Paying Homage To Hyams

I have never lived in a house for more than four years. I have memorised street names, avenues, shortcuts—the way the light filters through each place I’ve called home. And by place, I mean these safe spaces. The rooms, the windows, the walls. The front doors and staircases.

This house by the sea has been mine for the last three months of quarantine. But a few weeks ago, it was sold.

I cried—a lot—when I found out.

I am a paradox in many ways. Perpetually restless, always seeking change, yet growing deeply attached in equal measure.

Six years ago, my mum painted a scene from the top of her head. A beach path, winding through the trees, leading to the ocean.

Five years ago, my parents took a wrong turn while driving along the coast. They followed a narrow, bumpy road all the way to a tiny village—no neighbouring town, just forest at its back and the sea at its front. They parked the car and walked down a sandy path.

And my mum, standing there, said she had found her painting.

She always believed this place had found her first. A year before she ever arrived.

A beautiful blue house with white window frames stood on the corner, waiting.

The rest is history.

This house is unlike any other I have lived in. Unlike any I have loved.

There will never be another quite like it.

This is a love letter—
To this house.
To this sliver of coast.
To The Sapphire Coast.

Looking back over these years, I realise I have always returned here, in the in-between moments of my journeys. And even during brief visits, I was swallowed whole by the magic of this place.

Nestled between six crystalline shores, the lullaby of waves echoes through the trees. Their rise and crash rumble beneath my bare feet as I walk upon the rugged ground of untouched wild.

Here, I have felt cradled—between the ink-blue vastness, the soft white sand, and the emerald maze of forest stretching for miles.

The scent of eucalyptus. The morning song of crickets.

A sanctuary.

Salt-flecked skin and sandy, unmade sheets.

112 humans in the village, we call it. Ten streets. No post office. No marked roads. A single café, run by nomads—foreign tongues, kindness stitched into their backpacks, traded for new travelers every few months.

The scent of coffee lingers from a camper van parked on the corner, spray-painted in rainbows, a collection of world map stickers covering its back window.

In the early morning, kangaroos and their joeys graze between pastel-coloured beach shacks, and rainbow lorikeets eat straight from open palms.

The distinct call of black cockatoos cracks through the silence, their dark silhouettes cutting across the sky.

Symbols of the spirit world.

The Aboriginal elders carve totems into the trail I run. Eagles hover over the shore, keeping watch.

Dogs run free into the waves.

Traces of salt on my lips when I kiss their fur.

In the late afternoon, I lay beneath the Banksia tree, the light filtering through.

I listen to the waves kiss the shoreline goodnight as the moon rises, pouring liquid silver onto the horizon.

The sky turns a soft lilac, and some nights, before the rain, the hills stand as dark silhouettes against a sunset set ablaze.

The stars here are clear and bright—I can swirl my fingertips through the Milky Way.

No streetlights. Only quiet.

Though when the wind picks up, it howls.

And when it rains, the ocean is bathwater warm.

The dolphins travel from Hyams to Blenheim to Nelson, all along the coast.

Sometimes, I feel far away. Muted from the noise of the city.

And yet, maybe that is what saves me.

Because no matter how far I go, the sea carries me back to everything I have lost.

No matter how I shift, grow, break—she remembers me.

I think I love this house for the same reason.

The mirrors have seen me change. The walls have heard my whispered secrets.

The louvre windows, casting rainbows into the corners, have held me through every winter.

And when I returned this time—when the world fell silent, paused—this place felt as though I had never left.

I unpacked fully. I settled.

I made countless fires.

I fell asleep on the couch.

I collected shells and left them in small heaps, like secrets, for someone else to find.

I showered outside beneath the wild-growing bamboo.

I howled from the top balcony at the full moon.

I sat in that corner under the window, painting and journaling for hours, watching the shadows shift with the changing light.

I cried, sitting on the staircase with my head in my hands.

I memorised every street, each one named after nature.

This house—on the corner of Bamboo and Tulip.

A block from Lotus.

Aster wrapping all the way around to Rose.

It is a fairy tale.

This house creaks and cracks all through the night.

When the lights go out, I listen as I fall asleep.

Sometimes, I swore I heard footsteps. The sound of light bones shifting.

But I was never afraid.

I imagined this house as a living, breathing thing.

When I sighed, when I stretched, it did too.

Unfolding its limbs. Settling.

Holding me in its arms until I woke.

At dawn, before the sun had risen, I would peek through the trees, watching the lighthouse across the bay.

I counted my breaths between each turn.

A wish for every one.

This has been a house of healing.

In the summers, this place is alive. Crowded.

But in this passing autumn, and now in winter, it is empty.

Some days, I would walk the beach, run the trails, dive under the waves—without seeing another soul.

The light shifts, but time does not exist here.

The past few months, I have felt like the only person on earth.

I had space, for the sake of space.

But I also had space to dream. To plan. To reflect.

To become untethered.

Maybe that was the lesson this place had been teaching me all along.

That while I was falling in love—with the stillness, the sea, the sky, the trees, the air, the fire, my practice, my writing, my filming, myself—

I was learning that this house had nothing to do with it.

That it was always me.

I let the seasons come and go with ease.

I never locked the doors when I left for a run.

I never worried about the lemon tree growing bare, even as I plucked one fruit after another.

I was present. I was grateful. I was growing.

But would I continue to be, once I left?

I thought, I don’t want to leave. I can’t.

But I did.

I packed my things.

I rolled the carpets.

I whispered thank you into every room.

I bathed in the rainbows one last time.

I swam in the cove by the rocks, the salt water masking my tears.

I locked the doors.

I drove around the block twice, down Aster.

Stopped by the café on Rose.

Then finally, I drove up the hill—

Watching the blue horizon disappear in the rear-view mirror.