So if I were you, I'd have a little trust...

April 18^th, 2014

I am sitting here in this tiny little one terminal Western Australian airport with James Vincent McMorrow singing me my absolute favourite song of his, and I am trying with all of my heart to understand exactly how this happens to be my very last entry…

Another chapter is coming to a close. Another life has been folded up & tucked snug into the corner of my suitcase. Another handful of love letters have been left scattered around this little world I am leaving behind, for all of those who made this one so special. I remember so distinctly opening this document to begin my story, 11 whole months ago from the Toronto international departures terminal with my big brother by my side, that faithful resfeber running thick through my veins.  How is it possible that that was only 148 Word document pages ago? How can it be that there are only 60,277 words here capturing my absolute best life yet? I couldn’t have known back then… I couldn’t have even begun to know…

This life here deserves the most heart-felt send-off, but I sit here trying to string together worthy conclusive sentences and I am at a loss for words. Instead, there are only images, images that won't mean the same to absolutely anybody else. Images that are so beautiful and so genuine, flawless in every sense of that word, encompassing absolutely everything this year was to me…

There is a sparkling silver and blue harbor, the way it floated past me during any morning, afternoon or evening jog.

There is a solo sunrise from south beach, Easter egg pinks and purples, and a recent sunset from the caves, deep reds and orange; two different states, two different sides of this same gorgeous country, two opposite bookends of my time here; seen through the eyes (surely) of two completely different selves.

There is a rolling wave in the distance, building, swelling, bringing all of the power of the ocean and the world beneath together against me and my board, lifting me from under, carrying me swiftly, smoothly, into a sky of orange, back to its eager shore.

There is a Big Banana.

This are incandescent ripples among the strong pull of a midnight moon’s heavy tide. There are 5 silent minds, staring out in due wonder, hoping to never truly understand the science behind the magic.

There is shotgun smoke slipping subtle, almost unnoticed, between perfectly paralleled lips, sharing souls (with those who know they will always keep those parts of mine).

There is permanent sand in my scalp from countless beach headstands; Byron inversions and Mud & Bubbles. Road trip carrots & peanut butter. Cheeky parting gift Nimbin goodies. Midnight McFlurries at the light house and Thursday Retro Nights at the Illa.

There is a pop up art gallery and a warehouse church group.

There's a record player, whiskey on the rocks. Fiji rum in plastic cups in the midnight pouring rain at North Beach, absolutely losing ourselves, skin on skin on ocean salt. 

There are mudslide eyes & floppy, Prince Eric hair. Silly, slurry smiles under shining skies, blinking wonder into our hearts.

I close my eyes, and I see people. People with sand in their hair and sun on their skin and smiles in their hearts. They made me one of those people. 

I miss this life already. But alas, it’s time to be (once more) up, up & away… Until we meet again, Australia… xx

My very last days in Australia...

Gosh, what a whirlwind the last two weeks have been. In the month and a half since I have written, I had filled my days similarly with weeding and fly swatting and paddle boarding and kayaking and hiking and trying to nap in 38 degree heat. There were a few major changes to note: we did a fair bit more beer drinking in March! Our staff has nearly doubled, with only a small handful of new comers and a whole whack of returning wwoofers here now for paid work. I remained the only volunteer wwoofer (having lost Backy to a rare type of grass allergy), which was tougher than even my first month here (something about having had the second helping hand and then losing it), but I remained appreciative and I continued my efforts to contribute to the staff as a whole in a positive way.

And then things took a sudden turn. It was as if my time here in Australia was simply too good to me, that my final 2 weeks here in the country had to balance that out. I am a true believer in balance and harmony and symmetry, so for this, I can understand the workings of the universe. Of course, I am stating this now… 1 week ago when I was lying in the hospital bed for the 5^th day in a row, with absolutely nothing to do and no one by my side, with medical bills climbing into the tens of thousands, with worried opposite time zone parents and best friends… I wasn’t exactly as clear-minded and understanding and forgiving.

I was rushed into the hospital at 3:30 in the morning on April 2^nd, in the most pain I have ever felt in my entire life. My eyes had been irritating me the entire day and as the pain had been escalating, I woke up with a start in searing, mind-numbing pain raiding through my entire head and face. The next handful of hours are a blur to me (literally, mentally). In fact, the whole first 2 days in the hospital are hard to remember; a haze of injected hormones and constant morphine and complete darkness.

