A three-day delayed start to our departure (caused by an airline IT system failure) turned out to be a blessing in disguise and gave us the chance to catch our breaths after the intensity of winding down all of the admin of our lives in Ireland before we boarded a plane and had to wind up all of the admin of a new life in the United States.
After weeks of decluttering, sorting and packing, it seemed a shame to leave. Our house had never been so organised!
One tip from me – and you don’t need to leave the country to do this – go to your wire drawer. You know the drawer that has the ball of wires. Old phone chargers, stray wires that never fit the device you need charged, an old camera charger you never use but you keep just in case you need to upload the photos on the seven-year-old camera you used once, some unidentifiable wire that says it’s from Ikea that you definitely haven’t used since you moved in but you’re keeping because maybe it has something to do with ... Christmas decorations?
Take all of those wires, put them in a bag and immediately drive them to the recycling centre.
It’s so freeing! You don’t need them! Ditto the instruction booklets you’ve kept for the vacuum cleaner and the washing machine. Yes there are various features and functions but you’ve been exclusively using the “mixed colour, 40mins at 30 degrees” setting for nine years and you’re not going to change now, are you?
The night before we flew, I slept in my childhood bedroom, where the lyrics of the Sunscreen Song by Baz Luhrmann are framed on the wall. The line “live in New York City once but leave before it makes you hard” jumped out at me.
“How long will that take?”, I wondered. “Will I know when it has happened?”
We got going at last and when I woke up on my first day in the city that never sleeps, I looked at my watch which read 8.23am and thought, “Holy s**tballs, we beat the jet lag the first day!”
But when I looked out of the window, the city that never sleeps was looking pretty dark and sleepy to me. My watch hadn’t updated. It was 3.23am in New York.
The kids immediately loved the city and I started to sympathise with how my mother (a Dub) felt about having unsophisticated culchie children (mortified)
Obviously, I did what any self-respecting Irish person would do in that situation: I moseyed into the kitchen and quietly began to make myself a fry until I was rudely interrupted by my husband who wandered in, wearing sexy lingerie, rubbing his eyes and saying: “Seán, it’s 3 o’clock in the morning”. “Yeah but it’s breakfast time back home,” I replied. “And don’t call me Seán.”
Apologies for the 30-year-old TV ad reference, and I don’t want to rehash 20-year-old material of Des Bishop either, but when you’re washing your hands at 4am and scalding hot water comes out of the tap, I think even Carrie Bradshaw couldn’t help but wonder: did someone leave the immersion on?
The kids immediately loved the city and I started to sympathise with how my mother (a Dub) felt about having unsophisticated culchie children (mortified).
When I was in college in Dublin and ever lost in the city, I’d ring Mam and each time she’d let out a little cry of, “I can’t believe my children are culchies,” before dishing out the directions.
On a family holiday to a Wicklow campsite when I was eight, I returned to the tent after a long hard morning at the tennis court, completely outraged by two Dublin boys of the same age who had asked us where we were from, then proceeded to ask if we went to school by tractor. But if it was comfort and sympathy I was looking for from my mother (it was), it was not forthcoming because she thought the story hilarious. “But we don’t, mam,” I argued (momentarily taking the piece of hay I’d been chewing on out of mouth). “We go to school by car!”
She would die of embarrassment if we were excited to be on a double-decker bus, or worse again, in a lift.
There are even more dogs in Manhattan than yellow cabs – most of them better dressed than I am
My own kids similarly betrayed their small-city upbringing. The baby was constantly sitting up in her buggy with her head moving side to side and up and down, taking it all in.
The three-year-old developed an obsession with yellow taxis and pointed them out to us with an excited squeal each time she saw one. Living in Midtown Manhattan and getting around on foot, do you have any idea how often that happened? Not only did she not grow tired of spotting yellow taxis but she added “doggies” to her watchlist. And there are even more dogs in Manhattan than yellow cabs – most of them better dressed than I am. Certainly their monthly grooming bills are higher.
Revolving doors held an irresistible draw as did buttons in the lifts, or elevators as we now call them.
One morning as I entered the elevator in our building – with our double buggy, replete with children – there were already three people inside and we nodded and smiled at each other and they smiled admiringly at the children.
“Lucky mama”, one of them said to me, and in that moment I felt lucky.