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Reflections on Home

Over on Twitter, I'm playing along to a daily March indie-writer celebration, called #MarchOfTheWriters, initiated by the very awesome JD Estrada.

The Day 7 prompt was #HomeIs

So. I'm a migrant. I'm a member of a diaspora (probably more than one). If anyone asks, I claim a formal hyphenated identity that includes three places and two hyphens. Roots and routes have been a feature of my life journey, and of the stories I tell about myself. All these things have been part of the reason I wrote a doctoral thesis over an excrutiatingly long period of time (and the doctorate is also the reason I've developed an overly complicated relationship to writing, but that's another post for another time). In short, I've thought about the idea of 'Home' a lot.

I was born in Country A. I left there as a toddler and haven't been back, though I still claim citizenship there. It's not home, but it's my father's home, and my parents' stories come together there, and also, it's my birthright (birth-write?).

I grew up as a child in Country B - the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius, my mother's home. It's had a profound influence on me, even though I've not lived there for 3-and-a-bit decades. I still speak the local informal language (increasingly rustily, the further away I get from my childhood) and my current accent is still inflected with the occasional bit of inadvertent French pronunciation born of that Mauritius childhood. I still love the foods and I have a living network of relatives and friends who make my connections loving and real and alive and current. I've been back there for enough short visits to know that I'm a stranger there, that it's not really home, and to not pretend my memories and experiences of long-ago Mauritius somehow have any relevance in today's Mauritius. And yet, my connection to Mauritius has been such an important part of me, that when I was first setting up a Twitter account and was thinking through different name options, one of the ones I thought about was "Ex Tropical Island Girl".

And now, I life in Country C - Australia. My current home. I've lived in three different cities in three different states, on three quite distinct parts of the map. There's the part of Oz where I went to high school and uni. There's the Blue Mountains in Sydney, where I lived and worked until quite recently - and where, when I absently visualise where the shops are, or the places I could go, or what the drive to the airport would look like, my mind still leaps straight to the Blue Mountains and Sydney-based version of those things. Still. Even after more than a year of not living there. And yet, I also know that autumn will be folding its way onto the Blue Mountains by now, in early March. The deciduous trees will be full of leaves starting to change colour. The cold will be creeping in for its six-month visit. Autumn is beautiful and romantic, but I don't like the cold. I put it down to being a child of the tropics. But I knew the region and I knew the place and I put down roots and routes there and buried my puppy-boy, Bodie, along with a bit of my heart there. It was, for the longest time, home.

And now, I live much, much further north of the Blue Mountains, in the sub-tropics. Where summer days and nights are hot and humid. And it's already March and I'm still getting around in short-sleeved tops, and where falling rain doesn't require me to drag on a thick, fur-lined raincoat. Instead, there are Poinciana trees and flowers. There are frangipani flowers which perfume the air. My body knows this tropical climate - of humidity and warm rain. It's so bewilderingly familiar to an Ex Tropical Island Girl. And yet, the city I now live is not familiar. I can't yet visualise wide stretches of travel from one side to another. It's not home yet.

And yet, my family is here. And it is home. Free-floating and built on all the heart-connections.

I wrote an academic paper once about my idea of home; it was for a presentation. I entitled it "Half-and-half-and-half" - to conceptualise my experience of home as something that was mathematically impossible. That it wasn't neat, or easy to quantify, or a neat whole - and that the lived reality of home is many things, many places, many overlaps, many gaps, many connections, many distances, many complexities and contradictions - all at the same time.

Home is where I've put down roots and routes, where I draw bits of my identity, where I leave bits of my heart, the places I've made memories, and my family.

I know my story isn't unique, in the sense that many people have their own similar tales of roots and routes. But this one is mine, and it's my story and I'm proud to keep on writing it.

Comments

  1. It’s always curious to see how diasporic experiences vary and where they overlap. Also, love that you also grew up on an Island and have never asked, how is surf in Mauritius. From where it’s located it has to be amazing. Interesting you’ve lived in so many places and what ends up feeling familiar. Particularly identify with routes and roots

    Also, love the birth-write :D

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  2. Thanks for visiting the far into the blog's past and I'm glad this one resonated :-) Everyone who's ever made their home somewhere else, would experience those route/root feelings, I think.

    Mauritius has a lot of lagoons, protected by coral reefs so it can rock the paradise island vibe. There are a couple of surfing spots, I believe, but don't think the surf waves are huge, though could be wrong. Then there are the bits of the island which are basically open ocean with all the mean waves and rips which look like, but aren't surfing ones. Neighbouring Reunion Island has fewer lagoons and more traditional surf spots, I think. As a bonus, it also has a live volcano!

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    Replies
    1. Hey, it was something I'd been meaning to do for a while :D Reunion Island is well known for its surf but also for its sharks. Here's to always staying safe in the water and to tropical memories, both old and to come :D

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