The doctors threw fancy names of dangerous bacteria around my hospital room, and my team of seven spoke strategies in foreign medical tongue. They worried (out loud) about cataracts, about ulcers, about surgery, about permanent damage. After sending my contact lenses off to Perth to be tested, it was determined that a nasty bug had grown in my case (which sits in my 45+ degree heat mid-day, everyday), and then lodged itself deep into both of my corneas when I wore my lenses for a few hours the previous night. Bilateral corneal abrasions with possible pseudomonas infection of both eyes. This last detail was the scariest, and the cause for lots of discussion about flying me out to Perth where the specialists were working on my case via all sorts of telecommunication mediums. Though in the end that was not necessary, the threat of it proved to be incredibly beneficial to the beginning of my true recovery, as the start of every recovery should always stem from the same place: gratitude. I did not have to fly to Perth. My condition must have been improving well enough to determine that. I was on the mend. I was going to be okay. My vision would eventually return. Thank goodness.

And then it was easy to see all of the things there were to be grateful for. In the very end, I am simply grateful for the passing of those days, for the little things in each of them that still kept me optimistic and smiling – and there were in fact things every day to be grateful for and to still smile about: namely, the nurses. Every single one of them who made me smile or laugh, the male ones assuring me ‘you’re really not missing much, I’m not that good looking anyway!’, the anecdotes about their children who also still travel with a teddy bear (though none of them were nearly 25...), or how more than one of them mentioned to me that as the person who might be in the most distress in this ward (during my first few days at least), I had used my call button the least, and how admirable that is (though I think they might tell this to everyone). How painful it was just to lay there and watch each and every nurse's face as they administered my eye drops hourly for 72 hours (never mind the pain of those hot searing bullets hitting my raw swollen eyeballs, but how much it hurt THEM to imagine how much they were hurting me), their constant apologies though they are only doing their jobs! They truly made my stay in the ward as comfortable as possible.

And then there was my EcoBeach family and the efforts they made to show how much they care: the most beautiful bouquet of roses and lilies delivered to my hospital room, the portable wifi device my manager brought so that I could contact my family for free, the delivery of my iPod so that at least I could tune out in the playlists from that beautiful boy back in NSW which comforted me for the hours and hours of it being impossible to do absolutely anything else but lie and listen. I am so grateful for these people.

It was tough being away from my family during a long holiday weekend, as it always is. It was tough knowing exactly where they would be and who they would be visiting and what they would be eating and the company of extended family and friends that would surround them, getting caught up on everything to smile about. It was tough not waking up to cute little Easter baskets full of treats that my mother, bless her, has been putting together since before I was born. It was tough missing out on the drive to London, which always guarantees a road trip sing-along with my daddy. It was tough not being able to take advantage of the long weekend where the nightlife streets would be full of out of towners returning for their family obligations, faces only seen a handful of times throughout the year, getting silly with my very favourites. Or using the extra time off to travel out of town to see my best friend and her beautiful family to celebrate the conclusion of lent with an inappropriate amount of Bulk Barn goodies.

Those things were tough, all on their own. Being locked up in the hospital thousands of miles away with no end or immediate relief in sight (no pun intended) only added to my creeping homesickness.

The hardest part about it all though, was not being able to write when I was bursting with words of frustration and anxiety and uncertainty, as well as gratitude and good fortune that I so badly wanted to express. My eyes couldn’t focus on a screen or on a piece of paper 2 inches in front of me. My words circled, trapped, around my mind for 5 days. Even during those days I already knew that all of this was such an enlightening experience, and all I wanted to do was capture it: the loss of a sense so vital, how life changes so drastically if even just for a few days; how I will never experience days like these ever again (I pray); how to see the silver linings even when you physically can’t see anything at all around you. So instead, I resorted to the voice-recording feature on my phone, and I took advantage of the empty, semi-private hospital room and I talked myself through brief descriptions of my experience,

