Are you ‘home’ yet? Or do you even know where it is? Don’t you find it mysterious that we spend the first part of our lives planning to leave home and the rest of our lives trying to find it again? As our weary parents never tired of telling us, we’re never satisfied.
The idealist and disillusioned alike leave home convinced their destiny lies elsewhere. Preferably somewhere exotic and exciting, if they had a the sort of childhood decent people want for their children; calm, safe, and uneventful, where no one died or got divorced. Though someone might win a prize or two. Boring!
The disillusioned whose parents did die or got divorced or didn’t have enough money or had too much and drank too much, dream the pastoral dream of somewhere calm, safe and uneventful, populated with wildlife that is non-toxic to humans. And spiders no bigger or blacker than the nail on their pinky.
So when we’ve all been out searching for a while, we may one day suddenly be overtaken by the strange feeling called ‘homesickness’. This may be a longing for the place of our youth, and perhaps a longing for the youth we attach to it. Nasty or boring or not. Or it may be simply an unfamiliar longing for somewhere that was familiar. The warm bath of our infant dreams that never goes cold. The landscapes, the architecture, the accents, the weather, the food and the ways of doing things. And a national flag that makes your heart flutter.
So what went wrong?
Nothing. Humans are born to migrate. Our GPS is set to ‘anywhere but here’ and there’s not much we can do about it. Except wonder why we do it.
In the beginning, it was all about being free to make our own choices. But if there is one thing worse than being told what to do, it’s not being told what to do. Oh, the insecurity. The responsibility. Quick, build a house and put up some fences. Get a steady job. Preferably for life. Save your GPS for holidays. (“Is that what it means to grow up Mummy?”)
We can never go home, if ‘home’ means making a strategic retreat. The secret gardens in our minds are locked. The people living there cannot grow old. It’s a nice place to visit but you wouldn’t want to live there.
But whatever you do, never buy a house in a village with no shop and a publican who prefers dogs to people. You’ll be ‘home’ whether you like it or not and your GPS will have you going round in circles for ever.
Border Lines 