Belonging didn’t start that day. The event recognised what had already been lived, the years of steadily building lives
A few days before Australia’s population ticked over 28 million, a neighbour and regular cricket mate invited me along to his citizenship ceremony. We arrived early, a little unsure of what the morning would hold.
For him, it had been a long road. More than four years of forms, waiting, interviews, setbacks and that quiet, stubborn kind of hope you don’t always talk about. Back in his home country he’d been educated and settled. Here life had taken on a different shape, driving a cab by day before night shifts on a forklift in a factory, trying to piece together something steady.