About

Expatting

The word ‘expat’ comes with a mixed bag of connotations, not all good ones. But as someone who moves country frequently, not settling in one place, and managing the demands of everyday life along the way, the term ‘serial expat’ resonates for me. Among the privileges it brought, the biggest challenges I faced in the early years of living abroad were losing a sense of home, a sense of purpose, and a sense of identity. Because what moved us around is my other half’s career, some thought I had no choice in where we went and how we lived. But I learned the importance of creating a portable sense of home and purpose, in owning the choices I’ve made, and in blazing my own trail. It’s important to me to share those challenges, and those lessons. That’s why I told my story in Nest – maybe you’ll see your own journey in its pages.

Travelling

I always relish creating a strong sense of place in my writing, to make you feel like you’re there. Even when I’m close to ‘home’, taking time to observe surprising or just everyday details creates a fresh perspective. One thing that both travel and temporary living taught me is that it’s exhilarating to look at the world around you through the eyes of a visitor, no matter how familiar it may feel. Look out for my word sketches that focus on a moment in time to create a sense of place.

Creative Living

I never used to think I was a creative person. Before we left the UK, I worked for ten years as a high school English teacher. I loved literature and art, and of course I know how to string a sentence together – because I taught people how. But I wasn’t an ideas person, didn’t create.

Fast forward to when I was preparing for move number five. I’d done a bit of teaching while abroad, and I’d studied to add English-language teaching to my repertoire. I was wondering what jobs I’d have available to me at our next destination, then realised something: I didn’t want to go on like that, just waiting and seeing. I wanted to work on my own terms. That was the moment of clarity: my situation was an opportunity, not a constraint. I was ‘waiting and seeing’ because I thought I had to stay on the path laid down by qualifications and a previous career. But questioning that very premise showed me the path could take another direction. Teaching had been a job, not my identity. I had the chance to start again, and I asked my sixteen-year-old self, ‘What do you want to do?

‘Write,’ was the instant, surprising, yet inevitable reply.

When I wrote before – as a teenager with angsty poetry and descriptive fiction, and then at university, writing music reviews for the student newspaper – I hadn’t been full of ideas then, either. I wrote about was in front of me, the world as I saw it.

What I know about creative living today is that ideas are not a prerequisite. When I write, I’m making connections to myself, to the world around me, and to you. The more of those connections I make, the more ideas flow from them. But still, it’s the connection that matters most. So I love to share (especially with my email readers) the creative connections I see, the resources I’ve learned from, and the insights that have helped me, in the hope of inspiring more connected, creative living.

Building Community

You might know me from taking part in the #MayontheMove Instagram challenge. In early 2019, I was looking for prompts around international living. I wanted motivation to write and share more, as well as to engage with more potential readers. I’d seen lots of month-long photo challenges on the platform for things like travel and sewing. But I couldn’t quite find the one I was looking for.

So I created it. In May 2019, I shared a set of sixteen prompts and invited others to join me. There were about a dozen participants that first time, old friends and new contacts, and connections that went deeper than before. The following year, I wasn’t sure anyone would want to think about being ‘on the move’, but it turned out that connection was what people really needed, and the community exploded. Last year there were over 100 ‘grammers contributing to ‘community across cultures’.

Planning for the next #MayontheMove is in the works, and we now have monthly prompts to stay connected throughout the year, so make sure you are following on Instagram to take part. There may be a few tweaks each year, but the core idea is the same: 16 prompts across the month of May. Which illustrates perfectly what I always say is the key to creating a deeply connected community: do the thing you want to do, and invite others in.

Books