“[…] Four different kinds of drops, administered every single hour for the past 72+ hours. Can you calculate how little sleep that is? And when you're so exhausted and so drained from the constant throbbing pain that you're not hungry so you're not eating and you’re stiff from not moving… But somehow you are still in good spirits. The pain has gotten better in the past 5 days, or perhaps they have just finally perfected my cocktail of pills. Either way I am so grateful. But nothing compares to the fear I feel at the pit of my stomach still every time I put my glasses on and fail to see clearly. It is such a scary feeling. After almost two decades of wearing glasses and being so familiar with the blur of not having them on, and then for that blur to NOT disappear with the common solution? It's terrifying in a way that you would have to experience to understand. I know it will come back to me though. I have to know that. I have to truly believe it and have faith that the universe still has many, many decades ahead for me to SEE this great big beautiful world. I have to stay positive. I have to stay patient. Isn't this what the whole 3 months here has essentially been teaching me? Patience…”

It helped, to form the sentences, but nothing was changing the fact that my world, in many senses of the word, was blurry. And if I can admit to the darkest hour of my stay there, it was the fleeting (but vicious) realization that the only thing I’ve ever really wanted to do with my life, for the rest of my life, is to see this big, beautiful world. And for the first time in my life, in a way so real and so threatening that I have never known before, the possibility of that was at risk.

Again, no pun intended – it was truly eye opening. Not that I haven’t always lived my life in complete and utter dedication to the allure and magic that I know this world has to offer, but if there ever were any doubts in the ways that I have chosen to wander through this gorgeous life, in my disregard for the ordinary, for the nine-to-five, for the stability and predictability of ever having a ‘home life,’ then these small handful of unnerving days cured me of them. I knew, even then and there: this is where I’m meant to be. Regardless of the added stress and fear of dealing with insurance and surviving this alone, I am exactly where I am supposed to be, and this is happening at the exact moment that will benefit me the most.

Suddenly, I am in love with my life here in Western Australia, grateful for all that it has given me and for the people it has brought into my life, but simultaneously, I am ecstatic that my new life in Thailand is literally right around the corner, just 10 days away at the time (less than 5 now!), knowing this was all part of the universe’s way of nudging me forward, onward into a new setting in a new life to build a brand new story with a renewed sense of gratitude, with a braver, stronger demeanor, with fresh eyes.

This morning, 6 days following my discharge from Broome hospital, I received two gifts; the most beautiful, precious, valuable gifts I will ever know or come to always appreciate. My big, blue eyes! Officially my new favourite feature ;)

These days,

This was perhaps my longest writing hiatus since moving here to Australia (because, admittedly, I wrote my What’s Next post full weeks before I uploaded it here). I keep asking myself why, when I have all the time in the world to think and then put those thoughts into words. I have just gotten so used to my solidarity, and I think that has been communicated through my social media networks (I have only instagramed 6 times in the 6 weeks I’ve been here!). I have become more comfortable than I have ever been in my life with keeping my thoughts to myself, letting them simply marinate in my mind and swim around my soul without feeling that instinctual urge to share or record. I think it’s healthy. I think most people who know me would agree with that, lol. Of course I’ve also convinced myself that living virtually alone in this deserted (albeit beautiful) little slice of WA has left me with nothing interesting at all to even say. I have started and stopped nearly half a dozen entries before I decided they were much too uninspired to even post. But I suppose I’ll string some of them together here (for no particular reason and with no clever correlation)…

~~

(February 6^th)

Western Australia…

… where you work up a sweat just putting your running shoes on.

… where you spend your whole jog scanning the ground so as not to accidentally step on a snake (since a King Brown was discovered on your morning garbage run…), and sure enough you do encounter another snake on your trail, and some how bravely complete your three laps past it anyhow.

… where you are so busy staring at the ground during that jog that you literally almost have a head-on collision with a wallaby, both equally startled and spooked at this unexpected encounter, lol.

… where your worst enemies are flying crickets and warm showers (both, sick).

… where you have every inch of your tent memorized for preexisting marks and scuffs, so that when a new shape or shadow appears you know in an instant it is an insect intruder.

… where you conquer all fears of killing spiders, because what choice do you have besides letting it sleep on that pillow there next to you. …

… where your biggest lifeline after 6:30pm is your torch (flashlight).

