Anne Answers

I frequently get asked...

Do you miss home?

Today got me thinking, where and what is home. 

Through my travels and the many places I've stayed, I've found it surprising how easily I've called places home. This week marks 7 years since my first big trip overseas, to the small, rustic city of Halifax , in Nova Scotia, Canada. In Halifax, home was a room with a bed and a set of draws, in a flat that I shared with an easy-going, chain-smoking bartender, on the 1st floor of a 3 story house that we cohabited with "people we never saw" upstairs and the "guy in the basement that sold weed". I called this place home for 4 months and I thought it was the coolest place in the world, psychotic cat and all. 

I've called many a hostel/hotel rooms home as I backpacked around Europe. From beach side bungalows to tents in Zambia. And growing up I moved houses many times that my home ranged from my grandparents house, a tiny one bedroom apartment, a crammed townhouse to a double storey face brick with a pool in the suburbs. 

So do I miss "home"? The only way to answer that is to separate people and physical location. I miss my family and my friends in Sydney, I miss the food, the convenience and sometimes (I have to admit, less and less) the hustle and bustle of the big city. But do I miss home? The answer would have to be no. Because I can't miss where I am presently, which as I have come to settle in my heart, is home. For now, for this season, home is this gentle, sunny town of JBay, South Africa.

Til the next question... x A