New Plan. New Adventure. New Beginnings.

The last remains of toenail polish from an August wedding have finally worn off and the feet décor has been replaced with blisters, calluses and Chaco tan-lines. I came to a moment of absolute peace with my New Zealand adventure while sitting on the beach in Raglan, feet buried in the black sand, a hot cup of tea in my hands and a bright orange sun setting over the expanse of sea before me. I have fallen in love with this natural wonderland of a country. I’ve fallen for its beaches and its mountains, its oddly shaped rolling hills, its lakes and rivers. I’ve fallen for its aliveness, its geological youth and the precariousness that goes along with it. It’s constantly changing and moving… it’s alive and terrifying. I’ve fallen in love with the culture of kindness and generosity, the culture of playfulness and humor. I have been in constant motion, matching that New Zealand spirit, going to as many places as possible, doing new things, challenging myself and learning about myself. And now it’s time for me to begin the journey home.

The morning before, I sat in The Shack café on the sleepy main street of Raglan, drinking morning tea among the groovy artwork that decorates their walls, the chill barefoot customers and the quiet acoustic music that eased me into the beautifully cloudy and damp morning… and once again, there was nowhere I would rather be. Reflecting upon the last four months, I thought about the thousands of hellos, the thousands of goodbyes, the constant give and take of random acts of kindness. There have been the enormous amounts of misunderstandings, wrong directions, mixed up dates, moments of impulse that catapulted me on another trajectory  that I never anticipated. The good and the bad, the ugly and the beautiful. The ‘I wish it had never happened’ and the ‘how did I get so lucky?’. The ‘I feel so alone’ and the blessings of great company. The random acts of kindness that warmed my heart and the terrible acts that tore me down. Traveling solo is the ultimate leap of faith as you expose yourself to the elements of the world and to the elements of humanity, for better or for worse. The better is what keeps you moving, while the worse is what teaches you the most valuable of lessons. Both enrich your life in a way you never thought possible. Traveling long-term solo has been like nothing I’ve ever read about, but it has been so much better.

It took a while for this to click for me in my adventure, but there is finally an achieved peace with the present. There is no anxiety towards the future, just pleasant excitement towards it’s possibilities. There is no regret or remorse over the past, but simply lessons learned. I have fallen back in love with moments, and I realize that that’s all I really needed. I needed to be reminded of their intricate patchwork that makes life so beautiful. At the same time, I have begun to crave a routine and a community… a bed that I can call my own… or even a bed for that matter. The love-hate relationship I have had with my backpack, that carries my worn out clothes, has begun to teeter towards absolute resentment and it’s about time that I unpack it.

I have left New Zealand. I chased the sunrise on my last day in Raglan, running along the beach. I jumped in the sea one last time and I kissed the waves goodbye. I felt them kiss me back. As I felt tears welling up, I smiled with the knowledge that this goodbye will lead to so many beautiful hellos. So I walked back to pack up my tent, to head towards Auckland and my flight out.

The adventure continues, as I suppose it always will. After a couple of days in San Francisco, a series of flights followed by a night in Spokane, I have arrived in Pullman, WA to spend a week with my little sister. The return to cold, dry weather has been a bit of a shock to the system (my Wyoming blood has thinned a bit…) but the warmth of being with family has never felt better. On Friday, I will finally be back with Jake and the reunion we have been waiting for since November 8th! Did I mention we are moving to Casper? We are moving to Casper :) and we’ll see what sorts of adventures and new beginnings lay in store for us there. Oh beautiful, glorious adventures- bring it on.

My wonderful Jackson friends and family, I will be home for a solid visit at the beginning of April and I can’t wait to see your beautiful faces and to catch up on everything! As always, no matter where you are, I am sending you exorbitant amounts of love and groovy vibes along with wishes for the biggest of belly laughs that warm your soul. Happy spring and happy new beginnings. I’ll see you soon.

To infinity and beyond :)

Me and my twin sister Lisa in Wellington :) Maupuia Walkway

Uncle Moray, my tour guide in Welly and up the guts of the North Island

Waita- one of the Te Kahui Matariki (Seven Sisters), tells us of Maori travels with the paddle upright in salute. It is also a reference to the travels we embark upon in our own lives. 

