Caroline O'Donoghue: I knew, in a sort of instinctual way, that if I were in Cork we would all be behaving differently

A few days ago, at the end of another long, grey, cold day of lockdown, utterly identical to the one before it, I looked up at the sky and audibly gasped at what I saw. There, in my little south London neighbourhood, were a dozen Chinese lanterns floating into the air. The kind of parachute balloons that are propelled by a single candle, and can go miles and miles before crashing into a tree. A few teenagers stopped to look with me. We stood outside the corner shop and tried in vain to capture the phenomenon on our phones. But, like a full moon or a night filled with stars, it proved impossible to capture properly and in its full splendour. It was just for us, just for now. We stood, stock still, and watched. We saw more lanterns being launched, from some mysterious point a mile away and wondered what it meant. Chinese New Year? No – we were still weeks off.

The teenagers got bored and moved on, but my heartfelt so lifted that I practically danced down the street home. I spotted a woman putting her bins out. “Look!” I said. “The lanterns!” I pointed them out to her. “Why?” She said. I stood there with her for three minutes, talking at her like a Roald Dahl character. “Isn’t it marvellous?” I said, practically hyper. “Aren’t they gorgeous?” She looked suspicious, both of me and of them, for we were both foreign and inexplicable. She just kept asking why. Then, at last: “The council will have to pick those up.” And then she went back indoors.

And in that moment, my enthusiasm became as dented as the lanterns overhead eventually would be. I was hit with a terrible spate of homesickness. Because I knew, in a sort of instinctual way, that if I were in Cork we would all be behaving differently. 

That we would have a slightly larger capacity for whimsy, for spontaneous beauty, and there would certainly be more people on the street, looking up. I suddenly imagined myself with my sister’s family: my niece Robin, the kind of child for whom ‘fairy doors’ were made for, would be out of control with happiness. My nephew Rex, who is a great man for pointing and saying ‘wow’, would have a field day. My brother’s son, Jack, on the cusp of adolescence, would probably have a video game reference, or a scene in a movie that this was *exactly* like.

I am hit with that great conflict of homesickness, often felt by immigrants in large cities: of wanting to experience something with the people back home, but also knowing that this would not happen back home. And that, the cynicism you see from the people around you, is a result of people who have grown used to wonders, and are even suspicious of them.

Luckily, this is not my first experience with homesickness, and I have honed a technique in dealing with it.

Tell no one. 

Particularly the people back home. They will only goad you into moving home, and then the homesickness will not go away but turn septic: you will be forced to outline all the reasons you don’t actually want to move home, and someone will be offended.

Look at a large five-bedroom house in Clonakilty. 

Marvel at the house. Admire the high ceilings, the bay windows. Send the link to your boyfriend. Remind him that this five-bedroom house that is half a mile from Inchydoney beach is the same price as a two-bedroom flat in the least scenic parts of London.

Bring up the house constantly. 

Ruin the house for your partner. Refer to it as “that house” and then eventually “our house”. Remind him how good the schools are in Ireland, compared to here.

Text a lot of people from back home. 

That treasured part of your contacts list that consists of people you speak to once or twice a year, but still consider to be a close friend. This is when they get texted. Most of them don’t live in Cork anymore, but you have a nice hour or so remembering your misspent youth together. Wonder if there will be a great prodigal return, of all the coolest people coming back.

Look at the house again. 

Remind your boyfriend that Louise lives in Clonakilty, and didn’t we all have a lovely lunch together that one time? She could be our Clonakilty friend!

Eventually have a real conversation. 

Stay at the dinner table for three hours after dinner one night, while your boyfriend asks you what this is really all about. Tell him you miss Ireland, not just your family and your friends, but Ireland. Irish people. Have a long conversation about how, in three to five years, this will be possible. Your boyfriend tells you that he loves the idea of living in Ireland, but not yet. You realise that you don’t want to move back just yet, either. 

All you ever wanted was to talk about it, to air it out, like good sheets. So you talk about it: you talk about your niece one day being your babysitter, you talk about having a support network of cousins and aunts, you talk about how much the dog would like it. You talk about other dogs, the dogs that will be hired to be your current dog’s assistants, her interns, and who will eventually take over the mantle of Queen when the dog is no longer with us. Cry about the notion of the dog no longer being with us.

Pack it all away. 

Like a dress only worn for certain occasions, this needs to be folded up with tissue paper and a sprig of lavender and slid under the bed. You know you’re not ready to move back. But you feel better, lighter, for being allowed to wander in the possibility.

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