Restless Roots
Feeling upside down.
The baobab is one of the oldest trees alive, some living for up to one thousand years. The ability to withstand debarking by elephants or fires is probably its most crucial survival tactic, but the capacity to store up to 100 liters of water is equally valuable to carry it through times of drought. It is a magnificent tree, but for some, quite strange to look at. As the African legend goes, the gods, in their anger, pulled out the baobabs and shoved them back in to the earth upside down with their roots left reaching for the sky. Another legend tells of God, who when creating the earth, gave each animal a seed to plant. The last animal in line to receive a seed was Hyena. Now, as everyone knows, Hyena is the ugliest and most stupid animal of the lot. In his ignorance, he planted the baobab seed upside down, resulting in its roots growing above the ground. Whichever way the story goes, it is this upside down feeling of roots suddenly exposed that I have become accustomed to.
Incidental adventure turned residence.
We have been living abroad for 20 years, first in the UK and now in the US. What started as two adults and two backpacks, turned into a house and three children. Incidental adventure turned residence. I never expected this life of high mobility and cross-cultural navigation and, had I known the challenges, might not have chosen it. Yet here we are, part of a globally nomadic tribe who suffers from a chronic sense of restlessness and rootlessness - an apparently common side effect of living away from "home."
It was most obvious to me the time we returned to South Africa to say goodbye to my mother. It's the phone call nobody wants to get, yet feels all the more difficult to receive from thousands of miles away. Without question, we packed our bags and headed home. Our plan was to spend what little time we had left with her which, according to the doctors, could be up to six months. However, in what would be the hardest six weeks of my life, my mother lost her short battle with cancer. As a family, we decided to stay on in South Africa for the full six months we had planned: to process our loss, our grief, our regrets. The most healing times were those spent taking our three daughters on road trips to show them our childhood schools, our favorite vacation spots, and the landscape we called home. It felt cathartic, this reminiscent return to our roots.
The restlessness is obvious.
However, the longer we stayed, the more time there was to ponder our past and our future as the present hung precariously between our two worlds. I recently found my journal and the restlessness is obvious: "Coming back to South Africa has certainly been a return to my roots, but with the passing of mom, those roots don’t feel as grounded without her here. Then, the roots we planted with our children in America are proving surprisingly strong, especially as our date to return draws near and we look forward to seeing our friends in Austin. However, spending all this time at "home," we have reestablished connections, some old, some new, and with the passage of time, these new roots have become invaluable - the uprooting of which will again be painful. I mean, seriously, which way round was this tree planted?" Hence the analogy of the baobab.
I was not alone.
As I remember, we had no shortage of people offering their opinions on whether we should return to the United States or remain in South Africa. Conversations ranging from what was best for our children to what was best for us. Family ties, financial prospects, governments and God. Just when I started to get my knickers in a knot, I heard a radio interview with Nelson Mandela’s aide, Zelda, who said that whenever she was anxious about how things were going to work out, Mandela would say to her, “Don’t worry, your life will go the way it’s meant to go.” I started reading about transitions and change, global nomads, and third-culture kids, and came across a community of stories that shared my same feelings of rootlessness and restlessness. I found language, concepts, and tools that helped me talk to my children who were having their own crises of identity and belonging. I felt like I could breathe for the first time in ages as I became rooted in the knowledge that I was not alone, no matter which way round this tree was planted.