sellicksIf you could soup up a DeLorean and travel back to 1989 to ask 17 year-old not so Free Man where he would be living in twenty years, he would have probably told you Charleston, Savannah or New Orleans. One of those old genteel port cities of the South, slowly crumbling into the sea. One of my many problems as a 17 year old was that I spent far too much time in my own head – a place of fantasy and a hyperactive imagination. As a 17 year old boy from the suburbs, the reality of those cities would have been a little bit too scary.  The real answer to your question is that I would have liked to live in one of these cities as an upper-class gentleman in about 1830. More accurately, I would have liked to live in a Margaret Mitchell novel.

I certainly wouldn’t have mentioned Adelaide, Australia as a possible future home. Like most of my fellow countrymen, I had little or no interest in the world beyond our national borders. After eight years of Reagan administration propaganda, I was fully convinced that the only thing available abroad was danger and communism and filth. I lived happily that way for the next decade or so. When I went back to school in the mid-90’s and to grad school a few years later, I began to socialize with foreigners. I found them interesting, and a nice addition to a potluck dinner, but still had no real interest in traveling abroad for any period of time. I even met a few Australians – a jovial race, hard-drinking, loud and comical. I knew a bit more about Australia than what I had garnered from the two Crocodiles – Dundee and the Hunter – but no overwhelming desire to visit the place, nevermind live there.

flagThen, one frigid February night in mid-Missouri, I met a stunning Irish-Australian post-doc at a party.

Nothing has been the same since.

Within a very short period of time after meeting Dr. O’C – roughly two hours (that penchant for fantasy didn’t go away at 17) – I had formulated a life in Australia in my head. It took a little longer – about eight years – but today I have a remarkably accurate reflection of that fantasy life. Who says an overactive imagination is a bad thing?

We’re a year in Australia today. We walked off the plane into the balmy Adelaide sunshine on April 24, 2008. I was jet lagged and exhausted beyond what I thought was possible and thrown into a huddle of effusive Irish relations of the good doctor. The luggage, Boy Z (then Baby Z) and Dr. O’C were whisked efficiently away. I was shepherded into a waiting Jeep-ish thing and driven down to our new ‘home’.

If I’m being 100% honest, as we drove down through Glenelg I was wondering just what the hell I had done.

In fact, I spent the first couple of months wondering just that. Everything was complicated – finding my way around, finding a job, getting the dog here, getting our earthly belongings here, sorting out an internet connection. There was more than one day that I found myself ready to give up, to chuck it in and go back. Where?

Each time I jumped one of the little hurdles that my new home had erected in my path, I felt a little bit stronger and more comfortable. A little more at home. A year later, most everything has fallen into place. A year later,  I’m as happy as I can ever recall being. I’m not entirely at home in Australia yet, but I don’t really know what that means anyway.

So maybe I am.

aussie-boyThere are a lot of things that I don’t care for about Australia. A lot of the politics. The utter lack of environmental responsibility despite being one of the most ecologically fragile places on earth. Holden utes. Boy racers. Pies. The ubiquitous anti-Americanism (though this isn’t an Australian phenomena). The distance from Australia to anywhere else in the world. Some days it’s harder than others to be 10,000 miles away from my parents and extended family. The accent.

But there are more things that I do like. The people. I was right about the people – they’re jovial, hard-drinking, loud and friendly. They’re certainly more welcoming than the Brits. In fact, a year in I can go through most days without that alien feeling that I carried around with me in England. The beaches. The empty spaces. Medicare. Sushi. Good Italian food. ANZAC biscuits. Golden Gaytimes. 

But most of all – these people (and animal):

family

I know that they could be around me anywhere in the world. But they’re here. And that’s what it all  comes down to. And as we make room for an addition, it is these people that are going to make wherever we are feel like home. 

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Grey Anne is Portland-based singer-songwriter Amy Adams. She released her debut LP “facts and figurines” back in November on Greyday Records. This track is about a girl named Adelaide, not my new home, but it’s gotten into irretriavably into my head this morning. “facts and figurines” feature stripped-down, whimsical folk-pop. A little bit cryptic, but utterly charming. Buy it from Grey Anne - Facts N Figurines.

 
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