Visualize Your Eventual Demise

Visualize your eventual demise. It can have an amazing effect on how you live for the moment.

~ Lululemon

As soon as I turned off my cell phone, a wave of enlightened freedom washed over me. The weight on my shoulders had been lifted. I had done it. Disappeared.

That was yesterday – when I arrived in Kaikoura. After endless hours of working over the course of 10 days, I had finally made it to my four-day stretch of nothingness. And it felt brilliant. Originally, I had planned to head off to the west coast, to see Nelson and surrounding areas, but plans changed when Cat had to go home to see her family before work started up again. She was the one with the car. And in the midst of school holidays in which both of us were off, it would have been perfect to have a few days of adventure together. But also, just as important – it was a perfect time for her to make the long trip to Dunedin to check in with her loved ones. It only made me wish that it was that simple and easy for me to do the same.

Instead, I was left without a ride. Without a plan. Without a companion to share an adventure with. All I had was a “Plan B,” but no plan. As I laid awake in my bed two nights ago tossing and turning at the frustrating thought that I had finally gotten time off but had nowhere to go – one thing continued to come to the forefront of my brain. I wanted to disappear.

I wanted to let go of everything. To get away. To be free of all ties of responsibility and obligation. The stress of the past month at work was eating away at me. Worrying about doing my job right. Stressing about internal staff relations. Trying to keep a smile on my face as I shared the camp with customers, fellow co-workers and volunteers to which I supervised – all the while wanting to curl up in the corner and hideaway. It was time for a much-needed break.

Sunrise - Mt. Isobel

And so in the late hours of Monday night, my Plan B was formulized. I would skip my morning run in exchange for rising early to walk to the petrol station on the outskirts of Hanmer Springs and hitch a ride east to Kaikoura. I had never been to Kaikoura before and with what everyone continued to tell me about it, it seemed like the ideal location for a few days of rejuvenating “me time.” I only hoped the nerves of hitching on my own wouldn’t eat me alive before I even left town. I focused my energy at smiling brightly and appearing care-free and casual as I stuck my thumb out and hoped for a ride. By 7:00 a.m. I was on the road with a lawyer on his way back to Christchurch for work. He dropped me at the next major highway intersection as he headed right to go to the Garden City and I walked to a pull-off point along the road so that I could head left. Within five minutes I had another ride.

Three guys in a rented campervan picked me up within five minutes and I joked with them on how no one with a rented campervan ever picks hitchers up. They were all from South Africa and touring around the country with the primary purpose of following the Rugby World Cup. Sitting in the back of the campervan on the made-up bed (which the guys informed me was much too short for a South African man – to which I noted they were rather tall), I happily settled into the get-to-know you conversation that comes with spontaneously being together with random people. I only wondered how backpackers riding the Kiwi Experience tour buses ever felt as though they got any sort of “Kiwi experience.” I have never been on any such bus while travelling and felt the comfortable ease of spontaneously conversing with the person in the next seat. I, in fact, avoid such travelling “experiences” for such a reason. I suppose that explains my desire to hitch to Kaikoura rather than take a shuttle bus. That and it was a little easier on the wallet.

After one gas stop and some time winding our way along the narrow mountainous roads towards the famous seaside town, we came across a man running on the side of the road. It was none other than Richie McCaw. Only in New Zealand would you come across one of the most recognized faces in sport casually doing his morning run on the side of the road. We honked at him and shouted words of encouragement as we zipped on passed – and then we were there. Kaikoura.

With no time at all, I had found my way to a hostel that could offer me a private room with ensuite that suited my budget and after a quick walk to the local grocery store, I was sorted. I haven’t even minded that it has rained nearly continuously since arriving here – being outside and doing the touristy things wasn’t my primary reason for me.

I’ve just needed time to shut out the world and be by myself. Be in my own bubble where there are no worries of recognizing people I know. Be anonymous to those around me. Be invisible. And so I have turned off my cell phone with glee. There is nowhere I need to be. No one that I need to be in contact with. No one that needs to know where I am. And it feels brilliant.

This morning I went for a run and found myself missing the mountain trials out my back door in Hanmer Springs. But that didn’t stop me from enjoying the ability to do some yoga on the beach while watching the water lap the shoreline and the sun come up over the horizon. Early morning fishermen were out in their boats on the calm water and I watched them as I did my sun salutations. I did the warrior as I gazed back at the majestic snow-capped mountains just behind Kaikoura and felt my soul calm down in a sense of peace. Today would be a good day.

