Thursday 12 May 2011

Homesick

We’re missing home; Littletree especially. She’s complaining pretty regularly that she wants to go home. She misses the food that she’s familiar with, she misses her friends, her own room…

Right now she’s lying on the bed next to me reeling off a list of all the things she misses so much from Australia. Tinned spaghetti, chicken nuggets, the fish and chip shop in Mullumbimby, chocolate-flake cereal, bread and nutella, flan, the porridge the Purple makes, Shakshuka that Purple makes, rice porridge, semolina, wafer biscuits, sausages… the list goes on and on.

07 sequoia

I pointed out that most of those things we can get or make here (and funnily enough, most of those are things she rarely has anyway!) but I guess that’s not the point. What she really misses is being at home. She misses the comfort of having familiarity.

Me too. I’m happy to be traveling, and the place where we are staying is wonderful… but it’s not home. Funny, how after all those years of traveling, and not having any stable base or ties to anywhere, I’d find myself not only having a home, but feeling attached to it.

I miss having my own kitchen, and my own space. I miss Ariad and Purple. It’s strange to be queer in a country where homosexuality is illegal. I admit to taking advantage of my privilege of marriage, and being closeted; not mentioning aspects of my life that are very dear to me when we’re in public, or with strangers. It’s strange to be in a country where Israelis are banned. We have to be quiet about that too.

So, what can we do to overcome homesickness? We try to keep up our routine. We practice capoeira every day, we spend lots of time cuddling, Littletree watches her favourite DVDs, we talk with our friends and family on Skype, Littletree plays with the new kittens a lot.

21 kitten 

And I remembered I have a secret stash of Shkedai Marak (Israeli soup crackers) that Littletree loves. I just pulled them out and she got all excited! Now I just have to make her some soup to go with them.

25 shkedai marak

Tomorrow I’ll go to the big supermarket in the city that’s an hour away and try to get some comfort foods for Littletree, and we’ll plan some more fun activities and outings.

I’m sure we’ll be home before we know it!

5 comments:

  1. Thank you, there is something in this post that rings true to me, and my son. I don't mean any of the actual "story" but the missing home and what that means. We are at one of our homes now but both of us can't wait until we are heading out again to go to our other home in a few weeks.
    Stacey

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  2. Sorry to hear Littletree is so homesick, and that you are both having to hide aspects about yourselves. I'm sure you will both be happy to be home, when the time comes. Hang in there.

    PS. The soup crackers look yummy. Littletree could do a commercial. lol :-)

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  3. *hugs* for you and little tree.

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  4. Even though I have not traveled or moved house nearly as much as you, I live in a perpetual state of wanderlust, imagining all the places I would love to live and experience next. However, I, too, have recently felt roots sprouting and find it comforting and disturbing at the same time. At least LT has kittens - that always helps :-).

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  5. thanks everyone :)
    strangely enough, this post disappeared and then re-posted itself a day later, minus some of the comments. Apparently Blogger was having bugs left-right-and-centre yesterday. Ah well.

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Thanks for your lovely words, witty banter and entertaining discussion :)