I know a place where the sky never ends. In still moments of dusk on long summer evenings, I would look up at the light that seemed to stretch far beyond the horizon and feel like anything is possible.
It’s strange how places are so intimately connected with feelings. Nostalgia has been a rose-tinted glass as I’ve grown older, coating memories of summers in Golden Bay with a warmth I could never forget. That coastal stretch of the South Island, Aotearoa, will forever feel like home to me.
Driving along country lanes collecting fresh fruit from roadside stalls, absorbing sunlight on golden-sand beaches or diving into turquoise rivers, it has everything a traveller wants from a destination.
My brother grinning after backflipping into water, my dad laughing at the barbecue on lazy summer afternoons, my mum savouring each boysenberry as she reads in the sunshine, it has everything I want from a home.
Living abroad now, I am constantly experiencing new people and places. Home has become a unique concept, it’s not only where I grew up, but places like Golden Bay where my family was happiest. Places where I would look at the sky believing that anything is possible.