And it has been. The hours have ticked passed as I took a long shower, leisurely ate breakfast while gazing out over the ocean, had a late morning nap and walked to the secondhand bookstore to pick up something to read. But most of all I find that my mind is aimlessly wandering through all the things I haven’t felt I’ve had time to think about in a while. I find my brain picking up a topic and critically going over each angle of it, testing it, analyzing it and then letting it go.

Ever since walking Te Araroa Trail, I have felt as though my “me time” has lessoned quite considerably. I got used to having the time to simply just think. The pace of life was such a way that a person could finish a day and feel quite secured with how they fit into the world around them. Or at least that is how I felt. A quiet contentment would fill my soul on most days – even the worst days – in the knowledge that the simplicity of life would ground me in whatever I was thinking or doing.

But not any longer. Sure – life is still fairly simple. It’s not as though I have a high-powered job in a fast-paced city or anything. But my life now is a lot faster than what it once was. I am no longer walking through life with a fine-toothed comb. In some ways that’s a good thing, but in other ways – it eventually builds up inside me until I get to the point where I need to hideaway for a while and untangle the mess that my thoughts have become.

I have now passed the year mark of which Alex and I started walking Te Araroa. A year ago we would have been setting up camp in Ahipara, thanking all the higher powers that we made it off the beach and had found civilization again. A year ago we were unsure what the future held – Alex’s ankle was injured. My blisters hurt. My shoulders felt as though they were going to fall off. And that was just the beginning of the adventure.

And now I sit here in my private room in Kaikoura and contemplate the rain as it pours down outside and think of how much I am still so much traumatized from the rain Alex and I walked through while doing Te Araroa Trail. I avoid any sort of time being out in the rain simply because the feeling of being wet eternally as become a fear ingrained within me. I have yet to re-discover the fun I once had in the wet as I did as a child. Right now it is lost from me and I much more content to simply watch it from the comfort of my room while reading a good book.

So much has happened in the past few months that these few days have been needed for quite some time. I haven’t quite processed all that happened while trekking Te Araroa Trail. I am not sure I ever will. Not to mention that it hasn’t really sunk in what I am doing here in New Zealand. My aim of travelling the world has somehow morphed into the desire to seek out putting some roots down in Hanmer Springs. And oddly enough, I am at peace with that. I think. Every so often I start to freak about it and I have to remind myself why I am doing what I am doing. And sometimes I am not even sure what that is.

With all this reflection, I have started to enter my age into the equation. I have never before considered my age to be a factor in what I do with my life or what I want to do until now. All of a sudden I find fleeting thoughts and concerns about where I am at with my life and wondering if it’s where I am supposed to be. Though I know I am where I am meant to be – how could I not be? – It still makes me wonder. With all the people I have met around the world, everyone is in a constant struggle of competition with everyone else to find where they fit in the world and be able to declare that they have found “it.” Whatever that may be. It seems to always come down to the battle between settling down and living the “dream.” I have yet to see if a person can have both.

As it stands – I have figured out in my time of being with myself – I am living my dream. I figure I am probably living more of a dream than I ever figured I could dream. I also figure that I need to stop worrying about what will come – what will be – and enjoy the ride that will take me there, as it surely will be good won’t it? I also need to stop stressing about things that don’t matter and just work on loving the people around me that care about me. Including myself.

I find it easy to get caught up in a whirlwind of self-destructive thought processes with regards to my own personal perspective on myself. Who doesn’t? But when in a foreign country, with no word on whether I will be staying longer or leaving tomorrow and living in a small town surrounded by people I have only known for a few months, it is easy to get caught in the trap of feeling isolated and lost. My solution? To disappear.

And so here I am. Cut off from the world – other to write this very public blog entry – and it feels brilliant. Time to work out the thoughts in my head. To figure out where to go from where I am. To come back to work and life in Hanmer Springs stronger and more determined to go after what it is I want. What it is I am meant to do. What it is that will continue this adventure another day.

Better to not know which moment will be your last – every morsel of your entire being alive to the infinite mystery of it all.

~ Pirates of the Caribbean – On Stranger Tides



Comunication is COMPLICATED

Communication is COMPLICATED. We are all raised in a different family with slightly different definitions of every word. An agreement is an agreement only if each party knows the conditions for satisfaction and a time is set for satisfaction to occur.

