Home

Here then at home, by no more storms distrest,
Folding laborious hands we sit, wings furled;
Here in close perfume lies the rose-leaf curled,
Here the sun stands and knows not east nor west,
Here no tide runs; we have come, last and best,
From the wide zone in dizzing circles hurled
To that still centre where the spinning world
Sleeps on its axis, to the heart of rest.

Lay on thy whips, O Love, that me upright,
Poised on the perilous point, in no lax bed
May sleep, as tension at the verberant core
Of music sleeps; for, if thou spare to smite,
Staggering, we stoop, stooping, fall dumb and dead,
And, dying so, sleep our sweet sleep no more.

Dorothy L Sayers, Gaudy Night


A lovely sonnet from one of my favourite novels. The idea of home as a place of rest in the middle of the spinning world holds a lot of resonance for me; who has never really found home.

I started this post while still in Europe, and while I found it bittersweet wrapping up and getting ready to leave, I have to admit that I am really glad to be home.

England was a fun adventure. I enjoyed my studies, enjoyed travelling, and enjoyed living so close to London. It was exciting, busy, and I was always a little amazed and bemused that I was actually doing what I was doing. There was a sense of unreality about my being there that I couldn't quite shake. And it certainly was surreal to be able to hop on a plane and fly to Germany for the weekend (or wherever) and then be back at work the following week.

But I have to admit, that now that I've been back in Canada for a week, and back in the little town I intend to settle in, I am home. As much fun as England was, I could never really see myself living there. I don't know whether it was the landscape, the culture, or a little of both.

But as I drove north from Toronto, and the agrarian landscape of South Western Ontario spread out around me, and the snow lay thick on the fields and trees, I could feel a part of me start to revive; those little roots I have allowed myself to put down over the last few years whenever I have come here on vacation starting to spread a little deeper and find a bit more nourishment in this place.

I am home. And although I will have to leave again soon, and it will be several years before I can settle here permanently, I have found a place I can call home.