Home Is Where The Heart Is

So will I build my altar in the fields,
And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be,
And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields
Shall be the incense I will yield to thee.

To Nature by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

When I moved to the country all those years ago, I revelled in living close to nature. The wildlife, vegetation, weather, sunsets; everything inspired me. Outdoors was where I was happiest, my altar was in the fields and I worshipped life under the magnificent sky. I wrote about nature, photographed it, worked my butt off in it and relaxed in it. I delighted in the cycle of seasons here in the Midlands that I didn’t have living in tropical Durban, a one-season-fits-all kind of place. And when the early evening mist came rolling down the slopes of the koppie enveloping the house in its wake, and the fire was lit, I felt a contentment seldom experienced before.

You may sense from the past tense that something has changed and all I can put it down to is an overwhelming feeling of detachment. I hadn’t understood it until the other morning when I was listening to one of my favourites podcasts, Frank Skinner’s poetry podcast. His focus that day was on the poet Selima Hill (she’s brilliant, by the way) and one of the poems he read was called Prayer, a poem about Hill’s partner. At the time, the line: “Please can god or someone come and render him more capable of awe” made me laugh out loud. But as I reflected on the poem, it dawned on me that that’s what I’ve lost, I’ve lost my awe (as well as my oar, but that’s another story!). I just don’t feel as connected to the greater whole as I used to. And I seem to have become insensitive to the wonders and beauty of nature all around me.

After this revelation, I asked myself:

How did I not notice that the camellia outside my bedroom was in full flower?

How did I not have the urge the other evening to lie on the lawn and marvel at the Milky Way overhead?

How did my heart not rejoice in the changing colours of the Liquidambars lining the driveway?

I’m hoping that this is a temporary condition, caused by a combination of factors but mostly the agonising process of deciding to leave here. It’s been a difficult time, not helped by the painfully frustrating visa application process. It preoccupies me all the time. There’s the temptation to focus on all that’s wrong in South Africa (crumbling infrastructure, declining economy, increased crime and lawlessness, daily power outages of up to 11 hours – a result of gross corruption) in an attempt to rationalise the decision to leave. And then there’s the concern that another global pandemic will get in the way of us being with our family thousands of miles away. Taking into account all the pros and cons, I know the decision to be more actively part of our children and grandchild’s life is the right one. But what makes it so heart-breaking for me is here, this place. And that’s why I’ve lost my awe, I’m protecting my heart.

Recently, I listened to another podcast, recommended to me by Kiera called This American Life (episode 792: When to Leave). The presenter summed up the show by saying: “When I first started making this show, I imagined it being about leaving all sorts of places, but it’s all about the same place — home, a place you love. If you’re lucky, you have some choice in the matter and time to think about it. But it’s a choice to break your own heart.”

Yup, that’s exactly what it is, a choice to break your own heart.

And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be

And what a sky it is.