~ Lululemon

Still no word on the visa and yet things continue to chug along here in Hanmer Springs. I have unofficially officially started my new position here at the camp as a Volunteer & Fundraising Coordinator. The paperwork may still need signing but my purpose each day at work has been re-ignited. No longer am I simply expected to ensure there are enough toilet rolls beside each toilet. Now I simply have to ensure that someone else has put enough toilet rolls beside each toilet.

Cat, Alex, myself and Ben watching the Rugby World Cup
opening game and ceremony.

And so it has begun. The past few weeks have been filled with both recruiting and training up backpackers to work at the camp for their accommodation. We now have what us camp staff have started to refer to as our own volunteer army. It’s been brilliant. All of a sudden, all the things we have been struggling to get done – all the things that continuously sit on the back burner to do during a slow day (but never get done) are now all being ticked off our never-ending list. Spring cleaning. Washing windows. Stacking wood. Weeding gardens. Re-painting fences. Tick, tick, tick. And through all of this I have realized that I am pretty comfortable with the whole “coordinating” side of my job, but it’s the communication part of it that leaves me completely flat-lined by the end of the day.

See – it would all be quite a simple process if everyone knew the thoughts and ideas going through my head, agreed with them and were able to successfully complete what I had in mind without a hitch. If only life were like that. Instead, I spend most of my day struggling to communicate what it is that I have in mind, what I want done and how to do it better for next time. And not for lack of trying either.

Stu FINALLY climbs the tree at the
camp. His son is only slightly distracted.

First off, bringing backpackers to the little bubble of our camp in the wonderland of Hanmer Springs isn’t that difficult. And getting them to work for free isn’t that hard either. It’s trying to communicate with them when they are all from different countries of the world. Different ages. Different backgrounds. Different ideas on how to do things – on what works and what doesn’t. Different work ethics. Not to mention when they speak different languages.

So – here I am in a learning curve of sorts as I have discovered that generally speaking, my biggest struggle is learning to not be so nice all the time. Learning to have boundaries. Learning to have standards of how I want things done. Learning to be a strong and competent leader. Easier said than done.

In particular, it’s been rather difficult the past month in trying to balance being a Volunteer Coordinator while living with the backpackers. I am still surviving in my little cabin of B1 and because of that, I share the kitchen/lounge facilities with the volunteer backpackers. Not exactly horrible, but when I finish work for the day and am craving my own space – all I have to laze around in is a cabin the size of a shoebox. But, with any luck, that will all soon change.

The Forest Camp is gearing up for some major staff changes here in the near future. Out Assistant Manager and Duty Managers are all jumping ship – leaving Steve & Lynne (Managers) and myself to run the camp while we hunt down a new couple to take on the roll of Assistant Managers. Long story short, one of the staff houses will be available for use by none other than me. That’s right – an actual house. Seems too good to be true. And so I pretend not to think about it in case it is just that.

But really – a house?! How do I even begin to contemplate how beautifully wonderful that would be?? How can I possibly begin to describe what it would mean to have a place not just to call my own, but somewhere that I could literally settle into and feel at home? The past 7 years of my life have been spent moving from place to place, jumping from one building to the next – never quite staying long enough to officially have changed my address with all my contacts. Not quite officially staying long enough to make the place feel lived in. Never staying longer than a year. Not to mention that of the past two years of my life, a year has been spent living out of tent, six months in a cramped box of a hut and the other six months jumping between flats, house shares, hostels and sleeping on people’s couches. To go from all of that to my very own two bedroom house would be a dream, to say the very least.

Lynn Lunn (2nd from left) plays in the band for a little
birthday party entertainment

To have one single roof over my head – a place where I can not only sleep, but eat, shower and have space to relax. A place with enough space to have people over. A place where I can get back into my art. A place to hang pictures and cook meals. A place to grow a garden. A place to make memories and call home. Like I said – it’s too good to be true.

And so I try not to think about it. But that’s difficult to do when the idea of moving into a house seems like the only stable thing in my life right now. I still don’t know about my visa and as far as I know – it might be until nearly the end of the year before I hear back just due to how long it will take to process my Canadian police check. I don’t have a clue what’s going to happen with the staff here – the gap in the team that Julie, Geoff and Stuart will leave here at the camp is tremendous and I try not to think about it. I try not to think about who is going to potentially fill their shoes. It’s out of my hands and up to Steve and Lynne to make that decision. Even the thought of how long it’s been since I’ve been back to Canada is something I push from my mind – the only thing that seems remotely realistically within my grasp is the potential to have my very own house. And even that still comes down to waiting.

