I’m not a farmer. I’m a city girl born in Brooklyn, NY and never more at home than in the middle of Manhattan. My roots are the northeast of the US, my family story that of many Americans in our nation of immigrants. I am of hot city streets, car horns, tall buildings and the Hudson River running like an artery between my heart and soul. I live in the midwest in Illinois now because of work, but I say to anyone that asks “I am not from here.” Manhattan is not my home any more, but neither is Illinois.
If home is a feeling of belonging, a place where you feel at rest and at east, a place where you are among friends and able to be yourself unguarded then I come home every time I travel to No. Ireland. There is no reason for this – I’m not Irish American or British or even a viking. My genetics or my family line don’t trace back here. But here I feel at ease and at peace, here I live with friends as close as sisters, here we build a small community together in summer and follow our passions of teaching and of writing. I step off the plane into the damp, sweet air of this island and feel like I should be here. I see the sheep scattered on the green hill and know I’m home again – for the summer at least.
I LOVE “I am of hot city streets, car horns, tall buildings and the Hudson River running like an artery between my heart and soul.” Gorgeous thought.
I am completely with you, along with all your sheep cousins.