… where ice packs and ear plugs quickly become your best friends and trusty companions.

… where it’s almost too hot for tummy pillows (gasp!).

… where that rustling and crunching of the leaves outside your tent is definitely not your neighbor, but the friendly (I hope) resort kimono dragon that lives somewhere in the bush! (He is so massive that you will always here him coming before you see him.)

~~

(February 17^th) 

Average workday:

25% swatting flies (literally a quarter of my day is spent flailing my hands wildly about my face and ears and head, trying with absolutely all of my strength to not quit right there on the spot after whole consecutive minutes of not being able to do anything or breathe properly because there are so many flies, or even just one or two relentless ones, completely debilitating all efforts and patience. I swear and swat and scream at flies for at least a full hour combined each day).

20% hiding in the yoga studio (mostly safe from the flies, though mosquitos love breeding in there), reading.

5% hand stand practice. Because I am working alllllll alone alllllll day long and I get bored and antsy and restless. Sometimes a really good song comes on that simply urges an inversion!

10% driving around in aimless loops throughout the resort, airing out my sweaty limbs, singing at the top of my lungs (this is likely the only time during the day my vocal chords are even ever put into use!)

30% weeding (sitting, squatting, bending, hovering, crab crawling from one patch of weeds to the next, the ultimate goal to get as little dirt and sand on my slick sweaty sticky limbs as possible, not the pleasant exfoliate you might expect.)

10% snacks & water breaks in the (FINALLY) air-conditioned staff room.

Haha, really doesn’t sound too strenuous does it? I guess I should factor in somewhere how slow we pace these activities, the heat brings us all down to about half speed (I could get picky and add ‘wiping dripping sweat our of my eyes’ as at least a 5% in there somewhere). This has only been my daily pie graph for this past week as we are in the midst of a bit of maintenance change-over and I was essentially told to just busy myself for a few days before any major projects got off underway next week. I listened to a lot of good music and finished half of my third novel here so far (slowly working my way through the leftovers found around the villas after guests check out, which makes up our EcoBeach staff room library!)…

[I do still get actual work done! Check these before & afters...)

~~

(February 22)

Two days ago I was informed that my beautiful, secluded, private, relaxing, naked-friendly living accommodation was about to be severely compromised. I wasn’t so much informed as I was robbed of my king sized bed and left with two singles. We finally found another wwoofer! I just didn’t expect to be adopting a roommate, just as I was getting so settled and so fixed in my happy little daily routine (much of which does actually include laying around topless in any attempt to beat the humidity and dampness).

I spent about 20 minutes reeling at the notion that just because I’m a wwoofer I consistently get bottom of the barrel treatment. I am the only one on staff forced to share my one-person tent with another person (but I’m also the only one on staff that works 6 solid hours a day [if you ignore my pie graph, and by the way that ‘actually working’ percentage has definitely been bumped up to like 70 this week!] and deserves the privacy of Naked With Fans time in my tent! I am also the only one on staff that is seriously and obviously altering the actual aesthetics of this resort, and I am doing it for no pay at all! I am definitely the only one on staff that also doubles their tent as a gym and a yoga studio and an appropriate place to be alone and read 50 Shades Of Grey, if you know what I mean!!...). Twenty minutes, not a second more.

In this respect, I was actually so proud of my self. Twenty minutes is a fair time to let oneself adjust to such a major change about to take place, and even that many minutes of being bitter and negative really took it out of me, so much so that I quickly snapped out of it and realized: it’s not the end of the world. No, it may not be ideal, and yes, your nice spacious private tent was literally the single enjoyable aspect of the actual living situation here, but so what? Really, it’s not a big deal. And I decided then and there to welcome my new roommate, a brand new arrival to such a diverse and remote little world we have here, into my humble abode with a genuine, generous smile. If anything, her adjustments will be much more significant compared to mine, and if I were in her situation (which I almost was not too long ago), I could only hope that I would be greeted and welcomed warmly.

