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| Melinda Ham is a Canadian writer now living with her family on Scotland Island, Australia. She often writes feature articles for the Sydney Morning Herald. Here Melinda shares with us her journey to discovering a special place in the world. |
| My Island Home |
As I sit at my desk and look out the window at the wind gently fondling the waves
as sailboats languorously drift by on this becalmed morning, I reminisce about my journey to this island - Scotland Island - in the middle of Pittwater in northern Sydney, New South Wales, Australia where I've finally found myself and my sense
of place.
I was born in November 44 years ago in the sleepy, snow-swept town of Gander in Newfoundland, on an island off the coast of eastern Canada. I lived there only a year and remember nothing. But strangely a few years ago, I had an epiphany about my beginnings. I saw the movie the Shipping News filmed there and realised my subconscious attraction and connection to an island, the sea, that isolation, and somehow I needed to come full circle and find that place even if it only existed in my imagination.
As a child and teenager I grew up in Toronto but never had a sense of belonging,
a sense of place. My dad was a fourth generation Canadian but my parents divorced and he had little effect on my sense of identity. My mother is British and always harked back to the "old country" and didn't give me much feeling that Canada was where I came from.
My close friends were all first generation Canadians with deep roots to their parent's cultural heritages in Greece, Latvia or Germany. They all spoke English as a second language. I revelled in their celebrations when I was invited to eat their honey-dripping baklava, their braided Easter Bread, to participate in their festivals, to make flower garlands and dance hand-in-hand in a circle with other girls, even though I fumbled the steps, didn't know the language or really understand the traditions.
As a young adult, I ventured out on my own to England where my mother's cultural roots were. I adored the thatched cottages, the crumbling castles, the hundreds of years of history seeping through all the bricks and mortar, the narrow, winding lanes in the country bordered with hedge rows abloom with yellow primroses or pink campions. Still while England is an island and I had some spiritual connection, I realised it wasn't where I belonged.
For the next 15 years, I travelled and worked in Europe, Africa and then Asia but still even though I wrote stories about earthquakes, coup attempts, elections, droughts, refugees, visits of popes and dignitaries, I was an observer and this was not where I belonged. I needed an island to call my own.
Finally, with my husband Mike and our children Jasmine and Harry we "discovered" Scotland Island in mid 2003. Of course it had really been known by Aboriginal people for thousands of years - there are still middens, the piles of shells leftover from their feasts. Much later it was settled by a freed convict in 1806 called Andrew Thompson who built the first house. Thousands of people have called it "home" since then and we now share it's tranquillity with 900 other residents.
Scotland Island is only a 45 minute drive from downtown Sydney, so we have not made a total sea-change and thrown ourselves miles away from civilisation. But the only way to reach it is by boat. There's no bridge to the mainland and that sense of separateness provides a mental and physical isolation and sense of freedom and space that most of the residents absolutely adore.
For me, after my 40 year journey, for some inexplicable reason, I feel the spotted gum trees welcome me, the Kookaburras laugh at me in a friendly way, the Rainbow Lorikeets chatter around me and a sense of deep peace and calm somehow envelopes me, massages my soul and tells me that I have finally stopped travelling. This is my island, my destiny, my resting place - for the time being anyhow until I must be moving on again. |
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By Melinda Ham
Australia
Learn more about Scotland Island |
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| Melinda on the beach at Scotland Island, overlooking Broken Bay in the tidal waterway of Pittwater. |
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| Discovering new inlets by boat is a fun family activity! |
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| Sailing with son Harry over the December holidays….you don't have to go too far for fabulous outdoor hobbies. |
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| Driving the groceries home is a whole new experience when you live on an island. |
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| Bringing in the New Year with daughter Jasmine, husband Mike, and son Harry. |
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