The words form in my throat but they stick. Unsure of the
sound or the shape they need to take, or how they need to be expressed. I feel
like I am being pushed, pulled, twisted and turned in every direction. Maybe it is the full moon, maybe the
changeable weather, or maybe, just maybe I am in transition – yet again. This
is different this time, this time the pack is being packed with a set of new feelings
and emotions. Ones that are ill fitting, that are foreign, that have not really
surfaced in the last 18 months. They have been bubbling away under the surface
and out of confusion or fear or inability to simply deal with them, I ignore
them, I stuff them back down, I suppress them. What else is there to do?
Dealing with them is complicated and hard and oh so not fun. So lets stick with
suppression or denial for now, much easier, much safer and much nicer all
round. Or maybe not. And so I write, as maybe I can find that the words on the
page will some how bring light to unfamiliar terrain I am now on, the
uncertainty of the future, the feeling of heaviness I feel in my chest.
Rationally I know this part of my trip would
come to an end, that I would have to say good bye – again – to people so
incredibly special to me, but yet, like life and death and everything that is
so blatantly obvious in this world, I have chosen not to acknowledge that I am
leaving. Everything is changing, all of the time, so why is it such a suprise
when it does? Even with the knowing that I will be back, and soon, it still
does not change the feeling of weirdness (I can’t find a better word, sorry)
that I have this week.
The view I never tire of.... |
I am beginning the journey “home” but I feel like I am
leaving “home”. Is it possible to be confused by the sense of home, the feeling
of security, the comfort and ease and complete knowing of a place, how can it
be that I have that same sense of familiarity for two places in the world? It
is confusing and exciting, it is achingly sad and grin from ear to ear joyful,
it is so many things in one I don’t even know where to begin. I leave India
after 6 months. It has disappeared before my very eyes. I have been in McLeod
Ganj for most of that time and I guess after so much time in one place you do
start to get attached. Attached to my favourite coffee shop, to the boys at
Cafe Budan who are like my family, to the gorgeous girls who we share are ups
and downs, to the kora and the elderly Tibetans that walk that trusted path
every day, the dogs at the coffee shop that are like our pets, the snow on the
mountains that every day takes my breath away - familiarity, connections,
comfort and ease. They are all the things that make this place feel like home.
A small community that still makes me smile every time I leave my front door, I
am never bored or tire of it, in fact it is the opposite. The longer I am here,
the more I am a part of the community and the community is more a part of me.
One heart is not enough |
So it is confusing as I long for home in Australia, I long
to see my beautiful family and cuddle my gorgeous little nephew, I can not wait
to see the open plains of the Wimmera and catch a glimpse of the blue of the Grampians,
to drive over Sydney harbour bridge, to go to a yoga class followed by yum
dinner in Surrey Hills with the yoga girls, to catch up with the crew in Horsham and Melbourne and see how the
kids have grown, to have a glass of red with my Dad and talk for hours with my
Mum, to have a beer and laugh with Chandler and to go back to the blue box and
see my IKEA “family” - so do not get me wrong, the feelings I have for this
part of the world are only matched by the feelings I have for home. But it is
weird and wonderful and also confusing. I am settling with leaving the
confusion aside, there is no right or wrong or one or other, there is both. And
how incredibly lucky and blessed am I to have two places that stir that feeling
of connection, of unexplainable okness and safety, of comfort and of ease. So I guess as the old saying goes, home
really is where the heart is, but I have decided I just need two hearts :)
2 comments:
You have big heart Fleur Carter! Those two meet in that one. This is sheer poetry, Fleur, and it might be as much because I share those feelings. Keep on writing and loving, sister!
Thanks John....and I just love your latest blog - we all miss you! Very much respect :)
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