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You are here: Home / Archives for gratitude

gratitude

One Week Back in New Zealand

06/14/2020 by John 2 Comments

We have been back in New Zealand for just over one week. Now that we are here, I’m on to worrying about whether or not we’ll be able to stay. Our fate now rests with Immigration New Zealand. If we’re not approved for a Skilled Migrant Residence Visa, this will be a short stay.

I imagine that pressure on the New Zealand immigration system is mounting. They are dealing with the immediate challenge of closed borders due to Covid-19. There will likely be a tidal wave of visa applications for people wanting to come to what appears to be one of the safest places in the world. I hope we are far enough ahead of that wave to surf to not get swept up in its tumult.

We talked to an airport security officer last week who said there were already 10,000 people looking to return to New Zealand, many of them residents and citizens who have been living overseas. What will this do to the job market and housing costs? How will the country cope with these increased pressures?

I know we haven’t been back long, but this feels right. This is where I want to be. Everything just feels lighter here. There are many challenges ahead for this to truly be home for us, but I am excited to face them right now.

Overall we are enjoying our time in Managed Isolation. They are feeding us too well with not enough opportunity to burn it off. I hear we drew a good straw. Many of the other facilities are in downtown Auckland where opportunities to be outside are much more limited and have to be supervised closely. Though we can’t access it, we are surrounded by natural beauty. We can watch the tide fill and empty the basin in front of the hotel and see the light change during the day on the slopes of a nearby extinct volcano.

Parents play with their children in the yard as runners and walkers do multitudes of laps up and down its gentle slope. Many of the “guests” here have visitors who come to see them from behind the safe distance of the double row of fences surrounding us. Now I know what zoo animals must feel like as they pace back and forth in their cages while people beyond the bars gawk at them.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining. It’s so good to be here, even with our extremely limited freedom. What I remembered about being here still feels true: the societal mood here is more relaxed, friendly, and open. There is less tension in the air, even in a place where people are being held more or less against their will for two weeks. Even in this, people seem happy.

Perhaps we’re all just happy to be in New Zealand, glad to be away from wherever it is we were before. Name just about any place in the world and New Zealand is probably a saner place to be right now.

People have been saying “welcome home” to us and for now, it feels true. We are home. Home so far away from home.

Filed Under: Home Tagged With: gratitude, New Zealand, travel

Countdown New Zealand Day 14

05/23/2020 by John Leave a Comment

This is a series of posts that will log some of my thoughts in the month leading up to my moving back to New Zealand.

This is one of those moments when life feels full of possibility. I am ready to move to New Zealand and make it my permanent home. I know this feeling will ebb and flow, that there will be moments after we get there when I’ll wonder if we’ve done the right thing. But those moments will happen no matter what we do.

I think of sunny days sitting outside on Oriental Bay drinking a coffee. I think about running up, over, and around the hills surrounding Wellington, of coming to the top of Mount Albert and seeing the South Island thrusting out of the waters across Cook Strait. I know that memory is kind. The hard times we had there have faded but the evidence of them can be found in my journals. It won’t be easy, but few things in life worth doing ever are.

I’m so glad we came here. And I’m so glad we get to go back there.

Filed Under: Home Tagged With: Countdown New Zealand, gratitude, New Zealand, running, travel

Saying Goodbye

11/03/2018 by John Leave a Comment

Children sitting by the water

It has been four months now since we moved to the opposite side of the world from practically everyone we know. Saying goodbye and not knowing when or if we will ever see the people we care about again was painful and is something we continue to struggle with. But don’t all of us do this every day without even thinking about it?

The only thing predictable about life is that it is unpredictable. When we say goodbye to a loved one there is never a guarantee that we will see them again. When we pass a stranger on the street, we don’t know if it might be the last human interaction either one of us will have. To be mindful of this is to know that each instance of contact matters.

Who will you say goodbye to today? Who will enter into your life as you go about your routines? Can you be just a little bit kinder? Can we all treat each other as if it might be the last interaction we have?

Filed Under: Mindfulness Tagged With: gratitude, mindfulness, New Zealand, Relationships

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