Home is where the heart lies...

I went for a walk today, and couldn't help but relive all my memories of my little beach-side 'village'. Growing up here probably gave me the best childhood I could ever have asked for. From the age of six, I was traipsing up and down the roads all by my lonesome little self, and back then I had no comprehension of the danger the big, bad world posed. Except here was different, here was safe, here was my cocoon from the rest of the big, bad world.
I sat up on the grassy hill today and just closed my eyes and listened to everything around me. I could hear the cars on the main road, and the crashing of the tide; I could hear a few birds, and the annoying monkeys in the trees; I could hear two maids having a conversation down the road; I could hear the wind sighing through the trees; I could hear my own heartbeat content and steady. When I opened my eyes, there were two dogs on my little grassy hill: frolicking and chasing each other. One was brown and one was black and they looked to be cross-breeds of a sort. I sat there watching them, wishing to myself (for about the thousandth time), that I had my own dog (r.i.p Simba, my twelve year old german shepherd) and then these two random pooches came up to me and started sniffing about, and I made two new friends. It's amazing how dogs can tell so much about you just by licking your hand. And then the big, bad boere-bull from the house next door poked his head through the fence and began barking his ugly head off. I swear it scared the bejeebies out of me. I jumped straight up onto my feet and stood there frozen, staring at it hanging through the fence, my legs poised to run in the opposite direction (there was no standing fearless and calm next to this mad hatter) if it so much as looked like it was about to wiggle through. It didn't (thank God. To be quite honest I wasn't very sure if I could outrun it anyway - or if I'd just be giving it the thrill of the chase), and my two new friends emboldened by the razor wire securing the bully, began barking their own heads off right back at it.
I decided to do one more loop of the road, and then on my way back up, I walked back past that ugly dogs house, just to prove to myself that I could (I hate being scared of something. What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger...and all that).
And then I saw the little rock just past our own house, where if you stand, you have a really neat view. And I couldn't resist, so I stepped up on it and gloried in the beautiful vista spread out before me. And the wierdest and most pleasant thing happened: I saw D and I, at the age of about 12, walking up the street at the bottom. It was a memory (obviously), but it was like, I'd just seen our younger spectres. And I could almost see myself jump up under the fruit tree at the end of the road to see if I could spring one, and hear D's hiss of, "Stop it Lai! What if someone sees?" And it made me smile to myself: this huge retarded grin and I could feel the good times running through my veins.
No matter where I move to eventually, this beautiful place will always be my real home.