HOME IS MEMORY

My answer when someone asks me where home is from the point of view of a mixed race immigrant.

“I want to show you my home,” he said.

It was a bittersweet wish, akin to a cup of tea with a spoonful of sugar left to spoil. By the time I remembered that I’d abandoned it half-drunk on the windowsill, London was an hour and a half behind me in the rain and I was in my friend’s hometown. I’d left the window of our accommodation open, the cup probably a concoction of stale tea and rainwater by now.

Banstead was quaint and subtle compared to London’s boisterous misery. Character homes and a humble high street looked poetically melancholic in the gloom; my friend’s excitement to return home contrasted greatly with the quiet of the evening. It remained as he’d left it seven years ago, but even a town like this could be devoured by time; we passed a fruit shop he used to volunteer at after school, equipped with a faded sign and boarded-up windows. Such a sight was a sentiment I could relate to. Time passes, we age, and so do the spaces we used to occupy. Eventually, they crumble, immortalised in memory alone. 

A tour of the neighbourhood’s muddy, marshy back alleys filled with these-used-to-be’s and I-remember-when’s brought us to a house with lattice windows that my friend asked me to take a photo of him in front of. The picture is still in my camera roll; a time capsule waiting to be struck open. 

“There wasn’t a garage when we were here,” he said matter-of-factly, layered between stories of playing with the neighbour's children with an unwavering familiarity as if he’d never left, as if another child didn’t occupy his bedroom and tell wishes to the glow-in-the-dark stars still stuck on the ceiling. 

The tour ended with spontaneous door-knocking, knuckles splitting against aged wood with practised amity. If I were to go door-knocking on my own past, it would be many years behind me – I lived in the Italian Dolomites 16 years ago, and haven’t returned to my birthplace of Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand, in over a decade.

The tableau of my friend returning to his hometown was painted by crackling hearths, warm laughter, stories recounted, food shared, wine poured and tight hugs. “Welcome home!” many of the figures from his past exclaimed when they opened the door.

But this was a diorama that I was not a piece in; standing far enough from the fireplace meant the cold still rubbed my shoulders. The wine tasted bitter with the realisation that I was a bystander, jokes and stories without context falling like water on a duck’s back.

Amongst the glee, my friend spoke another wish into the fireplace.

“I can’t wait for you to take me to your home.” 

I felt the words burn, an innocent hope curdling on the windowsill. The cycle of being born somewhere, living there for most your life then being able to return years later is a comforting experience. In contrast, my history is spread thin across three countries between the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans, seemingly worlds apart. No amount of knocking can mend the disparity of my identity, especially when every time someone asks me where I am from, it feels like stitches being plucked from my skin. 

I wasn’t sure if I could grant such a wish. I felt like a museum with a fragmented history; a confused mixed-race emigrant who didn’t know which place to tie her identity to; a girl who didn’t really know where home was. If I were to unlock my past, it would reveal an antechamber with multiple doors leading to the most peculiar places.

The idea of home is so vast to me that it is almost indecipherable. A complicated labyrinth in which portals to my past exist is an abstract idea, but one I can reconcile with. This analogy, prompted by that sting, gives myself permission to let the wound weep in moments like these and allow it to finally heal. 

I am 20. Caught in a marshy bog in the middle of nowhere feeling misplaced and yearning. Where is home?

Home is not only where I live. Home is memory.

I am three. The cusp of the Waitakere ranges witnesses me grapple with colours for the first time as I finger paint on canvases. With smeared hands, I ride on the back of our German shepherds like a god and mark them with bright prints as we wage war against the postman. I tend to the garden and paint red roses with my fingers.  I am home.

I am five. I am collecting shells and pebbles. My father clasps a gold necklace with a handmade pendant crafted in Rome around his neck. It gleams gold like a mirage of water, sun and sky converging. We return to the Dolomites and hike to a peak. I dig my feet into the mountain’s hide, my first coming-of-age. The necklace bears witness to this victory as my father embraces me.  I am home.

I am 14. The Hawaiian moonlight witnesses hours of conversation and laughter. Even if the room is suffocating, beyond the humidity transcends a friendship tested by time and distance. Even when the summer passes, I keep a ceramic hippo that my best friend has a twin of, and am comforted by the fact that miles away, they sit on our bedside tables as if we were still next to each other.  I am home.

I am 16. The Western Australian heat sweats out my adolescence as I outgrow countless school uniforms. Brilliant sunsets accompany my teenage-hood, dawn breaking a new lesson every day. On my last day of high school, I jump off the jetty, a rite of maturity, my already-too-small uniform assaulted by the salt water as I shed it into adulthood like skinning a fish. I am home.

I am 22 when I write this. My labyrinth consists of 11 countries.  

“I will show you my home,” I tell my friend finally. “You will see the universe.”

We return to our accommodation. The window is closed.

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About The Writer

Perth-based independent art director and multi-disciplinary creative Jada De luca likes her tea with an extra sugar, doesn’t go anywhere without her kindle, and interprets tarot cards for the spiritually curious. She is a long time writer and in-house collage witch for the Aussie based travel publication Astray, best known for her piece The Writer’s Routine.

Jada tells stories through an eclectic mix of both written and visual narration, creating magical, surreal, and intensely personal landscapes for her audiences.