Advertisement
When the world looks less than peachy I think most ex-pats would admit that their thoughts immediately turn to home. Perhaps its the comfort of what is familiar and the sure support of loved ones on offer. Or maybe there's that strong belief that this would never happen back home, as the saying goes 'the grass is always greener'. In the midst of our recent travel, sickness and car woes, my head has been increasingly filled with thoughts of home and the distance to home has been felt acutely. But having been away from home for 3 years now, the certainties of life back in Aus feel cloudier. Certainty has given way to questions rumbling about in my mind. What would it feel like to be back? What would our lives be like? Would it still feel like home? Would it still be the same? You become very fiercely protective of your heritage when you live surrounded by others from a background different to your own. Australia day this year was one of the least productive days of my working life to date. My head was full of thoughts of home...I could smell those sausages cooking, I could hear the rumblings
of Triple J's hottest 100 in the background, I could feel the warmth of the sun, I could taste the pavlova, I could see the faces of my loved ones celebrating the best of what it is to be Australian.
And yet, having been away for so long, I wonder if I still know what it is to be Australian? I think I do, I still feel like an Aussie in my heart. I still sound like one as the people I meet day in day out constantly remind me. But in watching the Australian Open with my friend via skype (the wonders of modern technology) and chatting about celebrities in the crowd, it became clear that I was far from up to date with popular culture in Australia. I confess, I've never ever been one to be up with the latest celebrity gossip. In fact, I've gone out of my way to avoid celebrity culture. But it is inevitable that on a daily basis, you are exposed to all sorts of pop culture celebrities who've momentarily gained the lime light due to their latest dieting success, cosmetic surgery, relationship failure or the like. It was when my friend
said to me something about someone and then asked if I knew who that was that I realised for the first time the gaps in my knowledge about life in my homeland. I have 26 years of Aussie in me, but the last 3 years I've been in the motherland and in my present tense, there hasn't been scope for keeping up with 'what's new' in Aus.
Now, this is obviously just a tiny example that is part of a much larger picture. Am I devaststed that I'm not up to date with Wayne Carey's latest girlfriend? Hardly. Do I care that Lara Bingle has broken up with Michael Clarke? Definitely not. But it highlights the other truth too. The truth that here in England, I am equally clueless about popular culture because I lack the past tense. I have 3 years in England and so I am totally up with Wayne Rooney and Cheryl Cole and why everyone thinks the Tories will win the next election. But daily I am aware of just how much I don't know about being British.
There are things that drive you insane when you first arrive in Britain. Trying to register
with a doctor requires you to have a national insurance number which you can only obtain having had an interview with the job centre., Getting a mobile phone or a credit card is a nightmare because you lack credit history. But slowly over time, you get your history together. My modern history in Britain now leads them to constantly offer me higher credit card limits and 'fantastic' mobile phone deals. But the history of people, an understanding of all the nuances of a society and culture, you can't get that after a 3 year stay. Your knowledge of a homeland is built over a lifetime. So much of it you attain as if by osmosis. But its simply living and breathing and being a part of a culture over time that attunes your senses and you start to assimilate.
But the question that I ponder, having left my homeland and missed 3 years there whilst spending that time in a new home in a new country, is where do Adam and I fit now? I've started reading a novel by Nikki Gemmel called 'Why you are Australian'. Frustratingly, I can't buy it on this side so I've been reading chapters online (not the same as curling up in bed with a book) and its definitely got me thinking about what it means to be Australian. What it means to adopt a new country too. What it feels like to be torn between two places and two possible lives. If only the best of both could be gathered up and seized for ever more. If only. Similarly, an article called 'being an alien' occupied me for quite awhile during one of our many airport stints in recent weeks. The article was actually about the ecomonic realities of being an immigrant. But in the middle of all the financial garb was a section about the emotional implications of being an immigrant, both in terms of one's relationship with one's homeland and the links that develop in the newly adopted land. It was a completely depressing article actually. It spoke of two main outcomes that arise. In one scenario, ex-pats return to their homeland to find it has changed, their loved ones have moved on with their lives, and the life they once knew completely changed. Some adapted to the change whilst others then returned instead to their newly adopted country as immigrants. For those who do immigrate, it spoke of a tendency to constantly throw back to the land of their origins, where one's homeland is wrapped in mystique and wonderment. They then seemingly create a life where they belong in neither world, idealising their native country and never really embracing life in their newly adopted one.
I wonder if its possible to marry up the variables and create some sense of 'wholeness' in a land far away from loved ones and all that is familiar. Is it possible to be Australian and become something else too, British or Swedish or French, and still feel like an Aussie after a lifetime lived abroad? What about the generations that follow-children born to Aussie parents. Would they feel a kinship with the native land of their parents? This is what the novel I've started is pondering too. The author is taking her children-born and bred in London to two Aussie parents-to the land of Aus to understand why they are indeed Australian. I wait for the moment when we too decide to go home. I wait for the feeling that the time is right, that we've been away long enough and are ready to recommence our 'real' life again. I wonder what it will feel like for us when we do finally return to start a life together in the country of our birth. But for now, I read my novel and wait.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.122s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 15; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0676s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb