If I could, I would be in Newquay, Cardigan Bay, West Wales. My brain holds no memories, images, sense, or sounds of the area, because I’ve never been to England, or Wales, or Ireland.
And now, I’ll never get to go, because I live in the state of Georgia in America, and I have myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS) and many other coexisting conditions. All of my chronic illnesses keep me partially bedbound and mostly homebound, and they cause me great pain and fatigue, even for a mere five minute car ride.
Why would I want to visit a place that seemingly means nothing to me? For one, I’m 12 .5% British and Irish, so I have ancestors who were born in the UK. I also love the ocean, and it would be wonderful to view the sea from somewhere other than North America, from New Quay’s harbour and beaches specifically.
And because of my life and inability to travel, I strongly feel what the Welsh call “hiraeth” an untranslatable word that conveys longing, homesickness, and nostalgia, and the distinct feeling of missing something irretrievably lost.
There’s also the Town’s associations with the poet Dylan Thomas, and the fact that I am, or used to be, a writer. Most importantly, my husband’s great -great -grandfather, Thomas Jones, was born in New Key in 1842, and his son, Thomas Evans Jones, was born there in 1881.
Thomas Evans immigrated to Canada, then to the US, where he became a citizen in 1921. My husband, Michael Evans Jones, and his sister, have always wanted to go to Wales and look at the house where their great-great-grandfather lived. They can find it on Google Maps, but they want to see it in person. They want to stand on the street outside and feel it beneath their feet. They want to touch the walls that are still standing, all these many decades later.
They want to eat authentic Welsh cuisine, laverbread with their meals, Welsh cakes at a cafe, fish and chips at The Lime Crab restaurant. They want to walk around the town and imagine what their great-great and great grandfather and their families used to do.
And I wish, with all of my heart, that I could be with them when it happens.
