My children’s earliest chapters were placed in the trusted care of Tasmania, and for that, I am grateful.
We live in Oxfordshire, but Tasmania lives within our home. Any present-day textures can serve as a reminder of the years we spent there. Often, it’s a framed photo; at other times it might be an object bought from Salamanca Market, or a song that was played on the radio.
My favourite reminders come in the form of an email or a phone call. They remind me of the wonderful people I had to leave behind, and who will always have a piece of my heart. In recent times, I’ve been fortunate enough to have some jubilant reunions on British soil – shared memories were exchanged, along with gifts from places I used to frequent.
Slowly though, these recollections are moving from short-term to long-term memory.
. . .
When thinking of one’s childhood, the brain has the ability to pop up a catalogue of images on demand – the mind’s projector plays the pictures, but the quality tends to be lacking, and the slideshow can only be viewed through a layer of frosted glass.
It’s been a little over two years since we made the decision to return to England, and as I write my last letter from Oxford, it’s become apparent that my memories are slowly slipping behind the frosted pane in question, along with the other archived stories of my life.
My children are no longer babies. They are taller, tougher and in secondary school – apart from my last born, the only child born in Tasmania. It won’t be long before the house is taken over by teenagers, and it will have no need for the array of toys we splurged on in their favourite shop in Argyle Street.
The wiser faces that stare back at me now, when I explain the complexities of the world, often bear signs of the small people they used to be – the ones who used to squabble over who should press the button to the lift for the Revolving Restaurant.
It makes me realise that their cherub faces will always belong in the island state – they cannot exist elsewhere. Tasmania has ownership of those treasured formative years, now vanished and unreachable; attainable only through reminiscence.
My children’s earliest chapters were placed in the trusted care of Tasmania, and for that, I am grateful. They grew up with sand between their toes, clear air in their lungs, and a carefree coat that wrapped itself around their innocent beings on a daily basis.
One day a friend came over for coffee at our home in Sandy Bay. It was a beautiful, hot, summer-holiday afternoon, the kind of day one yearns for when winter has overstayed its welcome. My friend and I exchanged stories, updating each other on news, while we watched the kids splashing in the pool. Sitting on the sun loungers, it almost looked like the kids could spill into the Derwent at any time.
After a while, her eyes still fixed on the playful infants, my friend said, “Your kids really do live in paradise.” It was true. They did. We never denied it.
That paradise, however, is growing less vivid, harder to picture. The details are fading.
The further Tasmania slips into the past – the older the kids get – the more distant their little smiling faces feel from the top of the slide at Long Beach playground, the more muffled their giggles sound from Sandy Bay Infant School.
Thankfully, nostalgia never takes hold for long, like the rainbow that emerges after the deluge. Each day, I rejoice in the presence of my children, who have Tasmania’s story written into their spirits. Although their new home is a village on the Thames, their miniature versions remain in Hobart, and I know that the Apple Isle will always reside within them. It is part of their DNA, and one day, if they have children of their own, the story of Tasmania will live on in them too.
Clarissa Horwood grew up in Oxford, courtesy of her English father, and spent all her childhood holidays with relatives in France, courtesy of her French mother. She has a keen sense of the ridiculous, and can swear better in Spanish than either English or French. Despite being so thoroughly European, she married an Australian and moved to Hobart in 2013. Their three children are adept at switching accents. The family returned to Oxford in 2020 to be with Clarissa’s mother during Covid-19, and the move was such a major upheaval that it looks likely to be permanent. Her column, Letter from Oxford, is about memories and connections between two cities a world apart, but it is written in a Tasmanian accent.
