Home by Kath Delgado
Home! I put the key in the lock, turn it and the door opens for the first time in a month. I smell the staleness of time and see, through the weak shaft of light, the dust particles suspended in the air. The signs of neglect and disuse are an assault on my senses. There is sand from the Sahara on holiday on my lounge floor. It has travelled many miles by AIR CALIMA to sneak under my door. There is recently delivered mail that waits to have a purpose. Yes. I am home.
I take my suitcases upstairs. I open the windows to fill the house with sunlight and the gentle breeze of the ‘alisios’, the prevailing winds that reach the Canaries from the Sahara. Home is perfectly situated to benefit not just from the exquisite views of both the ocean and the mountains, but also from the northerly freshness of the alisios that the house inhales through the back door and exhales through the front. Just as light chases darkness, so the breeze chases the staleness of time. Home is refreshed.
In the bathroom I flush away the lingering smell of bleach and walk downstairs to turn on the taps at full flow for two minutes to force the stale water from the pipes. A month of stagnating in the pipes in a subtropical climate with fluctuating temperature is like inviting baby legionella into your nursery. I must clear the pipes.
That completed, I fill the kettle to make a relaxing cup of tea. It has to be good tea. Yorkshire tea for volcanic water. I take the lid from the teapot and rinse it thoroughly. I warm the pot with boiling water and give the sink a drink as I flush it through the spout. Tea pot sterilised, I add the teabag, then the boiling water. The tea brews, masks, infuses. I give the sink another little drink so that I don’t pour mere water into my china mug. I sit. I am home.
My little dog, newly released from the kennels is having none of it. This is playtime before she remembers that she is not going to speak to me forever because I left her with her favourite man for a month. She loves John from the kennels so much that when he comes to collect her she is conflicted.
Where have you been?
Her energy and my exhaustion clash and finally we agree to settle on cuddling together on the settee. Home. I am home. But wait! What is home? Where is home?
As a Scot I have a strong sense of belonging to an established culture. Scots are always Scottish. We are fiercely proud of our roots and traditions. Wherever we go, wherever we live we are foremost Scots and Scotland is home. We are a resourceful people. Inventors. Peacemakers. Friendly. Family folk. We are perhaps all related by seven steps, infact we are probably all related by seven steps. But when we have moved to another continent, Scotland is always home.
But Home? Is that truly my country or is that where I live now? My house? Where I relax? Where I make memories? Where my family is? Where my husband is? But wait. I am alone now. Only I, my dog and the dust particles live here now. Will home always house empty chairs?
When my parents left our family home after 34 years I was distraught. It took me several years to return and I was surprised to find it to just be red sandstone and mortar. The apple tree under which I had learned how to sit on a swing and how to ride a tricycle, under which we held summer birthdays parties and garden teas or played boules, under which we have picked and packed the copious annual bitter crop of fruit, under which we played with the rabbits and the dogs, under which we had pitched a small tent and camped out all night, under which I had fallen in love for the first time, experience my first kiss, under which my favourite wedding photo was taken. Now the apple tree, although hosting a library of memories, was just an old apple tree that grew bitter apples. I learned that day that home is not a place but it is people.
And yet, wait, most of those people have passed on, whether by walking through and away from my life or by the full stop of a natural end. So does that mean that I have no home now?
Home is where the heart is, goes the saying.
Wherever I lay my hat that´s my home, says the song.
I top up my china cup of Yorkshire tea and pour a little more lactose free milk into it. I smile at the thought of my dairy farmer grandfather turning in his grave when told of a lactose sensitive granddaughter. I smile at the memory of him making me drink warm, creamy milk ladled from the churns, which had made me feel nauseous even at five years old, many years before we had a milking parlour. I probably had always been lactose sensitive. Then I smile at the imagining of his Cumbrian voice saying ¨THA´LL NOT BE TELLIN ME SUCH NONSENSE´.
He was a wise man, my grandad. When I was teased at primary school for being born in Africa, he sat me on his knee and said ´Lass, if a cat has kittens in a fish shop, it doesn’t make them finnan haddock.´ Such wonderful wisdom.
He also tried to make me drink tea with enough sugar to make my spoon and my pancreas stand on end. At that I stubbornly and vehemently disregarded my reverence for him and point blankly refused to let this corrupted and contaminated excuse for tea even touch my lips. Perhaps this is home. Perhaps memories are home.
I smile as I sip my tea and cherish my memories
When my marriage reached a full stop and not a comma I thought I had lost my compass in life. If buildings were not home then he had been. When he breathed his last I thought that my home had gone with him. Having moved country for him, home was also where I lay my hat. He was where I lay my hat and now I have nowhere to lay my hat. If he was home, I am now homeless.
Third cup of tea. I won´t sleep tonight.
So, what is home? I ponder for a prolonged time and conclude that home is indeed where my heart is. My heart is in the centre of me. Home must therefore be me. So Scotland is my home. Tenerife is my home. My memories are my home: If I love you, you are my home because all of these things and these people are in my heart so yes! I am home.
So, if you are ever passing my home or walking through my heart, stop awhile. Knock on the door. I will invite you in for a cup of Yorkshire tea, albeit made with lactose free milk and if you are very lucky I will honour you by giving you some home-made Scottish shortbread. Now that is still the very essence of ………Home.
