It’s been quite a good birthday weekend, actually. My birthday eve, Michael and the kids had turned the kitchen into a papusa-making factory, patting the cornmeal dough into disks with the cheese and corn, and asking Naomi to chatter away in fast Spanish to make the process as authentic as possible. I sat on the couch and laughed at them. June 1st here was a mellow and quiet day. I woke up after Michael left on the early morning train and Perry and I walked alone on the beach, watching the sunrise in front of me and the full moon set behind me. It was a feast of beauty.
Rob spent the day working on the chili, which turned out to be just about the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth. He roasted some things and slow-braised others and finally combined it all into a taste-explosion that was even better than the superb cake he and Michael made. P and J came for dinner and we laughed a lot and ate this American (North and South) food with
British friends here on my first birthday in
Saturday morning was perfect for soccer. Naomi’s team won 4-nil, and then she was off to play with her friend who currently lives at the house on the hill. We could hear the kids’ laughter from our back porch. Aidan, Michael, Rob and I stopped on the way home to sit on the sea wall and watch the surfers navigate the rhythmic waves in the sunlight. Then, chilled, we went home to light a fire. As the clouds came in, we braved them by heading to 
best Chardonnay I’ve ever had.
Today it was lovely to have Di over, my first work friend to head this way. We walked along the beach and through the hills, and we talked about the seminar and about life here in NZ and in the
Michael and I, walking along the beach this morning, talked a lot about making beginnings. In the plan we were assuming we’d follow one year ago, the one that had us here for six months, we’d be packing our bags and heading back to our
And a wave of relief. I’ve just made a beginning here. Everything is still fresh. I’ve spent months in the neutral zone and am just starting to live here. The phone, when it rings, is sometimes for me (rather than just for Naomi). I see people I know on the beach, in the village, on the train. With my seminar last week people are just beginning to know what I do and how I might work with them to do something good. It is all new and unfolding, like the koru that I put on the powerpoint slides for the presentation. It would be terrible indeed to rush back to the
Here, the queen and I share a birthday weekend. Here the hills fill my heart with joy each time I see them—and here I see them dozens of times a day. Here I learn what it means to be a New Zealander—and what it means to be an American. Here my children are learning soccer and horseback riding and Maori. Here is where we’ll begin work on our new house in a couple of months. Here is where I’ll be 37. Happy queen’s birthday (observed).
1 comment:
This is the second time today that I've blogged on and on both occasions I've been stunned into silence by the magnificance of that top image you've captured. Some works of art defy commentary. They just draw the beholder in to be... well beheld! See, if I had some 'culture' running through me, I'd have something to say. But you know what, I think this image transcends wise-ass culture. I do see the juxtaposition of majestic nature and playful abandon... boldness and fragility... and anticipation... and transition... and the eternal... and dance... and partnership... and oneness... That I love. Enough.
Nature is such a show-off when she undergoes her changes. As we get older, we seem to lose those outer rituals and recognitions that mark our transitions, particularly the inner ones. Instead the expanding self marks it's event symbolically in the outer world - the house extension, the 'higher' house, wider borders that embrace 'home'. We may also go deeper and inward.
What I think is exciting about your contribution at work is the even richer 'knowing' that you'll bring to your deep knowledge of the change experience. This is the 'knowing' that doesn't have the answers (nor does it seek them), but is reflected in eyes that show compassion, intimate understanding, the capacity to simply be with another - not in a trained way, but in an authentically felt experience. More than ever before you'll wonder at the ferocity of the inner journey that brings another into what seems to be an every-day outer experience... boarding a train, a plane, attending a seminar, lecture, meeting or workshop, the woman with a meal-for-one in her basket, the Queen at the races turning animatedly to address an empty space where her mother should be standing.
Sometimes a sense of loss and distance offers itself as a pathway to intimacy, to feel into another's pain. You'll seek out the lone inner traveller and celebrate their passage. This is your gift of healing at home and abroad on whichever shore you stand.
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