Returning

Photo by Nuala McNulty. Image by Denise Sallee. 
© Denise Sallee 2015

Ella Young is a character in a novel I am writing. It is very exciting to bring her to life in this way. She has influenced my life in so many ways over the last eight years, not least of all by sending me off to live in Ireland for one very precious year.

I no longer live in an old stone cottage on a hill in North Leitrim. Instead, I find myself in a cozy space on a hill in California where the Pacific Ocean stretches before me to the west and to the south the Santa Lucia Mountains roll down to Big Sur.

Hawks and vultures circle above me like dark shadows against the blue sky. Tall pines stand sentry as they sing their ancient songs, their highest branches nodding to me as I walk among the quail and the rabbits and tall grasses of my meadow.

After a life time as a nomad is it possible to grow roots? Do they even want to find a home here?

Sometimes life hands you circumstances that leave you with little room for negotiation. Responsibilities finally outweigh the dream chasing. And perhaps, when the chasing has ceased, there is time to sort through what remains and hold close that which has always been the constant - the unwavering - yearning of my soul.