Chantal - Have Laptop Will Travel

It’s a harder decision that I could have anticipated, giving up my life, however brief, in Dublin. Truly, the main thing to draw me back there is the lovely house in Drumcondra, and my housemates there; also I miss some of my colleagues at IBM. I miss their energy, and the chance to get to know them better. Even without the more annoying ones, things don’t seem quite right somehow. Dublin at least promises the potential of a new life, however less satisfactory, but perhaps one where I have to work harder to gain the things I want. The day before I left, I finally found and bought the A4-sized map of Dublin and the surrounding countryside; finally I can pinpoint my potential dance classes and plan getting to each. The music scene? I don’t know. I’ve been given the phone number of someone who might be able to help, but I’m not optimistic. I’ve played my harp only either on request or out of protracted boredom. I’ve been invited to play at three traditional sessions, and have found flimsy excuses not to go to any.

The music scene in London is far broader, but my feelings towards it are more complicated. I enjoy the atmosphere of the folk circuit, but even after a month or so it is feeling limiting, and I do not know for how much longer I’ll be able to manage spending three hours at a time commuting for the sake of a very short set. However, the diversity I crave is in as short supply, thus denying me the opportunities I am really after. Those who know me know of my passion for Arabic, particularly Raï music, which I have still been unable to find, after three and a half years in this city.

I know that greater opportunities are to be found on the acoustic circuit, however it was on the acoustic circuit that I burnt out, and am still apprehensive of returning. I’ve said repeatedly that I don’t miss the musicians I used to hang out with, and that my life is far healthier and more stable without them.

When starting out musicially, I was attracted to the challenge of playing unlikely music on unlikelier instruments, never realising the challenges and limitations that might cause. I should have known, however, as the same reasoning was applied, if subconsciously, to my work as an archaeologist; one of the main reasons I quit was because I had found myself in too narrow a niche field. On the music scene, however, I am a novelty, and it seems that I will only remain one: a harp is as unusual an instrument in Dublin as it is in London, but people seem more interested in listening to Celtic music played on it, hearing it played solo than trying to work on ways of incorporating it into their own music.

I know that I will be able to pursue my dance training here in London; as soon as I have the money, I will be able to do four contemporary and two Egyptian dance classes weekly, all at the same school. It’s too late now for me to enrol on the performance workshop, which gives me a few pangs, but I don’t regret having my evenings free instead and not written off by exhaustion. My last week in London was the first week of term at my dance school, and it pained me not to be able to go to even one class before leaving. Had I had more, or indeed any money on my return to London, I would have done two or three classes by now, but am forcing myself to be practical and responsible instead.

In ‘London’, I asked for how long you can repeat the same activities and still maintain a sense of integrity and development, and I am very aware of how little respect I have for those at the dance school who have been taking dance classes for three or more years. I’m not used to staying anywhere very long, and feel a certain amount of – shame? resignation? – in returning to the dance classes I have been taking, more off than on, for the last few years.

Certainly, I had hoped that in moving, I would be able to find new dance teachers who would be able to expand my training beyond the level that it had reached here. Instead, what I found was a teacher who made me consider commuting back to London on a weekly basis so that I could remain with the teacher I trusted and respected.

When I left London, I thought that I had said all my goodbyes, to friends and to the last years of my life. After all, isn’t that what I’ve been doing all year? – severing all links so that I could move spontaneously and suddenly. And permanently. And yet, since even before my return, my head has been filled with plans of all I will do, never taking London for granted again, and looking after my poor neglected home, both long overdue. I’ve met up with two friends who were at my leaving party – having to cancel two others who were also there – and met with four others who I haven’t seen for too long. I didn’t know how the friends I said goodbye to on my last night would respond to my hasty return, and maybe now I won’t have to worry. One of my reasons for leaving Guatemala was missing being with friends who actually knew me, who I’d known for months and years rather than day and weeks. And I have done so many spring cleanings of friends that I know that the ones who are left are ones I value and don’t want to leave just yet.

One thing that worried me about being in Dublin was how antisocial I became. I am used to people commenting whenever I am quiet or unbubbly, and yet in Dublin nobody knew how unnatural it was for me to seek out solitude and avoid mixing. Towards the end, I did make more of an effort, but also knew that within a few days, we would be separating into different teams, and I would lose the contact I had with those I liked the most. Going out at night put me off of going out at night: each night, I was determined to avoid the people I had met, or rather the men who had hit on me on previous nights.

Perhaps readers in Dublin will dismiss this, having seen me only as I was for those two and a half weeks. What they don’t see is my reputation for being oversociable to a fault, being able to meet a large number of people in a very short space of time. Two and a half weeks should have been sufficient for me to meet most of the smokers; instead, I only met one. I did enjoy the diverse mix of people in our training group, something which would be nearly impossible to replicate elsewhere, and which I have craved for a very long time.

I quoted today something I had read in a book: ‘When trying to make a difficult decision, make a very thorough list of all the pros and cons. Then tear it up and follow your heart.’

What strikes me the most is the irrepressible good mood I have been in since returning. I describe Dublin, by contrast, as a condensed stream of bad luck and experiences. On my last day, I found out that I was to be suspended from work, was overcharged by a tiresome taxi driver, and the woman at the Aer Lingus check-in desk picked a protracted and nasty argument with me. Most of the time, I was depressed, frustrated, angry and bored; the three happiest moments I remember were the two times I returned to London, and finding our lovely house. After less than a week, I realised that I did not like the person Dublin was turning me into, and resolved to moan less, to maintain or force a more positive attitude. I tried to be positive on my return to Dublin after my first trip back to London; it crumbled in the face of not returning to the room I had booked and paid for several days before, and the mystery and improbability of someone actually managing to steal my twenty-five metres of bubble wrap.

I don’t know if the choice I’m making is the right one or not. I’ve avoided thinking about it, but thoughts keep popping through, and I have to keep deleting ‘London’ each time I type ‘Dublin’ or indeed any word that starts with an L. It’s still very hard for me to pick up the phone to call Yannick and Olivier to tell them I won’t come back. And yet they don’t answer, and yet the only work I have managed to find here so far does not start until the day I am due back at work in Dublin. This is clearly a decision I have to make by myself, instead of hoping, as I am doing, that events will lead me one way or the other. I’m sad at the thought of not returning to Windele Road, of not seeing the local population of magpies, of the view of and from our street, and the utter silence on waking, but I also know this: each evening, I’ve looked around the living room and thought, ‘My god, it’s so wonderful to be back home.’

I guess I’m staying.