We All Belong
- Agnieszka Wolsoncroft
- 2 days ago
- 7 min read
by Agnieszka Wolsoncroft
I was six years old, standing on a Polish beach, watching the Baltic Sea stretch endlessly.
My mother stood beside me, quiet. The wind whipped our hair. Salt spray touched my face.
"What's on the other side?" I asked.
"Sweden," she said. "And beyond that, the whole world."
I didn't know what Sweden looked like. Didn't know what "the whole world" meant. But standing there, toes in the sand, I felt something settle deep in my chest.
I belonged to this. All of this. Not just Poland. Not just this beach.
The whole world.
Somewhere inside me, six-year-old logic decided: If I belong to the world, then the world belongs to me too. I will see all of it. Every ocean. Every shore. Every place where water meets land and people speak languages I don't know yet.
I called it a dream. And I knew - with absolute certainty - that it would happen.
#
"Mummy! Mummy! Look!"
Anya bursts through the front door last Monday, backpack bouncing, orange flyer clutched in her hand like treasure.
"Harmony Day! We get to wear orange OR traditional clothes from our country! And we're performing! In front of the WHOLE SCHOOL!"
She's vibrating with excitement, practically levitating.
"That's wonderful, sweetheart. What are you performing?"
"A SONG! AND A DANCE!" She starts singing immediately, no warm-up needed: "We are all different but we all belong, we are all different but we all belong..."
She spins. Does a little dance move that's either choreography or pure joy—hard to tell.
"Can I wear my Thai dress? Or should I wear orange? Which one, Mummy?"
I kneel down to her level. "What feels right to you?"
She thinks hard, bottom lip caught between her teeth. "Orange. Because then I can be ALL the countries. Like how our family is all the countries."
"How do you mean?"
"You're from Poland. Daddy David is from England. I'm from Thailand. But we're ALL Australian now. We all belong together."
Seven years old and she's got it figured out better than most adults.
#
That afternoon, we started baking.
I promised you this cake last time - Babcia's plum cake, the one with the corner piece that tastes like Poland and love and Sunday mornings in kitchens that no longer exist except in memory.
I pull out the recipe card. Babcia's handwriting, loops and swirls from a different era.
"Can you read it?" Anya asks, leaning in close to study the fancy loops.
"Every word." I trace my finger under the first line. "Listen: For the dough, you'll need flour, butter, eggs, sugar, and patience."
Anya giggles. "Patience isn't an ingredient!"
"Babcia thought it was the most important one." I said. And it is so true.
We measure flour together. Crack eggs. Add sugar and butter. This isn't rolled pastry—this is simple, home-made cake batter, the kind you pour straight into the tin. The kind that doesn't require fancy technique, just attention.
"Now we pour it," I show her. The batter spreads across the pan, pale and promising.
"And now?"
"Now the plums."
Her eyes light up.
We arrange them together - deep purple, almost black, each one nestling against the next in rough circles. Not perfect. Not Babcia-perfect. But ours.
Into the oven it goes.
"How long?"
"Forty-five minutes. But it will feel like forever."
She sighs dramatically. "That's SO LONG."
"Then let's practise your song while we wait."
She doesn't need to be asked twice.
The week before Harmony Day, Anya practises constantly.
In the car. In the shower. While eating breakfast. While feeding the dogs. We are all different but we all belong...
She teaches me the dance moves. Makes me practise with her in the living room until Leia and Gizmo flee to the bedroom, overwhelmed by the enthusiasm.
"You have to FEEL it, Mummy! Not just do it!"
I laugh because she's accidentally teaching me my own lesson.
#
I didn't always feel like I belonged.
London, 2002. Ealing Broadway post office. I walk up to the counter, confident in my English. I've been speaking it since I was ten. I've worked on international cruise ships. I've got this.
"I'd like a stamp, please."
The woman behind the counter looks at me. "Would you like a book?"
I turn around, thinking she's talking to someone behind me. There's no one there.
I turn back, confused. "Sorry?"
"A book of stamps. Would you like a book?"
Oh.
OH.
A BOOK of stamps. Not one stamp. A book. Of stamps.
I buy the book, face burning, wondering what other English I think I know but don't actually know at all.
Perth, 2016. Job interview for a café position. First week in Australia. Fresh off the plane from London, where people say "How are you?" or maybe "How are you doing?"
The manager smiles at me. "So, how are you going?"
I freeze.
Going? Going WHERE? Does he want me to leave? Did I do something wrong already?
My brain scrambles. How am I GOING? Am I going somewhere? Should I be going somewhere?
