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As we draw near the end of our seven months in Spain—seven months of consciously connecting with the other half of our bicultural family—so many things have come up.
For me, for Dani (who grew up here), for our girls (half Spanish), and for Nikita (half Chilean, with a childhood shaped in Spain, now watching from afar in Aotearoa as she grounds her own roots there as a 21-year-old), the experience has been different for each of us. We've each carried our own memories, longings, and questions into this time—along with the work of reconnecting with Dani's whānau after many years away, navigating both the tensions and the moments of deep connection that come with getting to know each other at this stage of our lives.
Now we're starting to ask the bigger questions:
What does it look like to create bases in two countries?
How do we keep connecting communities across seas?
And how do we stay global seekers in mindset, while also enjoying the grounded nature of time, place, and community?
Our time at Pas Coliving and participating in the World schooling hub gave us a taste of what's possible. I didn't expect it to feel so much like home, but it did. Not just because the place itself was extraordinary—though it was lovely, tucked in the Cantabrian hills—but because of the rhythms that emerged there. I suspect my Celtic whakapapa had something to do with that deep sense of connection too.
There were opportunities for silence, for sharing, for stolen moments of me-time and the rare luxury of kid-free hours. There was humour bubbling up from the kitchen, generosity woven into daily chores, people who went out of their way to make things better for everyone else. It wasn't perfect, but it was real. And that realness? It felt like home.
This has me thinking about how "home" shows up in practice rather than place.
In the first part of this series, I wrote about falling in love across cultures and the early seeds of identity—how roaming eventually brought me to the need for roots. In the second, I wrestled with what it means to raise bicultural tamariki, and how creating a family culture can help them grow both roots and wings.
But family is only one layer. We don't live in isolation. Every day we navigate the spaces around us—schools and workplaces, neighbors and community centers. What does belonging actually look like in those spaces?
One of the clearest insights I'm taking from this time is how deeply I value diversity. Not just cultural diversity, but diversity of sexuality, gender, ability, neurotype, worldview—all of it.
Whenever I find myself in a monocultural space, something in me feels trapped. My whole body resists. I breathe easier when I'm with the outsiders—the people who, back in their own communities, were told they were too sensitive, too complicated, too much. The ones accused of making life harder than it needed to be, or of spending too much time gazing at their own navels.
These are my people. Actually, they're our people, as a family. When we're with them, something in all of us collectively exhales. We feel seen. We feel connected.
Living on the edges brings its own tensions, of course. When you don't fully belong in many spaces, you become a seeker by default. And in that seeking, you stumble into others walking the same path. The question becomes: what magic happens when seekers find community in each other?
Toko-pa Turner writes, "For the rebels and the misfits, the black sheep and the outsiders… May you know for certain that even as you stand by yourself, you are not alone."
That poem has followed me for years. Still, I wrestle with the labels we collect along the way—Pākehā, expat, immigrant, neurodivergent, traumatised. They help me understand my own story:
Being Pākehā has meant facing my colonial roots, questioning why my upbringing was framed as "expat" instead of immigrant.
Naming my ADHD and dyslexia brought relief—finally having language for the quirks of how my brain works.
Recognising trauma, both big and small, helped me untangle threads that shape not just me, but my family and the wider society.
But here's what I wonder: once we have these labels, once we've sat with them long enough—what then? How do we move beyond them? How do we fold back into shared human existence? And maybe most importantly, how do we help our children hold these words lightly useful for understanding, but not cages that define them?
Travelling sharpens these questions. Away from home, I slip into a kind of traveller persona—a mother of bicultural kids, a Pākehā abroad, someone who doesn't fit neatly into anyone's category. Sometimes I feel like no one really gets it, especially when trying to understand the unspoken dynamics of family relationships or letting go when expectations aren't met on either side.
In those moments, I find myself drawing less on labels and more on character. Who am I when I'm stripped of the easy identifiers? What kind of presence do I actually bring?
Here's the gift I keep finding: in those in-between spaces, I discover shared threads. The black sheep resonance extends beyond family and into community. I meet others living in the messy middle, and we recognise each other instantly. Sometimes it's old friends we deeply love, reconnecting even when life hasn't been shared through years of geographical distance.
Together, we build these micro-communities. Our little family culture stretches outward and mingles with theirs. Our kids learn the dance of insider/outsider—being Pākehā in Aotearoa, extranjera in Spain. They watch us translate ourselves to fit different spaces, and they find their own ways of doing the same. Sometimes they see themselves mirrored in others, sometimes not. Both moments matter.
So maybe home isn't just the place we're from, or the family culture we nurture. Maybe it's also the spaces where seekers gather—the kitchens where laughter gets shared, the conversations where difference feels welcome, the communities where the messy middle is normal.
Maybe home isn't a place we return to at all, but a practice we keep choosing—over and over again.
As we prepare to return to Aotearoa, that practice feels exciting. I'm more than ready for familiar rhythms and routines... for the girls to rediscover themselves in their school communities and friendships, for me to root back into familiar landscapes while holding everything we've learnt here. I'm ready to reflect on this experience and create something from it.
I'm seeking to add a Part Four as... let's see what comes from all this.
If you're reading this and something resonates, I'd love to hear from you. I'm always open to collaborations and connections with fellow seekers navigating their own messy middles.
