Do you ever feel like laying your head flat on the table and just bawling. Just close your eyes and lay the whole side of your face onto the table and cry. Not where people can see you. Not as an exhibition. Maybe, when you are alone in the kitchen cleaning up after the dinner that you spent hours preparing in between everything else. Or when you are picking the dinner from the gardens. Or out walking. 
Usually we are tired when it happens. Last night it was when I was walking the dogs. I had a washing basket moment. I stood with my dogs watching the grass grow in this incredible dripping heat and just cried. 
I miss home. I miss being a kid or a daughter or someone’s sister. I miss being the mother and the teacher. We even miss when we were Not in charge and Not so bloody responsible. Not having to make the hard decisions and see them right through to the bitter end. The precarious progression of our days.
It is called being a grown up. But being a grown up in a land where no-one knows who you Were is hard. All they see is a little woman in gumboots. I have no context. No background.
It is hard to be a foreigner in a foreign land. Many of you know this. Many writers are in some kind of solitary. Many Webloggers. Maybe this is why we are drawn to each other. But when TonTon and I stood and watched the grass grow I cried with a head shaking tired longing. I just bawled until I was finished.
Then I started to sing. I know we know that is crazy. Who would sing to her grass. But no-one was around. I think that secretly you might sing to your garden too. 
That is why you and I are friends. My voice was not the big soaring voice it used to be, a voice needs to be worked like a muscle, but as I sung, the dogs and I turned, and began to walk back to the kitchen.
I think this is why I love the farm and the gardens. They all know me. And a sheep has no need for background though they have heard all the stories. But the sheep and the dairy cow and the little hereford, even my border collie, they remind me of home you see.
And this is why we love our cats and cows and bicycles. Our dogs and our plants. This is why we have our cameras and guitars, our paint brushes or pens. Our tools and boots. Our ideals and oaths. Our stories. Our little work. Because we all need to hold on to who we WERE and practice that person when we are alone, or who we are NOW makes no sense. 
And we need to always carry a little bit of home with us in our secret pockets like a polishing stone. So when the washing basket moment hits we can reach into our secret pocket and grasp that stone from home. So we can find our forgotton voices and sing the songs from the sea.
Good morning. I wrote this last night before going to bed. Today is a new day and every new day we get another chance. Thank goodness. So of course I feel better today. Strong and fit and ready to go. I look forward to taking you all home with me to New Zealand in December. Then I can show you a little of who I was. Who I am.
I still do not have a car, did I tell you? My little cooking oil car is still at the garage far away. I am driving the rusty white truck but not too far as it is pretty rattly and wholly unreliable.
Have a lovely day.
celi
On this day a year ago.. A bridge. Images of the underbelly of a bridge.
Even more exciting -there is a story: Part One of a very funny story from the beach. Part two is tomorrow but if you have time you could read it today as well. In fact I am going to read these again when I come in from the farm work. This story will cheer me up and remind me of where I came from.
c
The Kitchen's Garden 
145 responses to “Being a stranger in a strange land, carrying a little bit of home in my pocket.”
It is the context that we miss. I do understand the smooth stone in the pocket and the dam bursting.
And the singing. My mother said that people sang songs because their brains wanted to remember happier times the song reminded them of.
There are other reason.The body is defensive – singing regulates breathing and stabilizes chemical. There’s a predictable pattern, and certain notes are pleasing. The beat and flow mimics the rush of blood and the heart.
Music can be the smooth stone that was neglected to be carried along. Soothes the savage beast of the soul?
Sing, and commune with the farmy and animals and you’ll manage until time to fly home.
(And thanks for picking up the froggie guy – he was frozen and needed some help – and there you were!)
Sorrow may last for a night, but joy comes in the morning. 🙂 Sending you a hug to tuck into your secret pocket for the next time you need one.
Wish we could have a glass of dry, cold Marlborough white together at the moment! A refugee at 9, in a country it did not want me at 13, a land in which I settled tho’ it was strange at the time! Oh, yep, I relate!! May I > a big hug?!! And you know it is 100% OK, and the wonderful Xmas trip ahead is, perchance, needed? Celi, darlingHeart, you are lucky, perchance – in ‘my time’ you bloody f’ing well put up with your feelings!! All well: looking forwards to you in Kiwiland 😀 !
Oh I know that feeling, I know just what it’s like. How marvellous that you could just let it all out, and nothing was required of you but to be real. I remember how I’ve carried a piece of pounamu (greenstone) with me in my pocket whenever I’ve been far from home, and have secretly held on to it. And then you wrote those exquisite words about a secret pocket. I guess sometimes you must get very tired from all that hard work every day, and then your skin grows thin and things break through that were held in. I always find it a relief after those moments. Hope you have done too.
I live now in the land of birth -I haven’t always but I was never more that a short hop away so I cannot imagine what it feels like to live so far away from your roots. I think we have an inbuilt map in our heads which helps us navigate life when we are in our own countries but that map changes when we move and we have to learn different ways through and try to understand different nuances. I am sorry to hear about your wobbly day and thank you for sharing it – I just want to say take care and that I am glad to hear you are taking a trip to NZ later in the year. x
Celi, I always save your blog to last to read so that I can savour it, which means I’m always last to comment, and everyone has said everything that needs to be said.
Reading all the comments made we wonder if there’s something going on in the planet, that so many of us yearn for home and our roots. i haven’t felt so homesick for years as I have for the last few days. Thank you for your lovely honesty, ad I hope you don’t feel you have to be cheerful when you don’t feel like it. You are such an inspiration to so many people. X
“And we need to always carry a little bit of home with us in our secret pockets like a polishing stone.” That speaks to me. I think about my external home which was ‘given to’ me and also the internal home I have created myself. Both nourishing at different times and in different ways. Great piece, Celia.
You are one outstandingly brave woman Celi. It takes a strong person to expose ones self the way you did in this post. Needless to say when I was reading it tears were hitting the keyboard. They say tears are cathartic. Perhaps in end that is what makes us strong. We wipe them away and get on with our life. Homesickness is just that. Going home will be part of the cure. I can’t image any one meeting you for the first time, and in a few minutes of conversation not appreciating and understanding you. A million hugs. Virginia
thank you virginia, they say tearsare cathartic but really they just make me feel wretched.. and then better later.. after the singing.. c
Hi Cecilia. Sending you a big kiwi hug from NZ. I know what you mean. I spent time in the UK and coming home… even for a short time was like taking a breath of fresh air. Living overseas, makes you appreciate NZ all the more, but at the same time, being a kiwi helps make the adventure more exciting. Cheers Sarah : o )
Another person who knows exactly how you feel. Tears are cathartic and in a way good for you. It doesn’t happen very often to me anymore, but it does happen. All sorts of unexpected events can trigger an episode. Sometimes all it takes is reading a blog. Like yours today.
a huge warm hug for you…..
thank you sally.. you take care today won’t you.. c