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

by Tsh Oxenreider

All these years, I’d been plagued with longing for a return to my global explorative roots, but I also want nothing more than to curl up in my armchair with a good book. I dream about places unknown, but I also buy throw pillows for the couch and mull over the just-right master bathroom

we listen to an audiobook about the wall, about Qin Shi Huangdi, the emperor who commissioned the construction, and about Mongols and ancient dynastic leaders with god complexes and paranoia.

It is cheaper to fly across five time zones and rent a house for two months than to travel back to the States and deal with health insurance, wait times, and medical red tape.

Thai food tastes like ocean and timeworn tradition, fields of basil and groves of mango. Streetwise cooks in aprons and flip-flops stir salty tamarind through rice noodles and hand patrons limes to squeeze over their bowls. Paired with glugs of Singha bubbling water, and it is the best three-dollar investment of your life.

“You already have the answers you need within you from God,” Nora explains. “I am simply here to walk with you and help you unearth them. I can do that.” She lights a candle on the table in front of us and bows her head. I follow suit and close my eyes.

God speaks to us best in silence, in nooks and crannies when we’re willing to ignore the cacophony.”

we find a nearby café called Eat Play Love, where families dine on Western food and then afterward, children make crafts at the community art table while parents sip cocktails and coffee.

Ten years after our start of global, nonprofit employment doing important work in hard places, we struggled with letting ourselves enjoy things.

“It’s a blessing and honor that the rain forest welcomes us here,” John says reverently, holding his palms upward. “Let us remember to tread lightly on her and all her family, and to go forth in peace.” He is a friar in hiking boots, a deacon of the forest.

I can be in my Turkish neighborhood, minding my own business, and a smell will waft through that transports me instantly to the swing set at the park next to my elementary school. Without warning, my heart will ache for five minutes on the merry-go-round. Or I can be in Morocco, swapping memories of late-night college shenanigans, and I’ll crave a midnight run for chips and queso more than I can stand it.

I’ve lost track of various local interpretations of all the tea we’ve sipped. But I am drawn to these countries’ couches and stovetops. I keep scrutinizing their different types of light switches and windowsills.

I often feel more at home in Europe. My favorite day’s agenda anywhere mimics a life in tucked-away European villages—walking to the market for the day’s groceries, sipping coffee that isn’t in a to-go cup, drinking wine with lunch without judgment.

The French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once said, “Love doesn’t mean gazing at each other, but looking, together, in the same direction.”

I know, in my soul, that a love for travel is a gift and not a hindrance. It feels like a burden when the bucket list is bigger than the bank account, but a thirst for more of the world is not something to apologize for.

God, why do I have both wanderlust and a yearning for home?

Wanderlust and my longing for home are birthed from the same place: a desire to find the ultimate spot this side of heaven.

The more I travel, the more I’m at peace with the unslakable satisfaction of wanderlust. Its very nature exists on the promise of something better around the bend, and the stamps in my passport have proved to me my heart will always yearn for something better. And better. And better, yet.