These last few days it has been hot. Proper 30 degrees heat. Inducing sweat and lethargy and the urge to sit around soaking up the rays and dreaming of the beach.
I love the heat and it’s the one factor that keeps making me doubt my ability to ever settle down here in England. I can’t stand the long, cold, dark winters. I get depressed and irritable and spend inordinate amounts of time daydreaming about countries with warmer, more stable climates and how I could make the transition to live in one of these places.
Australia would be the most obvious choice. Clearly. I grew up there, I know the place. I own a lovely blue passport with the Australian coat of arms. My family is there, expanded now to include my two brand new nieces who I am yet to meet. For some reason, though, during the past nine years in which I have been living in places other than Australia, going back there has singularly not appealed to me.
I love my friends here in London, and going back to Oz would pretty much guarantee that I may never see them again. I feel comfortable here – in an emotive and intuitive way – that I never experienced while living over there. Going back means starting over. From stratch. My family is scattered between three states. My friends I can count on one hand. And none of them live in the city I would choose over all others – Melbourne.
However, yesterday, I felt the first stirrings of homesickness. The sun beat down, bathing the world in its harsh yellow light. The unique smell of heat and warm bodies and the city slowly baking. My eyes, squinting in the glare, my skin tingling as pores opened to greedily suck in the sun’s hot, salty gifts. I have an ache in my belly and a yearning to go back to that place where these feelings are part of the everyday. I want to take the sun for granted again rather than be desperately grateful for each day of true sun-kissed warmth.
I wonder if my moods of late have anything to do with all this. I have spent, by my reckoning, seven years in this part of the world. Seven times I have dug my heels in and weathered the English winter. I suspect I have used up any latent ability I may have possessed to survive in these conditions (forgive the dramatics, I don’t mean this literally but am referring to something rather more emotional). Paradoxically, this heatwave is making me feel more depressed and edgy that I was feeling before. Usually the sun heals my woes. This time, it seems to be magnifying them. All I can focus on is the pay-off, the time in a few short months where the days start shrinking again. Rapidly. So quickly that the change happens almost before being aware of it starting. The time when the temperature drops again, suddenly and sharply. Where I will be faced with another long, drawn-out winter. I don’t think I can go through it again.
I am homesick for my hot, baking, humid Australia.
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