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Monday, 17 October 2005 |
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The Treehouse has recovered to my reentry. Days here are sweet and fufilling, though of course it is a mixed bag of emotions. As soon as a persons steps back onto childhood soil...they become aware of the enormity of change. I wasn't quite aware of the depth of that change until now. I have cleaned out my room of sentimentality, now only the Swedish sentiment remains. Which is fine by me.
I'm doing my best to reconnect with New Zealand. It's been good. In Sweden I was longing to meet friends and old acquaintances, but now that feeling has lost its urgency and I take every day as it comes. I'm loving being a part of the Kohukohu community, being a librarian and going to Arts Council meetings and running the Saturday morning markets and opening this community arts initiative Village Arts Kohukohu.
I also have scored a job at Pompallier House in Russell, and will begin work there in December. It's a restored 1830s French mission house, with a tannery and bookbindery where they made Maori bibles during the Bishop Pompalliers Catholic mission. The opportunity to learn more about New Zealands history through this job is an opportunity not to be missed.
Yesterday I felt Sweden right before my eyes, all the romantic parts anyway- and for me there is romanticism in the long autumn days and melancholic mornings. I could smell the forest and the feel the lingering Norrland sunlight and imagined myself picking blueberries up in Harjedalen. The strength of this memory is almost as if it is not in fact a memory, but that I am, in some way, visiting in my minds spare time. I'm grateful for the opportunity to visit.
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