Sacrifices?

Last night, Michael and Aidan and I ate our first dinner of the season on our front deck (Naomi ate hers in bed—she’s had the stomach flu but she’s much much better now). In the slanting, late sunset, I ate a big salad with fresh eggs from my chickens, I watched the waves rolling in, and drank a fine New Zealand Sav Blanc. My life felt almost painfully unfair to me, as if my sitting there on my front deck was a hording of all manner of good things that now others couldn’t have because of my selfish life. Michael talked about how we had made many sacrifices to get here. Have we? What kind of sacrifices to we always make to get from here to there and how do we understand them in the moment? How do we understand them in the long run? And so I’ve been wondering about what it takes to get from where you are now to the next place.

Those of you who have been reading here long enough (or trolling back far enough), will see that my landing in New Zealand was not smooth or effortless. It is a hard thing to come around the world from a life you love to a new country, and it is a hard thing to build a new life, brick by brick. We made some terrible mistakes that first, impulsive year, mistakes which cost us in dollars and heartache. And then we bought this house, which I often thought of as my folly, and we poured everything into it. I was without a road map for the first time in a long long time, and I was lost.

Now, at the end of that part of the journey, we simply live here. We no longer struggle about where to live or how to live, but we just live. We work here. Aidan and Naomi race around the village on the weekends, checking in with us every couple of hours before disappearing with a pack of their friends into the park or down to someone’s house. We garden. The chickens make funny noises and lay eggs. Our house is constantly filled with people, our family, our friends, the lovely WWOOFERs who come and stay, the sometimes-mostly-unknown acquaintances who find themselves in our guest room, pondering the Tasman sea from their air bed.

I wonder how readers out there think about the sacrifices they’ve made to get to where they are, and how you even think about “sacrifice” on your way from here to there, or whether it’s all just called “life” and the choices we make. Today I’m watching perfect sky, brilliant waves, sparkling green hills. I’m inside, working hard on the billions of deadlines coming my way (you can check out a big part of my work at shiftingthinking.org). Is this a sacrifice? A joy? Or just one lucky woman, living life as hard as she can?


Pictures today are of last night, and of the “spring show” (these are mostly posted for John and Sheena who were as mystified about what that would be as I was. And also to John and Sheena—sorry about the beautiful sunset pictures 30 hours after your departure. Come back and next time there will be beautiful sunsets while you’re actually here!)