Hankin Redden Blog

66 In Search of Home: 24 October 2024

I wrote Exiles on 23 May 2014. It summarises why every one of us often feels lost and bewildered - we are all searching for home. Mostly, we find nothing but empty shadows. I found Margaret and she filled that bottomless, aching void. Now she is dead, the ache has returned.

Exiles*

How do you know you are an exile when you can’t even define the word?

You know, because you know

That is how you know.

Being an exile has nothing to do with leaving a place that once wore the label “home”.

It has nothing to do with having nowhere to sleep for the night,

Or knowing that you must leave because you can’t pay the rent.

Yes, it does really does hurt when people die and leave you.

Who wants to confront the long dark night all alone?

But none of these things really proves that you are indeed an exile.

****

If you don't believe me, have a look at the cold night sky,

Dream of all the places that you can never visit,

Try and convince yourself, that this is why you are an exile.

But you already know the truth,

None of this comes close to explaining why you know you are an exile.

****

Travel the seas

Go to places where nobody knows you.

Go to where you have nothing;

Go somewhere where you have to create everything out of that nothing.

Do this and then try telling yourself this explains why you know with certainty you are an exile.

But of course, you would still be wrong.

****

Think of all of the countless, lonely miles and the empty hours.

Pinned unmovably across the very fabric of our lives,

Even they teach us nothing about being an exile.

So let me tell you how you really know that you are an exile.

****

Ponder the endless hours of loss,

Stretched and made transparent by the deaths of those we love,

Consider the constant drum beat of longing for that other place, for that other person.

We have all felt it.

We all know its throb,

We all know the crinkle of its skin.

With our first breath we cry not from shock but because even then we know.

Yes, even then we know the truth.

Even in our seeming ignorance,

Every one of us has always known the truth.

The truth is simple, but I will repeat it.

We are exiles because we have been banished.

Even while we long for that one place, for our own true home,

For that place we pretend has no reality, even as a dream,

Even in those moments we have always known the truth.

We know we are exiles because that is what we are.

This truth is written across our souls.

We long for our true home in the same breath that we deny it even exists.

But how can we deny the whispers of home?

They are sung softly by the wind,

Even on days of utter stillness.

In the midst of the hurricane you cannot avoid the voice,

You can still hear it calling softly within the hurricane howl.

All of us hear the voice within our dreams and its message is always the same.

It is the constant refrain drumming in our hearts as it repeats the same words.

“Come home please ...”

“I miss you so much ...”

“Why did you leave me?”

****

How then do we really know that we are exiles?

It is simple.

We want to go home but we cannot

And that is the very definition of an exile.

* Copyright John Hankin 23 May 2014; this work cannot be reproduced without my prior permission. I assert all legal and moral rights in relation to this work.

****

I wrote I Am Somewhere Else on 30 September 2013 when I was in Europe without Margaret. This work also explores how every one of us spends a lifetime searching for home. Words evaporate if I try to explain my loss now that Margaret is not ill, but dead. My recent trip to Ireland and the United Kingdom without her, was like wading through thick tar.

I Am Somewhere Else*

Tonight, I am in Split.

Split is a port city,

A tourist destination on the Adriatic coast;

In Croatia

On the Mediterranean Sea.

But you are not here.

You are somewhere else.

Thousands of kilometres away.

In a different hemisphere.

For you it is already tomorrow.

For me it is only 9:30 pm.

While I am on holiday,

There is no holiday for you.

For you there is patchy health.

Health that must be healed by doctors’ potions;

And the mumbling incantations of modern medicine.

In your time of need I am not with you,

Because you are somewhere else.

Through multiple nights in cheap and often dismal hostels,

I reach out for your hand;

Seeking the comfort of your presence.

But you are not there.

There is only empty space on the cheap mattress in the cheap room.

Because you are somewhere else.

I call you on my mobile.

Your voice pings across vast oceans.

It really is you.

Yet it is not you.

For I am here,

While you are somewhere else.

In my dreams we walk together.

In my dreams, the distance between us has no meaning.

Yet my dreams always end.

When I wake,

The dreams of you become elusive phantoms.

Fleeing from me,

Laughing softly.

For even my dreams know the truth.

I miss you.

While you are somewhere else,

You need me as much as I need you.

Yet you are not with me.

Because I am somewhere else.

Unable to hold your hand.

Except in my dreams.

* Copyright John Hankin 31 September 2013; this work cannot be reproduced without my prior permission. I assert all legal and moral rights in relation to this work.

****

In 2013, my friend Nes Fernandez had a heart attack and asked me to accompany him on a trip to Europe and I agreed. I wanted to be sure that if his health deteriorated while he was away from Australia, he would have someone with him who could try and make sure he was properly cared for. I was in Europe from 10 September 2013 to 31 October 2013. Fortunately, Nes had no health scares while we were away.

When Anne Ryan decided to cancel Margaret and me in February 2021, Nes joined the cancellation party. For a few months, Nes had been Anne Ryan’s lover.