Stranger in a Strange Land
“I could see the buildings lined up and down the street in front of me against the backdrop of a greyish sky. To my right was a huge plate-glass window covered with hand drawn black and white poster ads of the weekly specials the supermarket had on offer. It was difficult to focus on any one particular picture. The constant motion of the toing and froing made them a bit of a blur. As I turned my gaze to the source of the movement I saw a figure in front of me with arm outstretched, gripping the pram handle, swaying backwards and forwards. I knew this person was not my mother and yet they were very familiar to me. I sensed my mother was inside the store that I was parked out front of. This was my very first conscious memory as an infant.
When I was older and recounted this earliest memory of being in the pram to my mother, she seemed to think I was in front of Woolworths in Wheelgate, Malton. It was perhaps my mother’s sister who was watching me while Mum ducked in for some groceries. My auntie would take me out often in the pram when I was little and I was once mistaken for her child, with my blonde locks and fair complexion. Both my parents had dark hair and my mother had a slight olive complexion with large dark brown eyes. She could actually be taken as being of Spanish descent. I inherited my auntie’s blonde hair and my father’s fair complexion and green eyes.
As I stood now, across the road in front of what was the old Woolworths building in Malton, almost half a century later, I broke out in goosebumps. Glimpses of other childhood memories came flashing back in fleeting moments like it was all a dream. Yet in the same instant it was as if time had stood still. The sky was still low and grey like it had been that day in my infancy. The air was still fresh and brisk. The feelings of nostalgia were strong and sharp. Despite the fact that I hadn’t been here for over forty years, the familiarity was almost palpable. I felt at home, but at the same time felt like I was in a strange land. I was as far away from home as one could physically be, and yet strangely on a deep level, this was still home.”
The three paragraphs above are an excerpt from chapter two of my Memoirs, “Returning Home – My Journey of a Lifetime.” The title of the book in itself has multiple meanings. On the one hand it is a story of my journey back to the country of my birth, over forty years after leaving it for a life in the Great Southern Land. Returning to my ‘home’ country was unexpected and under bizarre circumstances. It also involved other worldly experiences and divine intervention. Just as in life, seeming coincidences and synchronistic events lined up just perfectly to get me to where I was meant to be, exactly when I was meant to be there.
The title also alludes to the fact that one of the main characters (my mother – pictured on the front cover of the book), also returned home, both figuratively and literally. By this I mean that not only did she return to her beloved homeland, England, but also to her spiritual home after passing away, quite unexpectedly, while there.
The third tier of meaning in the title of my book is in the sub-title, “My Journey of a Lifetime”. Not only was this my one and only trip back to the UK, but in writing my memoirs over a four and a half year period, I revisited my childhood and journeyed back through my life thus far in order to write my story.
As I explain in the book, being in my homeland forty years after leaving it as a young child, I felt a sense of nostalgia and familiarity but at the same time I felt like I was a stranger in a strange land. This became the title for chapter two; “Stranger in a Strange Land”. Again this title has a double meaning. On the physical level it meant that even though England will always be my homeland, for me it is as far away from what I have known home to be for most of my life. Australia will always feel more home to me, no matter where else I travel or find myself throughout life.
In the spiritual sense, I have always felt like I am a stranger in a strange land, just being here on Earth. I know I have been here before. I have no doubt of that. I feel as if I’ve been here forever sometimes. So much so that I often feel very exhausted spiritually, like my soul has had to come here again and again. Déjà vu is a frequent sensation. I feel familiar with certain people who are part of my soul family even though they are not blood related.
To me the physical plane is not my natural state of being, nor necessarily where I really want to be. I don’t mean that I am suicidal. Just that have a deep yearning to be where I feel I am truly home. This world is harsh. But I know I am here to make a difference while I am here. To help my fellow travellers find their way home too.
I don’t have answers to the big questions. I continue to search for and seek out truth. I change my mind often on ideas and ideologies that I once held on to as hard and fast facts. I know I am in this world, but not of it. And I really look forward to returning home……….for good!
Love and blessings
Amanda
www.returninghomemyjourneyofalifetime.com
Facebook @returninghomemyjourneyofalifetime
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Photograph - Amanda H. McLeod Photography © 2012
Taken in Wheelgate, Malton 2012. The old Woolworths Building
