On Belonging — A Winter Reflection from Canberra

Winter in Canberra has a way of slowing everything down.

The cold settles in, the light softens, and suddenly you want nothing more than to sit with a warm drink in your hands and let your thoughts catch up with you. So that’s what I’m doing today. I want to share what’s been quietly sitting on my heart these past few days.

Please bear with me. I have no formal education in literature, and my writing isn’t academic or particularly poetic — not in English, and I suspect it wouldn’t be in Japanese either. I simply write as I think.

And lately, I’ve been thinking about belonging.

My husband and I met in Singapore, which wasn’t the hometown of either of us. In many ways, that means we are raising third-culture children — children whose sense of home is shaped by more than one place.

Something has surprised me as I’ve grown older. I find myself missing roots. Not a particular street or house, exactly, but the feeling that comes with them — that quiet, undeniable safety of simply being home. Somewhere that holds you without asking you to explain yourself.

Living as an expatriate can make those roots feel far away.

While we’ve been here in Canberra, I’ve caught myself wondering what life might look like if we chose to stay. What kind of community would we belong to? What would ordinary weekdays feel like? How would we spend our weekends, our holidays?

We wandered through the National Gallery, the National Museum, Questacon, parks, local theatres, the city centre, the lakeside. Canberra holds a particular role as Australia’s capital — well cared for, beautifully landscaped, small enough that getting around feels easy. There are excellent schools and universities, and so many young people. The surrounding nature offers lovely paths for hiking, walking, and cycling, though the weather kept us mostly indoors this time.

One experience stayed with me long after we left.

At the National Museum, I learned about Aboriginal culture and the deep relationship between people and the land. One story moved me more than I expected. People once knew the season of fires was approaching by watching the saltwater crocodiles — when the crocodiles began moving from the floodplains toward the permanent river waterholes, the land itself was speaking.

The animals were the calendar. The land was the teacher.

I have never known a place that way. Growing up in Tokyo, and later living in Singapore, I realised how disconnected I’ve been from this kind of knowing. It made me wonder: if we lived here, would I learn to listen like that? Somehow, it felt connected to my own spirituality. To something I’m still reaching toward.

And yet — could I truly build a life this far from Tokyo?

How much of who I am has been shaped by where I come from? How much will that matter as I grow older? And beyond my own sense of self, what heritage do I want to pass on to my three children, who already belong to more than one world?

These questions don’t have simple answers. I’m not sure they’re meant to.

What I do know is that I long for community.

It has never been easier to find a sense of belonging online. I experience that through my work, and I’m genuinely grateful for it. But I also believe we all need something more grounded — an in-person community. A place where people know one another’s names, where we feel seen, where we can sit beside someone in a hard moment rather than send a message into the quiet.

That longing is also at the heart of the work I do.

Modern parenting can feel so lonely. People are busy. So much of life happens on a screen now. Parenting philosophies have grown wonderfully diverse — but sometimes that very diversity makes it harder, not easier, to find your people.

Parenting has changed enormously over the past fifty years. And still, I believe that raising the next generation well is one of the most important things any of us can do. It quietly shapes everything that comes after.

I don’t believe we are meant to do it alone.

Maybe that’s why I’m writing this.

Perhaps belonging doesn’t simply happen to us. Perhaps — wherever we are in the world, whatever culture we carry, however many places we call home — it is something we build together, slowly and gently, by showing up for one another.

I hope to find people who share this longing. Not for perfect parenting, but for thoughtful parenting. People who believe that children flourish when the adults around them support each other. People who want to create the kind of community where families can grow together, rather than simply pass one another by.

So I’ll leave you with the questions I keep turning over in the cold Canberra light:

Where do you find your community? Who holds you in the beautiful, tiring, deeply important work of raising children?

If something here resonated with you, I’d love to hear from you. Truly. And if you ever feel like you’re navigating this cross-cultural, exhausting, quietly searching season of parenting on your own — please know you don’t have to.

Belonging, I’m learning, is something we make. And we make it together.