Alfie’s House

We have lived in this apartment for almost 3 years. I was heavily pregnant and desperate for a place to call our own when we packed our things and headed for the coast.

Most days, this house still doesn’t feel like home. In the past, I have always had a knack for settling in, for making a space mine, but here it’s been surprisingly hard and I just don’t know why.

For me, home and childhood are deeply linked, they’re where we first learn what safety, love, and belonging feels like. As adults, we keep chasing these feelings, and for children, home is their whole world, if it’s done right. It saddens me that I haven’t fully connected with this space yet, because I want it to be everything my son needs. I want his first address to be remembered as a place filled with warmth and love.

We live by the ocean on Dharawal country, South Coast of New South Wales. I never imagined myself here, though the feeling isn’t unfamiliar. Beach towns have this strange pull like they’re offering you the holiday version of life. I knew it wasn’t real, but it was nice to fantasise for a while. Of course, once the honeymoon period wears off (and you remember that you’re actually a city girl at heart), you realise no place is perfect. Every town has its cracks and wherever you go, there you are.

When I move to a new place, I’m not there for surface living—I want deep, lasting connections, the kind that make it hard to leave. I want all or nothing. It’s taking far longer than ever before to feel this now, I know that it’s going to require some work on my part to establish. I must surrender to this decision that we made and ground myself here, for now. I must continue to make human and place based connections and keep searching for the beauty in each day.

It must start at home - in the light, in the quiet warmth of this space that we’re slowly growing into. This is Alfie’s house.

Photographs captured on my Canon 5D Mark II with 35mm lens