Inspirations & Connections | XI. Homecomings
Where is home? Recently, I experienced a deep-seated and inextricable homecoming. It's in the blood, and wherever I turned, there were ghosts from the past, with their cheery greeting: "welcome home".
Welcome to Rediscover · Reconnect · Re-Emerge. If you find the fleeting changes of modern life wearisome, maybe even overwhelming, join me on a journey, a path well-trodden, as I share heartfelt and often nostalgic reflections on living slowly, simply, and in tune with the seasons.
Community, and creating a sense of community, is so important to me, and to the world. In this series, taking a particular theme, I want to share with you some of the inspirations, connections and other communities which have enriched my life, in the hope that they may do the same for you too.
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Where is home?
Home, wherever that may be, is a concept which may of us have explored over the years. Home might be the place we live, the place where we were born, a feeling, or even something completely different.
Where do we find out homecoming?
For many of us, home will be different in different seasons of our lives. We live in different places, with different people, and our sense of home changes with that. We seek to create homes, houses with a homely feeling. Our homecomings may change too; when do we feel that we’re truly returning home?
Homecoming was the subject of the second issue of Heiter Magazine. Many of you will have enjoyed reading the many different explorations of home, but if you haven’t, then I commend this beautiful publication to you. Drawing contributions from different people, in different places, and at different stages of their lives, including those such as
from our own community here on Substack, they all address that age-old question:Where do we feel at home?
I was born in Winchester, Hampshire, and this for me, is still home. Even though 38 years have passed since we moved away, returning there, as infrequently as I do, still stirs the childhood feelings of coming home. For me, all these years on, it is still a true homecoming.
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But over the years, I’ve also found home, and a sense of home, in other places. I’ve written previously about finding myself, finding my home, in the wild places of nature:
‘Somehow, in these vast, wild spaces, we find ourselves. In the midst of the wilderness, we stand in awe of all which lies before us. Like nature itself, in these wild landscapes, hardly touched by human hand, we stand face to face with ourselves, our past, our present, and our future.’
I’ve also found myself in places which feel like home, even though I appear to have no intrinsic connection to them. I found such a place in Baldersdale, Teesdale, another wild landscape, far from the modern world. I’ve written before about Hannah Hauxwell, one of my greatest inspirations, who lived and farmed there. As she stood in that landscape, the one in which she traversed beauty and hardship in equal measure, she simply said:
‘Wherever I am, whoever I am, this is me. This I my life.’
It was the only home she’d ever known, and no one could take that sense of home away from her.
We think primarily of home as a physical entity, a house or place where we live, but we also find home in community. These days, that sense of community extends far beyond our physical local area. For me, one of life’s great joys has been finding community online, on Instagram, and latterly on Substack. I feel at home here, as I know many of you do. My writing, cathartic as it has been, has found its own homecoming in this online space.
But in all these explorations of home, I return to the wild places, to the landscapes which hug me close, which inspire me and which ground me. In the past, those have included the Yorkshire Dales, The Lake District, and North Wales. More recently, they have included the Peak District, and most importantly, the Derbyshire Dales.
In the past few years, the Derbyshire Dales have found an unforgettable place in my heart. As many of you know,
and I were lucky to find a beautiful AirBnB in Matlock Bath, one which we shall return to for the seventh time this August. People are often perplexed as to why we return time and time again when there are so many other places to explore. We return because it’s where we leave a little bit of our heart each time. We return because those majestic, steep hills, wild open fields, and magical woodlands, draw us back, time and time again. But dig deeper, I realise there’s more to it than that.Each time we go, we feel a strange and unexplainable comfort in rising with renewed energy, as we look our down the winding Derwent Valley, mist circling silently amongst its wooded slopes. Nestled amongst the trees is the tall spire of the parish church dedicated to the Holy Trinity, where my maternal grandmother, Granny, was baptised 113 years ago. Take a five-minute walk down the steep descent of Holme Road, and we come to the house, ‘Sunnydene’, where she was born. Walking 20 minutes down the valley, past the fading glory of Masson Mill, we come to Cromford, and to the school where her mother was headmistress.
You see, going there feels like a true homecoming. There is a deep-seated and inextricable connection to these Derbyshire Dales. It’s in the blood, and wherever you turn, there are ghosts from the past, with their cheery greeting resounding through the valley: “welcome home”.
Perhaps on our life’s journey, one of our greatest quests is to find a place we can call home. Alongside that, perhaps we might also accept that the notion of home changes over time; we might have many homes in different places, in different life seasons, and as part of different communities. What I think is certain, is that when we truly find our homecoming, we will feel it deep within our souls, as it touches us in a way little else can.
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What a lovely piece to read. Home is where the heart is, as the saying goes. I love my home in Leicestershire, but Derbyshire holds part of my heart having had many holidays in the Peak District and the dales. We still visit frequently. My dad was a park ranger back in the 80's and 90's. He did his training at Hartington station and was then stationed at various points across Derbyshire including Edale and Grindleford. Scotland too holds a large piece of my heart. Each time we cross the border back into England I feel part of me has been left behind.
Beautiful, and thank you for the mention David! Home is such an important feeling for us as humans and you've explored it so beautifully here. I feel proud that Edinburgh now feels like home, after many months feeling like I was lost all the time! 😂