Considering Homesickness

It is three years since I’ve been to South West Rocks. In the summer, that is, as a leader of a beach mission team. I did go in the winter of 2010, just for the afternoon, so I could show the place to Matthew. I took him because it is a place that has come to feel like home to me, though I have never lived there, except for ten days at a time, in a tent, around this Christmas New Year holiday time. Despite that, the moment I turn off the highway and start driving out to the coast I am flooded with the feeling that I have arrived back where I belong, back where I am safe, perhaps even where I am special. And I wanted him to know, see and smell that place. There are two other places that come to mind which also create this sense of home, and which when I am not there I miss and long for, if only in some quiet and unfocused way. The more obvious of the two is the Sydney Opera House; the more peculiar is Baker Street tube station. I’ve become vividly aware of this in recent months as I have just moved to West London and come into work at Soho via the Hammersmith & City and Bakerloo lines, and often I’m struck by how happy I am simply to be back passing through Baker St, if only to change trains, as it was my nearest tube when I first lived in London in 2009. Changing trains there I feel suddenly like I’m balanced again, even though I hadn’t previously been aware of any unbalance. But there it is, in something so common place as walking up the stairs from platform three and crossing over the concourse to platform six, that feeling as though I have come home.

Throughout 2010, when I was back in Sydney, in my real home – either in The Party House, the apartment I had rented since late 2006 or in my parents’ home, which we had moved to in 1986 – I missed London, my 8^th floor bedroom/cupboard on Marylebone Road, The Volunteer on Baker Streets and the friends who had hung out with me there. In London I miss the Opera House and the fact that most people in that building knew me, and particularly around this time of year I miss South West Rocks. When life takes me away from these places I am homesick for them.

While this is a homesickness for certain locations, it is obvious to me that is much more a homesickness for the memories, emotions and people associated with the places. A longing for an emotional home, rather than a physical one. For the comfort of particular people, situations and significances rather than the comfort of familiar homely surroundings. It is at this point that I think perhaps homesickness and conversely a sense of home coming, have a lot to do not only with longing and security but also with nostalgia, and a hanging on to the past.

The places that create in me a sense of homecoming whenever I am there are locations attached to formative experiences. They are places of learning which have come to signify a development in my sense of self, my ability to organise and lead others, to think intelligently and creatively. They are places of sometimes intense emotions, of flirting and falling in love and consequently the occasional heart battering. It is in these places that I have found enthusiasm and passion I didn’t realise I possessed. For education, music, literature. For talking about the God of the bible, and how my belief in him has shaped me.

When I pass through Baker St, if I take the time to stop and take note of the specific memories which flood me, I remember the liberating excitement of being in London, mixed with the comfort and contentment that came with realising I was still essentially the same me, just on the other side of world. The simple joy that I was actually on the London Underground (I still wonder, how it is, that this city has made even its transport system iconic) and of course Met Line adventures with Mel, Matthew, Kate, Chris and Hollie coming home from Midsummer rehearsals, discussing everything from feminism and Shakespeare to killer possums and giving lessons on how to speak like a character on Kath and Kim, and like a school girl, contriving as often as possible to sit next to Matthew for those precious eighteen minutes from Northwick Park to Baker St. It is a memory of having fun; of feeling like the things you thought, no matter how trivial, were interesting, important, somehow life changing; a sensation of aliveness which seemed different to anything I’ve known before. That’s where nostalgia comes into it, because I don’t want to let go of that. Because since then I’ve left the bubbles of safety and optimism I cultivated at university, in which one could dream of revolution - personal and political, and that other more common bubble of perfection and bliss: the first six weeks of brand new relationship.

When I miss the Opera House, its not just work or the work place or tickets to the opera, but the people and the fact that I know I have changed how I conduct relationships due to experiences connected with that building. Because I told myself it was significant, I can recall the surge of happiness and almost illicit pleasure of running down the ugly concrete stairs late one night in a candy pink formal dress to meet someone I naively thought I was in love with. A memory of self importance, of stepping outside of time and viewing my life as though it were a fictive invention and knowing that that moment would be one of the highlights, even though, with the retrospective knowledge, it was a moment that would never amount to anything and shouldn’t therefore retain any importance, except that it does because I told myself to treasure it.

