I could count my moments of homesickness in a few ways;
Instagram posts I’ve deleted an hour after posting because they were too melancholic.
Facebook status updates that have met the same fate.
Emails to Mum sharing the overflow of emotion I don’t know how to share with anyone else.
Hours spent alone in beautiful locations in search of some divine intervention.
Scraps of paper containing song lyrics and mindless musings.
But so far I can’t count it in dollars spent on plane tickets home.

When my mind wanders and I lose focus on anything important or tangible, subconsciously I visualise the backyard of my parents’ home.
I’m sitting at the outdoor dining table, and maybe Eric Clapton’s Unplugged album is playing on the speakers overhead.
It’s either that or The Waifs’ live album; my memory of my parents’ musical tastes spans about four albums total.
The view from the porch is the same I had while my veterinarian father euthanised our geriatric blue heeler, Holly.
The same view I had while I looked up from reading an obituary in The Australian about the death of Heath Ledger.
The same view my dad posted a photo of on Facebook recently, noteworthy as the lawn played host to a family of kangaroos.
It’s where I go in my head when I think about nothing; when little else seems important.
It’s home – and it is always there, even if it seems like there is nothing else.

I don’t write letters anymore; in truth I rarely even write emails.
I tell myself my long winded Instagram captions and Facebook musings are enough to let my friends and family know how I’m doing.
I recently joined Snapchat because a friend, whose writing I admire, told me it’s a good way of ‘keeping long distance relationships on life support,’ just enough to keep them alive.
The irony of hearing that from a friend living on the other side of the country was not lost on me.
I think myself a luddite if I don’t adapt to the newest ways of communicating, and a victim to trends if I do.
The reality is that the people who deserve updates on where I am and what I’m doing are the ones who won’t get them, at least not direct from the source.
As Dan Mangan sang; “It’s so easy to be awful to the ones you need the most, so in the end all I hope is that they know.”

Yesterday I felt more at home than I have in months, but that may just be because I got the worst sunburn I’ve had in the northern hemisphere.
There’s just something about a whisky enhanced breakfast that relegates any self preservation such as sunscreen or not snowboarding under the influence to the back seat.
I joined friends from Noosa in their Revelstoke kitchen for a breakfast that included thick cut bacon, avocado and Vegemite on toast and I felt at home.
We stood in the sun on their patio casting our gaze to the mountain, drinking coffee and Revelstoke Pecan Spiced Whisky and I felt at home.
I spoke with a friend from work about how he was in Margaret River about a month after I left in 2014, while he cooked up one of the best potato bakes I’ve ever eaten.
Up on the mountain the sun was out and with it came the kind of mass celebrated nudity you might find on a European beach.
It was Gnar Day, a day dedicated to Shane McConkey; a professional skier who thought the sport took itself too seriously, and amongst my naked and drunken friends, I felt at home. 

Home is safe. Home is familiar. Home is a catchy-as-fuck folk song by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes.
Right now I’m sitting in a local restaurant being served by a friend I went snowboarding with a few days ago.
I’m about to ride my bike to my apartment and I’ll probably whistle the tune of the Edward Sharpe song on my way there.
I might see some friends on my way, and their presence will comfort me.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll wake up and decide the people I need to see most are my family, in Australia, and that’s where home will be.
But for today, home is just the idea of love.
And I’m full of ideas.