Adelaide
A little update on “home.”
“Where are you from?” It’s a question I’ve often struggled to answer. Lately, I’ve not even been sure how to explain where I live.
When I left London in the middle of 2022, I was moving to Melbourne. Two months later, my mother passed away. For the rest of that year, I spent more time in Adelaide than I did in Melbourne. Sometimes I was only in Melbourne as a staging post for trips overseas. That pattern hasn’t changed.
The last few months have been typical. The first couple of weeks of December, I was in Adelaide. Back to Melbourne for three days, then off to Japan for a month. Return to Melbourne for a day and a half, then back here to Adelaide.
I spend as much time as I can in Japan. I miss living in Tokyo. I love my cabin in the Japanese Alps. When I’m not in Japan, I’m mostly back in Adelaide. Where my father lives alone. It doesn’t make sense to say I live in Melbourne.
Really, I live in Adelaide. And have done for some time.
Fifteen years ago, we bought a little beach house not far from where my parents settled. It’s small and simple. A place for holiday vacations and quiet creative moments. I’ve written hundreds of blogposts and posted many more photos online during my weeks spent there on vacation.
That’s also been my address for all sorts of official things. It’s where I registered to vote after moving back to Australia. In any kind of legal sense, it’s home.
My place in Melbourne is a rented apartment. It was meant to be a temporary home while we looked for a place to buy. But my wife’s job has changed and changed again since we decided to return to Australia. Her work is increasingly untethered from Australia. She is seldom in Melbourne.
I face the kind of problem many people have faced for thousands of years. How do I balance my family commitments?
The opportunity is there to leave Australia again. Maybe to add another country to the list of locations where I’ve lived. When I moved back, I had assumed it was only for a season.
But my heart feels compelled to stay. I accepted moving back largely because my parents were getting old. I got precious little time with my mother. I’ve had much more with my father. Many golden moments. So much resolved, or brought into the light and discussed, a calm between us that we’ve never had before. I want to help him face his future with love and peace.
And because of that, Adelaide quietly moved from being a place where I holidayed to the place where I live.