"I'm... fine?" I manage, completely lost.
He nods, seemingly satisfied with my confusion.
Later, I learn: "How are you going?" is Australian for "How are you?" Like "G'day" means "Good day" and "arvo" means "afternoon" and this entire English-speaking country has its own version of the language I thought I'd mastered.
I felt like I was starting over. Again.
But there was another moment. Earlier. More important.
I was eighteen. Standing in a cottage in Poland with a boy who loved me. A good boy. Hardworking. Kind.
"I've been thinking," he said. "We could get married. I'll drive trucks between Poland and Germany - good money, steady work. You could stay here, keep the house, look after our children, maybe have a garden. It would be a good life."
He meant it. He was offering me his version of happiness.
I love cottages. I absolutely adore villages and forests. But at that moment in my life, I knew deep inside that there was so much more waiting for me. The whole world was calling. And I had to answer.
"I don't think that's the life I want," I said quietly.
He was hurt. I was sorry. But I was also certain.
A year later, I was on a cruise ship. He found the girl who wanted exactly the same life he did. They had two children, a cottage, and a little garden. I was so happy for him.
#
Friday arrives. Harmony Day.
I sit in the school assembly hall with hundreds of other parents. The students file in - a kaleidoscope of orange and traditional dress. Thai silk and Indian saris and Scottish tartan and so many shades of orange you'd think someone spilled a sunset.
Then I see her.
Anya. In her bright orange t-shirt. Huge smile. Eyes scanning the audience until she spots me.
She waves. I wave back, throat already tight.
The music starts.
We are all different but we all belong...
She sings with her whole body. Not just her voice - her hands, her shoulders, her joy. She knows every word. Every movement. She's practised this until it became part of her.
And watching her - my Thai-Australian daughter in orange, singing about belonging with classmates from China and Greece and Germany and Italy and Nepal and Bhutan and Sri Lanka - I understand something I've been trying to explain for weeks.
Belonging isn't something you wait to feel.
It's something you choose. Then practise. Then notice. And finally - eventually - feel.
#
That afternoon, the timer chimes.
Anya runs to the oven. "Is it ready? Can we eat it?"
I pull out the cake. Golden top. Plums sank perfectly into the batter, their juices caramelised at the edges.
"Let it cool just a little. Then I'll cut you the corner piece."
"Why the corner?"
"Because that's what Babcia always gave me. The best piece. The one that says: you're special. You're seen. You belong here."
Ten minutes later, I slide the corner piece onto her plate. It's hot today, so I added vanilla ice cream. A little bit of icing sugar on top.
She takes a bite. Her eyes close.
"I can taste it," she whispers.
"Taste what?"
"Poland. And... and belonging."
My throat closes.
Because she's right.
This cake travelled forty years and a half the world to get here. From Babcia's kitchen in Poland to mine in Perth. From my childhood to Anya's. From one language to another, one country to another, one generation to the next.
It belongs here because we brought it here.
We belong here because we chose it. Showed up. Practised the language - both English and belonging. Noticed the moments. And finally, felt it.
Just like I teach in the #TAG Method.
Thanksgiving: We showed up at Harmony Day. We baked the cake. We practised the song.
Appreciation: We noticed the orange dresses and traditional clothes. We smelled the plums baking. We saw Anya singing with her whole heart.
Gratitude: The feeling that floods through when your daughter tastes belonging in a piece of cake.
You can't skip to the feeling. You have to do and notice first.
But when it comes? When your child sings "we all belong" and means it? When a corner piece of cake makes her taste Poland even though she's never been there?
That's when you know belonging isn't about where you're from.
It's about what you carry with you. What you choose. What you make space for.
I belonged to the world at six.
At eighteen, I chose it over the cottage.
At forty-something, I'm teaching my Thai-Australian daughter to taste Poland in a Perth kitchen.
We are all different.
But we all belong.
With love and gratitude,
Agnieszka
#
If belonging feels impossible right now - if you're struggling with new languages, new countries, new versions of yourself - you don't have to feel it first. Start with showing up. Start with practising, even when it feels awkward. Start by noticing one small thing that connects you. The feeling follows. It always follows.
Come back in two weeks. I'll be here. With a story about how traditions cross oceans and continents, how what we carry from the old country becomes what we give to the next generation. About Easter baskets and painted eggs and the beautiful mess of making home in a new world.
If you'd like to read more about Babcia, click below https://www.agnieszkawolsoncroft.com/post/when-joy-feels-like-a-foreign-language
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