Saying Goodbye to the Home Where I Became Mother
Last week I sat down to write you all an email. As I looked out into my ramshackle garden I wondered if I had enough brain cells to write anything, but then to my surprise, a cascade of words unfolded - and so became a little meandering memoir poetically pondering my recent move.
You will be pleased to know I officially survived the 15 year move.
I’d love to tell you I found the secret to move with grace and poise, but I would be lying with all my digits crossed 3 times. A client and I reminisced last week about how to do it gracefully - pay someone to do everything and sit back and drink tea! ha ahh!!
But instead, I charged, leapt, tripped, double backed, bumbled and dragged myself through this experience and I have never felt more crippled, my brain never been so manic, my wallet never been so worn, Ive never been so pudgy, and yet there’s something empowering in it. (I have empathy for all those humans who move house, move countries and all the beavering renovators, well done you!) But I have a house, and in those walls, and cupboards, and wires pocking out, and missing curtain rails, and ripped up bricks, are my fingerprints! The mess is mine.
In December we left our lil' ol' rental of 15 years and said goodbye for the last time to the cracks in the walls, the sloping floors, the decade and a half worth of dirt, the slanting cupboards, the falling fence, the grass tree we planted, the bottle brush that was once knee high and now reaches over the eaves, the deck Danny built, the cockroaches, the rats and the city hum.
We said goodbye to the home both my children were born in and the only home they have ever known. I said goodbye to the home I became a mother in, the place where my whole life changed, where I changed. And I said goodbye to the memories of struggle and learning and love that is motherhood. And we all said goodbye to the 15 years of life that we shared with the changing tide of the street.
We walked through the house and recaptured the memories and I cried as we locked the door for the last time.
Moving is a physical and an emotional feat. For months my dreams were overcrowded with memories and expansive lists of to do’s but Im slowly slowing down the to do's.
And now we have a new home. In suburbia. And who would have thought suburbia could be so grande! I feel like I'm living in a giant caravan park. Each person with their little plot, organised in unique higgeldy fashion capturing the essence of its owners. With buffalo greens trimmed crisp and dust bowls side by side. With young couples tizzying up their reno's and oldies treading ghostlike to their letterbox. With roads that double as bike tracks, for the teens to do wheelies, the bogans to do burn-offs, and the steady stream of soggy beach goers to wizz by on their electric wheels. Sometimes I don’t see a single person for hours, and its just me and the birds, but when the sun begins it's descent people emerge with dogs, or hoses, or a beer and tiny skateboarders sit on the road in clumps fending off vehicles with a wave and a smile.
But it's a unique kind of burb where we are. A kind of Beachburbia where the ocean is the centre of the lives of those who live here. And it makes everyone just a little more chill, a little more carefree, a little more human. And even though we can see it or hear it, when water licked cyclists ride past there's a constant reminder of its presence - as if they say "I’ve chosen the ocean, you can choose it too"…. and I feel the magnetic pull of it's vastness and dissolve.
When I first walked to south beach and dug my toes into the muddy soupy waters I felt such an overwhelming sense of achievement and sadness. Not because the walk was long but because the years to get here were. And here finally I had my toes in my ocean, my little slice of Perthy heaven. And although its a little weedy and there's no thunderous waves to wrestle with, its mine, every day from now on.
I am calling where we live Hami Hollow. Or the Fringe of Freo. A little dip in the rise. A little over the way. A little hide away home.
Im loving the sea breeze, the red cockatoos, the wide open sky. We are trying all the beaches, catching all the buses, pocking our noses into all the shops. I have even bought myself an Aldi token (a true sign of suburban bliss.)
When I arrived Sue gave me a hug and invited me in to meet the dogs and husband and to show me her family photos. She’s lived here 50 years and the tomatoes did not do well last year.
I’ve borrowed tools from Tony and Fiona and Fiona came round to give me a jar of her famous homemade coffee scrub. She says the neighbours directly across, Justin and Cam, once threw a gas bottle on their fire and caused a god awful explosion. So when Cam told me he doesn't use poison in his garden, he just pours petrol on the Catapilla's and sets them on fire, Fi’s story got a little more real.
The elderly couple a few houses up wave excitedly as they pass, a dog finds its way into our yard, and a surprise neighbour, whose daughter happens to go to my sons school, has offered to share lifts.
It's the Freo way. Or perhaps it's the way of the sea.
