July 27, 2001
Connemara: Every time I go there I flirt with the idea of learning the place. Of finally putting the names together with the places, putting the map on the land, of being sure that the island one sees from the house is High Island and not Friar or even Cruagh. I have some vague urge to know the history, to understand the geology, and even in rare flights of fancy to learn the language (Irish). The landscape is filled with birds and wild flowers, one could match the pictures in books with the living things. But I never seem to make any real progress. I’m not even very good at getting to know the owners of the local pub. Some of this is my innate lack of tenacity, some of it is the very nature of the landscape (an island appears alone, becomes three as you continue on the road), much of it is the familiar comfort of, once again, not belonging. The vagueness of the visitor precludes many responsibilities and it also breeds an easier love.
Going home, the phrase, for me refers to when I go to Ireland even though I have not lived there for sixteen years. Where in Ireland is this home? I suppose it is Dublin and more specifically the village and the house where my parents live and where I grew up. So going away from there, going West to Connemara, is leaving home again and yet it is still inside the bigger idea of going home to Ireland. Even though I am a tourist in the West, albeit a returning and enthusiastic tourist, there is a certain point in the road when I feel closer to the idea of coming home than I do when reaching any other place. There is a mountain on the right where the landscape changes from the more pastoral farmland that lies to the East of Oughterard into the rock strewn, green lunar landscape of “the West.” This place confirms my theory that all land aspires to be coastline. This is why the earth’s plates move around, why it cracks and erupts, why is freezes and thaws, why rivers are so busy making to the sea. They have coast envy. Connemara has coast in spades; it has resolved itself into a glut of coast.
For me the visit, to visit any place, always involves the rhetorical question: “Could I live here?” It is another flirtation, the half seductive threat of permanency foisted onto your fleeting holiday. Annually we perform the ritual fantasy of looking in the three property seller’s windows at the pictures of cottages with ever increasing prices: there was the love affair with the ruin on Turbot Island, the ruins with the sea view and water logged land at Emlagh, the semi-ruin with half an acre on Inishturk. It is a ritual that I remember my parents performing there thirty years ago when you could purchase a house for what a lap top costs today. But they would get commitment phobia and remember the sun that you can find in Spain, the leaks that spring year round, the damp that affords Ireland very efficient hip replacement surgeons. Wind and rain. Summer weather forecasts that daily include a vast array of weather permutations; forecasting that can render even the meteorologist lyrical. Rain coming at you not from above but from behind you and in front of you, a personal assault launched horizontally. So we rent the same house every summer: tenacious tenants. We are familiar with its contents though they are not our own, au fait with its foibles and careful when washing its wine glasses. I have come to realize, that for me, the interregnum, being in transit, the house not owned but rented, is the perfect state. I am not fit for ownership, for citizenship, do not possess the stamina that permanency requires.
do not possess the stamina that permanency requires.
None of us do. That latent simian DNA keeps us moving. We only pretend.
All evolution theory (even feminist) is built around the idea that whatever attributes a species developes is generally an attribute that will assist in procreation and longevity of progeny (and therewith male paternity certainity). The female orgasm has everyone up in arms because nobody can figure out it's proper FUNCTION. I am starting to feel the only true way to emancipate the female is to create children where paternity was not an issue in their creation....
I know this is rambling but I think it fits with the idea of being a renter more than an owner....
Love Marlene
PS...LOVE LOVE LOVE your journal
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Connemara: Every time I go there I flirt with the idea of learning the place. Of finally putting the names together with the places, putting the map on the land, of being sure that the island one sees from the house is High Island and not Friar or even Cruagh. I have some vague urge to know the history, to understand the geology, and even in rare flights of fancy to learn the language (Irish). The landscape is filled with birds and wild flowers, one could match the pictures in books with the living things. But I never seem to make any real progress. I’m not even very good at getting to know the owners of the local pub. Some of this is my innate lack of tenacity, some of it is the very nature of the landscape (an island appears alone, becomes three as you continue on the road), much of it is the familiar comfort of, once again, not belonging. The vagueness of the visitor precludes many responsibilities and it also breeds an easier love.
Going home, the phrase, for me refers to when I go to Ireland even though I have not lived there for sixteen years. Where in Ireland is this home? I suppose it is Dublin and more specifically the village and the house where my parents live and where I grew up. So going away from there, going West to Connemara, is leaving home again and yet it is still inside the bigger idea of going home to Ireland. Even though I am a tourist in the West, albeit a returning and enthusiastic tourist, there is a certain point in the road when I feel closer to the idea of coming home than I do when reaching any other place. There is a mountain on the right where the landscape changes from the more pastoral farmland that lies to the East of Oughterard into the rock strewn, green lunar landscape of “the West.” This place confirms my theory that all land aspires to be coastline. This is why the earth’s plates move around, why it cracks and erupts, why is freezes and thaws, why rivers are so busy making to the sea. They have coast envy. Connemara has coast in spades; it has resolved itself into a glut of coast.
For me the visit, to visit any place, always involves the rhetorical question: “Could I live here?” It is another flirtation, the half seductive threat of permanency foisted onto your fleeting holiday. Annually we perform the ritual fantasy of looking in the three property seller’s windows at the pictures of cottages with ever increasing prices: there was the love affair with the ruin on Turbot Island, the ruins with the sea view and water logged land at Emlagh, the semi-ruin with half an acre on Inishturk. It is a ritual that I remember my parents performing there thirty years ago when you could purchase a house for what a lap top costs today. But they would get commitment phobia and remember the sun that you can find in Spain, the leaks that spring year round, the damp that affords Ireland very efficient hip replacement surgeons. Wind and rain. Summer weather forecasts that daily include a vast array of weather permutations; forecasting that can render even the meteorologist lyrical. Rain coming at you not from above but from behind you and in front of you, a personal assault launched horizontally. So we rent the same house every summer: tenacious tenants. We are familiar with its contents though they are not our own, au fait with its foibles and careful when washing its wine glasses. I have come to realize, that for me, the interregnum, being in transit, the house not owned but rented, is the perfect state. I am not fit for ownership, for citizenship, do not possess the stamina that permanency requires.
- rachael 7-27-2001 1:51 pm
do not possess the stamina that permanency requires. None of us do. That latent simian DNA keeps us moving. We only pretend. All evolution theory (even feminist) is built around the idea that whatever attributes a species developes is generally an attribute that will assist in procreation and longevity of progeny (and therewith male paternity certainity). The female orgasm has everyone up in arms because nobody can figure out it's proper FUNCTION. I am starting to feel the only true way to emancipate the female is to create children where paternity was not an issue in their creation.... I know this is rambling but I think it fits with the idea of being a renter more than an owner.... Love Marlene PS...LOVE LOVE LOVE your journal
- anonymous (guest) 8-13-2001 2:30 am [add a comment]