Dressed in a combination of clothes and accessories that
really should have been in the washing machine or didn’t fit into my overloaded
suitcase, I boarded the South Line train from Sydney Central station. I wore a
Catwoman comic t-shirt I’d donned as pyjamas a couple of nights ago, a heavy Nepali
scarf, a cream beanie, a
huge bright
red bangle and pale jeans I was sure I’d worn for six days straight. I could
either be classified as one of those artsy, hipster types, revelling in the
ironic; or possibly a well-funded hobo. I was suffering the soreness of the
half marathon the day prior, and I was on my way to seeing the woman who never
cared how I looked, so long as I was there with her. All that mattered was that
I made it before nightfall, or she would worry.
I’d made the journey a number of times before, and knew the
sequence well. The airport train to Central, the Southern Line to Liverpool,
and then the bus to Moorebank. It still smelled like burned rubber and fuel, no
matter how many years in between visits. I always peered around Central station
nervously, aware of the fact that I made myself look like a tourist with my
giant suitcase and Guess hand luggage. I noticed every person that walked by:
the elderly Japanese man with his walking stick and “Australia” cap, the
sour-faced Chinese woman who squeezed into the lift, the Indian students
lugging heavy textbooks, and the bedraggled mothers with three children in tow.
Midday, midweek traffic always made for interesting people watching. I knew the
Southern Line was mine; it always had been, not because it was the only way to
Liverpool, but mostly because I felt nervous around some of the passengers on
the Inner West Line. That feeling has never changed. Lastly, I always screwed
up the bus part, using my internal navigation to find the house once I jumped
off at some nearby-but-not-quite-right street, always within a kilometre or so.
This trip was no exception, and I learned that my shiny new suitcase wheels
were built for airport floors, not suburban Sydney streets.
Hot, bothered and half-dragging my semi-busted suitcase up
the drive, I pulled off my scarf and coat, and dumped them atop my luggage in
the path. They need not be inside straight away, there were more important
things ahead. The tiles at the door were still polished to a sheen from forty
years, seven children and eighteen grandchildren worth of footsteps, with one
tile missing on the top step. A jar of flowers stood in the windowsill, and the
pumpkin patch was strangely empty. I went for the door; the screen door handle
still sagged low, as did the main door. Nothing was different, yet everything
was. This house was missing one person; that chair now always empty. I was
worried about what to expect, and when I walked through the door my Omi was
there in the kitchen cooking, waiting with her smile, a big hug and her worries
about how late in the day I was. Still the same, but different, and not just the
fact that she’d shrunk more.
If there was ever a single place that quintessentially felt
like home, this was it. My ideas of home and where I belong often get confused
by the location of loved ones and my own explorations, but there’s always this
place, where you can wear your hobo clothes, watch television all day and inhale
German cooking for your three squares. You can listen to stories about the war,
of travel, schooling, courting, moving, loss and family in heavily accented
English with bonus German words. You can find out how incredibly far our
civilisation has progressed across the world in just eighty years, how hard it
was to darn socks, what it was like to bear seven children, how to run a dairy
farm in Chile and Canada, and what it takes to raise a huge family as hard
working Australian immigrants. Every story only solidifies my opinions about
multiculturalism, knowing that my own heritage came upon the sandy shores from
afar, working hard to join the community and to support themselves and those
around them in the land of the free.
This was the place I was born: the halls I’d run up and down
for hours, the carpets I’d crawled across, the table I’d eaten countless home-cooked
meals at, the photos I’d stared at, and the back room where I’d always slept. I’d
drunk coffee from my Omi’s cup ridden on my ‘pony’ that Opi had made me, which
lived in the garage forever and probably still does. Small differences come up
every now and then which remind me of the past. The dining table is turned
around as Opi doesn’t sit at the head any more. When we eat, we serve in the
kitchen, rather than navigating the elaborate spread laid out to ensure he ate
all he wanted, three times a day. The chess set stays packed away, and there is
a new photo by the candle where Mum’s photo stands. He’s not there to pull you
close and tell you that he is a robot with his crackling hearing aid and
pacemaker. He’s not in his seat with his Reader’s Digest and his glasses case
clipped to the top button of his flannelette shirt. Omi doesn’t tell him off
for going outside and walking too far. The lemon tree is gone, as are his
rabbit cages.
These things are gone, but the warmth is still here. The
memories of family still echo through the halls and my Omi still shuffles in
and out around the backyard, bringing in firewood to keep us warm all day. She knows
the weekly television program rotation and religiously puts on the German news
each morning. She tells me about the news of late, to make sure I am up to
date, and when I got up on Tuesday, she had Pink and Muse blaring across the
lounge. Never in my life did I think that noise would grace these walls. She
explains everything on television, just as she always has. She suggests a movie
at Liverpool during the week and wears pantyhose to the memorial gardens. The
walk to the local shops seems shorter than ever, and I bring home cuts of meat
I have no idea of how to cook, just so she can show me. Nobody makes chicken
gravy or potato salad like she does. She talks about how it feels to be alone,
and inside I cry for her. These walls are filled with everything; with love,
with loss, with hope, with warmth, and most of all, with everything we
associate with home. For forty-two years, it has been a safe haven of love and
care, and for many more, it will continue to be.
