Clicking my Ruby Slippers

Funny Go Home Welcome Mat (Photo credits: www.xpressmats.com)

Recently, I've read a few posts on home sickness and the malaise that seems to afflict more and more of us these days as we negotiate an increasingly smaller world and greater itinerancy. It seems serendipitous as I begin my own journey into new lands that these posts have popped up in such a timely fashion… but perhaps there was more design in their appearance than I'm allowing credit for. Or maybe it's like when you buy a new car - just before you buy it, you don't see a single one of the same make or model, but the second you drive your brand-spanking-new cool-mobile out of the dealership, the exact same make and model and colour are EVERYWHERE. Maybe seeing posts about home sickness and a sense of place/home has more to do with my own sensitivity to those feelings at the moment.

It's true that I'm struggling this week. The last few weeks haven't been as bad because there have been other distractions. Initially, we had just arrived and the shiny-newness of everything was charming. We approached everything with wide-eyed wonder and childish awe. LomL had leave and we traipsed about in a fog of jet-lag, insulated by a cloak of holiday-ness (that's the one you only wear on special occasions, the one that lets you feel like you can completely relax and let your guard down). We did holiday things, went to holiday places and LomL was excited about showing us all the attractions. Then he went back to work, and the boys and I were still in holiday mode. We didn't stress about school work, or even getting into a school, we didn't fight the fact that there was no routine, no plan for the day, we hadn't yet begun to flounder.

Towards the end of last week, it finally hit. That empty feeling in the pit of your stomach. The feeling that you're hovering, suspended, in limbo. You can't go back, and forward doesn't seem to have a clearly visible path.

Now you have to remember that I grew up in a migrant community in Australia. My parents arrived in Australia in their 40s and it was their fourth "permanent home". They'd spent the majority of their early years in India (yes, my mother was born in Burma and spent her early childhood there, but for the most part, she was in India and it's the place she still holds in her heart as home). They'd married in India, then set up house and had children in Singapore. Then there was the big move to Brunei, where they'd stayed for 15 years, where I was born, where they'd seen my siblings off to boarding school. That really had been the place, I think, that they'd settled in. I've never asked them, but I suspect that Brunei had been the place they had come to believe they would always stay. They had spent so many years making a home and a community there, they had become involved in community life and had strong friendships. So the move to Australia, after being so well established, to start home, hearth and community again in their 40s, was not easy. I lived that life in full Technicolour, Dolby Digital surround sound. Their sense of never fully settling permeating everything. Their longing for "home" but never really knowing where that might be, seeping into every aspect of our daily lives. I still maintain that's what gave me the itchy feet, the longing to travel that I have to this day.

The only time I ever saw them completely relaxed, completely "at home" was when they were in their own mothers' homes or their siblings' homes. There, when everyone reverted to the roles they had established in childhood, my parents became themselves. My father was the eldest brother, waited on by his sisters, teasing and laughing with his brothers. My mother, the respected sister-in-law in my father's family, was quickly dragged into the kitchen or asked for advice. In my maternal grandmother's home, the roles were similar. My mother reverted to the child she had been and I caught glimpses of her as a teenage girl, giggling and sharing secrets with her sister, adoring her mother. My father in that house, became the man of the house. He was the one my grandmother insisted be consulted over every decision, usually to the exasperation of my Aunt, who was the primary bread-winner of the household and was used to making all the decisions during the remainder of the year. Her nose would get regularly out of joint when my father arrived on holidays. It must have been so frustrating and demeaning for her. She earned the money to keep the house running, she made all the decisions when we weren't there, she had to deal with all the things that went wrong on a daily basis, yet my father would sweep in and my grandmother would turn to him for advice. He didn't do it purposefully or to slight her. It was just the way those relationships worked. They could all have been more graceful and gracious in hindsight. But hindsight is blindingly clear and free of emotions that plague the moment being lived.

So having experienced a childhood in a migrant community, where all around me were adults coming to terms with their feelings of displacement, their changing worlds, you'd think it would be easier for me as I go through a similar transition. I suppose the one advantage I have is that I know with unwavering certainty that the "home" I long for no longer exists. It has changed. Even in this short time, it has become a different landscape. I saw it with my parents. They would travel annually to India, expecting the idealised place of their childhoods, expecting that people would be the same, have the same reactions, speak in the same ways, offer the same respect. They would be annually disappointed, and strangely, a little surprised. They would return to Australia, griping about the changes, the way people spoke, the way the young dressed, the changes they couldn't reconcile, but still feeling out-of-place in Perth.

