Another Wee trip?
It’s been over a year since I last posted probably… and I’m excited to report I’m going on a trip very soon back to either NZ or to Europe. Either way I will make sure to keep my wonderful blog updated. Yay for travel! In other news, my friend just started her own travel website- check it out!
(Source: laurenschaad.com)
New Zealand in Crisis
If any of you have been following the news- this is really terrible. My heart goes out to all who are in the midst of this crisis. 
Month in review!
I’ve finally moved into a new place- right in the heart of Cambridge. It’s quaint, and lovely, a bit set back from the road, so it’s very quiet and peaceful. My room is on the far left hand side of the building- so the prosperity section- if you’re into feng shui! I find that very suitable considering how much I am thankful for these days. Abundance is a state of mind I try to aspire too, it doesn’t always work… I’m still working hard at my new job - it’s doing a lot of multi-tasking between 4 shows, and some editing (finally!). For a while, I was keeping myself busy, and now I’m happy when I have a moment to relax. I kind of love the busy-ness. I wonder if that’s why it’s called business- lots of people walking around being very ‘busy’.
In the meantime, I’ve spent time and effort getting my room to be my ‘home’- I painted all of last weekend- and I’m so proud of the results! It was worth the hours of hovering over corners and bending back to paint the ceiling. I’ll have to take a photo of it once it’s done! And I’m really enjoying having roommates who have completely different lives than me, yet we relate very well. One is my age working on an education doctorate, the other works as a librarian at Harvard. We bond over Glee, wine and chocolate. And the occasional silly housecat- Henry- who really is a ‘Fred’ in my mind.
I still feel like I’m ‘adjusting’ - which I thought would have taken a shorter amount of time- but then I realized I wasn’t just ‘moving’ back but really restarting my life here. This weekend I went down to visit my parents, and found two huge boxes of clothes that I had left behind with them before I left. It felt like winning a clothing lottery! You forgot how much you have when you have it around you all the time- but when you travel, you have less, and it works just as well. Lesson learned!
I’m also working on how possibly I can pay off enough/save up enough to find a way to return to NZ- even if for just a vacation. I see photos of all of my friends there, and the landscape and it makes me want to go back really soon. For now, I’m happy ‘restarting’ my life in the US for a while.
My new/old place of work. I’m doing post production work for Boston Media Productions at WGBH in Boston. Really great shows (my favorite is One on One). I will post more once I get settled in my new home in Cambridge!!
Re-entering ‘life’
So I haven’t written in ages. It’s not for the sake of not wanting to write, more like I’ve been going through various stages of re-acclimating to life in the US. Mostly I find it really hard. I think I forget that when you travel you leave people, things, places behind. And they, of course, move on with their lives- as we all would do- but for some reason I just wasn’t really grasping this concept until now. I’ve been gone for almost 2 years, and had a blip of a visit in November 2009- which ended up also being a hard time- so I decided to return to New Zealand because of a job offer for a few months, and also, I think, to escape having to deal with coming ‘home’. I read once in a traveler’s guide that you should never travel to escape life, because inevitably it will come back, or release itself in other ways if you haven’t really dealt with it. I left many strands of life unfinished when I left (including a long and at times very difficult relationship) and now I realize I have to pick up the pieces and get through all the emotions left behind. So in a way, I guess that is also the lesson in travel- you really take yourself with you- no matter where you are. And you will eventually have to face those parts of yourself again, which manifest themselves either in your travels or when you return ‘home’.
I do want to mention, though, that without those travels, without the chance to see amazing vistas across snow peaked mountains, watching dolphins play next to our sailboat, learning how to surf, overcoming seasickness out in choppy Tasman waters, or even jumping out of a plane- I don’t think I would have been able to open my heart again to the beauty that world has to offer, and face what I am facing now. It’s funny how when you open your heart to the world, you open up to joy and happiness and excitement but you also open your heart to pain, grief and unhappiness…and a whole range of other emotions.
West Oakland Mon Amour
desolation and creation
barking dogs, wild flower invitation
keep out! Keep alive
Shouts of dismay, greetings of warmth
i cannot translate this language
Wash and dry
ramshackle houses
street to street,
it processes me.
Cranes of silver in sunset unveiled
abandoned furry unicorns
towering pines, and broken fences
this oak-land seeds my imagination.
Wonder engulfs fear
hummingbirds and gospel church songs alight
welding giants and monsters of steel
tame the thundering sound of trains and
those imaginary trains on lost tracks
that you cross every so often
Love and hate, glory and defeat rise up
from the pavement
and I feel vulnerable.
But yet
strong.
