It’s so easy to say that the weather in Sydney is too changeable, my house too cold, my brother and his friends too noisy, my mom too naggy, the lack of coffee in the kitchen unacceptable. But then, looking out on the pink-purple-orange sunrise over Sydney Harbour as we crossed the bridge, my backpack and my suitcase in the boot once again and my dad behind the wheel to the airport, I didn’t want to close my eyes for fear I would miss another priceless moment.

Tasmania was beautiful. Having been once more transformed into a city girl by the always-on lights of London, it was eerily quiet at first; even capital city Hobart doesn’t really feel all that much bigger than York, and as we travelled into the mountains and the (comparative) wilderness I was suddenly struck by how rare, how amazing it was that this part of the world, not 2 hours’ flight from Sydney, had managed to remain so pristinely untouched. This was not some urban-generated landscape, this was genuine nature. And after all this time, there are still no better travel companions than my family.

Yesterday as I sat on the old familiar 174 and went by my old neighbourhood en route to Orchard, looking down the street where I grew up, at the condominium which now occupies the place I used to swim, the playground at Bouganvillea Park behind the old bus stop, I almost didn’t know what to feel. There was nostalgia in spades, there was an ache for what is irretrievably gone, there was a warmth and a deeply felt thankfulness for what hasn’t changed at all. My sister, summing up my thoughts, said to me later in the night that she wanted to go back to our house and our neighbourhood, but at the same time she didn’t want to, was almost afraid to, because she knew it’d be different.

Today, I took a walk down Orchard Road from ION to Plaza Singapura, and at least half of what I saw was completely unrecognisable. Change is inevitable, I know, change is to be embraced. But oh, the dizzying vertigo. And yet – I know that when I sit in the airport again on Wednesday morning, another boarding pass in my hand, I will be soaking it all in and wishing I didn’t have to leave, however unfamiliar to me this island now is. There are still the people. There are still the memories.

exactly one year and two days ago, i moved to london with not a clue what my future would look like this time next year. how time goes by.

seven years ago, i was dinnering at suntec with the squad; i think we were at kenny rogers and i remember being surprised with a makeshift cake in the form of a corn muffin and a single large white candle (which i hung on to, i still have it somewhere) in place of the seventeen which would’ve been impractical.

five years ago i came to this country all prepared to spend my birthday alone – a far cry from the swensen’s firehouse sundaes and multiple dinners out of previous years – and the motley crew, whom i’d known barely a month, got me a chocolate cake from marks and sparks and made chicken curry in my Ingram B kitchen and gathered to watch the princess bride in my room after dinner.

the year after that was, of course, the year of the soopersekrit photo scrapbook project which thanks to a text gone astray i knew about all along; i can still so vividly recall standing in a doorway with ailin and jason and en qi like a beckett tableau as we all rather surrealistically instructed jason to go buy me a scrapbook from paperchase in a certain shade of purple. and then next year was the epic video – how could i forget?

my dad’s birthday and mine are nineteen days apart in october, so whenever i am back home on holiday, just before returning to england for the autumn, we always go out for a big family dinner to jointly celebrate. the japanese restaurants near home in sydney are amazing, we have had the birthday dinner in two different japanese restaurants for the past two years.

this year, now that i’m on my own and not doing anything special on my birthday for the first time i can remember, i don’t feel as horribly lonely as i thought i might; the memories from years past keep me warm in the lengthening nights, as does the knowledge from here and now that i am loved, that beautiful and worthwhile people out there think i am beautiful and worthwhile, that my friends and family are amazing, that i am going home soon, and that i could not be luckier.

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Hello, Mr. Neil.
This is my question: You lived most of your life in the UK but now live in the United States, right? Which one do you consider to be your home? And for that matter, what do you think classifies as a ‘home’?

I find myself remembering the Richard Burton (the actor, not the Arabian Nights one) line about “Home is where the books are”. And by that token, home is the one in the US.

But truly, even now, when I go to the UK I think, I’m going home. And when I go, er, home, I think I’m going to America. Probably why I’ve never taken citizenship…

But at the end of the day, I think Home is something you make, not something you find. Something you’re always leaving, and somewhere you’re always looking for or returning to. It’s part of growing up, and not the best part.

- (from Neil’s blog)

As always, Neil totally nails it, better than I ever could even after years and years of struggling with my own words.

Recently, someone referred to the UK as my second home, in casual conversation; my immediate and instinctive response was that Sydney is my second home, and the UK just a place I’m passing through. It doesn’t really make any sense because I’ve spent most of the last five years in this country, and less than 6 months collectively in Sydney over the same period of time, and it gave me pause for thought. As for Singapore – I think I’ve spent even less time there than I have in Sydney, since 2004 at least, so why do I still think of it as my first home?

I think I’m a lot less emo and angsty about finding home now than I used to be (time will do that to you), but it doesn’t mean I don’t still think of it often, turn the question around in my mind, grapple with my lack of answers. And what Neil says here – it’s exactly how I feel about the UK, Singapore and Australia. When I fly to Singapore, I think, I’m going home. When I fly to Australia, I think, I’m going to my family. And when I fly here, to the one country where I actually have a residence (albeit rented) to call my own, and a semi-permanent correspondence address, I think… I’m going to England. Often, I think I’m going back to England, and that back is a pretty key word, but I never think I’m going home. I guess Neil is right (what am I saying? of course Neil is right. Neil is always right :P) that home is what we make, and home is what you’re looking for, what you want to return to. And I think a big part of my thinking of Singapore as home is that so much of who I am is based on my growing up there, and it represents, or is as close as a physical place can be to representing, the idea of a world I want to go back to. I know it’s not the same anymore and that it has changed, in many ways, so dramatically that it is no longer the world in my mind. But the idea of it, the memory of it -

(As for the books, let’s not even go into where mine are. I have no idea, in most cases, and this distresses me.)

I haven’t listened to oldies on a Sunday for many years now. Perhaps since I came here and my family moved. We no longer have an ancient JVC stereo in the living room. Sunday mornings at home in Sydney are now the sound of my brother’s cartoons on TV, or perhaps his breakdance music blaring from computer speakers, and sometimes both. And while I’d diligently ripped almost all my CDs before coming here, I hadn’t thought to rip any of my dad’s, so I’ve now got a hard disk full of modern music, instrumental soundtracks, the odd classical piece and a very limited selection of oldies.

This morning, in search of suitable background music to keep me company while I did chores, I plowed through the Shoutcast internet radio directory and put on an oldies station. Suddenly it was like I was a child again – boppy, syncopated ’80s beats filling the house. I couldn’t help a little hop, skip and twirl round the room to Tina Turner’s glorious, belting vocals. Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken? Ah Sunday, Sunday – with the right soundtrack, what a revelation you have been to me all over again.