Weaving A New Life ...

This morning, I set out walking along the riverbank, continuing on, to the edge of Lake Manapouri. Alone, as always. The village only has a population of 200, and it was 8am, on a Friday.

Although a stranger did pass me by, as I sat on a high wooden bench, legs swinging, unable to touch the ground. His dog, Ruby, was joy-filled to find me … and up she hopped, onto the seat, next to me. And I laughed, matching her panting, licking, wriggling joy more sedately.

I am transition, again. But so many transitions that I am a little giddy, as people and places weave together in the most beautiful ways. Although, to be honest, there are also the moments, in the small hours of the night, when I worry myself into wondering if I can pull Every Single Thread together.

This time though, I’m not moving countries.

And this time, I have Snow Patrol for company.

I didn’t even think to dream the life that is coming together., here in New Zealand. I almost had it in Italy but always compromised by basing myself in Belgium, and living my life around a man who needed to stand still, to live in a particular way. And much as I loved him, for a while, we were impossible He knew it before I did.

There is so much news to follow …

Meanwhile, I am savoring the abundant beauty, so freely available, down here in the south-west corner of New Zealand.

La Vita è Bella!!

A small Italian boy reached up to touch the crystal droplets, just as I was taking the photograph, and I felt his curious little hand, so delicately exploring the chandelier we had both found at the Genovese Antiques Market, perfectly captured the wonder and curiousity I was feeling.

Life is becoming beautiful again. There has been a long period of sadness and struggle, possibly beginning when New Zealand went into Level 4 Lockdown, and life dragged me down low and into a sadness that was threatening to drown me

There were so many factors, since returning to New Zealand, and I was unable to save myself until, one day I did …

The story of self-rescue didn’t begin & end with one single action but with a series of actions. Finally I have arrived in a beautiful place, with the loveliest people, and have begun to unfurl.

Rain because there has been a magnificent Fiordland downpour going on all day. They were talking of 30-40mm but I’m thinking that perhaps there has been more. And it’s still falling.

Tonight, we found a new pub … a new gathering place, full of good people. At one point, we were there chatting, two Kiwis, 2 Brits, an Irish woman, an Italian and a South African. I loved it, of course.

La vita è bella! It is all unfolding in the loveliest ways.

A Handful of Books I Have Loved ...

Discovered in the Centro Storico, Genova. Italy.

I have always been an avid reader. I love the places book take me, and I have always loved escaping into other worlds.

A friend asked me to recommend a few.

Here’s the list I made for Jonė.

Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels

Dinner with Edward: A Story of an Unexpected Friendship Vincent, Isabel

Running in the Family - Michael Ondaatje (his magical realism bio)

Love That Moves the Sun: Vittoria Colonna and Michelangelo Buonarroti - Linda Cardillo

A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East - Tiziano Terzani

I Saw Ramallah - Mourid Barghouti

What Remains - Denise Leith

In Xanadu - a Quest - William Dalrymple

The Journey is the Destination - Dan Eldon

Veronika Decidies to Die - Paulo Coelho

Nomad's Hotel - travels in time and space - Cees  Nooteboom

Travels with Herododus -  Ryszard  Kapuściński

Blindness -   José Saramago

The Way of Herodotus: Travels With the Man Who Invented History - Justin Marozzi

 When Nietzsche Wept - Irvin D.  Yalom

Mornings in Jenin - Susan  Abulhawa

Knulp - Hermann Hesse

The Truth About Lou -  Angela von der Lippe

Under The Wire - Paul Conroy

Following a Fly-Fisherman, Fiordland.

Sometimes, it takes something difficult, to make you appreciate what you have.

In this instance, it was waking to an unresponsive black screen on my beloved laptop. An issue I have since learned is directly related to the Windows 10 update that I didn’t approve.

I channeled the memory of a clever ex-husband, and recalled him plugging in an external screen, so as to bypass a long-ago black laptop screen.

And it worked again.

The appreciation of what I have came when I had to edit a photo, and there it was on my much bigger, external screen. I had been dilly-dallying about colour calibration, unable to calibrate it myself.

Forced into using it, I’m really quite pleased with the screen quality. I will have to get some work printed, to check that it’s right but really, absolutely, loving this screen.

The foto, a fly fishing trip I tagged along on. There was a point where we forced to leave the immediate river bank and wander through this tunnel of trees.

Fiordland.

The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
- Robert Frost.

My Dog-Walking Field, Manapouri

I have been truly blessed, in terms of the ‘view’, while dog-walking, down here in Fiordland.

Exquisite, isn’t it?

Native bush, in winter, Fiordland-style.