Another Way To Go Home ...

I love when I use some simple product, like hand cream, and it transports me back to one of my homes ... riding a memory.

Destination 101 Islington Street, Invercargil.

Nana's house.

The square brick house that backed onto Turnbull Thomson Park, the house with the glasshouse that filled with tomatoes in summer.  Where the soul of the house was located in the body of the coal range Nana cooked on.  Where there was a garage, with accordion-like folding doors that fascinated me.

As children, we watched the trains pass by on the tracks at the back of the park.  The excitement of seeing them, counting the carriages, receding as we grew older. 

Today I drifted back in time, to Nana's red formica table, there in the kitchen.  To those early morning cups of tea we had before breakfast, dunking our Griffins wine biscuits while Nana skim-read The Southland Times.  Her most beloved newspaper, always.

Today's hand cream was L'Occitane.  A plain one, for dry hands.  So simple and yet it became some kind of time machine that allowed to me to revisit Nana's kitchen.  To remember her red lipstick, stored up on the ledge above the range.  And the small mirror she used to apply it, hanging there on a nail near the breadbin.  The ticking white clock, with its heavy tock and black hands ...

I remembered the creak of the door to the hallway, remembered the smell of that house that gifted me such a strong sense of home that, after so many years, I find it's still there in my memories.  Just as it was.

Those Landscapes ...

When I went home, back in 2012, one of the places I had to revisit was the river in the photograph below.

It was the scene of much childhood joy.  It was my river.  I loved the smell of it as it flowed out of the valley and onto the plains.   I loved the scent the stones would throw up from under our wet and wriggly bodies as we baked ourselves on top of them, teeth chattering, after being ordered out of the river to warm ourselves a while.  I loved picnics there ... warm Greggs cordial in big glass beer bottles, and egg sandwiches and cakes Mum had baked.   And I loved the way my hair would smell, full of river water, on the way home.

Later, when body consciousness forced me out of the river and those idyllic childhood days, I returned with my dog.  She seemed to share my passion for the river.  I would skim stones for her from the shore.

Fast-forward decades and everyone warned me, when I went home ... things will have changed.  You will have idealised it.  So I was cautious with my expectations, knowing that the landscapes I had loved might seem different, now I was older, more traveled.

But no ... those old landscapes, they rose up in front of me and kissed me full on the mouth.  A bear hug, or more, and this deep feeling of joy over simple things like bird song and the scent of bush in the rain at Tautuku. 

Nothing had changed.   All of the big passionate love I had felt was still there.   Those 'scapes allowed me to slip back in and love them like always.  No recriminations about leaving. 

Well, maybe .... just a few sly questions like, have you found anywhere better?  Name one place where the air smells like this ...  

Did you miss us?