A year after J & I staggered in the front door after our vagabond days and all our stuff, items, things have been loaded on the back of a truck and are headed north, to the new nest.
The family home has never changed. My whole life, the family has lived in this square house of wood painted white and a corrugated tin roof which gives wonderful voice to the rain. This room, which catches the afternoon sun and is just horrendous in summer, has always been my room, even when I haven't been in it. Chances are, it always will be.
We've never moved. Not once. It's only recently that I've come to realise this isn't the norm. Most people move at least once as a family unit, then move out and don't boomerang back quite as often as I have. These lovely old gum trees and the soft rush of the wind through them is such an anchor. The way the floorboards creak is an old familiar voice. My idea of home is rooted hard into this one place, this kitchen where for over thirty years we have eaten so many meals.
I made a good nest in Fairfield. Scotland let me make a marvellous nest, to the point where I do consider some idea of home to have permanently come to rest there. Something about understanding the currents of an ordinary life in what was once an unknown place. Something about feeling comfortable, about being allowed to be comfortable.
Ideas change, however, and while this house will always be 'Home', the day that J moved to Sydney it became a temporary abode until I joined him.
Places can be home, can be sanctuaries from which the world is shut out and you are safe. People can be homes as well.
I'm really, really, really excited about my new home.
I lost track of how many times I've moved; the first was when I was four months old. We're talking at least 15+ moves. There is no one place that is really Home to me; it's mostly become The Place Where I Keep My Stuff And My Cats for 2-8 years and then move on.
ReplyDeleteHappy movings!