Everywhere and In Between
For as long as we can remember, our lives have been shaped by movement. Different cities, different countries, different time zones. Home has never been a single address. Our mum was born in Egypt, but raised in Sydney, leaving behind her extended family and the culture she came from. Our dad grew up in Sydney too, in a Hungarian-Italian household where he often felt caught between cultures, never quite fitting neatly into one identity. My sister and I were raised in Los Angeles, always missing our family in Australia and Egypt, and making frequent trips to stay connected. For us, home has always been a collection of places and people that hold pieces of who we are.
There’s a beauty to living this way. You learn to adapt quickly, to see the world as interconnected, to build friendships that stretch across continents. Airports become familiar, routines get rebuilt again and again, and every place you land adds another layer to your story. It’s exciting, expansive, and endlessly inspiring.
But it’s not without its challenges. When you live in constant motion, you also learn what it feels like to miss people deeply. To crave the comfort of the familiar. To feel homesick not just for one place, but for many, all at once. Sometimes home is your apartment in Sydney. Sometimes it’s a friend’s kitchen in Los Angeles. Sometimes it’s the memory of summer evenings in Europe. And often, it’s all of these at once, which can be both grounding and disorienting.
What has kept us steady is connection. Having each other, first and foremost, has always been our anchor. But beyond that, finding community, people who understand the nuances of a global lifestyle, has been essential. When someone else understands what it’s like to live with your heart stretched between places, the feeling of being in between turns into a source of strength instead of isolation.
Pontoon was born from this reality. We wanted to create a platform that could hold women like us: women who love the freedom of movement but sometimes long for a place to land. Women who know the joy of belonging everywhere and the ache of missing somewhere. Women who are building lives that don’t fit into one location, but who still crave connection and community.
Because at the end of the day, home isn’t just a place. It’s the people you share your life with, the support that travels with you, and the feeling of being understood no matter where you are in the world.
With love,
Aisha and Talia Ramadan Mainwaring
