Poorna | Nelson

“For me, what home means wherever I feel love. So, my home is my husband and when I’m surrounded by beautiful mountains, and beautiful views, nature. That’s my home. I love Nelson.

I feel so at home here. I feel warm, cosy. It’s small, and very calm and quiet and it feels to me like I can find myself, so open and relaxed. In that sense, I actually have a home down in the South Island, but whenever I come back, when I see the farmstock area, I always say to my husband, oh my god, we’re home. It’s home. 

After I came here to Nelson from Sri Lanka, I felt kind of lost, like one-and-a-half years ago, because I felt like at that moment, I don’t have anyone. I don’t have family, my friends. I don’t have my husband. Then little by little I learned to be grateful for each and every moment that I’m alive, I spend with my husband, the love that I’m always getting from him. When I cook, when I draw, when I paint and when I do workshops and when I walk, each and every little thing matters to my life. I learned that because whenever I think about what you can’t be grateful for, uncountable reasons come to your mind. I’m jobless, I don’t have kids, I don’t have friends or anything, and they can just come to your mind but then I choose to be happy, and grateful for each and every moment, because when you wake up, you’re alive, and you can breathe. You’re healthy on your feet, and you are still young. So, you can be grateful for small things in life, and you can be happy. You can choose to be happy. So, I learned to be happy like that.

In Sri Lanka I lived in a beautiful village called Kandy. It’s the central part of Sri Lanka. It’s almost like Nelson, surrounded by beautiful mountains and it has a beautiful lake in the middle of the city. So, whenever I travel from Kandy to the village it’s like a wonderful and amazing view. 

My mum is an art teacher, so because of her I got my talent and everything. She made me who I am, I think basically. I studied design in university. So, I have a big passion in design, and I have my own labelling back there. I was working as an artist and designer. So, that’s my background. 

I have been working when there was an art festival over the last two years, and I’m not doing, I’m not working right now. I’m learning English in the English centre, so that’s what I’ve done. I’m a student, yes.”