As the universe would have it, Becky is here from Taiwan not doing her wwoofing for a 2^nd year Visa, but simply chose to move all the way out here to work for free just to be surrounded by English speaking people… She literally moved here for no other reason than to learn English. And what are the odds she’d be bunking with an English teacher? An ESL teacher! I absolutely adored my full time tutoring with Mr. Cho in Wollongong, and I have found much joy in my daily discussions and small lessons with Luca here around the staff room. It has reminded me so much of my teaching experience in Italy, and it has gotten me even more excited to be teaching English as a second language in Thailand in just a few months! Really, the universe couldn’t have put together more suiting roommates (so aren’t I glad I didn’t make a big stink about it after all!).

Becky is so great; she’s keen and curious and kind. She is a hard worker and a great companion through the day. She speaks the perfect amount of English: enough to stumble through conversations, not enough to chat inscesintly about other people on staff or let negativity pour out at every opportunity or winge or moan or gossip or complain the way basically everyone else on staff seems to do. I like having her around! We are learning lots about each other’s cultures and worlds and personalities. 

She is currently trying to juice bananas, and I can’t stop chuckling (with her not at her!!). J

~~

I am half way through my time here at Eco Beach. Part of me feels relief that it is half over, and hopefully the hardest or most uncomfortable weeks are behind me, but the other part of me feels like I have been here foreeeeverrrr already, haha. The days tumble by, one after the other, over and over and there is nothing we can do to speed them up or slow them down, but we are finding ways to make them as enjoyable as possible. We had a new arrival in maintenance a few weeks ago now and he’s become a good bud for finding adventure and building lists of fun To-Dos before I depart our little life here. We kayak and stand up paddle board, we hike and run and bake cookies and short bread and watch movies and episodes and practice inversions and mess about with our GoPros and take turns personal-training each other on the back porch of our tents. We go for early sunrise jogs and evening sunset swims, when the sky reflects off of our infinity pool and we’re making waves in purples and pinks.

For as much as I feel I have nothing satisfying to say these days, I can assure you this is truly one of the most beautiful worlds I have ever lived in, and I could still spend most days finding inspiration in the clouds and the different hues of these changing skies. If I had the patience and creativity I would string together new paragraphs every day about each new setting scene. Pictures do not to it justice, and words hardly help. Just trust me! I am still happy, I am still surviving this experience, I am still smiling each and every day. I’m very lucky for that, and I choose to focus on those things instead of all of the things and people that I am missing very much so over here. It has really settled over me just how long I have been away from home for, and I miss my friends and family with an ache so deep I have to catch my breath sometimes. But they are at my fingertips and across my computer screens still every few days, and that is more than enough, for now.

In 42 days I will be up, up & away once again. This keeps me absolutely bubbling with excitement and anticipation for what lays ahead of me. 42 days is not so many days, and I will continue to center myself here and keep myself present in this gorgeous little slice of the world.

What’s next…

I recently learned that once I get my 2^nd year working visa granted, I don’t have to start it right away. I only have until I’m 30 to ‘redeem’ it, but as long as I leave Australia before my 1^st year expires (so that the 2^nd year isn’t triggered), I have it at my disposal for the next 5 years.

I have been thinking about traveling in between my time here, and actually getting back to teaching. I’ve been thinking a lot about how much I miss it, and how good it felt to get ideas across and see progress in students. I miss Mr. Cho, I miss all of my tutor students from Wollongong. I also have started to feel that creeping prickle of knowing it is about time to get some really good full time experience under my belt for the future.

It would be different if I had something lined up here in Australia for when I come out of this in April; I’d be keen as to stay the next year and do something really amazing or rewarding – but I don’t have anything in the works job wise, and I don’t have the funds to feel comfortable enough just traveling this beautiful country (the original potential plan, I would have somehow made it happen!). I’m nervous my 2^nd year here would just be the same as my first: find the cheapest apartment, find a causal nothing job (anything that will hire me), live sparingly, party on! Don’t get me wrong, this was incredible for my first year, it was exactly what I needed and wanted and I enjoyed every single part of it; meeting people, finding my perfect little social circle, experiencing two perfect end-of-exams-partying periods, going on so many little mini adventures in my NSW realm spanning Bega & Byron… it remains one of my favourite years to date (or 8 months of a year!).

