Point inflection

We have come to another of those many inflection points on the journey from here to there. Last week was our two year anniversary of life in this new land. To celebrate, my work friends brought Afghans, a wonderful and odd kind of New Zealand chocolate cookie, to our afternoon meeting. I looked around the room at NZCER and thought that two years ago I was in a total identity crisis about what my life would be like and where I’d find friends. And now here I was, surrounded by people whose thoughts and opinions I valued deeply, people I have been thinking alongside for these past years. We passed around the cookies and laughed and worked together, and then walked down the hill through this familiar city to the familiar train together. In addition to being impressed with the quality of their thinking and writing, I also genuinely like these folks, admire their values, love to laugh with them, learn from every interaction. That’s a beautiful thing.

Then, to celebrate this occasion, I got a present out of the blue from Michael. In the US in October, Michael bought a MacBook for himself, a present to replace the work laptop he was leaving behind as he began a year-long secondment in another governmental department. Ever since, in the evenings when Rob and Michael and I sit in the internet café that is my living room, I’m the odd one out with my little grey Dell laptop next to their shiny white Macs. For our two year anniversary, Michael bought me a new computer for this new land, an amazingly sexy MacBook Air. I have coveted this computer since I first laid eyes on it, but never harbored a thought of actually buying it—this is a global recession after all. In our 21 years together, Michael has never surprised me as much as he did for our two-year anniversary present, and now the sexy computer sits in my lap on this familiar train.

And then today, the third marker of this inflection point. For a variety of reasons, when you are awarded permanent residence in New Zealand it comes in two different visas: one that allows you to stay here forever, and one called a “returning resident” visa, which allows you to come and go whenever you want. That one expires after two years, a way to make sure that you actually live here in NZ and don’t just bank the residence permit for use at some later point (like after you’re 55 and you can’t get this visa anymore). But if you’re good, and you live here and work here for the 2 years, that visa too converts to permanent. And so, now that our anniversary is behind us, Michael headed over to immigration, proved the various things that needed proving, and now we can come and go from New Zealand whenever we want for as long as we want. We belong here now.

These three inflection points have left me looking at this new land in a new way. My work seems to be here and the work in the US is gone. My house seems to be here and my house in the US is gone. Even my visa says I belong here, no more checking of expiration dates as I clear customs or board a plane to NZ without a ticket to someplace else. I have long wondered when I’ll really feel like I’m here, when I’ll stop feeling my strangeness, noticing how American I am in accent and culture. I have wondered when I’ll get to feel fully like I belong, either here or there.

The big lesson for me, though, is that it is a life-long journey from here to there. Through facebook, I’m back in touch with a huge number of former students, and they ask and ask, “Why New Zealand?” It’s hard for me to answer that question, or the inevitable follow up questions about how long we’ll live here and where we’ll go next. This is my home now. These hills are familiar, the sheep, bedraggled after several days of last spring rains, are the regular companions of my trip home, along with the kite surfers I pass as I go through exactly this part of the journey on a windy afternoon like this one. I love it here, love waking up to the sea and falling asleep looking at the stars. I don’t know if this is our home for the long haul or what comes next. But at this inflection point I am here and at this moment, here is home.

PS Here, after keeping this blog for 2 years—when I never thought I’d write here at all—I am at another inflection point. You may have noticed that I am writing here less. That’s because I have lost the plot about what this blog is for and whom it communicates with. If any readers have opinions about that, I would be grateful.

PPS Pics today of Aidan on Karen's bike (cool Karen!) and from the surf club on Sunday