Negotiating Home

I've been thinking a lot about travel and my seemingly steadfast relationship with home. With the watercolour painting I live in. And the new lens I will return with after exploring Southeast Asia. Despite spending much of my summer on a Cormac McCarthy binge, I've turned to my old friend Joseph Conrad to help me negotiate the life of a pirate. Below is a stunning passage from his 1900 novel Lord Jim.

'We wander in our thousands over the face of the earth, the illustrious and the obscure, earning beyond the seas of our fame, our money, or only a crust of bread; but it seems to me that for each of us going home must be like going to render an account. We return to face our superiors, our kindred, our friends - those whom we obey, and those whom we love, but even they who have neither, the most free, lonely, irresponsible and bereft of ties, - even those for whom home holds no dear face, no familiar voice, - even they have to meet the spirit that dwells within the land, under its sky, in its air, in its valleys, and on its rises, in its fields, in its waters and its trees - a mute friend, judge and inspirer. Say what you like, to get its joy, to breathe its peace, to face its truth, one must return with a clear consciousness.'

***

'I think it is the lonely, without a fireside or an affection they may call their own, those who return not to a dwelling but to the land itself, to meet its disembodied, eternal, and unchanging spirit - it is those who understand best its severity, its saving power, the grace of its secular right to our fidelity, to our obedience. Yes! few of us understand, but we all feel it though, and I say all without exception, because those who do not feel do not count. Each blade of grass has its spot on earth whence it draws its life, its strength; and so is man rooted to the land from which he draws his faith together with his life.'

This blade of grass will return with a clear consciousness to render his account. Promise.