So back in 1999, I was a member of a couple of online communities to foster writing though online blogging. At that time, there were several people who I clicked with, whose writing and experiences echoed mine, contradicted mine, and importantly, inspired mine. I came to even live with some of these people at one stage through various tricks of fate.
One of those people was Jenna. We lived together only briefly, and life definitely blew us in very different directions after. We lost touch for a few years, then, when we began blogging again, stumbled upon each other again through circumstance. Cause life is like that, yanno?
For the past year or so I've been stewing on writing a piece about Australia and all it has come to mean to me, this Canuk by way of Europe, this global nomad who once in her 30's lived in one house for a whole three years, and who has lived an entire lifetime rarely staying put for more then a year. But every time I sit to write it, I find it's not yet done. It's forming in my head, but it is not yet ready to be written.
Then Jenna wrote this (Go read it, now, the rest of what I am going to say needs you to see her words first.); http://figmentj.livejournal.com/212238.html
And the din in my head suddenly roared to life.
I had been blocked because I was trying to write about coming to Australia, about the peace my soul felt here completely independent of all the other things that happened before I got on the plane. And nothing in life is that static. Certainly not something as huge as what I did when moving here. It's not something I had encountered before in my writing, typically I find biting off small chucks, single experiences or events is the best way to approach a blog entry. So it's no wonder this one was so long coming. I was trying to address, in isolation, an event that was dependent on the entirety of my existence at that time, and could not, therefore, be separated out.
When I moved here, it was with a one year working holiday maker visa in my passport, the promise- and the risk- of a relationship formed online, and not a clue. But I did not approach the journey as a year long adventure. No, I rid myself of everything I owned that could not fit into the three very large suitcases, packed those things most important to me, and I MOVED me, my life and everything 16 thousand Kilometers (10 thousand miles for you yanks) from London UK to Brisbane Australia.
I still remember exactly how the city of Brisbane looked as the plane landed that morning. I remember the water, the bridge, the mountains cradling it all. I remember thinking; "This is where you will spend the rest of your life."
Looking back, that thought did not bid from some sixth sense that knew, just knew, that this would become home. No, I think the thought was born from the fact that I was so weary of life, so exhausted from starting over that I simply could not imagine anything further ahead, too tired to see anything more then the one next step in front of me. Lao-Tzu is quoted as saying " A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step". Perhaps this is because, for many who set out on a new path, anything more then one step is utterly overwhelming.
I had, through a series of past events, emptied myself entirely of emotion, of energy, of life force. I was a shell of a Nikki, going through the motions. I had given everything I was to loved ones close to me, ironically, to no avail- we both healed only after we were well apart. Turns out we were better apart then together.
Even after packing up everything, and approaching the trip here as a move rather then a stepping stone, I had no idea that what I would find here was Home.
But from the runway stairs, from my first breath of air, my sleeping self began to awake. My psyche felt soothed, and began, for the first time in many years, to feel as though maybe everything would be ok.
I've been in Australia for nine years now. The one year holiday maker visa morphed into a spousal visa, and the spouse is now just a friend (though I kept his mother). Nothing in my life is as it was on that day, when I stepped off a plane after 62 hours in transit, and felt the sunshine on my face. Nothing, except one thing.
This is still my home.
Australia has been utterly wonderful to me. It is where I was meant to be. It is where I am truly me. It has healed me, nurtured me, developed me into the me I always knew was in here, just under the surface, waiting for an opportunity.
Jenna, I nope NZ offers you the same peace that I found in Australia.