But the place I feel I should treasure even more than I do is South West Rocks. I think of it now, from the other side of the world as I sit on the ferry approaching Dublin, and remember how when I first went there in 1999 I couldn’t imagine ever going back. Beach Mission was hard work. I hated camping. I had to sleep in a tent and walk a ten minute round trip just to go to the toilet. I was covered in mosquito and sand fly bites. I wouldn’t be going back. But I was wrong. A year later, when asked if I wanted to go to a training day I agreed, with an air of nonchalance. At some point I made a commitment to be on my beach mission team for ten years. And I was. But it was a long time before I realised I loved the place, in an enduring kind of way. Maybe its because there weren’t any candy pink formal dress moments. I never said to myself ‘Remember this moment. Hold it dear for all time’. Maybe that’s because once I got over my initial conviction that I would never go back to South West Rocks, I replaced it with the assumption I would never not go back. It became habit. Its what I did. I couldn’t imagine the weeks that preceded Christmas being filled with stresses that had to do with presents and cooking, they were about buying craft materials and finishing (or occasionally starting) to write a talk, or plan an activity or return trips to Officeworx to do photocopying and bind booklets.

But its not because of the work that went into preparing beach mission that made it feel like home, I’m not even sure if its primarily missing the people or relationships which makes me long for South West Rocks around New Year, but the fact that for ten years beach mission clearly focused my attention on God and shaped my time, my year and my life. Sure, like the Opera House, like Baker St, South West Rocks signals many, many happy memories. Moments of light hearted joy and serious insights into how the world operates. Mars bar milkshakes, singing along to Vegietales while washing up, watching Chris commando role his way to the shower block, hearing about the time Sally got herself stuck in a coat hanger, being told off by a team leader in my second year for staying up talking several hours past a sensible time for someone who had to get up early in the morning to run a full day of activities. These sorts of things I miss. Churning over all those big questions you usually don’t have time for: sanctification, forgiveness, elective salvation, mothering, divorce, eating disorders, death. But it is more than any of these moments. It is one of the few projects I have committed to for several years, and it is one of the few that gave me a reason to go and speak to strangers about why I believe in God. Being on a beach mission team taught me practical things about being a team leader, writing talks and bible studies, and making tricky decisions – like whether or not to cancel the hire of jumping castle due to imminent bad weather, I cried while making this decision I was that torn and afraid of getting it wrong, and in the end I’m not sure which decision I made, but I don’t remember any negative repercussions. Yes, part of feeling at home is one of belonging and feeling needed, important. And when I miss South West Rocks and going on beach mission, there is perhaps a selfish or needy part of me, that misses feeling like I was important, that people knew me, relied on me, looked up to me. But I also miss knowing that I was part of a team that were serving others. That we weren’t just providing some holiday fun, though there is nothing wrong with that, but that we were giving people a chance to think through some of life’s big questions.

Maybe I miss that too. A space in which to think through questions. To meet up with people who at times think like me, but who also know things and think things that I don’t. Right now, I feel like someone who has come to the end of a set word count and is desperately trying to tie things up, make one last final point, but without much luck. I wanted to write about missing beach mission, because its happening right now, on the other side of the world, and I’m not there, which still feels a bit strange. But then I wrote about homesickness, and longing for the past, and wondered if, in my case at least, these two feelings are intertwined, and I guess I have to say they are. I feel homesick not for places that have been my physical home, but for places with emotional significance. Places I have felt needed, loved, valued. Where I have contributed, where I have learned new things. And maybe its fitting to think about these things as the close of the year approaches, and people make resolutions, and to resolve that these things that I miss need not be a thing of the past, but must be made a part of the future, so that I can build my emotional home, a safe place, of love, value, significance and learning wherever I go.