The thing about living in two places is that you never quite belong to either. In Connemara, I’m the woman who disappears for half the year. In Spain, I’m the woman who still hasn’t figured out how to order fish properly at the market. A visitor in both. Rooted in neither.
But I was trying.
It started with a gardening club. Well, more of a loose gathering of people who liked plants and needed an excuse to drink wine on a Wednesday. I heard about it from Maria, my neighbour, who said I should “meet people who aren’t just weeds and trees.” Fair enough.
So I went.
It was in someone’s backyard, shaded by a huge jacaranda tree, purple flowers dropping into glasses of sangria. A mix of Spanish locals and expats, mostly retired, mostly chatty. They all had projects—herb spirals, citrus trees, vegetable beds struggling in the heat. And then there was Miguel.
Miguel wasn’t like the others. He didn’t fuss over tomatoes or complain about soil. He listened more than he talked, which made him stand out immediately. When he did speak, it was with the kind of knowledge that only comes from decades of digging in the dirt. A retired botanist, someone said. Worked in conservation. Knew everything about plants that grew here and everything about the ones that didn’t stand a chance.
I told him about my fuchsia. How it was holding on but not quite thriving. How the bog rosemary had given up entirely. He nodded, thoughtful, then told me something about soil acidity that I only half understood. But then he said, “You’re trying to make Ireland grow in Spain.”
I frowned. “Is that a bad thing?”
He smiled, slow, knowing. “Not bad. Just difficult.”
That’s the thing about plants. Some adapt. Some fight. Some die no matter how much you will them to live. And some—if you’re very lucky—surprise you.
By the end of the night, I’d agreed to let him see my garden. Not sure why. Maybe because he didn’t talk to me like I was some lost tourist playing house in Spain. Maybe because he seemed to understand that this wasn’t just about plants.
I went home that night and checked the fuchsia again, running my fingers along its leaves, wondering if it would ever really take.
Maybe Miguel was right. Maybe I was trying too hard to make something fit where it wasn’t meant to.
Or maybe I just needed to be more patient.