Home.

There's nothing like moving to make you think about home. There's nothing like moving to get you sorting through STUFF and finding all kinds of trash and treasures... As I've not been posting much here with all my movings and 'see you next-times' I'm feeling quite barren on the reflective front, and so I'm going to share with you some musings on 'home' from the past year or two...

Love to you all.x

Home Is… 16^th March 2009

Home is a stage, with a guitar and a microphone, and dear friends in the crowd.

Home is mum and dad waiting for me a Perth International Airport at 5.10am.

Home is walking across an oval, with a cricket pitch in the middle and the four footy posts at either side.

Home is Brighton Beach at sunset.

Home is white sand and the Indian Ocean, wherever those two meet.

Home is endless cups of tea and tears, heart and laughter.

Home is sisters and home is brother.

Home is khaki and blue sky.

Home is sunshine so bright, you have to squint your eyes.

Home is warmth and bare feet on bricks.

Home is summer dresses and nothing underneath.

Home is a day spent in pyjamas, and just me.

Home is my writing.

Home is my singing.

Home is my teaching.

Home is me inspiring.

Home is me reading.

Home is me writing.

Home is a best friend’s couch, or kitchen table.

Home is talking sustainability, spirituality, and life.

Home is the Moon Café.

Home is the Beaufort Street Merchant.

Home is a 5^th floor Chinese Tea House in Harajuku, Tokyo.

Home is an Organic Lebanese place where they feed me, always, in Camden Town, London.

Home is a Hotel in Sweden, where they buy me Soya Milk, and play my CD.

Home is a sparkly, angel filled shop called Mitt Hem in Karlskrona Sweden.

Home is candles and darkness and girl friends remembering their magic, majesty, power and beauty in a hotel kitchen.

Home is Christmas in unexpected places.

Home is phone calls with siblings from round the world.

Home is being listened to.

Home is the silver grey gum trees of King’s Park.

Home is Eucalyptus, whenever I smell it.

Home is Bali, the screaming noise and cool café’s of Kuta, the rice fields and lemongrass tea of Ubud.

Home is the Departure Board of any international airport or train station. I could look at them for hours.

Home is an airport.

Home is jasmine. And everlasting flowers.

Home is grass trees.

Home is Nanna.

Home is sunshine.

Home is my mini mac.

Back to the Land of the Midnight Sun… (And the Midday Moon!)

Sometimes my decisions are made on a level beyond my conscious control. I’m not talking about taking what life throws at you and saying ‘Ah… meant to be!’ I’m talking about those moments when you have a choice to make. Like taking that new job. Breaking up with that person. Moving to a new country. Big decisions that ARE up to you.

Two examples of what I’m talking about spring to mind. The first was a few years ago when I was seeing a guy. I was unhappy in the relationship and had spent a week or so crying and writing and talking to friends and generally in that thinking space, and wondering how I was gonna do it – if I was, and what I was going to say and then how would he take it??? And then something happened. A peace and a calm and a stillness started to come over me. The decision was made. It was over. I felt it in every cell of my being, as if it had already happened in one place and it was just my job to move through the logistics in this world.

Last week I found out I’d been accepted into a program at Lund University that gave me tingles and goose bumps. Human Ecology – Culture, Power and Sustainability. I found it almost 6 months ago now and felt a complete peace and knowingness that that was my next step. I applied, waited, and last week when I found out, I expected immediate joy. I didn’t feel it. When I told people and they all said ‘Are you EXCITED?!’ I began to wonder what was wrong. I didn’t feel excited I felt bloody overwhelmed, anxious and perhaps terrified. I have not lived in the same home for more than 6 months for years now and I am aching for some stillness and to ‘home’ (I’d like to make ‘home’ a verb here).

I came back to Perth in October last year kicking and screaming. This was the last place in the world I wanted to come… And now I’ve fallen in love again. With the sunshine and the blue sky and the birds and the trees and the people I work with and old friends and my students and the Raw Food Kitchen and Fremantle and The Bodhi Tree Bookcafe and King’s Park and Roleystone and Jarrahdale and Brighton Beach and Pemberton Karri Trees and Denmark (WA) and my nephews and family and the accent and the sense of irreverent humour…. And my heart hurt at the thought of leaving all that, and starting new again.

I had a big cry on the phone to my sista (thank you Sal) and she held me and all my sadness and scaredness and fears in her hands and somehow brought me back to my centre. I felt gentle and open and present again.

And ‘I’ didn’t make the decision at all but I felt it, wordless in all my bones.

I’m going back to Sweden. I am madly passionately crazy in love with all things Scandinavia, in a school-girl crush kind of way. It is also the kind of love that feels deep and whole and peaceful and calm… and like… My Future.

Back to the land of the midnight sun for me.