Coming Home

The million tiny stories of our home life growing up piece together the shape of who we are, for better or worse

Photo by Tim Cooper on Unsplash

The plane judders onto the runway, my toddler Matilda is miraculously still asleep. I look out the window at the familiar airport, the docking port for adventures that took place a lifetime ago when life was expanding ever outwards.

Sydney is a familiar wash of light, bright sun bearing down on the sparkling harbour. Just how I remember it. Just how I imagine it on dreary rainy days in Torquay, 968 kilometres south in the wild oceanic climate.

Tall, well-established gums flank arterial roads like a cavalcade and the cicadas buzz a constant soundtrack.

On coming home, the city is no longer just the backdrop to a busy life, it’s the main player. My city of birth which I’m constantly describing to others, painting and repainting pictures from memory. An ever-evolving response to ‘what’s Sydney like?’

Memories rush back, like water: nights in The Domain sipping cheap red wine from plastic cups while bats whirl and dive overhead, long days in Manly, hiking through the bush for panoramic views of the harbour and dips near the wharf, movies at the Orpheum with lush red velvet curtains and mirrored walls, and smoky food vendors lined up on…