Coming Home

Coming home is no small feat.  I’d been in Melbourne for five weeks all up and the three hour morning flight to Alice Springs doesn’t quite get me half way.  Heading north through the ranges out of Alice with a five hundred kilometre drive ahead, I was tired and I just wanted to get home.  Why do I do this?  I’d set out at five in the morning and I wouldn’t be home until after eight in the evening.  Why do I live so far away?

But as I drove in silence, kilometre after long kilometre it happened as it always does.  There is something about this arid landscape that seems to rejuvenate me.  The red soil.  The vast open space.  The quietness of it all.  And that dry heat.  

It had been hot for a day or two in Melbourne, but it was the kind of heat that invades your personal space.  Coats you.  Smothers you.  Up here its different.  It penetrates you right to the bone.  It hits your skin and sinks right in, becoming part of you.  It rises up from the earth and in some kind of primal way connects you to the landscape that surrounds you.  

I pulled over at the half way mark for a pee.  Stepping out of the cool air conditioned four wheel drive it hit me like the heat from the oven when you open the door, the rich baking aromas rushing up to meet you. Most people hate it of course, the heat.  That’s why they visit in winter, wearing their shorts and t-shirts while the locals rug up.  Living out here isn’t for everyone... but I love it, heat and all.    

Pulling in to town as the sun set, I couldn’t help but smile.  Home.  The dirt and dust coating everything.  The long grass in the not quite kept yards.  The group of aboriginal women sitting cross-legged on the footpath, another not far away passed out on the grass. The bloody camp dogs that roam the streets... 

...and the heat.  Home.