But I’m not sure the simple repeat (of course things wouldn’t be the exact same, but it would have the same potential) would be fulfilling enough for me now, to do it again for another full year. I would hate for anything about my life here to be disappointing, and I fear that another round of the exact same stuff might be just that (you know that feeling when you’re in 3^rd or 4^th year of Uni and you go to a 1^st year party in res? Haha.. it might be kind of like that. Which I actually did last year! And it was awesome! Haha, but circumstances were rather special…).

One of my favourite quotes of all time,

“All the pathos and irony of leaving one’s youth behind is thus implicit in every joyous moment of travel: one knows that the first joy can never be recovered, and the wise traveler learns not to repeat successes but tries new places all the time.” – Paul Fussell.

And that’s just it.

I’ve been thinking that teaching would give me a solid purpose again, help ground me for a little bit in routine and accomplishment and good, meaningful work. It would certainly help open more doors to other international schools hiring in the next few years (which has always been the general life game plan). But I don’t have a huge interest in teaching in Australia; it is the closest country to England that exists on the educational front, in terms of policies and procedures and expectations and data and general school structure. I’m not sure behaviour could ever be quite as bad as England, but from the volunteering I did a few months back (at a dodgier school in Warrawong) I got a small sample that helped me know it would be close. Which is not ideal. I need my next teaching experience to be such a positive, enjoyable one.

Working and living in a foreign country isn’t the easiest, especially to do that on your own. I have always wanted to teach in Thailand (since England, I remember specifically researching positions there way back when, and I have talked about it to some significant extent with those closest to me). Having a contact there now is just a bonus, it might be really nice to actually do that with someone who already knows the ins and outs. There is so much value in figuring those things out for yourself (like I did to a degree in Italy, and here in Australia), but I know that my next teaching experience needs to be as enjoyable as possible (we the Cantell survivors have earned that!), and having the head of the department on my side would make things so much easier.

Not that they sound like they need to be made easier… the job description sounds like a dream. One single full time class, 7 year olds! On average, just 3 hours of teaching a day: math, English and science in our own little homeroom. I’ve already been told that my class is one of the best behaved in the school, cute energetic imaginative kids still so keen to learn! I’m so excited to have one group, to be able to get to know my students personally, to have my own routine and classroom management contained to one room and one group of kids. I also know from my experience in Italy that this age group is one of the most receptive when learning a new language, so the progress and rewards in teaching will be awesome for all.

Having someone there, all personal connections aside, just having that resource to help me settle in and find my way and adjust to the language and the cultural barriers – since it would definitely be a shock to my system after the cruisiest, breeziest year here in Aus with all of these decently well-spoken native English people ;) – would be really helpful. It would be an experience, and I would have one of my best friends there with me when things get tough. Plus! They are doing essentially a full-staff hire, so I would get to be a new person amongst a big handful of new people. I wouldn’t have to feel like I needed to catch up or fit in to a life and a staff already established. I could just focus on me and my teaching and bettering my practice and doing it for the right reasons, and I could meet the new people and make my own connections and be apart of the new resources.

The biggest reason why I am so keen for this (or even considering it at all), is that I will always have year 2 of Australia in my back pocket (at least until I’m 30!). I absolutely love that, and I feel like I would put it to such better use after a year or so abroad; I will better appreciate it once more, I will have more direction and focus as to what I will want to do here for another year, and I will have more options after I get this year of teaching in Thailand under my belt. I would be coming back into Australia with brand new eyes again, and it will always be my something extra to look forward to in an already exciting abroad life.

And who knows, a year or so of teaching abroad could be just what it takes for me to secure a real position back here in Aus one day, something that I would feel more confident and better experienced for, something that held the potential for a sponsorship to fulfill my current dream of Australian Permanent Residency. Who ever knows, but it’s nice to think about!

There are about a million and a half other things to consider (all of you are thinking the most obvious things about me moving to Thailand…), yes. But it feels right. And it feels like I don’t have to consider or sort those things out all by myself. It feels like pages might actually have the chance to settle simultaneously, and things could work out really nicely, at least for this particular experience. It’s always been about one day at a time, one step at a time, one month at a time and then seeing where the cards fall.

So maybe it’s just time to finally deal them out and place our bets!

I couldn’t be more excited :)