I’ve stayed too long in the USA. My ticket is not until November. I’m missing Australia, especially the trees and the birds. As the trees here lose their leaves I imagine the spring flowers now unfolding in Australia.

How can I be homesick for what was my mother’s home? Is a longing to go back to the home country passed through generations? I have friends in Australia who’ve returned to their parent’s homeland. So yes, I believe it is true.

When I wrote Vision from Two Continents I was expressing my mother’s grief at leaving Australia and sharing her Minnesota paintings of the Queensland Bush. Now, here is in Wisconsin I find myself admiring the fall colors outside my kitchen window:

Then I descend into the basement where I’ve spent hours recreating my favorite trees from Melbourne. Now I can sit on the “Dunny”

While sitting there I can see a flowering wattle tree:

All the while a majestic spotted gum tree towers over me.