Wish I Was Here: Greygrove, Ireland

There’s a hard cold rain pelting down from the heavens here this morning, washing my windows, and forcing New Yorkers into practical shoes. I love any excuse to throw on a pair of wellies, though when I ran to the shop for milk this morning, I found out the hard way (wet socks) that I was due a new pair. I love the rain. I love to talk about the rain too.

That might be what I miss most about Ireland (along with my family, friends, and my grandmother’s scones of course). If I’d been running to a corner shop in Ireland this morning, there would have been lively discussion about the weight, angle, temperature, and projected duration of the rain. The shop owner might have greeted me with “great weather for ducks!” and I would have laughed my leaky boot off like water off a duck’s arse. I’d have left with my pint of milk, all the local deaths and gossip, and probably a patch for my wellie too.

This conversation could only be true of rural Ireland, as in truth the conversation in a shop in any populated town in Ireland this morning would have been with a Polish immigrant, and in broken English, and surely without wellie patches.

I’m not wishing I was home today just for my fix of precipitation conversation—rather, next week marks the twentieth anniversary of the passing of my grandfather, and to commemorate the occasion, the local priest will say mass in the house my grandfather brought his young wife Bridie to, more than sixty years ago—the same house they raised their twelve children in, and built their farm around.

My grandfather was a great man to talk about the weather himself. “When the wind is from that quarter,” he’d say, pushing back his tweed cap, and pointing his black-nailed finger to the bog, where the trailer of turf stood out from the clear hard sky, “the day will hold fine.” I was always fascinated by such pronouncements and old knowledge of winds and skies, and I’d study the sky hard, hoping to see what he was seeing.