Roots and Wings
Nov
By Helen Mulhern
He looked into my eyes with a searing intensity as I told him I was living in Penarth, a mere twenty miles away from my hometown. You’d have thought I’d told him I’d emigrated to Australia by the shock on his face.
‘Don’t forget your roots mun,’ he warned me with a slight look of desperation in his eyes. I wanted to walk away but was glued to the spot. He came in closer and I could smell the beer on his breath.
‘Remember you’ll always be a Sneggy girl.’ He almost spat the words at me, like acid. Had I become too big for my own boots, I wondered. He was indignant. How could I dare to want more than him. The fact that I had moved away from my hometown was all the evidence that he needed to prove that I did indeed think I was too big for my own boots. I laughed. At least I think I did. It was such a ridiculous thing to say. I had only lived in Senghenydd for the first three years of my life before my family moved a few miles down the road to Penyrheol, a village on the outskirts of Caerphilly. There I spent sixteen formative years, so in fact I was more of a ‘Penyrheol girl’ than his affectionally named ‘Sneggy girl’.
Was he so indoctrinated by small town mentality that he no longer considered me ‘Welsh’ because I deemed to live past the Nantgarw hill? The geography was irrelevant. It didn’t really matter what he thought anyway but I guess there was still a small part of me that did care. In truth, I can’t remember what I said to him in the moment; maybe I did blurt out a snarky response or try to defend myself. It’s all a blur now. I don’t know. I just remember feeling kicked in the stomach. He always had a way of making me feel worthless, a piece of dirt on the sole of his shoe. I watched him turn his back and walk away from me, but I couldn’t move. It was like his words had stuck my feet to the club carpet with tar and no matter how much I willed myself to walk away, I stood watching him leave me again.
As it happens, I had always felt too big for Caerphilly. Not in the sense that I was better than the place or its people, but as though my body was physically challenged by living there. It was like I was being squeezed between the valley walls, constrained and confined, like a flower in a press; always fighting for freedom but permanently asphyxiated.
I was constantly reminded that being Welsh was a gift that I should never take for granted. Except I didn’t care much for being Welsh. I didn’t like rugby, I didn’t speak the lingo, and use words like ‘mun’ and ‘but’, and I couldn’t imagine staying in one place my whole life. I spent most of my youth watching American films, emulating famous actors, and dreaming of living in California. I had ideas and big opinions that travelled far beyond the border. I refused to allow the place that I grew up in to define me. I didn’t want it imprinted on me like a well-worn tattoo.
At sixteen, I found my escape; I left school and enrolled in a Performing Arts course at college in Cardiff. It wasn’t America but it was the first step in the right direction to freedom. I remember my first day I sat on the bus as it coughed and spluttered its way up the side of Caerphilly Mountain, holding my breath until we reached the brow of the hill. I turned back and looked over my shoulder at the town that I was so relieved to be leaving behind. It got smaller and smaller until it no longer existed and all that was in front of me was the vast open road as we meandered down the other side of the mountain and into the busy streets of Cardiff.
It wasn’t until years later upon returning to Caerphilly at age twenty-eight, jobless and fresh out of another failed relationship, that I started to appreciate the beauty of the rolling hills. Instead of turning my back, I began to open my eyes to the endless belts of green fields filled with cotton woolled sheep. I felt safe in the familiarity of the terraced houses that greeted me as I drove over the brow of the hill, making my way along the old mountain road. The houses stood lined together like matches in a box, ready to ignite a nostalgia within me that I didn’t know I had.
The friendliness of strangers on the bus and in the streets who take the time to say hello and exchange small pleasantries never fails to surprise me. The people in Wales are funny, and sincere, lively, and kind. A good friend of mine once commented that she feels a warmth whenever she’s in Wales that’s so recognisable and unique to any other country she’s visited. I had mistaken my absence of belonging as something unique to me. I thought my home town was somewhere primitive, small, and closed off from the rest of the world. It had become somewhere I struggled to identify with, a shapeless dress that I had outgrown.
I now know that this intense feeling of claustrophobia is often experienced by many a sensitive young person trapped in their own teenage angst. As I enter my fifth decade, I am reminded of the famous quote that “The best thing parents can do for their children is give them roots and wings.” I had been so consumed with spreading my wings that I had failed to appreciate the importance and sturdiness of my roots. I confused my desire to escape as ambition and shunned the impact that this place had had on me.
Despite the fact that I still don’t like rugby and I’ve never taken Welsh lessons beyond year nine in secondary school, I feel a kinship, a sort of Welshness that runs through my veins. The kindness and generosity of spirit, the willingness to be open and friendly to strangers, even on the grey days, and so what if I don’t use words like ‘mun’ or greet my fellow South Walians as ‘but’.
I am still Welsh.
Wales is a part of me that I can’t deny or escape.
It’s a part of me that will always live inside me, no matter how far I travel.
