Of Home

 

I’ve been thinking about home a lot recently. I have two of them. I have been thinking a lot about who I am when I am in each place, that I’m different depending on where I am and who I’m with, this isn’t just about who I think I am, it is who I am here and who I am now and who I am wearing these clothes or those clothes or who I am when I’m with you or in another country, the other home. The one far away from here.

 

And home to me smells like:

Sunshine and Eucalyptus,  Sugar cane fields burning and the ocean

It smells like spices cooking in my mother’s kitchen

And fresh laundry hung outside in the sunshine

The air just before it rains, It’s Sunscreen and bug spray

 

And how your skin smells after you’ve sat outside in the sun for a little too long and it smells like hot air and dust. And feels like hard packed earth and the brown grass that has been baking in the sun and it’s crunchy and there’s nothing green left and everything is muted shades of dull green and brown and grey and you think everything is dying or already dead

 

It’s so hot that the power lines sag to touch the street and then the power goes out, and the asphalt has melted from days and days of unrelenting oppressive heat, and you don’t ever remember the last time it rained.

 

When there is absolutely no relief and you’ve run out of water in the tanks and the back dam is a desert of cracked earth and sadness.

Just before the fires start… the gum trees come alive, suddenly woken from their slumber releasing eucalyptus scent in the air and bursting forth with fluffy yellow and white flowers. The wild orchids like the heat as well, the kookaburras don’t care.

 

And at dawn and at dusk they laugh at us, they laugh at us as if to say, you strange flightless birds, why don’t you just fly away.

 

But we can’t because this is our home.

 

And so, we wait for rain. The thunderstorms roll in darkening the sky with wind, sound, and light and nothing else. The deafening sounds of cicadas doppler around the house, singing their songs in the dry grass and dust.

 

The cacophony of silence, you would never know it was so loud out in the bush.

 

You city people thinks the country would be peaceful and quiet, how wrong you are. The bush is usually so loud, but when it’s dry as a bone thirsting for any hint of moisture the hush seems like a threat.

 

Each time the sun rises the birds remain quiet, too thirsty to call, you know, no rain is on the horizon. It’s home still and you make plans for the inevitable fire and you decide you will fight fiercely for it when the fire comes, you bring the animals inside and you get the long hose out and you use what little water you have left to wet down the house to keep the sparks from catching.

 

As the winds change and fire front swings round to face you.

 

 Animals and insects stream out of the bush towards YOU, the only safe port in this fire storm. Everything is a tinder box and there is nowhere left to go. The banksias burst their seed pods and gum trees sizzle, fire sometimes makes new life possible…A wet hanky across your face and tears streaming from your eyes…eucalypt fires are the worst.

 

The hard wood smolders for days without any visible flame and then the wind picks up and everything is awash in a sea of dancing red and orange.

 

And then one hint of moisture and everything springs back to life in a riot of verdant greens and fornicating frogs. The ground was so dry that the sudden water just washes over the earth without really sinking in.

 

The water tanks are full, but underneath the earth is still bone dry, don’t let the lascivious calls of horny cane toads tell you different, no amount of rain will break this drought 20 years in the making.

 

Waters fill dams, streams, rivers, the sudden massive flow with nowhere to go washing out roads and now the ferry is tied to the banks and the bridge is out and there is no way around, you’re stuck at home without parental supervision because they get the message too late that all roads are closed.

 

After a few days the earth soaks up the water and now the heat is different, the sudden humidity makes it hard to breathe, and the washing never quite gets dry on the line, and it feels like swimming when you’re walking, and you start to sweat straight out of the shower, and at least you can have a shower because you now have water.

 

But everything has come back to life and new growth bursts forth from the ashes.

 

This home is a study in contrasts, a maelstrom of mixed emotions and conflicting states. I think this conflict has shaped my being…

And it’s not like that here. Home here is different. It’s not quite so stark in its contrasting seasons, or maybe it is. Summer   / winter. Back there wet / dry.

 

This is the place I have lived the longest in my life, the place where I have built my life and my community, the family I have chosen. Home here is a choice and It’s the feeling of electricity of just before it snows, everything covered in white and the hush that falls upon the world.

 

The metallic taste of the air after a heavy snow fall, and the crunch when soft snow freezes a bit after a few days. I remember the first time I saw it snow, well it was only a flurry really.

 

But I ran outside in my too thin clothes and danced about childlike in my happiness catching snowflakes on my tongue and trying to hold them in my hands to see, I mean really see if every snow flake is actually different.

 

Home is bagels and cream cheese and packet apple cider (my first ever American meal).

 

Home is wood floors and vanilla scented candles and summer by the lake. This large body of fresh water doesn’t smell like the ocean, but it sometimes looks like the ocean, if you were looking at it sideways through sun glassed squinted eyes. I can almost forget sometimes.

 

And while home here is different it still smells like spices cooking in my kitchen.

 

And sometimes when its humid I forget that one country isn’t like another and there is a certain color of sky that tricks me into believing I’m somewhere where I’m not and the birds don’t sound the same, and that’s ok cause at least they’re not laughing at us.

But I wonder who I am in this place

And if When you look at me and you’re with me

What do you see? Am I different here?

Am I different there? And who is the only person that has seen me in all of these places? (And maybe that’s why I love you.)

 

That you see me where ever I am, and to you I am always me. But to me I’m always different.

And sometimes I feel like an outsider and imposter

(yes there’s a name for that I know)

 

Changing my identity, changing my skin to suit the situation, a chameleon if you will. Maybe, if you were looking at me in the right way, sideways, through sun glassed squinted eyes.

 

And here, well, I’ve got an accent

 

And you don’t really know what I am, but you know I’m not from here. And you love to hear me talk and I wonder if you are really listening to what I say. You probably think I’m English, or from New Zealand.

 

I am whatever I think you need me to be, or whatever I think I need to be right then. I’m Australian when I’m here, I’m American when I’m there, or maybe I’m still Australian, but I’m not “really Australian” because I don’t really “look” Australian (or so I’ve been told).

 

And I don’t really sound Australian anymore…yeah, I know, YOU think i sound Australian, but trust me Aussies don’t…and also I’ve never really been told what an Australian is supposed to look like, and you can’t really say either, but you probably know that it’s not me.

 

And all of this to say, I am split and my home is in two places and I am from both and neither at the same time. I am a bridge.

 

Performed at Pour One Out At Volumes Book Cafe Chicago Illinois February 2020