familiar sights, sounds, smells

Being at home, I was so immersed in the familiar that, after a year away it all seemed so foreign. The silence surrounding the suburban streets. The smell of rain on a hot summers morning and of the Eucalypt Trees. The view from the bedroom window of my adolescence. The simple joy of understanding a culture and 'belonging' there. But, I realised while I was home that I didn't belong as much as I used to. I had another life, a parallel life elsewhere that does not fit with my life in Australia. So, for a time I felt uncomfortable about where I sat - until I felt much more relaxed about spreading myself between two cultures and places and realised just how lucky I am.

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