At Home in the World: Reflections on Belonging While Wandering the Globe

by Tsh Oxenreider

Reed says a few days after our arrival here: “I like Australians. They almost speak English.”

This is the constant parental challenge, to push our fledglings out the tree, into the liminal void, a maturing exercise that’s exacerbated during travel, when everything is new and nothing is predictable.

This water holds magic, gives birth to creation where most days nary a human eye is witness. Water is familiar; it is front-yard sprinklers and nearby creeks. And it is exotic, unknown, bearing secrets to worlds beneath worlds.

Parenting is hard because of diapers and time-outs, the slog of sounding out vowels and the drama of mailboxes missing party invitations. But it is hardest because it is a mirror. It is life staring me down. It is the echoes of my inner childish voice reverberating from my children’s; it is the denial of me going first. It is my flesh and blood unleashed, encased around another personality, another will. It is the continual death of my basal impulses for the exchange of extraordinary. It is fighting traffic for gymnastics class, early-morning sandwich cutting, late-night math drills. It is perpetual togetherness while circumnavigating the globe.

“Years ago, Pete worked for a man named Westbrook. He was from San Diego, and we got to visit him a few times. Every time we did—and it turns out he did this for everyone who came to visit—he’d pull out all the stops. He gave us the master bedroom, the full use of his car, paid for all our meals. He’d clear his schedule to take us all over the city. Westbrook insisted we pay for nothing during our stay, since it was his town and we were his guests. He went above and beyond, making sure we had the absolute best time in San Diego. We loved it so much, his take on hospitality and giving over and above, that we vowed to always do the same as a family. Now, anytime someone comes to Sydney, we pull out all the stops and do what we can to make ’em feel at home. No paying, no feeling weird about asking for something, no tiptoeing around or shushing kids. This is what we always did when our kids were still at home, and now that they’re out of the house with their own families, they’ve kept it up and are still doing it. Westbrook Effect.”

I feel at home in the world, and I feel like Alice falling down a rabbit hole.

going into the unknown means returning to the known is a bewitching sweetness. Adventure doesn’t always require a sturdy backpack.

For what you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing: it also depends on what sort of person you are. —C. S. Lewis