Me and young Teri, with our epic Nachos. Tauranga

Lou and Teri, whose family I stayed with in Tauranga

Waka (canoe), symbol of spiritual journeys. Raglan

Moments

Moments. That's what life really is. It's just one big fat stream of moments: big ones, little ones, slow ones, fast ones, upside down ones, right side up ones, scary ones, funny ones, stupid ones, smart ones, happy ones, sad ones, light ones, heavy ones, crazy ones, sane ones, monumental ones, insignificant ones... wait, stop. That's the only kind of moment that no longer exists to me: the insignificant one. It's those wee moments, that don't seem worth mentioning, that are often the most important of all. They occur between the snap shots, with no documentation at all. I've begun to think about this more and more in my travels. I look back through the stories I've passed on to others, through this blog, over the phone, in daily conversation, and I realize they are all the moments that I feel others would want to hear about. They are the exciting and monumental feats. The "on top of mountains", the "hitch hiking up the coast" and "exploration of Milford Sound" moments are the ones I have dubbed as important and worthy of sharing. As amazing as those experiences were, it's really the in-betweeners, the sneaky little unnoticed moments of life that carry us all from one cool experience to the next, that make up the majority of our lives and I believe they deserve a little more recognition and heaps more appreciation!

This time, I'm not going to tell you the big highlights, because you can look that shit up online and probably get better descriptions and photos than I am capable of. (Seriously, google Milford Sound and you'll realize how much my little blurbs suck). I want to tell you about the moments that have truly made my last 4 months in New Zealand an adventure. Moments like cooking dinner in a hostel kitchen, fighting for one of the four stove burners, some space on the one counter top among the twenty people cooking twenty different meals, communicating in five different languages. Moments like being woken up each time someone so un-delicately stumbles into your 15 person dorm room in the wee hours of the morning... and moments where I have ever so delicately tip toed :) into the 15 person dorm room in the wee hours of the morning only to have the bunk bed squeak to high heavens when I lay down. There's the side of travel that normally isn't written about.

I normally wouldn't think to write about the giant Fergburger I ate by myself as the sun set over Lake Wakatipu and burger juice dribbled all over me, or the bus ride from Dunedin to Queenstown with a crabby bus driver and a guy next to me with tragically terrible breath that seemed to permeate into the fibers of my seat, clothes and hair. Moments like sitting in a backpackers lounge with a cup of tea just talking to people usually don't make it into the letter home, but those are the most memorable moments of all. It's funny how you can be struggling to communicate with each other due to different languages and accents, but you can bond over the absolute joy of having found a place to have a hot shower with free tea and coffee.
Moments.
Walking aimlessly around a town from sun up to sun down, accomplishing absolutely nothing, but loving every single second of it, getting a pint of cider at the pub by myself just to have an excuse to watch the India vs. Australia cricket game and put my new found cricket knowledge to the test, spending an entire day sitting in the Queenstown rose garden with a book and snacks, dancing barefoot in the dirt among a thousand strangers on Waitangi Day, drinking strawberry cider on a rooftop sundeck, watching the sunset with the groovy German girl I met while dancing, jumping into the lake with my clothes on because I was hot, sitting on an empty rugby field for hours and watching the sun set with the company of my dinner groceries for the night and a Van Morrison album...

Oh gloriously tumultuous moments like standing alone on the side of the road with my life on my back trying to decide which way to go because it doesn't really matter either way, and the moment when I realize I'm just as happy to be there as anywhere else, so I stay. There have been times that I've eaten chocolate and corn chips for dinner, because that's all I had, and times where I just ate plain rice for breakfast. There have been terrible moments of self doubt and wondering what the hell I'm doing by myself on the other side of the world, followed by wonderful moments and feelings of accomplishment after having finished a 4 day solo hiking track. I once spent 5 hours round trip of walking, bussing and eventually calling a taxi to get to a one hour dance class in Wellington and realizing that those 5 hours were more of an adventure than the class itself (though the class really did rock my world).  Driving through Benneydale with Kiwi Uncle Moray was a highly memorable moment: he had never heard of it, most people haven't. We drove through it in about .2 seconds. The only person we saw was a disturbed looking man on the side of the road. Guaranteed you'll never hear about Benneydale again, but for me, Moray's reaction was absolutely priceless. I loved the post hike sushi picnic in the dark with two wonderful girls, Teri and her mother Lou, at Mount Maunganui and the surf life saving competition they brought me to and let me sleep in their car.

These are the moments that define the adventure and will remain with me forever, even if I forget them. They remain because they are the lessons- the good and the bad. They are the moments that have opened my eyes, given me new perspectives, forced me to adapt to all sorts of different lifestyles and beliefs. I've gone from staying with a Satanist to saying grace at a family dinner and it has all been absolutely beautiful.

I was hanging laundry this morning for the family I'm currently staying with in Tauranga and it inspired me to write this. I was inspired because I took a moment to appreciate just how happy I was to be singing, in the sunshine and hanging laundry. Oh yummy delicious moments. Every day is an extraordinary adventure, no matter where you are, if you remember to appreciate them, the good and the bad alike.

Paulo Coelho wrote something along the lines of, "the tiniest of moments are often times the most extraordinary..."

Cheers Paulo

Have a beautiful, wonderful day full of thousands of little un-note-worthy moments!

To infinity and beyond :)