water, making their own marks in the world, weaving their own stories that entwine with ours, some now beginning to find their own pattern, curling slightly away.

To this point today, we stand again. 

Today.

Oh my heart...I could not have foreseen such joy.

~*~

~*~

Where We Found Ourselves Today.

So yesterday, after three lovely days in my parents we made our way home to our cold house. It's still trying to warm up, as are we.  Old houses do not take kindly to being left unlived in for more than a few hours at a time in winter, especially if the frozen sea winds are blowing around it like demented Selkies!
Today, feeling the need for fresh air, we decided to make the half hour journey back up the coast again to our home town of Dun laoghaire instead of heading for the hills as we so often do.

We decided to take a stroll down the east pier, as so many others did, and it was a magical wonderland of another kind. Heavy swathes of sea mist crept silently around, making sound a strange muffled loudness.

And as we walked through the dense moisture the foghorn resounded forlornly in our ears, and I was instantly transported back to my childhood bed, burrowing under the blankets as I listened, waiting to hear it again. It's a sound that will forever be both haunting, and powerfully poignant for me.

And on we walked, people's footsteps echoing quietly-loud across the concrete, their voices murmuring in our ears. And then I heard, as though on some fairy wind, the lonesome sound of music, gradually growing louder until a tall, bearded man loomed out of the freezing haze, his fingers walking over the strings of his banjo, an accompaniment to our walk.

And although I have done this same walk so many times down the years, still I find my heart constrict at the sight of the old town, as seen from the sea side, as though I am on that boat, leaving the harbour yet again. So many times I have done so, and always come back, but for so many that is not possible. And I listen to the various accents that pass us as we walk, voices of people come home for the holiday, their 'foreign' families in tow.

And I marvel. Even though I am only half an hour away, I still get 'homesick' for Dun laoghaire, and driving down Glenageary Avenue never fails to give me a pang. And I feel so grateful I never had to leave.
Well, more than a few miles!

So I walk and savour, (there's that word again!), and I listen. And though the air is bitter and cold, there is a lovely sense of holiday, a certain bounce in people's step. And my thoughts meander on, becoming reminiscences of other times, memories stirred up by the route we walk. There is a strange comfort in it, and I love the fact that even though Jay and I didn't know each other as children, growing up in the same place means we have a lot of similar memories.

So, the everyday mundane walk we anticipated became a trip down memory lane, something the older children love. And following this, as we did, into the beautiful, magical world of 'Where The Wild Things Are',  I have arrived home immersed in nostalgia.

Something which always gets my creative juices flowing!

Something Lovely.

It's been a while since I posted about Something Lovely and I thought I'd share these gorgeous images with you.

They are the work of a lovely lady called Doreen Kennedy, and she is a graphic designer and photographer based in my hometown of Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin.

Paris.

For any of you who have been to the Electric Picnic in Stradbally, Co. Laois over the last few years, you will have seen Doreen's 1,000 Flowers, where she covered trees with 1,000 pictures of flowers!

However, I have to admit it's her Holga images of Dun Laoghaire, Dalkey and Killiney that I absolutely love. I've had her calendar on my desk all year and I never get tired of peering at these beautiful images.

Killiney beach.

It seems a contradiction to say that a Holga image can be crisp, but that is exactly what these are. They pull you right into the picture.

This beach is the beach of my childhood. A place I go to still. And these in some way capture the little ghosts of us, right there on the sand and shingle, and it tugs my heart. And the light, somehow is that very light that beckoned us into the waves.

Killiney beach.

Dun Laoghaire pier.

And I almost cannot bare to look at these pictures of Dun Laoghaire, it tears at my heart so. So much of my childhood and teenage years was spent around Dun Laoghaire pier, and I feel I am looking through the years and could put my hand out and touch that child that I was. The otherworldliness of her ghostly images goes deep into my memory and shakes me there.

Over the months I've been looking at these, I have felt a homesickness in my heart that I thought was gone forever. And it's strange that I have felt this at a time I have never felt more settled and happy living where we do, just a few miles down the coast.

But it's a happy, nostalgic homesickness that satisfies something I cannot explain. A letting go maybe, for I am happy to have the memories I am blessed to have.

~*~

Do take a look at the rest of Doreen's work over on her website. And thank you Doreen for sharing such beautiful images with us.

~*~

Sunday At The Fair.

This week was one of those weeks that my camera had a little camera-holiday. It stayed in it's bag and had a rest. I was so busy haring around all week that I'm sure it felt all abandoned. Does that ever happen to you? 

But then I woke up this morning with plans in my mind for the day and it was the first thing I thought of popping in my bag. And together we made up for the quiet week. 

We went to a Vintage Fair in our hometown of Dun Laoghaire. It's really only up the road from where we are now but it's so rare that I'm in the town itself that it does always make me a wee bit nostalgic. 

Here we are walking through Clarinda Park which is where myself and Jay had our first flat together. (Picture taken by My Only Girl).

The fair was delightful. And if I'd had money I would have come home laden. As it was there was too much to see, with a good portion of the crowd dressed for the occasion.

There was even a dance floor which was a real treat to watch. People who knew how to dance! It's a secret yearning of mine to be able to dance. Proper old-fashioned swing-your-partner like you were two parts of a single fluid entity sort of dancing. This sweet couple stole the show for me!

These next two pictures were taken by My Only Girl as well. I love the repeated stripes in this one. She's been dropping heavy hints about a cat for her birthday. Hmm...

I love this picture she took. I love her outfit, and the composition of her with Jay and The Smallest in the background.

And finally, I couldn't resist the evening light here. Oh how I'm loving the stretch in these evenings...

I hope you had a lovely weekend too!

Little Ghosts In The Orchard.

Being back in Dun Laoghaire college of art, as it used to be known,
did strange things to my heart.

It's where we met, 19 years ago.

It has changed so much since then, in places, unrecognisable.
But, then, around a corner,
there, something familiar,
a hallway, a stairway, an orchard.



I see our ghosts,
young and carefree and on top of the world.