veils

A wee 6-month update...

I'm grateful for the speed and ease in which I found employment, be it menial work, to pay for the shelter and food I am currently enjoying.  But I can't help feel that I've come full circle and have landed right where I started.  Living from paycheck to paycheck, managing to save just enough to justify being here.  I'm back in a consumerist lifestyle.  Caring how I look and what I wear and who notices and why.  Comparing myself to others which is always lose-lose.  Have I experienced any self-growth if the second I'm back in society at large I'm the same person I was when I left?  Always waiting for Monday to 'start over.'  I'll be better starting Monday.  If I recognize my patterns can I break them more easily?  I thought I recognized them back home and had left in order to break them.  So here I am just as confused as ever, but on the other side of the world with no mother or boyfriend to provide some sort of stability.  Perhaps that's a good thing.  No crutches.  Just have to learn to walk on my own, so to speak.

Anicca.....

Ten Rings.  They're simple.  Small finger sized cylindrical sections of bicycle inter tube with little hearts hole punched through one side.  Utilizing every phalange to tally up how many to get.  Ten.  That's nine people.  Nine lovely individual snow flakes in my life that I will think of when I glance down at my thumb and smile because I'm reminded of how happy I am.  How unbelievable these five weeks have been in Wellington.  How everything we do… our breakfast-for-dinner flat party, walking through the greenbelt to garden at Innermost, sitting in the sun on the patio joking around, jam sessions in the living room… all of it, it's exactly as I had pictured it.  It's the kind of house that friends just pop by to say hello and end up spinning a yarn with for an afternoon.  A home worth coming home to.

I'm running again.  When the weather is nice.  Which it's starting to be with more regularity.  The wind retreats for a day, maybe two, every week.  Lets the sun have a chance to darken our skin and pump us full of vitamin D.  Preferably on the weekend, but weekdays are appreciated too.  I'm running around the bays, sticking to the waterfront.  Letting the next shock of blue be the carrot in front of my nose.  Then climbing the ascent to Mt. Vic for some epic views.  

I'm building a bike.  Learning how they're put together.  Like a med student in their first anatomy class. It's the kind of place where it's free and you piece the bits and bobs together with the guidance of a badass volunteer biker chick who wears a beanie and jewelry made of bike gears and knows exactly what she's talking about.  It's a green mountain bike and I'm going to tear it up on the green belt trails as soon as it has brakes and gears.

   

I'm applying to new jobs.  One's I wouldn't normally think of,  just to try something new.  An organic food company is looking for a box packer.  A moving company seeks a general laborer.  Kayak hire?  You betcha.  Why not?  I'm here to try on different versions of myself.  So why would I continue with more of the same 'ol same?  Currently have a lead as an early childhood educator...

I'm learning to play the ukulele.  Taking koha (donation based) group lessons once a week.  Learning new chords, songs and strumming styles.  We end up talking and laughing most of the class, but I've got the sheet music to practice on my roof at home....

  

I'm meeting new people.  Constantly.  And I'm avoiding the whole, "Where are you from?  How long have you been here?  Where are you going next?"  conversation altogether.  Asking more obscure, probing questions that lead to engaging banter.  Playing up stereotypes just to break them down.  Being okay with the awkward silence.  Being okay with being the one who is awkward.  Finding excitement and comfort in the ability to relate.

I'm gardening.  Plating seeds in the community garden.  Digging and laughing and learning.  And at home we're building raised beds and a compost bin with free palettes salvaged from an organics store.  Piecing the planks together.  Planting seedlings we received as a thank you for attending the Rhizome Effect, a free gardening informational event at the Sustainability Trust.  A community gathering where soil science, companion planting, community initiatives and urban gardening are discussed by compost gurus.  

And whether I'm alone or surrounded by friends, I feel a simple inward smile, peeking out to make itself known.  A quiet confidence.  A hidden rosy realization.  Anicca, impermanance, change.  Yes, but I've got it on my side.

Anicca......

