Up in the Air

Just saw the movie at the suggestion of a friend (yes, I feel I need to qualify it). It worked pretty well to capture and smack around the thoughts of a 30-year old single lady who moved across the country for a requisite heart-stomping, and then, instead of running home to the loving arms of ma Boston familia (the family that is friends), quit her job and moved to a land far far away, all alone.

I enjoyed the film, not just for the excuse to eat Twix Pods in the dark -- and then throw out the half-finished bag, feeling like I'd cheated on the entire world of vegetables, and what have they ever done to deserve it -- but because it didn't try to do that "damning" thing to people like me who just don't have that marriage-baby button in our brain. Even if George was a bit lonely at the end, no one else seemed any more happy (if anything, most of them just seemed more stuck).

But there was a missing element the film didn't address, and that's frrr-rriends (say it like Ricky's mom in Better off Dead). Like, duh! Call me jaded, but one person - the ever-sought-after romantic partner - can't guarantee your eternal happiness. [If any one person can, it's supposed to be you yourself. In fact, I think that's what I set off to NZ to prove. And in some ways I have -- it's ever a work in progress -- and those little star-explosion moments make great light.] However. A lot of persons - frrrrriends - make things pretty happy. You can collect them together on the internets, but really, at the end of the day, I want them at my dinner table. Which requires - bingo!, a table; but also, a room, in a place that you get to call Home.

I'm not sure what I thought would happen once I got here. I thought the WWOOF thing would be temporary, a place to land while I peeked my head around. I envisioned a job, an apartment, friends, a neighborhood, all staying constant in my newfound orbit. But it turns out not having a job is FUN! Seeing this glorious country and checking out all this farmlife is FUN! Tomorrow I fly to Christchurch, and I'm staying at that first farm I listed in my last entry (random/psychic), a working lifestock farm run by a fam striving for true self-sufficiency, which will prove nice contrast to the last month at the veg cafe that was, while lovely, hardly self-sufficient -- indeed, barely organic. [I have a lot-lot-LOT to say about organics after these 3 months of WWOOFing, but I must keep doing my research before spouting out a publication -- I can assure you, however, that the abstract will be something along the lines of: "We're fucked."]

Today I spent 3 hours at the Auckland Public Library reading about the Kingdom of Tonga, which it turns out is the axis of my orbit here, not the Queendom of my Comfort Zone. (Going there for a month mid-March has prevented me from doing any settling in one place.) I'd rather reveal the place through my future observations than quotes from a guidebook, but let me just drop a preview: In Tonga, it is illegal to do anything other than eat, sleep, and go to church on Sundays. And by illegal I mean it's a law. No fishing. No swimming (which, might I add, must be done in a t-shirt and knee-length shorts Monday through Saturday, for modesty). Don't even think about hanging out your laundry. As an ultimate ex-Catholic, my penance is going to what may be the most Catholic place on earth, just in time for a week-long Easter festival. At least the singing is supposed to be good (anyone reading who may have gone to my brainwashing center - i.e. church - growing up will know just how tormenting 3 old white ladies with an out-of-tune guitar can be).

In conclusion, I will leave you with some of the haikus that I write when I'm lonely at night and working on that muscle in my heart that deals with these things. I hope they are both pitiful and amusing. And know that, even when I put on my galoshes for wallowing in the sad puddles, I think up in the air is just where I need to be.

every day
i have a million emotions like
joy pain sunshine rain
- (thanks rob base!)

i want a normal
life, with a stereo and
bedroom door to close

hostel rooms smell gross
the sweat of thousands of feet
trapped in the carpets

i skipped winter and
i wonder if my body
minds - my mind doesn't

let's make a new friend
except i don't want to -- but:
i really miss hugs.

i have no contracts
no lease, no job, no keys; and
no mission statement.

most of my friends live
in the same place and i am
not there right now. d'oh.

many haikus but
only 1 title -- let's try:
"i am far from home."