I'm tired and distracted. We leave for home at 7:30 tomorrow morning. From our door to my parents' door, it will be something like 19 hours of traveling. I'm going to be so grouchy.
But it will be worth it. I'll get to see my Dad play with Silas, eat my Mom's fantastic food, visit with my grandma, celebrate our nephew's first birthday, hang out with Casey, Joe, and Ivy and meet Annie. I'll chat with Orrin's aunts and uncles and cousins, torment his brother Nathan, laugh with my sister-in-law, converse with Orrin's Mom and Dad, listen to his Grandmother's stories of the old country. I only wish all our siblings could be there.
Sometimes the memories of family gatherings from my childhood are so strong I can feel the wooden decking under my calloused toes, see my cousins' just shy of sun-burnt faces, smell the grass and the sunshine, hear my uncles debating with my Mom and aunt, and taste the just picked corn on the cob slathered with butter.
We will spend a portion of this trip shopping for items that are difficult to find, or insanely expensive by our American standards, in Ireland. Our shopping list seems to be growing by the hour. But what I really long for, what is really unattainable here, I can't put on the list.
I want this loud and boisterous gathering of our families. I want more music, more laughter, more food, more warmth, more stories. I want more than enough. I want this bounty. I want too much.
And I will have this, not once, but twice, on this trip. Each weekend of the visit a bookend of festivity. Honoring the beginning of one life and near the end of another. My dread of the journey pales in comparison to my anticipation of celebration.
Still, tomorrow night you might need to remind me that I'm happy to be home.
2 comments:
"Sometimes the memories of family gatherings from my childhood are so strong I can feel the wooden decking under my calloused toes, see my cousins' just shy of sun-burnt faces, smell the grass and the sunshine, hear my uncles debating with my Mom and aunt, and taste the just picked corn on the cob slathered with butter."
Bridget, this bit here is how I feel about those trips up north when I was a kid. Rachel says I think everything smells like up north, but that isn't true. When I say that, it is because one of the thousands of smells of up north just went by. Whether it is pasties or the way the smell in the boat changed when you hauled up the first fish.
I hope you have a wonderful time!
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