They became a cornerstone of their migrant community in Perth, more displaced people looking for a sense of belonging, a sense of family and community. This community I grew up in left me confused about identity. I didn't feel the same sense of displacement as they did. I didn't feel the same loyalties to India or an idealised life there, as they did (I suspect no-one of my generation felt that either). But equally, I didn't feel truly Australian either. I just felt different. Different to the first generation migrants I was surrounded by, and different to my Australian friends. I believe that nobody feels that sense of national identity in the core of their being until they have left the country. I know that the times when I have felt most Australian, most like I belonged, are the times when I have been away from Australia, on holidays, or now in establishing a new home. Those are the times when I have reverted to familiar stereotypes of Australian-ness, my accent growing stronger, my use of idioms growing more frequent.

But knowing that everything has changed in the place I once called home, doesn't make it easier to separate myself from it. It does spur me on to create a new sense of home here and that's a promising start. In the interim, however, it's still a matter of dealing with feelings of being adrift, harbourless and a little tossed about on unfamiliar waters, no land in sight yet, forging forward, heart in mouth and resolve firmly in hand.

Bidding Farewell to our Home

Our household contents have finally been packed up and removed. I watched the last of the boxes be loaded onto the truck, ready for shipping to the other side of the world. And it felt ok. The emptiness of the house didn’t really strike me. There was still so much to do. The mess left behind still needed to be dealt with. Besides, we’d recently had all the carpets in the house replaced, so it had been emptied of its contents just a short while ago. This didn’t feel any different.

B2 and I got to scrubbing while B1 was spending the day with a friend. We vacuumed, we cleaned cupboards, we cleaned bathrooms, we dusted, we picked up all the last bits of rubbish. Then B1 arrived and helped with the last few things. When we were done, I went from room to room, closing blinds and doors and saying goodbye to this home. I hadn’t expected the wracking sobs building from my gut, or the fat wet tears streaming down my cheeks. They took me somewhat by surprise. I thought I had rationalised it. After all, it is just a house. A building. A place to stop and rest. Why this sudden emotion?

B1 came in to find me in the kitchen, patting the countertops and sobbing. He hugged me, asked me why I was crying and said “but it’s just a house”. That’s when I was able to articulate what I was thinking and feeling. This was not just a house. This was the first home that LomL and I had ever owned. It was the home where both my children lost their first teeth. It was the home from which I sent them off to their first day at school. It was the home in which I home schooled them. It was the home from which they started at their new school, the one in which they had both been so happy. This was the home in which magic had been woven and letters from the Toothfairy, the Easter Bunny and Bilby and Santa had been received. It was the home where both children learned to ride their bikes, fell, grazed knees/arms/faces. It was the home where they learned to be pirates and climb trees and make fortresses out of branches. This was the home where a hundred parties were thrown, a thousand arguments were had, a million meals had been cooked. This was the home that both LomL and I had celebrated our 40^th birthdays in, where both the boys had achieved double-digit birthdays. This was the home from which both LomL and I had completed yet another tertiary qualification. This was where new friendships had been made and old ones renewed - friendships that transcend time and continent.

This home had housed us, the dog, chickens, geese, goldfish, rabbits, guinea pigs, frogs, bobtails, monitor lizards, gallahs, corellas, black cockatoos, herons, wattle birds, magpies, 28s, red-caps, splendid wrens, bronze-winged pigeons, tawny frogmouths, kookaburras, geckos, spiders and the various “pet” insects the children captured. This was the home in which I learnt so much about Australian indigenous flora and fauna and ecology. This was the home where we truly established ourselves as a family. And cleaning her felt like performing the last rites. It was my gift to her for having housed us so well, for having allowed us to grow. It felt very like my final gift.

 

Oh, I’ll go back before we leave the country. There are still things to be done. But last night was my farewell to her. I leave her with wonderful memories and immense gratitude for our time there.

The M-word

There seems to be a growing phenomenon where I live, of random salespeople calling women they don't know "Mum" as long as they're accompanied by a child. Inevitably, these people are trying to ply their wares. They're snake-oil salesmen in different guises.

