Linda in limbo

I was supposed to return from France with all my thoughts and plans in order.  A blueprint for the next 10+ years of my life was to have been produced.  This has not happened.

It was never going to happen.  I am not a planner when it comes to the big things in life.  I am more of an opportunist.  This is ok, except it means that I have to hope opportunities and options come my way.  On the plus side, I am comfortable with change, and can change my life course on a dime if I feel so inclined.  But in the last week I have been drifting in a way I never did during my structured time in France, and I am not comfortable.

I know it is time to get on with my grandmother’s story, and I will.  But I need to get on an even keel first.

Being home has been a mixed bag so far.  Seeing Amy pregnant and glowing, and spending time with her and Eric has been wonderful.  We are both frustrated at not knowing the sex of the baby, but we do have photos.

In the meantime I have started knitting – in yellow.  I prefer to avoid white because it is so hard to keep it perfect, but ready to branch out into blue or pink at the first opportunity. Gender stereotyping – pfft!

Being back in my apartment, and catching up with friends in The Isaac, has been lovely too.  The apartment in Aix was bigger than my own, and within 5 minutes walk of the Centre Ville.  But I am more than ever satisfied with where I live.  The furniture and art that I chose myself are like old friends.  The welcome home barbecue was perfect too – relaxed, casual, gossipy, and so nice to be with people whose company is always enjoyable.  Going to the Banksy exhibition in the Aotea Centre was also a good move, even if just to remind myself that I could still enjoy access to interesting art locally.

And the GREEN.  Provence is coloured ochre.  Everything except the sky is ochre.  The north of France and Europe, at this time of year, is gun metal grey.  Auckland is GREEN.  Yea!  The absence of scarf, coat, boots, hat and gloves is a plus too.

Catching up with Mum has been good.  She was not too well in the week or so before I left France, and when I arrived home both siblings were on holiday in Australia.  So needless to say she was glad to see me, and fortunately feeling better.  Yesterday we went to the garden centre and bought plants for her upcoming ladies garden lunch.  Also a few replacements for the dead foliage I have cut out of the pots on my deck.  Some will hopefully recover, others are gone forever.  Then I planted her purchases in the rock hard ground (scarcely earns the title of soil) in her front yard, and made her promise to water them deeply and daily.  The sun was scorching, so I guess the promised good weather is back.  I was forcibly reminded that Auckland is host to the stickiest kind of heat, and had to drink copiously the rest of the day to recover lost moisture.

Reminder to self – ladies do not sweat, they perspire.  My grandmother told me that, but I was reminded of it last night when I described my state of being to Johan.  And that is another thing that is different.  For 10 weeks in France we spoke every day, usually morning and evening, on FaceTime.  He was my link to home and sanity.  Our contact allowed me to convert all my little fears and tribulations into funny stories on a daily basis, so that I never got too stressed about anything that happened.  Then we had two weeks where we were together the whole time.  But now we are home.  He lives in Warkworth and I in central Auckland.  We each have things that need to be done, obligations to fulfil.  We need to establish a new pattern.

And some bad and sad things have happened since I have been back.

Although I cannot wait for Jacqui to return so we can have a good chat about our mutual adventures, a mysterious (to me) estrangement with my brother has hardened into a complete rupture.  The hows, whys and wherefores are not for this page, even if I understood them.  Having witnessed a rift in someone else’s family healed while I was in the Netherlands, I had thought to sort out our problem face to face on my return.  But it was not to be.  And now it appears I am part of one of ‘those’ families where members do not speak to one another.  I am shocked and saddened, but not about to dwell on it.

Life for Jason and Laura has been tough the last few weeks.  Before Christmas they learnt that Jason’s father was in ICU in Canada with breathing problems, and so they cancelled Christmas and their summer holiday to spend time with him.  The timing could hardly have been worse as they flew straight into historic winter lows in Toronto.  Sadly, untreatable lung cancer was diagnosed, and last week Alex was taken by this vicious disease.  I am looking forward to the return of JayLor next week, when they will be moving into an apartment in the building next to mine.

So what else is wrong.  Well, on an entirely different scale of things … the road works around Grey Lynn are either finished and incomprehensibly unfit for purpose (a cycle lane in Richmond Road that has cost car parking but lets cars block the lane), or suspended while AT gets its shit together.  In Newmarket stores are closing and all the places I used to park are now construction sites.  The NZ Herald is so thin on news that the on-line version has been running the same stories for a week.  The hearing aid in my left ear has given up the ghost for the second time in 3 months and been sent back to the factory.  I have not gone for a walk for over a week. Jac, my yoga teacher has gone on holiday, and Ruby Wax has sold her salon so that I will have to acquaint yet another soul with all the bits of me that need correcting.  I suppose I should be glad I will not have to do that in French this time.

But mostly the problem is, what next?

Now I know what one reader would have to say about all this.  “Get back to work!  Work will set you free.”  Thanks ‘bloody Brian’, but work is part of the problem too.  I was hoping to resolve that particular problem, but I have not.  I have been into work for a couple of hours, and monitoring mail, although I am not due back till 17th.

Ok, what I do know is this.

I love writing, and I will continue to blog.  My grandmother’s story will continue and one day be completed.  I have to work, or find a way to earn money, in order to live as I do.  I like how I live.  I like having a man in my life, and I hope I don’t muck it up.  That might require some work.  I am going to be a grandmother, and that thought is bringing me joy.  For a while at least both my daughters and their husbands will be living within spitting distance, and that too brings me joy.  I have been lucky enough to have had a wonderful adventure, and I intend to have more.