We Are Home

Home had appeared one day beyond the mangrove, far away from the cold hills and valleys of Derbyshire where I first learned to grow my roots of place. Struck by the soul of a kind new friend and forged by distant hearts, on that day home had become a place not to leave but to carry.
Spanning oceans and continents, home had become a song about displacement and reconnection. About bravery and resilience despite the feeling of loss.

Mangrove trees are amazing. They bind together an intricate community that provide habitat for a huge diversity of animal and plant species. Roots fuse on an epic scale and stand strong against the wild oceans hurricanes and tsunamis. When the seas calm they slow water down and filter the vital sediment establishing a new place for life. If our ways as humans can be reflected through the patterns and cycles of our observations of nature then perhaps there are even more intricate lessons to be learnt about ourselves as we analogise our way deeper into the forest. On that particular day, far from the familiar, the mangrove had helped me connect once again and write.
It reminds me that often all that is needed of me as a writer to is simply show up and listen.

There must be thousands of songs entitled 'Home'. In an era where most of the planet have been told to stay put, our definition of what home really is has been challenged. Traditionally defined by our personal spaces, home is where we rest, eat and sleep and hopefully feel safe. Yet what many have experienced through our recent times has been a yearning to be outside among our families, friends and strangers. Within the presence of nature and all its intricacies and influences. Perspective is a precious gift often only afforded to us in hindsight. Our experiences over the last few months have provided us an opportunity to learn something more about what home really is to us all. Perhaps it is not the immediate space we curl up to hide from the world but the world its self and further still, our very existence that defines home. When astronomer Carl Sagen insisted that NASA turn voyager 1 around to take a photograph of Earth as it left our solar system in 1990, his motivations were far from scientific. The photo of Earth known as The Pale Blue Dot became a rare perspective of our home and the vast space around us. Home is belonging, it's right here around us and within us.

I've been a DIY musician for over 20 years and home has always been the place I write, record, rehearse and explore music. Everything I've ever released has been recorded in this small space on my own. However, inspiration is by no means bound by the four walls of my spare room. Just as water finds it's way back to the ocean so too, songs, rhythms and melodies find their way back to us all. If home is a place then it is here. If it is comfort and safety then we need only prompt our own actions to make those aspects a reality. After all, we are a small planet spinning at one thousand miles an hour, travelling at sixty seven thousand miles an hour around a yellow dwarf star travelling at four hundred and ninety thousand miles per hour on the edges of a majestic spiral galaxy one hundred and fifty million light years away from the pull of The Great Attractor. We may not know why we are but we do know where we are. We are home.