Homage Table

Let me tell you: our current home is uuuuug-leeeeeeee. It's a rectangular brick box with zero character and rather nasty net curtains. It is a rental; one of the perks of The Absolute Gents' career.





Gosh, I thought when we found out that it was the only house available to us in the whole of Adelaide, talk about a sow's ear.

After 18 months there still isn't a great deal of silk to be found. We are not allowed to change the paint or curtains, or anything really.

But it's home. It really is. Red aluminium windows, flowery nets and the most revolting nylon carpet you could imagine (let's not talk about the 'I'm a slate floor on ice' lino floor covering 40% of the floor.) This is where we live and love, where we squabble and learn, where we share meals and rest our heads.

And it's where we gather small vestigages of our lives . Doesn't everyone? Don't we all have homage tables, or little corners where we set up a kind of alter to our thoughts and journey? A place to display our trinkets and our treasures, most importantly, a place for our memories to sit along side us?

My special spot has Chinese elm chairs from Penang, an Amercan oak pedestal table, lamps also from Penang and an oil painting of the Adelaide Hills that shows one of our previous houses.

Most importantly, there is a paper chain to count-down to Imogen's birthday, a mass of family photographs, dolls from India, lacquer bowl from Vietnam, papier mache painted eggs from the Middle East and a similar box from India. Some of them are precious gifts from dear friends or family.

They are the little detials that tie us to our past. Our journey. Our whims. The beautiful or odd things that matter.

A sense of place

We have lived in many places, The Absolute Gent and I. Poky brick boxes in darkest Adelaide suburbia, a ridiculously large apartment in Malaysia, Penang, a solid yet sweet Lutheran 1860s farmhouse in the Adelaide Hills...and each time we have known that it would not be for long. Soon, TAG's work would need us to relocate and we would be sorting our life into boxes again.

Brin, the writer of my favourite blog My Messy Thrilling Life posted a poignant reflection on what her home means to her recently. The passion and devotion for her home is so overwhelming it's almost painful - even to her. It has become a central theme in her every-day. It is a character in her charming and eventful life.


Last year I found the house pictured above for auction. Idly looking, not even trying, I plucked the picture from the hundreds in the real estate section and thought this I have to see.

I fell in love. Like never before. Have you ever walked into a house and felt that laying your cheek against its wall would bring you comfort? Did you know that seeing woodwork of the curving staircase creeping out of the too-small kitchen would be a constant pleasure, despite late nights or grumpy children? Have you ever looked out of the upstairs windows (paned and sashed) and wondered what secrets are whispering in the garden shadows?



It seemed a far cry from this tiny, sensible, suburban cottage we have held on to in Canberra, deliciously close to Lake Burley Griffin and the marvellous Weston Park. I wanted to break with 1950s Frederick House and take up with my new, romantic, 1850s love: strong, stout and remote.

We came within a whisker. Our bank was ready, we were ready, but someone else wanted it more than The Absolute Gent, and so we rode on by.

I ached for that house, I'm almost ashamed to concede. How ridiculous! A house can not bring definition, joy, hope, stability, friendship, loyalty, security, safety, romance, a sense of place, a sense of belonging...I tell myself these things, and yet I am not quite comforted.

I will not be limited by my domestic need to nest, I think. For too long women have allowed domesticity to tame them. And yet. And yet.



I have never understood men's need for war. For territory, for ownership, for country. But perhaps men find their sense of place in the big picture. Perhaps country means identity, like home means self. A man protects his borders like women guard their nest.

I am sure that there is something to be gained by our peripatetic life. Indeed, there is much to be gained. These tastes of other lives, our several lives, must be enriching. A sense of place is heightened by its transience. For nothing stays the same. Even houses.