GOING HOME

‘There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.’ - Nelson Mandela

After a series of small meltdowns about leaving a member of our family behind - because he can’t travel (my bulldog, Boicey), my boyfriend and I began the journey back ‘home’ - for me at least.

Prior to the below, I have to confess, I did a bit of research if dogs understand time and if Boicey will be sad in any way as we were leaving him for 16 days, for the record, apparently not, and the change of scene for him is also no bad thing. Thank goodness, my neurosis had been quietened ever so slightly.

As I tippy tap on my laptop keys, 40,000 feet in the air, I am thinking about the concept of ‘home’ and how we define it and how it defines us (deep, I know). I am on my way to South Africa, a place I was born but have barely lived in.

It’s a place I know so so well, and yet, every time I go back, it feels slightly unfamiliar. Not in a bad way, just in a different way. Or maybe it’s actually me that’s different.

As soon as I land, and walk off the airplane, I am instantly hit by her, Africa. The light, the smell, the feeling. It’s a bit sharper, everything feels a little more exposed, a little more alive, I feel like there is some kind of static buzz in the air. I am so much more aware of everything around me. The smell is one that is so singular (and distinct to me) - dry earth, warmth, suncream-y, something faintly sweet in the air.

And then there are the smaller things. The way people speak, an accent that I don’t have but both my parents do - I know all their idiosyncrasies so well - yet don’t use them. Then there is the pace of life. The space. Life feels less compressed.

I. Can. Stop.

But alongside all of that familiarity, there’s a quiet awareness that things have moved on every time I arrive. People have changed. Lives have shifted. I am stepping back into something that continued without me, and I am not really the same person who left it.

And I think that’s what makes going home feel so layered. It’s comforting, of course, but it also asks you to confront time - and where it has gone. Who you were then. Who you are now. And how those two versions sit alongside each other.

This trip I am spending a bit of time in Cape Town (where my Dad lives with his wife and three kids), Franschhoek (wine country - if you will - James has never been), Plettenberg Bay (undoubtedly my favourite place on this earth) and Hermanus where my now Mom lives (and a lot of whales do too). The brilliant thing is about South Africa - there is so much to do and see, you can have so many different holidays in one place - sea, safari and city.

Seeing my dad there feels different, in new surroundings with a new life (not so new to him, my parents have been apart for 8 years - a number that still makes no sense to me) one that has totally moved on from the one I knew for such a long time. I am not trying to be dramatic here (although, it does make things a little more spicy - doesn’t it ; )) but there are subtle shifts (and not so subtle shifts) you notice more as you get older. The conversations change. There’s more understanding, perhaps. Or perhaps a patience (potentially tolerance too) to try and understand - a different kind of appreciation. You see them less as just your parent, and more as a person, someone with their own life, routines, and rhythms that exist entirely outside of you.

There is also my Dad’s new wife and family, who after not speaking to my Dad for about 7 years, and ‘processing’ the end of my family, I had no choice but to accept and get accustomed to my new normal. Three new little brothers - who are, having spent a little more time with them, serious characters. I did the school run one morning, and almost felt like I was having an out of body experience - taking my 3 little brothers to school. I realised, how far I have come, and how having a bigger family - whilst it may not be conventional is no bad thing. Luke is the oldest, and so smart, Jamie - loves a sequin and is so creative, and Ryan, well, Ryan is an angel. But don’t tell anyone he is my favourite.

My Mom will always be my mom, and my number one fan despite driving her totally mad (most of the time, I was given the name Rocky the rottweiler - I jest of course), but she has no choice but to love me. Constantly nagging her. She really is the coolest though, the most loyal and of course, also pretty eccentric. Also, after all she has gone through - the strongest. As I am getting older, I notice I am so like her in so many ways - it’s kind of scary.

And then there’s the version of me that exists there. Slightly softer, perhaps. A little slower (not by choice) definitely as South Africa is far far away from London’s pace - and one has to adjust, there really is no other option - ‘just now’ is really a thing. I mould into something less sharp around the edges, I think. I notice I listen more. I look up more. I’m not rushing in quite the same way. I think I am calmer, being ‘home’.

It makes me realise how much a place shapes you. How you can be one version of yourself in one city, and something slightly different in another, neither more real than the other, just… different.

And perhaps that’s the strange thing about ‘home’ and everything that makes up home, it doesn’t stay still. It moves with you, and shifts as you do. It becomes less about geography, and more about a feeling, something you recognise, even when everything else has changed.

If I try to pin down whether home is a physical place or a feeling, it’s not an easy answer. There’s a strong case for both. James and Boicey feel like home, yet they haven’t been in my life forever. My friends make me feel at home too - they’re the family I chose. And I know how lucky that makes me.

I grew up just outside London, in Ascot, before my parents moved back to South Africa. When I go back now and drive past my old house, there’s a sadness (almost an emptiness) - but it’s different from the feeling I get when I return to the place I was born. Ascot was home for so long, yet now it feels strangely distant. Like it belongs to a completely different life - one I can’t imagine stepping back into. Almost as if it never really happened.

And then there’s Johannesburg. Every time I land there, I know I’ll feel it - that sense of being home. I can’t fully explain why, especially since I’ve never lived there for more than a year at a time. But there’s something in it. Something grounding. Familiar. Warm. Comforting. Happy.

The South African people have a warmth to them, despite the political hardship they have faced, apartheid and the very challenging political landscape they continue to navigate. The corruption, the crime and the reality that many people live behind barbed wire and electric fences. It’s a country of contrast - beauty and difficulty sitting side by side, often in ways that are hard to reconcile.

SHORT BREAK. BRB. We’ve landed. Catch you on the flip side. And no, of course, I didn’t sleep.

Hello again. I am back. Am less translucent, with a few more tattoos on my arms (I have a knack of collecting doodles), a few kgs heavier (thanks to a few beaded animals and helpings of my Mom’s pasta) but all in all - pretty happy.

However.

Saying goodbye never gets any easier, does it? It’s something you can’t practice for or learn to be better at. I feel, in some way or another - I have done it my whole life, forever leaving family in South Africa when I was younger - after a Christmas holiday trip or Easter breaks there. Now my parents being back there - I am saying goodbye once again.

I think that’s the part of home no one really talks about - that it so often comes hand in hand with goodbye. The places and people that make you feel most grounded are often the ones you have to leave. And no matter how many times you do it, it never quite gets easier. You just learn how to carry it a little differently.

It reminds me of Love Actually, that brilliant scene at Heathrow when people are welcoming friends and family home - there really is no feeling like it. The excitement to be back, that huge hug, - back home once again. But I can’t quite work out where my home is at the moment, I find myself having a difficult relationship with London, it’s become hard - I mean I guess it always was but more difficult somehow now. Expensive. More dangerous than it was. The cold and dark affects me so much more than they ever have. And I stop and think - is this really my home? Is this where I want to be right now?

But after all my meandering here…

I think, in summary -

Home can be a place, it can be a person and it can be a feeling. It can be all of those together or one. That famous proverb - home is where you hang your hat - well, for me, home is where you feel most at peace, most grounded, whether it’s a place or the people that ground you, they’re worth holding onto. So is home. And maybe that’s what home really is - something you carry with you, even when you have to leave it behind.

Until next time,
Rocky x