Today, a young woman who works for a children's photography company approached me with a chirpy "Hello Mum! Would you like to get some photos of the kids?". I'm sure that this was part of her training; a way to familiarise the target market and an attempt at a psychological inducement, emotional guilt, to capture those precious moments of your child's life before it's too late. I'm fairly certain this chipper greeting resulted from the machinations of a locked room, replete with degrees in psychology and marketing, working on the perfect pitch to guilt-trip parents into the investment of a photo package. No doubt it's part of the corporate training when you join up with the company.

Sadly, all it did was get my gander up. So here's where I need to back-track a little. When I got married, I didn't change my last name. There was a variety of reasons for this, but one was certainly that my name was as much a part of my identity as anything else about me. I have degrees in my name, I had gained employment in my name, I had learned to live with my name (there was a shaky moment when I was 8, but that's a story for another day) and, despite having to spell my name every time I said it, I had learned to love my name. When I stopped working full time, I felt like I had lost an enormous chunk of my identity. It was the first time since I was 15 that I felt an obligation to explain my expenditures. Not that LomL ever required that of me, it is simply what I felt.

When I became a mother for the first time, I was thrilled beyond measure. But the Damocles sword was that I instantly stopped being who I had been before. I became a milk factory, a nurse, a teacher, a guide, a maid... a mother. While a very very small part of me pined for the loss of my old identity, a much larger part thrilled in the prospect of the future to come. When I became a mother for the second time, I was more ready for the the way in which my identity would be subsumed by a child and I think I coped with it better. My children never called me "Mum". That was another stubborn strike for my own identity. I figured that in a playground or shopping centre in Australia, a child calls out "Muuuu-uum" and fifty women turn around. I didn't want to be one of them. So instead, I opted for "Amma" (mother in Malayalam); a nod to my cultural heritage and an opportunity to emphasise my difference in a world of sameness.

Up until the time my boys went to school, it felt like my identity had been hijacked by my role as mother. It has been a long, slow, continuing journey, punctuated by extraordinary friendships that has led me to where I am now; more comfortable with my multiple roles and multiple identities, fulfilled by motherhood, loving the work I do, seeking my more creative, artistic self that has been too long neglected for more pragmatic concerns, being the complex whole that I am.

So when all that I am, all that I hold dear, is reduced to an unimaginative, connotative, reductive "Mum" said by a stranger, my hackles inevitably go up. I don't doubt that it never crossed the mind of the young woman spruiking her company's wares in the shopping centre that she was, by her simple utterance, homogenising me. It is what I rage so hard against, and what I suspect we all rage against... losing individuality.

My "Like Water for Chocolate" Moment

It was Father's Day today here in Australia. A difficult day for me. My father died 14 years ago and every year since, Father's Day and his birthday have been days on which I fall into a terrible funk. I remember him and miss him always, but these two days are the ones I set aside for truly indulging myself. I allow myself to feel completely sad and bereft, only pulling myself together on Father's Day for LomL's sake. My darling, long-suffering and patient husband knows how I am on these days. He allows me the latitude to miss my father, to feel sorry for myself and wish for what might have been. He understands, he checks on me and he leaves me alone to weep at the sink.

Usually, I skip the Father's Day gathering with the in-laws. It's more than I can handle. The blatant reminder that my father isn't here. This year, I found myself there and offering to make food for the occasion. I woke early, helped B1 and B2 to make LomL's Father's Day breakfast in bed, then got on with making pies for lunch. I was washing spinach when it happened. I made the mistake of thinking about the fact that I was making these pies for LomL's father, but would never again have the opportunity to do this for my own father. It occurred to me that I had only one year with my own father after I married. The pain was visceral. A tear escaped my eye. That one tear seemed to give permission to all the others waiting just behind. I couldn't stop. I found myself weeping uncontrollably into a sink full of English spinach.

Ironically, in the middle of my weeping, I couldn't help thinking about the Laura Esquivel novel, Like Water for Chocolate. The image of Tita, grief-stricken and weeping through the preparation for Rosaura and Pedro's wedding feast, and the magical effect of her sadness transported through the food, leapt to my mind. In the midst of my sorrow, I couldn't help but wonder if my emotions would be contained in the food.

I was too tired and caught in my own thoughts to really notice whether that was so today. I wonder still.

The Future through an 11 year old's Eyes

While driving to a friends' place for a party to meet her, her husband and their 5 month old baby girl (who all live abroad)...