The human experience, our reality, is validated through stories.  Story telling.  We've done it, this beautiful thing, since our brains surpassed our brawn.  It's always fascinated and inspired me, the ability to tell a story.  Is what we have done, the way we have perceived we have done it, is it concrete reality until we share it with others?  Do we truly believe it until we've told someone else?  What we believe, what we've seen, done, thought, taught... does it matter, does it exist until we've shared it?  We write books, blogs, novels, memoirs, biographies, status updates, poetry… to materialize ourselves in a way we cannot express through physical actions.  

We tell stories of our past, visions of our futures, share jokes, ask questions, slam poetry… as another form to stabilize what is real.  If we keep it in our head, lock it up tight, does it ever really exist?  JFK's brother isn't around to steal our brains to conceal or reveal our secrets, our inner goings-on.  We're the only ones who can, in any way we can, who can try to connect the spider webs that tie together the mystery we all seek to find, to understand.  Whatever medium that suits us, that's how we construct and reconstruct our own realities.  Anicca, it's always changing, that you can be sure of, and we're always changing with it.  Molecule to molecule, moment to moment.  And I make it so by lightning bolting thought to pen, stream of consciousness.  In fact, I'm now thinking about writing about how I sat down to write this in the middle of a park under a street lamp on my walk home from a friend's flat at midnight on a Tuesday.  That's so meta.

Anicca...

I've done this more than I'd willingly, soberly admit.  That is, not listening because I don't think I'll be able to understand.  Rationalizing why I either don't need to know it, figuring I'll learn it another time, or deciding my brain isn't wired to absorb the information, therefore I'm excused from trying.  Lecturers, parents, friends, mechanics, strangers… explaining to me how something works, how it happens and why it is that way.  History, physics, coffee making, car maintenance, you name it, I tune it out.  

Until working for Open Space & Mountain Parks.  The first time in my life I felt like a sponge.  Soaking up information, retaining it, seeking to expand, spreading it in a way I felt confident and competent while still humble, eager and curious.  Always wanting to learn more, to improve, to grow.  PASSION.  That's what it was.  I experienced passion for something.  A passion I can carry with me always.  A passion I am grateful beyond words to have had nurtured by so many tremendous individuals.

And I feel it again, only it's different this time.  A passion for trying.  Choosing not to tune it out because I assume I won't grasp it.  Listening, giving it a go.  Why?  Why not?  Music, bikes, cars, coffee, beer, brains, blood donation, naan bread, photography, carpentry.  Ukulele lessons.  Bike building.  Slam poetry and story telling.  I'm actually listening, taking time, giving effort.  And it's working.  I'm learning, remembering, getting excited to understand more.  Trying it on for size.  Baby steps, but it's a great start.

25 Oct - 27 Oct

Wellington Folk Festival

Wainuiomata Nature Reserve

Six months.  I've been gone six months.  I celebrate this half year of departure by attending my first multi-day festival, Wellyfest, or, Wellington Folk Festival, in it's 49th glorious year.  Large open paddocks surrounded by wild bush provide a camp ground nirvana.  It's a quick stroll to the 5 stages that host an abundance of talented musicians/signers/songwriters/dancers. 

 There are workshops providing opportunities for musicians and dancers at all levels of skill to perform, jam and to meet other artists.  It's relaxed, inclusive and engaging.  Savant fiddlers mingle with self-taught harmonicists over a home-brew swap.  We're all just here to enjoy one another's company in this beautiful place on these sunny wild days.  We scamper front tent to tent, checking out acts from haunting Scottish folk ballads to Morris step dancing lessons (which we of course attend).  We make friends, have fire side jam sessions by night, sun warmed grassy jams by day.  Erin learns to play the spoons, Jamie holds her own on the mandolin, I sheepishly strum my uke.  We dance Ceildh (pronounced kay-lee) until we're red in the face and sweat forms a wee stream down the curve of my spine.  It's a fantastic festival full of life, talent, inspiration and laughter.  Happy anniversary, little me.