I Always Wanted to Live in the Country

I’m heading to my country cottage in Ireland next week. It’s been just over a year since I signed all the paperwork, and more than six months since I’ve been there (I’m still working out a schedule).

Buying the place has been an interesting experience, and one that was relatively uncomplicated. Since I’ve gone public, I’ve learned that there are a lot of people for whom owning a small cottage in Ireland is a beloved fantasy. I’m happy to let you live vicariously through my own adventure!

There are two main reasons why I wanted to have a place of my own in Ireland. One is all those Irish ancestors calling out to me. Because of various family frictions, I never had a chance to know my Irish-born grandparents (my father’s side of the family), so this was my way of making up for it (and I’ve found a lot of new relatives!).

But I always wanted to live in the country, somewhere. I grew up mainly in suburbs of major cities, usually within commuting distance. Don’t get me wrong—I love cities. I’ve worked in Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco and London and enjoyed them all. But I don’t want to live in the heart of one.

My mother was a child of the New Jersey suburbs, until her father had a sort of mid-life crisis and decided he wanted to be a dairy farmer (you have no idea how absurd this was—he had no training at all, and little aptitude). He got a six-week agricultural degree at Rutgers and moved the family to Maine when my mother was fourteen. She hated it. Actually my grandmother did too: she got fed up, moved to Manhattan during WWII, and divorced her husband. My mother lasted another year in Maine, then joined her mother in New York. She never looked back, and when in later years we would drive past a farm with rolling hills and a pretty view, she’d snarl.

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Mountain View Farm, Waterville,

 

So why my fascination with places and lifestyles I’ve never known? Sometimes I wonder if there’s some kind of inherited memory involved, which is why rolling green hills seem familiar to me. Other times I think it really may be all those rural ancestors (on both sides of the Atlantic) whispering in my ear, which would explain why I kept finding their final resting places in obscure cemeteries when I’m not even looking for them.

But while I yearned for those rolling green meadows early in my life, a few decades later I’ve found that I want those places for other reasons, that have nothing to do with my ghosts. I want peace. Quiet. Real darkness, where I can see the stars, and on a good night, the Milky Way. Elbow room. I don’t want to be a hermit, but neither do I want to look into my neighbor’s kitchen and watch her washing dishes (been there, done that). Glimpses of animals who are too shy to come out back home, and wildflowers that I don’t even recognize. When I think about the cottage, the little half-acre piece of the world that is all mine, I swear my blood pressure drops. It’s my Happy Place. Sure, there’s work to be done on it, and I still want to visit new places in Ireland, but what I picture most often is sitting on the patio and watching the sun set over the mountains of Kerry.

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And, yes, the family cemetery is up the hill

What about you? Have you ever come to a place you’ve never been and immediately recognized it and felt at home? What places just feel “right” to you?

 

Filed under: Ireland, Sheila's Posts