How to Return Home in a Pandemic

A harrowing journey from the US to Australia in search of a sound

After fifty-seven hours of travel, I collapsed on the hotel bed in uncontrollable sobs. It would be another two weeks before I could see my family or hear a bird sing. I wondered, if I had known part of me would die by returning home, would I have still chosen to return?

I found myself on the other side of the world when the pandemic broke. I had been in the United States for seven years, but it wasn’t until I was unable to be back in Australia that everything became heightened. I went from being content with life to a deep yearning for reunification with my family and country.

I did miss Australia before then. One’s country simply takes on new meaning when being physically separated. I didn’t miss the politics or the media. I didn’t miss the extreme heat or bushfires. There was a specific moment when I knew what I missed. A friend sent me a video of her being interviewed in the Australian bush. In the background was the warbling of magpies and laughter of kookaburras. I found myself crying. Crying for the sounds of the land of my birth.

This was Australia — not the collective identity or the culture. It was the earth, air and sea, and everything that lived in it. The original home of the songbirds. And my favourite of them, the magpie.

Nature defines us more than we are often aware. While messy politics and social unrest were playing out in the US, I visited the Grand Canyon, red rocks of Sedona, White Sands, the Badlands, Utah, and the Boundary Waters canoe wilderness of Minnesota. I hiked, kayaked, and when I could, slept on the ground. I saw America’s deep story. Her ancient story. The story shaped over millions of years before humans were even conceived.

America is giant, vast, magical, and humbling. There’s a hundred different Americas — each landscape a world unto itself. Its nature as diverse as its people — a true microcosm of Earth itself.

Where Australia is home of the songbirds, America is home to the great bald eagle. Each day I would watch the grace and magnificence of the eagle soar high above, reminding me to live a life of expanded vision and freedom. The eagle is only partially migratory; in most cases able to stay in one location so long as food is available.

Humans migrate for many reasons other than food. I often wondered what American expats missed when stuck on the other side of the world. Like Australians, I am sure it wasn’t the politics or media. The land itself defines an American’s expansive visions and powers of creation in the same way the slow and harsh Australian landscape defines our laid-back ease and tough resilience.

No matter where they migrate, Americans most surely carry the freedom born out of their home’s vastness and the tenacity required to survive its majesty, just like we Australians carry our playful spirit of “no worries, mate.” Yet despite how much we carry our countries with us, there’s a palpable yearning to return. To firmly plant one’s feet on the earth of our first breath. To once again have the music of our memories move through our veins.

Moving overseas is one of the most stressful things I’ve done. We humans are still developing the muscle memory of migratory creatures. I’ve done it twice now and each time have said, “Never again!” Even though I know without a doubt that I made the right decision, it was not without loss. I left a partner, friends, and a community I loved. And with closed borders and controlled travel, I have no idea when I’ll see them next.

The pandemic — this global shift — had already claimed the lives of fifteen friends, none of them to COVID. Each leaving the planet in different ways and on different terms. Of my departed friends, I had been able to attend only one memorial service, and that was virtually. Grieving was delayed; bottled up for a time yet to come.

Like so many others during the pandemic, this grief has been compounded by a loss of hope and expectation for the future. The security I once held onto seems out of reach or not even there. The pandemic continues to hold open a void where it is difficult to plan, dream, or see where life is going.

While barely dealing with what I was losing, I failed to prepare for reentry. I was more focused on whether I would make it home after cancelled flights and stolen promises. What was previously able to happen in twenty-two hours now took fifty-seven. Minneapolis to Denver to Los Angeles to Sydney. An epic journey of flight delays, uncertainty, and stress; at one point doubled over in panic in an airport terminal. I wasn’t alone.

I kept dreaming of how much I wanted to kiss the ground, breathe the sacred eucalypts, and hear my magpie friend sing her morning song. How I couldn’t wait to be with my family. How each delay kept me from hearing their music.

After finally landing in Sydney, we were greeted by White-Woman-in-HazMat-Suit. She shuffled us through a dozen checkpoints. Masks everywhere; no smiles. First the Air Force, then Border Patrol and health officials. After that it wasn’t clear what the checkpoints were for. Just more masks and no magpies singing.

