New Beginnings Bring New Family

The first issue of a new year often seems a difficult one to write a coherent editor’s column for. It’s hard to know why. Perhaps because the limitations of linear time and the commercial printing process demand that most of the January issue be written not in January, but in early December—when everyone’s rushing about in pre-Christmas pandemonium and the constant diet of holiday music and eggnog make it hard to concentrate on anything the other side of New Year’s Eve. Although I’ve never had the benefit of formal journalism training, I am dimly aware that an editor’s column is supposed to touch on the subject matter of the issue in which it appears. And since this first issue of 2012 is loosely styled to address the theme of ‘New Beginnings,’ I  am very grateful to my brother and his fiancée for having just announced that they are getting married—thereby giving me the early Christmas gift of a “Reflections” topic, and my family a holiday to look forward to, all at the same time.

If I don’t write about my younger brother, Tom, much in this column (which seems to find its way back to the topic of family more often than not), it’s because he lives a hell of a long way away. Thanks to the Internet I can tell you that the distance between St. Francisville, Louisiana, and Brisbane, Australia, is about nine thousand miles. Although as is usually the case with the Internet, you have to be careful how you phrase the question. Initially when I typed my request into Google Maps it returned directions for driving to Brisbane, suggesting that the optimal way to go would involve road-tripping from Louisiana to Washington State, then kayaking to Hawaii (I’m not making this up; try it); thence to Japan’s south island, the Philippines, Indonesia, and down through the Banda Sea before making landfall on the north coast of Australia near Darwin. Google calculated this to be a distance of 15,629 miles (55 days’ driving time, but who’s counting?), and helpfully cautioned that the route would involve ‘tolls,’ and ‘a ferry.’ While taking this advice would likely produce interesting subject matter for future columns, I think we’ll fly.

Tom and Sarah will be getting married near Brisbane next June. We’re thrilled at, if impoverished by, the opportunity to make a family trip from Louisiana to be there—none more so than our daughter Mathilde, who has taken a not entirely selfless interest in whether flower girls get to play starring roles in Australian weddings. She may be disappointed. While I haven’t spent loads of time with Tom and Sarah in the past few years, my sense is that they mightn’t go for a full-blown, bells-and-whistles, flocks-of-flower-girls-type wedding. They’ve been together for ten years (Tom and I both having inherited the family’s procrastination gene), and have lots in common—both are the children of British immigrants who brought their young families out to Australia in the seventies. For the past eight years they’ve lived in Brisbane, where Tom has applied his masters degree in marine ecology to a career in aquaculture, while Sarah has thrived as an occupational therapist. A couple of years ago they bought a pretty little house near the beach which they share with their Australian shepherd, Archie; and several elderly chickens that they somehow rescued from a factory farm. On weekends they’ll put a kayak on the car and take a ferry to Stradbroke Island—a beautiful, lightly populated sand island close to the coast—and find a quiet spot on the beach to camp and fish. They read widely, cook creatively, travel when they get the chance, and generally try to tread lightly on the earth. They’re people I would like our kids to grow up knowing as well as it’s possible to know people who live on the other side of the planet. To be with them for their wedding will be a joy and a privilege, as it will be to call Sarah sister-in-law.

Pretty good way to start a new year. May yours be similarly filled with great leaps and memorable milestones.