Homesick

I’ve been to the UK several times, and I loved it there. I’ve been to Italy twice, and I loved it there too. If I were super wealthy, I’d have a pied- a- terre in both places, but we hardly ever buy lottery tickets, let alone win anything, and that’s the only way we would ever be able to afford more than the real estate we currently own!

We’ve been watching a British crime show with the incredibly delicious James Norton (swoon!) in the main role of Alex Godman. It’s about the Russian Mafia and, if you are to believe what is portrayed, the Russians are unrelentingly brutal and only redeemed by two things: their love of family, and their love of Mother Russia. (Of course, I know this is NOT a true portrait of ALL Russians, but I get sucked into the narrative). Alex’s father has been exiled from Russia for decades but still longs for his homeland.

I am also living far from my native land. I have lived here in the USA for almost forty years, and I did not come here with the intention of staying for the rest of my life.  But I have adjusted. I think of this country, particularly Kentucky, as “home”, and the land of my birth as, just that. It’s a little schizophrenic, I suppose, but that’s my life. And when I go back to New Zealand, it is no longer the country I left behind in 1986. So much has changed, and no one consulted me!

I have lived in five states of the USA: New York, Florida, Virginia, Mississippi and Kentucky. In each state I have met people who I came to love. (There have also been some folks who I have less delightful memories of, but I’m brushing the dust off my sandals and moving on!) If I had stayed in New Zealand, I never would have met the complicated, loving, generous people of Ocean Springs, and Columbus Mississippi, for instance, or the funny, witty, warm people of Louisville Kentucky. I wouldn’t change that for anything.

Aethelreda had a complicated relationship with her homeland as well. She was taken from Lower Combe, her home, to safety in Rome, and she loved her time there in the bright sunshine, raising her two babies and living with the man she adored. But after a while (I blame it on the fact that they didn’t have tomatoes in Italy back then!) she began to long for her homeland and when she finally returned to Britain, she celebrated her homecoming like a pilgrim arriving at the Holy Land.

“When it came down to it, the land of Rome did not feed that part of her soul that had been birthed in her by her parents and grandparents, and that had been nurtured by the rich heritage of the soil and plants and animals of the island she called home. The nature of her connection to her homeland was elemental, built into every organ and limb, and deeply seated in her brain.

As she stepped back on to British soil, she felt almost a thrill of electricity, as if her homeland welcomed her return. She picked up a handful of the golden leaves carpeting the ground and murmured a prayer of thanksgiving.” (Bound by an Oath page 294)

I wonder how many of my readers also have mixed feelings toward their homeland or the state they were born in? I wonder how many of you are still looking for a place to call home?