I have discovered...

I have learnt so much this past year. At home and abroad. I’ve changed my home several times, and I expect “home” and my concept of “home” to continue to change. And while these changes keep occurring, there is still nothing better than being in the place I have grown up in and spent the most time in and experienced the most truth and growth in. All of the friends and family and community that I have spent the last 21 years growing older with. The countless familiar streets and landmarks. The many comfortable systems of basic existence that I am (to my own destruction) very well adapted to. These things are all home and present my “abroad” mind with the prospect of endless excitement and adventure in these familiar lands.

These things can be suppressive also…

They can cause the greatest frustrations and create the biggest longings. We all want to escape the nest, leave the fishbowl, take to the sky, etc…

But this has little to do with “leaving” for me. I’m trying to leave the fishbowl everyday of my life. Trying to break out of the things that stifle my dreams and desires. And I’ll continue trying until the person I am today fades away, until my body dies off, or until I’m an old woman who forgets herself…

Did you know that you can physically leave your fishbowl and still be completely stuck in it, swimming the same monotonous circles, the same mistakes, the same bad decisions, the same insecurities, the same confusion, the same lack of knowledge, the same miss-education…

The same stagnant water and bad fish-flakes can follow you wherever you go, if you allow it.

Change is nothing if it is only physical.

This is something that I personally know, but just because I know it doesn’t mean it’s right for you. It might be wrong for you, personally… All I know is that I know that we don’t know.

But I don’t know what you know…

Of all the things I’ve learnt this past year, I cannot think of one thing that is easy to share, to teach, to explain… The thing is that I can’t teach you anything new. I can’t give you any knowledge that isn’t already living somewhere in the recesses of your heart. As The Prophet say’s,

“No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge”.

I will be “home” soon. Back in Australia, back in the Central Coast. Back with the verandah and the washing line, back with my mother and her pending Sewing-Machine lessons with me, back to my brother and his loud noises and spoilt behaviour. Back to the energy-consuming, planet-murdering A/C, back to a house that leaves way too many lights on and watches way to much T.V. (or doesn’t watch it, but still has it on all the same). Back to the garden that I want to grow Vegies [Subjee] in, back to the melodic passing trains and dinners at Terrigal Thai. Back to spending too much money on petrol, back to yet another country that is using too much fuel, back to frozen meat, packaged in plastic, lining the walls of the supermarket. Back to my amazing friends who never forget how to have a good time! Back to a life I love. And maybe even a life I am now a little more uncomfortable in…

So many “normal” things will be a discomfort after such an amazing 8 months of living a simple life in A’bad, India.

I don’t want A/C.

I don’t want T.V.

I don’t want to be brainwashed by our supermarkets.

I don’t want to ignore my conscience.

I don’t want to eat meat (but it tastes so good!).

Let’s see what happens when I get back yeah J