“Though a lifetime of listening to the music of the world has passed, even now the tone of the rain on the roof of my home is the sweetest sound I have ever heard.”
~ Kensi Brianne Smith
We’ve been up in Brisbane this past week, and it’s been full on.
I’ve had doctors’ appointments and the sorts of things to attend to that can only be done in the city.
I’ve held space for friends and clients who have suffered tragedy and tempest.
And we’ve been elder caring.
Ben’s mum is old and increasingly frail, although stubbornly independent, bless her. She’s at the age where suddenly she needs help with everything: shopping, cooking, home maintenance, paying bills – all the things she has done so competently for the entirety of her life. But we don’t mind at all. We love her, and she is family.
Still, it’s stressful, and we worry constantly about her.
Yesterday finally we packed up to drive home to the farm.
There is a place we come to, just over the border between Queensland and New South Wales, where I unfailingly begin to unwind and feel better. City and suburbia fall away and at a turn in the road the highway is suddenly blanketed by cane fields and farms with a backdrop of dusky crags.
The tension leaves my body. I sigh audibly. A sense of relief creeps over me.
Many of our friends from the Byron Shire experience the same thing; that falling away of worries as we move into the encircling arms of the ancient volcanic rim that cradles our homes.
How about you? Do you have a place in the journey home where suddenly you feel better too? I’d love to know.
Hugs and love from all of us here at the farm, Nicole xx
Yep, same thing as you Nic… when I visit my sister and husband at Uki every year (which is in that same caldera) … but it starts around about when I turn off the M1 onto the Tweed Valley Way. There’s something about that lush evergreen-ness… “welcome home” it says, even though I wasn’t born or raised here. And when I catch my first glimpse of Old Man Warning I know I’m home!
Yes, its that place you describe just over the Queensland border in New South Wales where suddenly a quietness descends, the traffic recedes, the vegetation changes and the energy is familiar. I always state, “I’m home”, yet I grew up in the state’s capital many hundreds of miles away. Perhaps it is a past life experience that speaks to me, but I love to sit up at the lighthouse scanning the vast horizon and soaking up the energy of the caldera.
Nicole,
I always read your words when they come thru my email. You are incredibly encouraging and I thank you.
It has been a rather horrible last 9 months. Cancer and the surrounding issues are draining on the person who is ill and the single person caregiver. I’ve learned a lot, but oh…I wish it was over.
It is odd you wrote this piece today. My home is Alaska. I cry whenever I leave the state (for true, I’m a watering pot on the airplane til I can’t see anything below me and when I fly home, about 20 min before we hit ANC, I’m grinning like a crazy person!) and the area I am in now? It does fill me and spill out in thankfulness. I’m so fortunate to have gotten to experience 4 seasons up here again. My spouse is from a place in Oregon which is dry and hot and flat, it is not my favorite place! I’d never imagined I could be home for a whole year again (I arrived last summer in mid July and left for almost 3 weeks in October). It has been a wonderful blessing in the midst of changes I don’t understand.
Kris
Since moving away from Sydney (what a relief!) in February, I’ve needed to go back for a long weekend each month. On my way back home to Ulladulla, once I’m past Nowra I come to the place where the trees start to hug the road. I feel their energetic hug, all snuggly and warm, and I start to smile. My smile just gets bigger and bigger all the way home.
Ahhhhh Nicole I soooo know that feeling . We used to live in the industrial Midlands and had a holiday home here in West Wales where We live now . 🙏 When I go home I can’t wait to get back to the ragged coast and my seals .
Cherryx
Most times my ‘go to’ place is where I have chosen to live. Right now it is my apartment in the city overlooking the river, with the Story bridge all lit up at night, the space above the cliffs at Kangaroo point looking out southwards to Mount Gravatt and beyond. I look forward to going home sometime soon, even if for a short break.
Or in my mind’s eye, I travel back to Oman. For me it is the ever changing colour of the jebel and the numerous places we used to camp, be it beach, wadi, or mountain.
Thank God for memories and safe places.
Glad you are back home safely on the farm. Love to Ben and the animals. Mxxx
I totally get that!! That beautiful area you call home has a special magic. Every time I visit I get a feeling of freedom and awe when the hills and fields start rolling into view… Would love to call it home one day 😌
Coming down from the mountains at Lithgow on the way to Bathurst. Suddenly the central west opens up and i can breathe. Only one hour to home.
Not going home but when I go to the North of the state, the road turns left off the highway at a roundabout and downhill into the city. I feel an overwhelming sense of joy when that section of road appears. On the flipside when I am returning home to the South I feel sad. Always wonder if this was home in a past life or if I will eventually, for some reason make it my home in this life or a future one.
Dear Nicole,
I know exactly that turn in the road you are speaking of, and the power that the mountain holds over the area in which you live. I can feel it as I read your words and my body relaxes, even though the area for me also stirs complicated emotions. I think of our house here in Brisbane and our journey home. I guess I have the opposite feeling to you as we drive into the city and we leave wherever we have been to recharge ourselves behind. The roads and streets hold nothing of what you have described! But as I pull the car into the driveway I can feel our little house waiting for us. Our simple but delightful garden sighs a sigh of relief that we have not abandoned it forever. This little part of the earth is doing its very best to hold and love us as we forge our lives in this place which holds work and our community. Our little part of Brisbane has an amazing school which really ties us here. I recently was able to view a collection of photographs of the area only to find that the manmade water channels that follow our streets, were an extensive collection of waterholes and I understood that the power of our school community is not just of now, but of an ancient place where people gathered and cared for each other.
But I also have another place, which has the power you describe to instantly relax and make me feel grounded. It is Springbrook. We have previously owned a cottage there and have friends who welcome us to use theirs whenever we can. What a privilege and blessing. What generous and loving people. When I sit there on the edge of the rim you have mentioned, I feel clarity like nowhere else in the world. And as we drive up the winding road, having reached the place where you feel like you have reached the sky, there is an avenue of trees that seem to hold hands tightly high above you and welcome you into the sacred world of the mountain.
Thank you so much for your post. I have been trying to describe to myself and my family how I feel about this place. Today I have been able to find some words!
Much love and gratitude to you. xxSimone
Beautiful! <3
Nice
Hope you r ok
Id just lIke a home to go to
Do you take vans on farm?