After three hours we made it out of the airport; disoriented. Marched to buses by Air Force personnel, there was no time to kiss the ground. Even the magpies fled the scene. No song outside to greet us.

When the bus arrived at the hotel for quarantine, we were handed over to the police. A hotel run by police is not a hotel. This detention facility had rules and we had to learn them quick. We ceded control over our lives — what to eat, when to eat it, and all while having no access to direct sunlight or fresh air. No access to the earth.

When I finally got to my room I collapsed into desperate sobbing. The crying would last a full five days. It was as if a year of tears had been building in me and finally released as a flood of emotion. I cried enough tears to ease the Australian drought — if only I was given the chance to channel them into the land.

I measured my tiny room; it was exactly five-and-a-half coffins big. It was odd to measure a space in coffins and I didn’t quite know why. A part of me had most surely died, but that would only necessitate one coffin. Were there other parts of me I’d lost and not yet aware of? Maybe the police knew more than I did.

Or maybe it was like the spiritualists who believe we must die daily. In that case I would need fourteen coffins for the fourteen days and fourteen deaths. Was there even enough left in me left to fill those? The police certainly didn’t think so.

Either way, I knew exactly what the half-sized-coffin space was for. It sat right by the window-that-cannot-open. The window that was more like a television frozen permanently on one screen. It was by the window I used to sit when I was a child waiting to go outside. Waiting by the window for permission to play. Maybe even this little child in me must die.

Each day I looked out to the empty Sydney streets. There was the occasional businessman in his Italian suit carrying a latte. He must have been deemed an essential worker and exempt from lockdown. I wondered, why the suit? Who is there to impress? And every evening at 5pm the news crew would use our building — this detention facility — as a backdrop for their nightly report. Every night the same story, persistently keeping the reentry machine running. I wanted to go outside and play with the businessman and the news reporter. I wondered whether they could hear the magpie sing. I wanted to tell them my story and the story of the hundreds of people pressed against the windows in the spaces made for a half-sized coffin.

After five days of tears, I settled into an unfamiliar state. I’m not quite sure it was acceptance so much as resignation. Maybe pre-death, or the stage before birth.

A friend kept reminding me that I was the caterpillar in a cocoon being transformed into a butterfly. I knew the metaphor well, but sometimes metaphors are only empowering when you’re already empowered. Either way, I was liquifying. Some state between America and Australia. Some state between my old life and a new one. A stateless state.

For anyone who knows me, I am not prone to darkness. They would say I’m optimistic and buoyant. But this is where one goes when disconnected from life. When disconnected from nature. When there is no song to greet you.

I didn’t feel like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. A therapist tried convincing me I was a phoenix rising from the flames. I don’t feel like a phoenix either. Nor an eagle. I’d be content as a magpie rising from sleep, singing.

There was a moment after my release from quarantine where I first heard the sound. I had made it from the building-referred-to-as-a-hotel to the airport for another flight to be with my family. There were no birds outside. I wandered through the empty airport and found a lone family playing cards. These were the first humans I had in my vicinity in two weeks. I hovered near them listening to their laughter. A strangely familiar song. I had never heard the magpie song in laughter before. All this time yearning to hear the magpie, not realising we have the magpie within us. I wanted to cry for the first glimpse of joy I felt, but had no tears left.

I made it home and collapsed into the arms of my parents. Relieved. Grateful. Our backyard is home to a family of magpies. Each morning we sit with our coffees and listen to them sing. I say to my feathered friend as she comes to my feet, “G’day, mate.” The magpie sings her reply. Her ancient song is the same, the meaning now different. She is singing to me the songs of Australia. She is helping me find the song within me.

Reentry would have been easier if she was there when I landed. I tell her to fly to the airport to sing to the those who are now just arriving, but she faithfully stays by my side. She knows I still need her song.

I think back to what I would change. Would I make the same choice? Would I still return home even if I understood everything I would lose? The real question is now, what is the home I am returning to? It is not the home I once thought it was, but the true home. The ancient home. The home of the original song — the song of my heart. Maybe this is the home we are all returning to.