The Realisation of a Dream

I’m a big believer in knowing yourself and the person you want to be. Every now and then I have little flashes of what my future will be – just like when I decided to marry my husband on our first date. They come with a special calm certainty that is lacking in just about every other aspect of my life! They immediately stops me worrying about a situation and let me make decisions about it peacefully. I highly doubt I’m psychic and suspect these instances are more a case of self fulfilling prophesy than divine destiny.
Anyway, this all relates in a very special way to a door knocker. Years and years ago I was walking through a remote village in Spain. Down a side street off the plaza mayor was an intriguing little shop filled with curiosities and delights. There were; rugs, spices, antique necklaces, carved incense burners, reclaimed tiles, embroidered blankets. Anything weird, wonderful or imported from the East could be found on their shelves.

Nestled in the debris was this door knocker.  It reminded me so much of my time in India but also for some bizarre reason it ‘reminded’ me of my future home. I could see it sitting on my front door, hear it echoing through a house, feel it warmed from the sun. Normally a thought like that would produce a stress response in me – where is this home, who will share it, how will I afford it etc, except that this was a moment of certainty.

It was expensive, very heavy and I didn’t own a house…so naturally I bought it! It came home with me (I had to dump all my shampoos and sun creams so the case wouldn’t be over weight) and stayed wrapped in a drawer in the spare room. I’d forget about it and occasionally stumble upon it and be filled with the same joyful certainty that one day I would have a home that would befit this knocker.

When Fred and I set up our first home the door knocker stayed in the drawer, though our house was lovely it wasn’t the ‘knocker house’. When I moved to Liverpool I left the knocker in Ireland, Liverpool wasn’t the place for it either. It stayed in the drawer for a long time! Yet I never once doubted that this knocker was cast purely to sit on my front door, the place where I would finally stop and be happy. I didn’t know where this place would be, though I deeply suspected it would be Spain (wrong!), I just knew that one day I would find the right door.

Yesterday, the knocker was screwed to the front door of Cnoc na Gáire. Finally, it was home and so was I. For so many years that knocker carried so many dreams, watching the screws go in was a slightly surreal experience but we did it, Fred and Ted finally move home!

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