6 signs my heart was telling me to come home to
Hobart
by Russell Kelly
Home
can be many things, not just a house, or a street. Searching for a home takes
an enormous amount of time. In Tasmania the average person moves every five to
seven years. A lot of money gets spent in hardware stores as people build
houses, or renovate existing ones. And moving is one of the most stressful
things anyone can do.
Is
the concept of home contained only in the physical house? The place the house
sits upon? Or is it in something more unconventional, like a possession or a
person? For some people home is being part of a family, or a tribe, or a
shared story. It can be the sense of possession of the land itself. It can be
this city called Hobart, this island named Tasmania. It can be the sight of
Kunanyi, Mt Wellington, out the window or at the end of the street. It can be a
promise made and kept. It’s different for each person, for each life and each
experience.
I
sometimes wonder how little physical possessions are needed to still have a
sense of home?
If
the feeling of home is located ‘outside’, then it can be lost. If it’s only
ever ‘inside’ then it is always available, no matter how inhospitable circumstances
get. No matter how much is let go, or lost, or taken away, it is still possible
to have a sense of home, a sense of belonging. That I love, and I’m loved back.
Going
Home
The
pace and fragmentation of modern life can be a great disconnector. Modern life
is about institutions like school and work. It is about gaining qualifications,
work experiences and ‘stuff’. It’s easy to get caught in ego-overdrive and lose
sight of what’s simple.
So
how do you recognise your own personal home? How do you keep it once you have
it?
Here
are the top six signs my heart told me it was time to go home:
I wanted to Live Simply – There has to be
some meaning to the daily grind of getting to work and getting back again. It’s
such a complicated exercise, requiring a precise choreography. At some point I
realised I wanted to have a simpler life than the one I had on the mainland.
I wanted to feel more connected to the Earth – and
where I was living I realised I did not feel connected with the land, or feel
like the land was something I had a right to care about.
I wanted to share my peace – Yet I realised in
a foreign city I had shrunk my understanding of ‘peace’ to be a personal peace,
an isolated peace. I wanted to expand and include those around me.
I wanted to be part of a community – I felt
like a perpetual visitor, and observer of the lives of others. Humans are
gregarious, social creatures, being connected and caring for others is
wholesome and uplifting.
Stuff was overwhelming – experiencing an
endless cycle of acquiring ‘stuff’ seemed to be going nowhere. I was racking up
debt with no direction (and yes there is a tomorrow, and I already owed money
to it.)
I wanted to be more creative – and my
creativity felt like it had the hand-brake on, as I became increasingly
disconnected from place, and from my own inspiration.
I’d
been travelling for many years, more than my passport says. One day I realised
I was homeless. Again.
So
I knew it was time to come back to Hobart. Like a fish swimming up river, like a
muttonbird returning, I came back, to rediscover what it means to belong to the
Earth, and not the other way around. It was about having the wisdom to accept
when I was seeing things for the last time, and to rejoice at seeing things for
the first. Back in Hobart now for three years I am loving it. This place is
mine. It owns me. And like the universe, it expresses itself through me.
What does home mean to you?
Today's blog post has been written by guest blogger, Russell
Kelly. Russell is a Hobart writer who has returned after 11 years on the mainland.
Labels: What home means to me