In Spring 2010 KJ and I enjoyed a long weekend in the Blue
Mountains. The trip came at a time when I was in a really transient state, after 3 years I knew my time at Beach HQ where I had flatted with Nick was coming to an end, and I was on the search for a new place to call home.
After arriving at our adorably quaint Highland Cottage and shopping in Leura for the afternoon, we took a slightly nerve racking taxi ride to our dinner destination Echoes. Arriving at a local Motor Inn (which looked more like emergency accommodation), our hearts sank as we glanced at each other trying to communicate the speechless and slightly panicked "this looks nothing like the pictures on their website" confusion, before timidly asking the Taxi driver, "is this Echoes?". Thankfully with a nod of realization (as if our attire wasn't a big enough clue that we had no intention of alighting there), he restarted the vehicle and within minutes we were at our much anticipated dinner venue, enjoying a sunset cocktail from the restaurant balcony overlooking Jamison Valley.
If two people can maintain a conversation seemingly without taking a breath, it's KJ and me, and for some reason alcohol always adds to our already superhuman talking abilities. Sipping on passionfruit cocktails the size of our heads we got all philosophical and reflective about this precarious position I was in on the home front.
Deep down I knew I had fallen in love with every aspect of life at Beach HQ, but I also knew that the seemingly perfect housemate arrangements shared between Nick and I for over 3 years had become irreversibly strained by a series of near fatal, highly stressful health episodes Nick had encountered in the previous months. It was time to go. My desire to leave and no longer be responsible for the life or death of my housemate had outgrown my love for what was my home, and I needed to find a new one. But it was still hard, hard to the point where I was sure I would never find a 'home-love' again, and like all good friends, without me saying it, KJ knew.
It may come as a surprise to some, but alcohol also somehow opens the floodgates for some profound wisdom to flow in KJ and my conversations, and this same night while marveling at the glorious sunset display, Katie strolled mentally through the homes of her life, drawing out the thing or things that made them lovable to her, and reminiscing about how no matter how hard it was to leave one home, there was always going to be something you will fall in love with at the next, even if it is just that it has a red front door like our little highland cottage holiday house did.
I'm reflecting on all this as I sit on the back veranda eating my brekkie with the company of my very loyal and grossly carnivorous brekkie date, Fluffy Noggin, the kookaburra. I don't know when I got over Beach HQ and my heart finally moved to this place, but today I realised that the transition has finally happened and it feels good. It is so important to love where you live, and there is so much to love about my new home thirty minutes inland. Though life here is different in many ways, I see it now as equal in beauty.
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| The view from there... the view from here... |
Sunset Cocktails - Echoes Restaurant - Sept 2010
