In Dalkey I feel the same thing Matt Damon surely did before me: this is where I’m meant to be

As I stood in the tiny Irish stationery store where Matt Damon’s assistant’s assistant’s assistant had spent hours deciding what birthday card to purchase for the star’s 50th birthday, allegedly, I felt comforted by the simplicity they landed on.

The card had a clear message written on it: “Happy Birthday, Dude!”

This was relayed to me by an extremely cool person whose wisdom I would never doubt. It is only recently I have come to understand the beauty of the town he spent months on lockdown in. And now, I want them to adopt me. Most specifically, the stationery shop.

There are castles and castle-like houses mingled in with homes for the mere mortals who also live there, all happy together by an iconic harbour. A moment now etched in history is a much-publicised photograph of Damon standing by the Vico Baths carrying a bag from the local SuperValu, packed full of what the entire Irish population hoped were cans.

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And now the shop has printed his silhouette – in honour of the man holding the bag and suspected cans – on to their iconic red and white shopping bags, possibly forever. Damon told an Irish newspaper: “I had no idea the SuperValu bag would be such a thing, but to be fair, where else do you shop in Dalkey?”

In fairness to the actor, this was before the opening of the revamped Barnhill Stores, a fancy and fantastical place where you can find so many iconic foods for the high prices you might have come to expect of organic or artisan items in Ireland. It is an experience to behold. Given the presence of the Jennifer Aniston Salad, I feel like Damon would have felt at home here. If I were him I’d give up Hollywood, live in the stationery shop, eat the salad and buy all of the notebooks. They come in every colour and pattern: pink prints, black and white polka dot patterns, obnoxiously vivid floral fusions and heart-warming heart-shaped silhouettes reaching out for the love of a desperate person ready to write.

Reading, writing and living are the key antidotes to the weight of the unknown. The excellent summer sunshine has definitely helped too

Notebooks save us time and time again, as every writer knows. The checkout counter lies in the middle of the store just in case writers get any crazy ideas, like that their invisibility cloak is real. Happy, joyful and passionate guardians of the notebooks, cards and stationery look on.

Dorothy may have said “There’s no place like home” while clicking her ruby slippers, but what home looks like and what it feels like are two different things. My fantasy of belonging to this seaside town created an escape hatch.

For a while, like a sleepless night spent in the company of the greatest of books, I climbed through the looking glass and forgot myself. The constant pain in my feet and legs – a brutal side effect of dialysis – seemed gone amid the glory of the gruyère-filled potato cake in Country Bake. Instantly I was transported back to my nana’s kitchen, even though she did not make potato cakes.

Outside in the sea air, a crumbling flapjack from Thyme Out masks a weight that would otherwise be crushing: no kidney transplant or living donor has worked out for me yet.

We tell ourselves stories in order to live, as Joan Didion says. In the land of notebooks I felt a reprieve, a sense of space in which to imagine new worlds, new belongings and new beginnings.

The more I allow for the possibility of new narratives, the more I manifest them. I know they are out there waiting for me. Reading, writing and living are the key antidotes to the weight of the unknown. The excellent summer sunshine has definitely helped too. It has been interesting to think about belonging and how we form connections with a place. We can live somewhere for a decade and still feel out of place, but in another space, in just a few days, it can feel like the memory of a past life is upon us.

A deep and profound awakening ascends and we know we are where we are meant to be.

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