Living on an Island

I was born by the sea, in Bray, Co.Wicklow, on this small Island of Ireland. As I remember, it seems I spent the first 18 years thinking, if not dreaming, of getting off this island and travelling the world, to experience some of the madness, to know the unknown, a gnawing desire to see what was out there, for where I was felt very small and tight, parochial maybe, I was uneasy and uninterested. I then spent the next 30 years wandering the world, living and working on different continents, for years at a time, yet, all the time - returning. For this is the conundrum that faces an Island dweller, that here is always another gnawing desire, once you feed the fist one and that is - to return from whence you came. It is in my blood, it seeps into my thinking. It is a call, a call back to this small Island that keeps safe all my intimate histories and has knowledge of where my bodies are buried and maybe where I’m gonna bury one or two more.
Until ……
Until it feels too small, agin and I find my bag is packed and that gnawing feeling has returned.