homebod

Is what I am. I try, I do, but I just like being at home. Today, for example we were up early and out on a trek to Cardiff to visit Techniquest (a science hands on type of place). The drive itself was hideous. Well it *wasn't* though, actually. I just felt it was. The weather was fine, no traffic, minimal wrong turns on my part. Yet I felt my knuckles clenched on the wheel, my eyes in frown mode and the spaghetti junction type of major roads just make my whole body tense. I parked a way from the Science centre on purpose so we'd have a walk around the bay to get there. Thinking this would calm and sooth me. And it did. I could have just stayed outside the whole time.



Choosing to visit such places in term time so as not to get the half-term crowd was a severely misplaced judgement. The place was throbbing with kids in various garish coloured uniforms (yellow and black! Primary reds and blues...), the heat was phenomenal, the noise levels deafening. Even in the tiny planetarium, the volume of the voice-over was super high. I looked around kind of anxious, how come it's bothering no one else? Are there partially deaf people in here so it's on high or something...? No. I had to have my hands over my ears (whilst breastfeeding Esmé who was super wriggly girl otherwise). It was kind of what I was expecting, I am not faulting the museum, I liked various bits of it, the staff were friendly, the displays interesting.....



BUT. I feel so hyper stimulated and *ill* when I am out doing these sorts of things. One of my ears stared to throb and beat in time to my heart in a painful way and no matter how much I drank my thirst was immense. So we left. And we came home. I removed myself straight from the car, exchanged my good sheepskin boots for my gardening ones, my wool coat for my old cord one, took a cup of chamomile tea and went to sit in my veg garden. On a log near the stream. The relief! It was so immediate, and physical. The sound of the stream rushing away matching the tension in my body, disappearing. My headache vanished, and ear ache too. I closed my eyes and just felt total gratitude.



Utter thanks. To my dh who works in a city and drives like this every single day so that I can live here and not have to. To the garden and stream for just being there, being so plain and simple and clean and beautiful. So quiet, the noise only from itself. I imagined the stream and mini valleys of the garden in the city we just left and saw in my mind the litter and foulness and dank pollution it could have looked like and was so grateful and relieved allover again for this tiny place in the world so green and alive that I can call home. Because isn't this what home should make you feel?





I wonder if it's just me. But can't imagine so. Maybe its living here and being alone so often? Am I hyper sensitive? I don't remember being this way before. But more and more I feel I am. I like little places, places close to home, with familiar faces, places close to hills and mountains and running water so I know I can be there as soon as I feel the need. It's such a sense of being trapped I feel in towns and cities.





I used to wonder if living in the city or town might be better, especially since we home educate, that my kids would have museums and theatres and shows and lots of town parks, more/bigger home ed. groups and places of interest to go to every single day, should they want. But the truth is I would hate it. I finally realise. It's just not where I am right now. In any sense. I have become used to a different pace of living and anything else is such a shock and assault on me. I know tomorrow I will need to be at home and mostly in my garden. I will knit and sit down outside and make myself forget housework. I will sort through seeds to plant and be have gratitude in my actions every second for simply being at home.



I took off my boots and socks and waded into the frigid stream. The coldness was so good. And the damp bare earth under my damp bare feet was fine too. And I sit here indoors now and am Glad. And really hope that I can just stay at home more :)