Níl duine ná deoraí ann.

There is no exile here. Before I opened my eyes this morning, I heard the sound of Lisa’s voice, “I think it might be time…” Shower. Pack. The last breakfast. Sweet good-byes and a final bus ride into Galway for the whole bedraggled band of Gaeilgeoirí.

No more of Lucy’s fresh scones and hot tea. No more walking into class 15 seconds before the teacher. No more conversations about when the wash might return. No more walks home from school waylaid by the sight of the Twelve Bens draped low in the sky. No more Conamara sean nós or céilis. No more welcomes into the warmest house in Conamara with a turf fire to share a meal and study by.

Some parents encourage their children to travel the world after college. That is something to which we might all aspire. Travel. Education. One in the same. Sometimes we can’t help but see no farther than the end of our noses. When I come to Ireland, I always think I am coming to my grandparents’ home. That in some way, I am coming home. But this is a different culture, indeed, and none of us purely represents the culture from which we came. We are African Americans. We are Mexican Americans. We are Irish Americans. But Janis Joplin sang the blues, and Martha Stewart cooks tamales. We retain small bits of our grandparents’ or our great grandparents’ cultures, but we become something altogether different.

In spite of that, we were each taken in as if we had been away from Conamara for far too long. We were fed, nurtured, and taught. Like Peigín Leitir Móir’s husband, who came home to find a son he had never met, we may not recognize the customs, but we are forgiven and cherished just the same.