The Art of a Graceful Homecoming

For the Children of the Irish Diaspora

As I had hoped and prayed, our trip to Ireland refilled my imbas¹ well and threw my heart wide open. Before I can begin to weave those stories, however, I must invite you to imagine with me the art of a graceful homecoming.

But, it’s important you know that my face was drenched in tears as I tried to navigate my way to the VanWyck, over to the Major Deegan, and finally onto the New York Thruway.

My traveling companion, my ten year-old Mairéad, had just chastised me for swearing and being “rotten” to the other drivers. 

It was more than I could take. 

We’d just gotten off a seven hour flight. I couldn’t remember my last good night’s sleep. And I was in the middle of rush hour traffic leaving JFK. One hundred miles stretched between me and my very own bed, and I was in the midst of the scariest, most unfamiliar stretch of traffic.

But, as I drove over what felt like enemy territory (for me, that’s everything south of the Tappan Zee Bridge), I was three times blessed.

Three red tailed hawks flew overhead as we made our way through Queens and the Bronx.

These are the wild birds of home. Every time I see a hawk, my heart lifts with that potent mix of wildness and familiarity. And they’re here, circling over the river and its thin line of trees, offering their presence to the concrete and steel universe that has destroyed their native habitat.

With each winged omen, I could feel myself being welcomed again to Turtle Island and assured that everything would, in fact, be well.

And still—or perhaps because of those raptor blessings—I let myself weep at the culture shock. The aggressive drivers and the ridiculous billboards and the endless American sprawl. I let myself mourn that the trip had gone by too fast. 

I let myself cry because, in spite of it all, I was also happy to be back.

I’ve often shared about how I thought my years of study in Ireland would eventually translate into forever. In my favorite alternate timeline, I'm an expat teaching at an Irish university. When the routine seems too deadening, or America seems too dreadfully ‘Murican, I can get lost in mourning what might have been. 

What if I had honored my most ardent certain desires, those that ruled me from eighteen to twenty-three?

Of course, I cannot know, and it’s less than interesting to dwell here for one paragraph more.

What matters more is that I took the risk to go to Ireland now. Sure, there’s always a risk in taking a plane, renting a car, and taking your kid to hang out on cliffs that loom hundreds of feet over the churning ocean. I was worried about something that was much more frightening, and surely seemed more within the realm of possibility:

What if I could not come home again? 

What if, after ten magical transformative days, when I inevitably honored my obligations and took that plane back to JFK, what if I still couldn’t return to the everything of family life with my whole heart?

The post that I sent to you just as I was boarding the plane to Dublin was called The Answer to the Prayer and the Question. The working title had been more urgent: “I Just Need to Go.”

The low moan of yearning to get back to the place I loved most had become a scream. There was no way I could keep up with being mom, with being married, with doing good work with my clients, or telling a decent story if I didn’t follow my deepest desire to its source.

But there were no guarantees that I could slake my thirst in just ten days. There was no guarantee that my well of patience would be replenished or that I would be able to see the beauty in the hawks or the upstate autumn leaves once the cliffs and caves and sacred sites of Ireland were just a memory.

The story that I need to tell right now, more than the story of the caves of Keshcorran or being atop Sliabh na Caillí in the middle of a wicked storm is that it is good to be back.

There are parts of the old routine I will not resume. There are old habits already emerging and plaguing me. But overall, there is a sense of devotion to this timeline, and all it offers.

At this point, this post seems to be veering toward the cheesy, but this is when I remember something that the wise and brilliant

Jennifer Murphy

of The Celtic Creatives (with whom I shared that adventure into the Cailleach gale - more on that soon!) said to me:

This story of homecoming is important for the diaspora. 

For those of us whose ancestors took off across the Atlantic with the winds in their faces and were forced to make new lives on the other side of the world, there’s power in the coming back to the ancestral homeland.

But the real power, for most of us distant children of Éire in this lifetime, is in learning how to return to the everyday life, and discovering how to live well and do well² on the soil into which we have been planted.

1. The Irish for “inspiration that illuminates”; a druidic practice of creation and poetry.

2. And by live well and do well, I do not mean ruthlessly pursuing our share of the so-called American dream or carrying out any other aspect of the colonialist agenda in any part of the world. By “live well and do well,” I speak to nurturing our relationship with this land, with its creatures, with its people, and being part of some greater healing for our vast and varied earth - all with the spirit of Danu in our hearts and heads.