B1: Amma, you know it's funny to think that one day we'll be at a picnic with Dannie and Maria and their families and I'll be there with my girlfriend and all those little kids will be just coming into high school.

Me: Really? Will you bring your girlfriend along to family picnics? (notice that's the highlight of the conversation for me, not the fact that he sees these family friendships going on forever).

B1: Of course. Why not? Is that ok?

Me: Oh yes! I'm thrilled that you'll choose a girl who would like to come to family events. That makes me very happy. I would like your girlfriend to be part of our family.

B1: Not now. I don't have a girlfriend now, but sometime in the future. When I'm older.

Me: That would make me super happy.

B1: Yeah, it's funny to think about... I'll be able to tell all those little ones what it's like to be in high school and what having a girlfriend is like.

*silence for a while*

B1: But that's a long time away. I don't really want to grow up too quickly. I really like being a kid.

Me: Oh I am glad. Enjoy every second of it. It's such a great time in your life.

This brought tears to my eyes and joy to my heart for ever so many reasons.

The Weight of Possessions

I was reading a quote that resonated with me today. It began;

"I do not seek possessions. Possessions possess the possessor.".

How prophetic, how axiomatic at a time when we're deciding a path for our future. Should we buy the big house and the fancy car and be happy for now? Can we make do with whatever we have and save for a comfortable (more than comfortable, a secure) future? Is the house we live in still meeting our needs? And what exactly are our needs anyway?

And therein lies the key...What are our needs in this modern world we live in? It seems easy, even flippant to say that our needs never change, that the basics; food, water, shelter are our only real needs. I think it downplays the fact that our needs are actually ever changing. It might seem frivolous or even pretentious to think that we actually need more than our parents needed; or our grandparents. However, I'm inclining to the thought that each generation's "needs" are different.

The basic human needs never change, of course, but if we assume that having our needs fulfilled is what makes us happy, productive members of society, then we have to concede that our needs differ with changing society and technology.

Are my children ingrates to suggest that they "need" an iTouch? Perhaps. However, given how much of education is now being delivered through recorded lectures/lessons on iTunes, given how many truly worthwhile educational applications there are, I'm not so sure anymore. I know that my parents thought it outrageous when I presented the argument to them, while at university, that I "needed" a computer, yet now, there are few homes we're familiar with that don't have at least one computer (and often many more!).

Does this justify rampant consumerism? No. I don't think so. Certainly not in my book anyway. I still believe in encouraging the children to save for things they really want. It's still important to LomL and me that they earn what they desire and that gratification is delayed, not instantaneous. Encouragingly, B1 and B2 are still as thrilled with toys from the thrift shop or $2 shop as they are with the big, expensive presents. I'm grateful that they still see the value in giving to those less fortunate in life or those with less means or access. I hope we're instilling these important values in them and I hope that they don't become possessed by possessions.

Halloween Fever

It's the beginning of October...in Australia, a place where Halloween is not traditionally celebrated... and yet, in my family, we find ourselves in the grip of Halloween Fever. I'll admit that the house is not yet decorated and no invitations have yet been sent for the grand shindig for the 31st, but regardless, we're sweating the small stuff.

Today was consumed with the making of giant spiders and flies and their miniature counterparts, the construction of Frankenstein's Monster candle holders, the concoction of various witches' potions (including detailed labels) and the shrinking of apple heads.

Okay, I'm owning up to being the instigator of all this crafty silliness and just quietly, I'm rather pleased with the way it's all turning out (photos to come soon). It's also been a really lovely way to spend the second week of the school holidays and a terrific way to reignite the artistic spark in B1 and B2. Very satisfying indeed.

All was going well...rather too well as it turned out. All of that fabulous creativity was brought to a sudden and grinding halt by the rabbit needing to be rushed off to the vet. That was ok too. The rabbit didn't seem to mind the outing, I got to gather a plethora of animals around me (I swear I was channelling St Francis of Assisi) and B1 and B2 had a break from arty-fartyness.

The only one who seemed put out by it all was the dog, who didn't get to come to his favourite place. I'm not being sarcastic here. He loves going to the vet. Genuinely loves it. And why not? He's fawned over by the receptionists and Vet nurses and treated like a king by the Vet. I'd enjoy going to the doctor too if I was treated that well... and given a snack just for turning up!