Coming home
It’s been a strange year. All at once, I turned 50, experienced some personal upheaval, and took my first trip home to Australia in more than nine years—actually, the first since my father died. A friend has described the past few months as “coming home” in terms of who I am and what I want, which strikes a chord. It’s also deeply weird and unexpected.
When I came to the United States in June 2001—twenty-two years ago!—I couldn’t wait to leave Australia. I was as much if not more driven by the opportunity to run away than run toward the excitement of living in New York City. In my mid-20s arrogance, I’d written off Australia as just too small for the likes of me; too provincial; too insignificant. And air-freighted copies of GQ, Esquire,Vanity Fair, and the New Yorker purloined at eye-watering cost at the newsagent in Fairfax’s Darling Harbour HQ were no substitute for the real thing.
So, I jumped on a plane. Heck, I would have flown it myself. And after two decades in which New York slapped me around for a few years before I ended up in Connecticut and Chicago and Connecticut and California and Chicago again, I’d reached a point where I wasn’t quite sure where I was from any more. That seemed about right: I’d lived overseas as a kid and traveled; my dad was born in London but raised in America; and being a citizen of the world seemed glamorous. Besides, I’d never quite understood the odd grip Australia seemed to have on people, even those way smarter and more successful than me (I wrote a book where that was a central theme).
Late last year, I even took the plunge after 17 years of being on a green card and became a US citizen, adding an American passport to my Australian and British ones. After so long in the States and with two young sons, the time just seemed right to commit to my adopted country (especially as it gives me the right to vote, rather than just scream in frustration from the sidelines).
Then life intervened. And I found myself increasingly craving Australia and the opportunity to go “home,” even if that home bore little resemblance to the one I left almost half a lifetime ago. As I prepared to land in Melbourne, I had two overriding thoughts: that it would be sad and odd to not see my dad, and that I would probably find Australia felt nothing more than familiarly foreign. Both depressed me; they were deaths of different kinds.
Yet the reality was quite different. Of course, a lot has changed. For starters, Australia ain’t provincial, and I was a dick to think it was two decades ago. It’s a dynamic, creative, global influencer. I’m lucky to have it; it’s not lucky to have me. And I absolutely now get what all those people have told me over the years: there’s something at the country’s heart and its approach to living that’s deeply ingrained and wonderfully appealing. It’s a spirit and outlook on life I need to embrace more fully, and one I hope to instill in my sons through far more frequent visits in the years ahead.
But what to do in the meantime? I’ve brought a taste of Australia to Chicago. It’s hard to overstate the importance of coffee and coffee culture back home—obsessive and marginally insane doesn’t really capture the true extent of the addiction. So, as a birthday present to myself (with an assist from mum), I returned to the States and immediately ordered a full coffee kit: La Marzocco Linea Micra espresso machine, Eureka Oro Mignon single dose grinder, and more accessories than your average neighborhood cafe (the photo accompanying this post is my setup). It takes pride of place in the kitchen, a several-times-a-day reminder of the need to slow down and simply take life one sip at a time. After all, that’s what us Aussies do.