The plane that brought me here has long gone.
The fear of being isolated & rootless here, disseminated over time.
The strength of positive thinking flowered in the whenua.
The power of finally being one’s own self blossomed like sweet red pohutakawa
This is what I gained in 10.
The love of the land and its tangata whenua, swooned me over
The beauteous feeling of living simply soothed my ageing soul
The ease of making friends (a skill I had given up on) was really as ‘easy as’.
Life is there to be taken, not endured.
This is what I learned in 10
September 19th 2018
Today is the 10th anniversary of me arriving in Aotearoa to live. I've grown more as a person in these 10 years than in the previous 38. I felt I had to say something..
whenua - land
tangata whenua - literally 'people of the land''
pohutakawa - a native tree that every November/December blooms a beautiful deep shade of red flower (that gets everywhere!!).