Moving to Ireland once started as a fairy-tale. But what do we know about a person when starting a new relationship? And what do you know about a place before living there?

Years later, troubled by shadowy memories but with a life inside me, I retraced the steps of a previous journey. Unsure what would happen by travelling back in time, it felt like it was a necessary pilgrimage I had to make. What was left of gloomy memories of the past? I had to discover the line between my memories and the reality of the place.

I started my trek as I had done while I lived there, leaving Dublin to head to the waterfront. As I passed the grey, plastered walls of houses and the vast emptiness of farmland I first felt confirmed in my feeling of how lonely and scared I had been there at times. I drove the winding roads, with each bend returning places once significant, but the sadness of memory didn’t remain as strong. Perhaps I returned during a sunny summer that never existed while I lived there or possibly in my unborn child I found new kindness to give to old memories.

Either way, the unexpected twist of feelings that turned along as the road did brought along a new view of an old land. The camera could only see what I saw now, never able to capture the black and white recollection I thought it would find. Like watching an old film later digitally colorized, the memories weren’t original but tinted into something new.