In January 2013 I was commissioned by Tamasha Theatre to run writing workshops and write a creative response to their production of Shaun Tan's The Arrival.
The Arrival.
Here.
I am here.
Here I am.
Here is the space that I occupy.
I occupy this space.
Home.
My home is.
I am.
Home is....
When I can't go to the places I used to
go to,
do the things I used to do,
eat what I used to eat,
I feel as though I'm not the same
person any more.
I don't know this person
who can't read or write or speak to
strangers,
who can't read labels on tins of food
or exchange money for goods.
Here.
I am here.
Here is the space that I occupy.
Here is.
Home is....
I am busy all the time with my baby.
When I think about my home I am sad.
When I think about my parents I cry.
When I am with my family I am happy.
The sun isn't warm.
The sky is a different sky, this is not
my sky.
This silver-white
now mango and pretty-peach
now terracotta with fat red wine clouds
now blue charcoal shot through with
pewter and gold
now light falling between clouds like
arrows.
I watch the strange new sky change
And I think;
“Everything is so alien I can hardly
believe that my lungs can breathe the air.”
I occupy this space.
Space is not home.
Home is not space or place.
Home is not feet planted in this earth
or that.
Home is not a bed in a room in a house
where I don't know how to prepare a meal or a hot drink or how to
read a newspaper.
Home
is in a suitcase with you.
Home
is suspended in my heart's continent.
Not occupied but remembered. Relived.
Replayed. Steps retraced.
I am here.
Here I am.
Here is the space that I occupy.
I occupy this space.
I have to cross the gateway to.
To....
I don't understand the sounds or the
signs or the symbols.
I don't understand the food or the
music.
I don't understand the hushed women or
the loud boys.
I know where I am and I'm lost and I
can't get back.
It's just me alone in my head.
You're here too.
I will take you everywhere by bus or
boat or balloon.
He
said don't worry, don't be scared, I'll show you.
I'll
never forget that.
I
was ashamed, embarrassed.
I don't recognize the person I used to
be.
But now
much later
I start to see who I am now.
I
am beginning to grow back like a seed, or a lost limb.
I have crossed the gateway now to what
is from what was.
I feel that the world is here, now I
don't care, wherever I am is where I belong. I think I belong
everywhere.
I think I belong here. I am here. I am
here and I have.
Arrived.