The boy from Tupelo

In some ways, I never thought this day would come. Perth, Western Australia - the most isolated city in the world – has been my home since I arrived in Australia at age two. I love this city for everything it’s given me… but, more importantly, for everything it has not. With less than nine hours until I board a plane out of here, I am thoughtful of the road that lies before me.

I have been fighting for fourteen years to get out of here. On a particularly bleak day in the fifth grade, Anthony Ricciardone exclaimed to the class, “Look, it’s raining!” to which Mrs. Anderson drily responded, “Yes, it is.” As all the kids laughed, I could only stare out the window at that grey sky, rain coming down like bullets, imagining that this could be the view from my loft in SoHo, New York City. At ten years of age, I knew.

I have spent the last three days packing my life into boxes and, in the process, bringing my ten-year-old self into full relief. Cross-legged on the floor of my bedroom in the family home, the only thing that remedies my anxiety is the music of Dolly Parton. In many of Dolly’s songs, the character (be they imagined, real or Dolly herself) yearns for bigger things but cannot detach herself emotionally from home, wherever that may be. “My Blue Ridge Mountain Boy,” “My Tennessee Mountain Home,” “Smokey Mountain Memories” and ”Bluer Pastures” come to mind.

I find myself empathising with the characters in Dolly’s songs now more than ever. On Sunday, my dear friends Tilman and Madeleine hosted a farewell gathering for a small group of my friends at their humble abode. I was particularly grateful they had offered to open up their home to me in the midst of my disorganisation and distress, for I had only finally decided to do something about leaving Perth when I returned from another weekend trip to Sydney at the end of June. I have had weeks to pack everything up, sort everything out… yet find with hours left, I seem to have done little in the way of moving on.

Saying goodbye is not easy. Perhaps it was the high dosage of cold and flu medication I had taken just before the party or, quite simply, my nature as a neurotic person that did not evoke outbursts of sadness from me upon the many goodbyes of the night. Or perhaps circumstantial apathy was a way of protecting myself from falling apart.

My friend Alasdair was the last to leave that night. I stood on the porch and watched him walk away. That was hard. He has reminded over these last couple of months whenever I’ve been worried (in lieu of a better word) about the possibility of being so far away from my loved ones that “Nobody’s dying,” and he was true to form as he reminded me again before we parted ways.

This evening. My last goodbye, to Tilman and Madeleine, has been the most difficult (as I knew it would be). This year has been a lesson in gratitude for me – more than perhaps any other year of my life – because it has not been an easy year by any means. Maya Angelou says when you are in the middle of a crisis, stop and say ”thank you”… so it is never lost on me that I am surrounded by a very small group of loyal and supportive people who are not only there for me, but make me want to be better. My hope is that everybody has that in their life. And without getting into detail, I can say in all honesty I am hard-pressed to find human beings I love more. Tilman and Madeleine make me happy to be alive.

You never see it coming… then it does.

When I first listened to Emmylou Harris’ “Boy From Tupelo,” I thought she had written the song about me.

You don’t love me, this I know

Every verse seemed connected to my experience…

Don’t need a bible to tell me so

…and my longing for something bigger…

I hung around a little too long

…and it spoke to me in a way few songs have been able to, exacting the currents of my life…

I was good but now I’m gone

…and the day has finally come.