The concept of home as many other people see it is one that is difficult for me to grasp. People seem to settle in one place and feel at home. I’ve lived in more places than I can count, and yet, I still never seem to feel at home like other people.
This time last week I was frantically packing the last minute things and getting ready for another big shift. After living in Canberra for more than 20 years, my time there came to an end. I lived in Canberra longer than I’ve lived any other place on the planet and it still doesn’t feel like home to me. We arrived as a family; my husband and me with our two young daughters aged 4 and 11 months, for a two year posting with his job. That two years stretched to three and then four and then I was sponsored by my job for permanent residency. Eventually the two years turned into 20. Canberra was the place we raised our family, where we divorced almost 11 years ago, where I made good friends and where I have learned the most in my life about love and loss, holding on and letting go.
And now, I’ve let go on a big scale.
My children have grown up and flown the nest. I’ve sold or given away all of my furniture and possessions, bar a few precious items that fit in three plastic tubs. And I’ve decided to take a position for a year as an Australian Volunteer in Samoa in the South Pacific.
This is my 7th international move so far. I know people who have never moved out of the street where they were born and here I am, having moved countries seven times in my life. It seems kind of crazy when I stop and think about it. And yet, each move has been perfect for me.
I got rid of all my stuff since history has taught me that I don’t need to hang on to things. And it’s much more difficult to get rid of things later. In fact, I personally think the weight of hanging on to things is what is killing so many people in this world. We need less things. We need more people, experiences and heart to heart connections.
By getting rid of my stuff, I also put out to the Universe that I don’t want to live in Canberra anymore. It’s been a great city to raise my kids and provided them both opportunities that would have been difficult for them to receive in other places. It’s been relatively easy for my ex-husband and I to co-parent them and share custody. And I’ve made beautiful friends – some of whom I’m sure will be lifelong. But even with all that, I was ready to leave.
It isn’t that I’m always looking for somewhere better; greener pastures and all that. I could just feel in my bones that it was time. It’s now time to put myself first and do something that feels right in my soul.
During Covid times I spent time doing some genealogical research. It turns out that I am one quarter Bohemian (from Bohemia in the current Czechia). The Oxford dictionary defines a bohemian as a person who leads a free, vagabond or irregular life, who despises conventionality generally. My ancestors for generations were Bohemian as they were from Bohemia. I think I’m just true to form in all senses of the word since not much of my life is looking conventional at the moment.
As I packed and sorted and got rid of things I’ve come to see that I am different to others, and that’s ok. I have a sense of adventure and different needs than a lot of other people, and that’s ok. And my feeling of home comes from inside of me. It doesn’t come from a single place – in fact, I feel quite at home in a lot of places I have been. It doesn’t come from someone else being in my life (apart from my daughters who are, of course, my heart walking around in the world). And it isn’t an external force either. It’s an internal one. I like the quiet I find in me. I am my own home.
And now, I find myself being given this gift, to live in Samoa in the middle of the South Pacific for the next year. It’s sort of halfway between New Zealand and Hawaii, close to the equator. It’s unlike anyplace I’ve ever lived before. I’ve only been here a few days but so far it is amazing. The people here are incredibly friendly and helpful. I’m looking forward to seeing what experiences unfold. I’m excited about this new chapter and this new place that I get to call home for the next year.
Believing in Me 
Hello lovely,
I was very pleased to get your message, and found it very interesting.
I have reflected many times on the notion of ‘home’. I have a very clear memory of myself, aged two and a half, asking my mother how long we would be staying in the house and hearing her say ‘as long as we like. It’s our house.’ At that moment a feeling flooded over me – a sense of expanse and space, and of stillness. I had spent my entire life, up to that point, living with five other people in a large camper truck like a Winnebago, driving through Mexico and then all over Europe. The space inside the truck was home, and the world outside was constantly changing. They say that a child who has never been hugged as a baby struggles later to learn physical connection – that those very early years are truly formative. I was hugged, a lot, but I was a child whose notion of ‘home’ was formed very early as a result of constant movement and change. The camper and the people in it was ‘home’, and everything else was in flux. It was our ‘place’. When my mother sold the camper, many years later, I cried off and on for weeks – it felt like a betrayal. I still tear up when I think of it.
As a teenager, I rushed from Canberra the moment I finished school, wanting movement and change again. I travelled again all over Europe, and I lived in Melbourne for many years. Then my return to Jennings Street, when my dad was dying, reawakened my sense of ‘home’ as a space filled with people you love, where the outside chaos doesn’t penetrate. A place of expanse and stillness, where your mind can wander and stretch. A place you can venture from, into the world, but always return to. I am in Jennings Street, but it is also always in me – since that day I realised we could stay as long as we like … it’s our house.
I was also interested by your notion of your Bohemian ancestry coming out in your desire for wandering – I have often mused on the notion of race memory, and I believe that we inherit behaviour and inclination in the same way we inherit hair colour or the shape of our feet. I have felt at home at odd moments in very specific places, and have later discovered an ancestral link – it is in us, I think, to recognise our path and our places not just within our lifetimes but also within the lifetimes of our ancestors.
Good luck, my friend – the Samoans are relaxed and friendly, and the rainforest is beautiful. I hope you have a lovely time, and are able to do some good work.
Cx
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