A Little Thing about Belonging

This morning the postman rang the bell. That usually means one of two things: something I ordered has arrived or someone sent me something. This time it was the latter.

A small package from Australia. Inside was Shaun Tan’s new book, Hometown. There was a little handwritten postcard and a note inside the book, too.

Oh, how that made me smile.

I’ve known Shaun for a while now. Not known as in knowing someone really well, but in that lovely way friendships sometimes develop when you meet someone, stay in touch and every now and then something arrives in the post that reminds you of that connection.

I first met Shaun in Melbourne in 2017. At the time I thought he still lived in Perth. I was going to be in Melbourne for an event, so I wrote him, telling him that I was in Melbourne, so close and yet so far away still with him living in Perth. How happy and surprised I was when he told me, that he recently moved to Melbourne!

So we met.

I already owned The Arrival. Of course I did. But somehow I still ended up leaving Melbourne with a signed copy from Shaun, which was absolutely special for me. We had a lovely conversation and chatted about a lot of things. One was that he had won an Oscar for a short film of The Lost Thing. I totally did not know that and was even more impressed, asking a lot of questions about how the whole process was and, well, what it was like being at the Oscars. I mean … crazy, isn’t it?!

To give you a bit of background why I wanted to meet Shaun: I’ve been giving away his books for more than two decades now. Mostly The Arrival and The Lost Thing. They often are part of the welcome present amongst other things, I give to speakers coming to beyond tellerrand. You know, I like giving people something that has nothing, at least not directly, to do with the event itself. Something that might stay with them a little longer. And I love Shaun’s books for exactly that reason.

They look like beautiful illustrated books. But there is always something underneath. Something that keeps moving around in your head after you’ve closed the book.

I’ve always thought The Lost Thing was, at its heart, a story about belonging. There is this strange creature that clearly doesn’t fit into the world around it. Most people don’t seem particularly interested. They have their routines, their systems, their things to do. But the boy notices it. And eventually he helps it find a place where it belongs. It might be a simple story, but it has never felt simple to me.

Then there is The Arrival, which is almost the other side of that idea. A man leaves his home and arrives somewhere completely unfamiliar. He doesn’t understand the language, the signs, the food, the animals, the machines or the customs. He has to find his way around a new world and, eventually, find a new sense of home.

And this morning I had the pleasure of unpacking Hometown.

I’ve only had the book for a few hours, but the connection to those earlier books was immediately there for me. Again, there is someone trying to understand where they belong. Only this time Shaun turns the question around, I think.

What if you are perfectly happy where you are, with your family and your life and someone arrives and tells you that this isn’t actually your home?

And what if somebody else decides that they know where you belong? Suddenly I found myself thinking about The Lost Thing again. The thing that doesn’t belong. The person who doesn’t belong. The place that doesn’t feel like home. And, well, who gets to decide any of that?

Maybe that is what I love so much about Shaun’s books. They don’t really give you a neat answer. Maybe not even an answer at all. They leave a little space for you to put yourself into the story. At least that is what I find doing myself.

There is something particularly lovely about Hometown arriving at my door like this. Because Shaun has sent me books before. Creature, Tales from the Inner City and others. And every time something arrives, I’m reminded of that meeting in Melbourne in 2017. Of how unlikely it felt that I would actually get to meet someone whose work had been sitting on my bookshelf for years.

And, if I am really honest, there is still one thing I’d really love to happen: I’d love to have Shaun speak at beyond tellerrand one day.

I’ve been giving his books to my speakers for more than twenty years. It would be pretty wonderful to finally have him on the other side of that relationship, standing on the stage and telling his stories himself. Full circle, you know? And until then, I’m super happy when the postman rings the bell. ;)

And now I have another Shaun Tan book on my shelf. Another story about strange places, strange creatures and that surprisingly difficult question, I do ask myself my whole life:

Where do I belong?