A Decade of Dreams Typed Through a Keyboard
From the desk of the artist Alana Clohessy, in a small corner of Paris, on the Left Bank of the Seine.
Friday, 28th March 2025. 12°C and Raining.
Tea in my Cup: Adare Manor Green Milky Oolong with no milk, no sugar.
I have run out of milk for my usual black Breakfast Tea, a rare but disastrous occurrence, so I have switched to a milky oolong for this letter. I bought it during one of my visits to Ireland. My sister had brought me to the manor to celebrate my birthday and I picked up a tin of it before I left. I had forgotten how I much I love this tea. Happy accidents.
I am back in-situ at my desk in Paris. I returned from Ireland last Sunday. Sitting beside me is Dusty Belle (the orchid I bought before I flew to Ireland, at the Orchid Exhibit “Mille & une Orchidées 2025” - A Thousand and One Orchids - in Paris. (In case you missed it, you can read about the exhibit and my losing record of keeping orchids alive, in one of my previous letters here).
Dusty Belle is the plant’s official name, not a whimsical moment on my part. I have taken to imagining it as a 1900’s debutante, dressed in crepe and lace, hair pinned up in curls (clearly this is my whimsical moment). For now the orchid continues to bloom, not having suffered from my absence. The flowers’ fragrance wafting delicately across the room.
This week has been filled with emails that needed attending to, trying to recover from a cold that I picked up in Ireland and remembering where my work had tapered off before I flew out of the country. I have a new, recently started embroidery project sitting on my desk from before I left - a project that I have been wanting to start for quite a while. I also have pages upon pages, and books upon books of my writing that I need to go through. All sitting waiting for me as I stumble about trying to get back into a routine after the holidays.
The weather was gloriously sunny while I was back in Ireland. The last few times I have travelled home, the weather has been beautiful. Sunny, dry walks in the Burren and through the hills of Clare. Afternoon tea in Dromoland Castle with my mother (an early Mother’s Day outing), followed by walks around the castle’s walled gardens and lake. I feel Ireland is conspiring to entice me home. She is putting on a display of her glory.
I know I am biased as an Irish person, but Ireland, when the sun shines, is one of the most beautiful places to be on this earth. Conversely, its beauty derives from the fact that it is not sunny all the time. One of life’s conundrums. It lashed rain for the two days before I flew back to Paris. There was only so long that she could keep up the Mediterranean weather charade. But while the sun shone, every lawn in Ireland was mowed, the smell of fresh cut grass permeating the air.
I am typing to you from a new computer. My old iMac, that I have had for the last eleven years, has been replaced. This was not my choice but a necessity as Apple would no longer support the operating system, leading to a laggy user experience and a security risk for any online payments or accounts. The time had come. My old iMac was a workhorse. I bought it in Vancouver in 2014. It doubled as my TV and sound system. We surfed the web together and watched every new season of Game of Thrones. We applied for jobs together and I built my website using it. Myself and my boyfriend pumped music through its speakers at our house parties when the iMac was brand spanking new. A sexy, sleek piece of technology that sat on my desk in the apartment. Friends and visitors marvelled at its beauty.
When I left Vancouver, it travelled with me on the plane. A fragile sticker stuck to its side as it disappeared into the hold. It then got marooned in storage in Ireland during Covid, as I continued on to Paris. It was packaged and UPS’d to me a year later. It sat on my desk, in my little corner of Paris ever since. I wrote every letter to you from it. Over a decade of dreams have been typed out over its keys. Not once, did it ever stop working. I used it every day.
I unpackaged the new iMac last night and put it on my desk. The old iMac is sitting on a chair in the corner, with post-it notes stuck to the screen and its keys discoloured from the years of sunlight. I had not realised how old it had become. How the silver no longer gleamed. Fingerprints on the screen from where I often turned it from the sun. The piece of coloured washi tape covering the camera. We had known each other since you were the new kid in town. Now, beside this new computer, you look forlorn. An echo of glory years passed.
I have not yet taken to this new computer. I am careful of its newness, its shiny perfect screen. The thought of sticking a post-it note to it horrifies me. I am hesitant of drinking my tea over the keyboard. In time, this feeling will pass, it always does with new things. It becomes familiar and then normal. No longer new. The shine fades in our eyes before it ever fades in reality. There comes a point where we forget that it ever shone at all. It is just there. Beside us. Part of our day to day.
I will miss my old computer. It encompassed a decade that has gone. I will keep it in its original box. I don’t want to throw it away. This new one has a lot to live up to. Here’s hoping to another decade of dreams typed through its keyboard, with perhaps some, if not all, coming true.
Au revoir - until we meet again,
Alana x
P.S. In case there was any doubt, this is not an ad for Apple or iMac, this was just my experience. I would recommend an iMac to anyone (well, based on the 2014 model). Time will tell on this one.
In case you missed it, here is the letter where I buy Dusty Belle and attend the Orchid Exhibit “Mille & une Orchidées 2025” (A Thousand and One Orchids) in Paris:
A Jungle in the Heart of Paris and a Thousand & One Orchids
Tuesday, 11th March 2025. 11°C and Cloudy.