'Home and Away'

'Home' and 'Away' are two words that have been popping in and out of my head these last few weeks. It could be that I am reminded of the long running Aussie soap opera called Home and Away (a surfie story part filmed on the northern beaches of Sydney) or it could just be that these two words are perfectly appropriate for me. They resonate and make me ponder about the questions of 'home' and 'away'. I find both words interchangeable and that is what is slightly confusing...Home is away and away is home. 


'Home' is a four letter word that is heavily loaded; it's emotionally top heavy, it's sentimentally strong and it is a geographical conundrum. If home was just 'where the heart is' that would be ever so simple and those of us ex-pats floating around the globe could stop pondering this question of belonging. Because we ex-pats do, we think about 'home' and where it is particularly when we travel back to our birthplace. I think it is the familiarity that creates the perplexity. There is such comfort in this; it is so warm, cosy and so very easy when surroundings, people, foods and even the weather are familiar. 'Away' is four more letters that spell uncertainty. 'Away' might be permanent or it could be temporary; 'away' could be physical or it might be mental. 'Away' could mean that you have put the shingle up and gone fishing, ducked out to the shops for supplies or that you are trekking through the deepest darkest of jungles. In my case 'away' means that you have packed up your life and moved to the other side of the world for who knows how long.  


I have been back in Australia for several weeks and have loved every moment. It is as if I never left and the last ten years in France are just a figment of my imagination. Friendships rekindle as if no time has passed and best friends are still best friends. The sounds, the sights and the tastes conjure up all the childhood memories and make for much reminiscing. As I feel the warmth of the sun on my back I can't possibly imagine 'home' is in the northern hemisphere under a thick layer of snow. That must be someone else's story. But that freezing, albeit beautiful, winter wonderland will be mine any day now and I will exchange those sights and sounds of sunny Oz for a quiet and hibernating France. Instead of crashing waves I will be listening to the silence of our snow covered farm. The kaftans will be stored away and the cashmeres will be back on. 


I know as I drag myself to the airport and once again deal with luggage, checking-in and security routines I will be putting on a brave face. As the plane taxis along the runway and the front wheels lift I will feel that familiar knot of apprehension in my stomach, my eyes will tear up and a heavy sadness will settle over me. I will ask myself all the same over-worked questions - I can't help it - and I will reluctantly come to the same conclusions. It is not the fear of the unknown or an unwillingness to leave it is more that I feel torn and want the impossible. I want to be in two places at once; I want my history to be one with my future. Yet as I write I know that this cannot be and by the time the flight has passed and the plane touches down I will have resolved this petite crise and my dark mood will have lightened. My tears will all but have dried and a mounting excitement will have replaced the melancholy. I will be longing to get 'home' and see all the people, places and things I love. I will be impatient to hear about the dramas that have occurred in my absence and I will realise how very much I have missed my little French world. Life in Oz will become the sweet and sentimental 'away' part of me and France will once more be 'home'. xv

image, me - graffiti kangaroo hosier lane, melbourne