So I count down the days to everything that could be. Might be. Should be. Will be. I count down the days to when I might hear word on my visa. I count down the days to when we could have new Assistant Managers at the camp. I count down the days to when I think I should be going back to Canada. I count down the days to when it will be a year from when Alex and I first stepped foot on Te Araroa Trail.

Steve and I make the climb up Mt. Isobel for the sunrise.

And as I spend my days feeling like The Count off of Sesame Street, I am increasingly more aware of how important it is to make the most out of life as it comes. The other day a friend in Hanmer Springs had her birthday. She turned 70. At her party that consisted of live entertainment and two Māori hāngi (pronounced [‘ha-ŋi]) which is a traditional New Zealand Māori method of cooking food using heated rocks buried in a pit oven with the ground, commonly used for special occasions. Oh – and then about a million people. Lynn literally invited pretty well all of Hanmer Springs and encouraged people to bring whomever they wanted to the party. And then there was her family. Brothers, sisters, daughters, sons, grandchildren and great-grandchildren – it was more of a family reunion than a birthday party. And the best part was that as an outsider, you still felt like part of a family. It was the biggest gathering of love that I had ever seen. Everyone just rocked up to one of Lynn’s daughter’s back garden with their own drink in hand and spent the evening chatting it up with everyone and everyone. There was a massive poster to sign for Lynn of which I can only imagine what she thought while reading it over the next day – many signatures were from people she would have never met before.

The food was fabulous, but the bit that got me the most was the big collage of photos from Lynn’s life. Here was a woman captured throughout her years – her full life of everything that life could be. I have only gotten to know her in the past six months – months of which we worked together, did Robin Hood together, played darts together and spent many moments just simply spending time together. The few stories she’s told me and those I’ve heard about her have just left me completely inspired to continue living life to the full. And that’s exactly what she has done – and it was all captured within the collage. Her as a child with a goofy face. Her riding a bike, completely care-free. Her with her siblings. Her with her children. Her living life.

Solar panels get added to the new
toilet/shower block at the camp.

And that is probably what inspires me most about Lynn Lunn. She has found a way to live life completely to the full without a need or desire to take more than what life has given her. She has never left New Zealand. Hates to fly. Has grown up in the Hanmer Springs area as something like a 5-generation family member and still loves it to bits. She knows everyone and anyone in Hanmer Springs and gets along with practically everyone she meets (hence the large crowd at her party). She makes the most out of the life she has and loves every minute of it. She doesn’t apologize for what she has done in life or who she is. She accepts people for who they are as much as what she accepts herself for who she is.

She is everyone’s grandma. Everyone’s mother. Everyone’s sister and friend. She is the person you could talk to about anything. She is the person who is up for anything. She exudes this passion for life that I have seen in few people and all it does is make me want more.

Lynn has lived 70 years on this planet and has so many stories to tell and yet she is still going strong. I only hope that by the time I reach that age that I can say I have lived like she has. Danced as she has. Laughed as she has. Loved as she has.

And as much as Lynn has inspired me in life, so has so many other people. She reminds me of family back home of whom I think of regularly and am reminded of what is important in life. I have come to realize that life isn’t about what job you have, where you have been, how much money you have or who you know. Life is about the simple things. About going after your dream. About loving the people in your life for who they are. About taking that risk to become a better person. About taking the smallest moments in life and living them to the full. Life is about life.

So as I wait for so much of the life that I hope will be, I am still taking the time to live to the full with what I have. Morning runs have become a regular thing, many being accompanied by Steve & Lynne’s dog – Jess – and as I spent the first hour of light letting my feet lead me up, down and all around the forest trails, I feel blessed to know that this is my life. Blessed that I can sweat my way up to the top of a mountain saddle or hilltop and then stretch my tired muscles as I watch the sunrise. Blessed that I can push my body, all the while laughing at Jess as she comes tearing around the corner in an effort to outrun me.

It’s moments like that that I treasure. Moments like when me and Cat go out for dinner at a local pub and just spend time having a nice meal by the fire. Moments like when I see the kids from the next school group coming to the camp – faces that have no power to contain the excitement bubbling inside. Moments like that are what matter.