My happy place. There really isn’t anything quite like home. I get it… I have been told many times that home is where the heart is, and yes part of me agrees with this. I have a home on the West Coast of Aotearoa and a second home with family on the East Coast. I feel connected, grounded and a deep sense of belonging in Waimangaroa. I feel comfortable, welcome and also a sense of belonging and ease when I stay with my parents on the East Coast. But this feeling I get when I am at home on Pitt Island… this is something else entirely.
It is inherent… It is primordial… It is a connection to that land that lives in my bones and heart, something passed down through generations. It’s older than words and deeper than thought — like a memory that has always been with me. It is a deep, ancestral, and unshakable bond that I have with my home at Pitt Island. It’s hard to explain… but it’s something I know, something I feel every time I step onto that land. That land still breathes through me… the land is me.
