One for the Road: The kite runner

When Niamh and I got back from Southeast Asia two months ago, we were a bit confused.

In a way, we’d sort of had enough of freedom. But at the same time, we didn’t like the idea of returning to the rat race right away.

No need to rush back into the old 9-5, we decided after some contemplation.

Work would come to redefine our existence soon enough. And everybody else, especially those for whom a Monday was still synonymous with misery, said the same.

For a full month, in the same way I imagine a prisoner might force himself to enjoy his final days before release, I tried to savour my own last stretch of freedom.

Not that boundless liberty becomes its own kind of cage, but after a few months of vagabondish wandering you do start to miss stuff like structure, routine and a fixed abode.

In saying that, I don’t think I ever craved an abode quite as fixed as a prison cell.

So I spent four weeks visiting family, catching up with friends and reacquainting myself with the sights, sounds and smells of the old country, concluding the welcome home tour – or so I thought – with one final big financial and spiritual blow-out at the Willie Clancy Festival in Miltown Malbay, Co Clare.

According to the plan, by that point the arse would be well and truly ripped out of our adventure and we’d both be happy to return to the sometimes tedious but ultimately life-anchoring routine that is the cornerstone of capitalism: Regular, remunerated employment.

Niamh came back from Clare and did just that, successfully launching herself as a freelance videographer.

She is progressing, developing, growing, going in a direction worth going, and I’m proud of her for that.

Unfortunately, though, pride in your girlfriend doesn’t pay the bills.

Nor, as it turns out, does it do wonders for your self-worth.

There is something about seeing her stride purposefully down the driveway, throw open the car door and speed off to some job, that makes my own semi-suppressed inertia grip my guts like a bad memory surfacing just as you’re starting to recover from a hangover.

So, not loving the idea that the creeping sense of uselessness I currently feel might spiral into full-blown ennui, depression, ruination and death, I recently took the bull by the horns and did what any man would do: Ordered a heap of kites off the internet, took them to the beach and attempted to sell them to families trying to enjoy the last of the summer sun.

I’ll not tell you how many I sold, but I will say that when I closed the deal, the rush was euphoric.

After finishing up in Rossnowlagh, cursing my luck that I’d picked the one day of the summer when all the flush parents and their kite-loving children decided to go elsewhere, I headed to Bundoran Strand.

I parked up, peered down towards the sea and saw that the beach was almost empty, bar a couple of people scattered across the sand.

“Frig it,” I said, taking off my seatbelt and turning to Niamh, who was by now utterly humiliated by the entire shambolic enterprise.

“Sit you there – I’m gonna go down and see if I can get one or two of these things shifted.”

“Don’t worry,” she said, sliding below dashboard level. “I had no intention of coming with ye.”

Down on the beach, I was having bother getting my sales pitch – a pink and blue butterfly kite – off the ground.

As I reeled her in and began untangling the line, a former work colleague, Doreen, walked past.

“Jeez, Emmet, is that you?” she asked, unsure if the bald man struggling to fly a wee girl’s kite was the same luxuriantly-locked, award-nominated journalist she sat across from in the canteen six months ago.

“Jeez, Doreen, aye, it’s me alright,” I laughed, caught off-guard.

I started to explain why I was standing on Bundoran beach with a novelty kid’s kite.

“No work, Doreen. I’m actually out here trying to – ”

But she was clearly so embarrassed for me, that she cut me off, presumably leaving her thinking I was not a kite-seller at all – just a lonely and apparently incapable kite-flyer.

We chatted for five minutes, then away she and her husband went on their way, leaving me – and the kite – standing there in the wind.

I used to believe in the old live-to-work or work-to-live dichotomy. But now I realise there’s a third option: Work just to stop yourself going mad.

Though in my case, it might already be too late for that.

But hopefully not quite as late as Doreen thinks it is.