Wednesday, October 20, 2004

A journey home

Went to visit my old home town this past weekend – Pittsburgh PA…..
More hauntings, more memories. The drive down was nice. Late afternoon sun slowly setting behind me, setting the trees on fire, blazing the colours as mother nature shows off her fall brilliance.

Driving through Pittsburgh can be a very harrowing experience – especially if you are not used to it. First of all there are the hills. My aunt Jean (the one who passed away a few years ago, the one I felt most akin to, the one who looked like a pixie), used to tell us that there was one hill in the old neighborhood and if you could navigate it during the winter – that alone should be enough to grant you a driver’s license. Then there are the ‘tubes’ the tunnels – tunnels that were carved into the hilly/mountainous region that begin the line of the Allegheny Mountains….and of course leading into the tunnels are the most convoluted and confusing lanes of traffic, and if you are in the wrong lane…heaven help you because there is no getting over, and unless you know the area, you can get lost fast – or cause a major car accident. It’s extremely unnerving.

As I drove into the old stomping grounds, memories of my father’s side of the family came flooding back to me – for I was on ‘their’ side of town at this point. My dad and his brothers were ‘South-side’ Irish boys. All of them fair-skinned and blue eyed; all of them mischievous. I thank my lucky stars every day for having a bit of their blood running in my veins. I was sent back in time to a place of innocence (or so I must have felt when I was very young) – a place where the tragedies of my life had yet to unfold. A place where it was not uncommon for a Sunday gathering at my Irish Grandmother’s house to include 30 or 40 people and lot of laughter (to the point of tears), whiskey tenors belting out bursts of song, songs about rebellion, songs about Ireland, songs about coming to a new land, and of course - all the whiskey to go along with the singing.

Visiting my home town is bitter-sweet and melancholy for me…I want to return there some day (I think to myself) – live out the rest of my life. Find some small cabin in the mountains and become a hermit of sorts and live a quiet life. I don’t know why I feel that I should return. Perhaps it’s a running away.

The soundtrack that goes along with these visits is a cross between the keening in the Cranberries songs, the bawdiness of old Irish drinking songs and the anger of the Pogues. Sometimes when I hear the accents or even out of the corner of my eye when I see someone bearing some sort of family resemblance - I can swear I am hearing or seeing my cousins, aunts, uncles, talking and laughing. And like a time-traveler I am transported back to that place where I felt safe and happy.

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