Do you ever feel like laying your head flat on the table and just bawling. Just close your eyes and lay the whole side of your face onto the table and cry. Not where people can see you. Not as an exhibition. Maybe, when you are alone in the kitchen cleaning up after the dinner that you spent hours preparing in between everything else. Or when you are picking the dinner from the gardens. Or out walking. 
Usually we are tired when it happens. Last night it was when I was walking the dogs. I had a washing basket moment. I stood with my dogs watching the grass grow in this incredible dripping heat and just cried. 
I miss home. I miss being a kid or a daughter or someone’s sister. I miss being the mother and the teacher. We even miss when we were Not in charge and Not so bloody responsible. Not having to make the hard decisions and see them right through to the bitter end. The precarious progression of our days.
It is called being a grown up. But being a grown up in a land where no-one knows who you Were is hard. All they see is a little woman in gumboots. I have no context. No background.
It is hard to be a foreigner in a foreign land. Many of you know this. Many writers are in some kind of solitary. Many Webloggers. Maybe this is why we are drawn to each other. But when TonTon and I stood and watched the grass grow I cried with a head shaking tired longing. I just bawled until I was finished.
Then I started to sing. I know we know that is crazy. Who would sing to her grass. But no-one was around. I think that secretly you might sing to your garden too. 
That is why you and I are friends. My voice was not the big soaring voice it used to be, a voice needs to be worked like a muscle, but as I sung, the dogs and I turned, and began to walk back to the kitchen.
I think this is why I love the farm and the gardens. They all know me. And a sheep has no need for background though they have heard all the stories. But the sheep and the dairy cow and the little hereford, even my border collie, they remind me of home you see.
And this is why we love our cats and cows and bicycles. Our dogs and our plants. This is why we have our cameras and guitars, our paint brushes or pens. Our tools and boots. Our ideals and oaths. Our stories. Our little work. Because we all need to hold on to who we WERE and practice that person when we are alone, or who we are NOW makes no sense. 
And we need to always carry a little bit of home with us in our secret pockets like a polishing stone. So when the washing basket moment hits we can reach into our secret pocket and grasp that stone from home. So we can find our forgotton voices and sing the songs from the sea.
Good morning. I wrote this last night before going to bed. Today is a new day and every new day we get another chance. Thank goodness. So of course I feel better today. Strong and fit and ready to go. I look forward to taking you all home with me to New Zealand in December. Then I can show you a little of who I was. Who I am.
I still do not have a car, did I tell you? My little cooking oil car is still at the garage far away. I am driving the rusty white truck but not too far as it is pretty rattly and wholly unreliable.
Have a lovely day.
celi
On this day a year ago.. A bridge. Images of the underbelly of a bridge.
Even more exciting -there is a story: Part One of a very funny story from the beach. Part two is tomorrow but if you have time you could read it today as well. In fact I am going to read these again when I come in from the farm work. This story will cheer me up and remind me of where I came from.
c
The Kitchen's Garden 
145 responses to “Being a stranger in a strange land, carrying a little bit of home in my pocket.”
Big hug. I’ve lived in 4 countries and now the other coast (which I call my 5th country), revel in making them feel like home, the fresh beginnings, the adventure of change, yet when it’s a low time, a mood, a sideways hit from life, my bones ache for home. I am so excited to learn more about your first home in December.
I have read a little about your travels.. and you have it exactly right when you descibe it as a sideways hit from life.. you will love NZ.. promise! c
i understand your feelings. although i was not a foreigner to our land, I was living in a state unfamiliar to me. i cried many times for my old home, until i finally went home
I am glad you have found your home.. and i hope that today is a better day.. c
You were not alone in your washing bucket cry last night 🙂 I had one too. Someone once told me that tears are anti-freeze for the heart. I think that’s true.
It seems to come over me when I’m out running alone alone in the woods. Crying, or trying not to cry, when running ain’t easy…it makes breathing rather difficult. 🙂
It is the trying not to cry that makes your head ache doesn’t it, i can see that crying and running would be a wee bit uncomfortable! c
Never forget that for people like us, it is always about the writing and you’re writing is always excellent. The experience is secondary to the telling. Seriously, you are the best writer that I read on the blogs. So, whether the experience brings a smile or a tear, as long as you can share it with that great talent of yours, you will be just fine. All joy. HF
Damn! I hate to be discussing writing and then make a mistake like you’re for your. Well, it just goes to show there is always room for improvement. At least for me! HF
At least you caught it or i would have had to mark your work and write See Me on the bottom! and thank you for for coming back to our little Comments Lounge we missed you.. c
When my heart is heavy, and my mind is swirling, I busy my hands and then the mind and heart will almost always follow. Such a poignant post. Your writing is always true and kind. We are all strangers, sometimes even to ourselves.
This is true, we still have lots to learn and many to meet. I do my best cleaning when i am angry! When I am sad, not so much.. But in all honesty i seldom let sad get the better of me, we kind of have to learn to live with it.. c
Celi, you are such a lovely soul! How honest and real you are…which is why we readers connect to you so easily. I have never transplanted any distance at all, let alone left my country and original home, and I admire the spirit of adventure, but recognize the loss and emotional impact. I know the feeling, though, of sadness and a good cry, then waking to a new day with renewal. Tears are sometimes just the release! And singing is one of my fall-back positions when I need the lift…I go for show tunes! 🙂 Giant hug, my friend. Debra
Thank you Debra, it is a wonderful thing to be where they know you and you are right, you do not have to be away to feel home sick sometimes and thank you for the hugs.. c
I certainly understand those times! I have felt them often in the last couple of years. I know for me, it is beyond tired, but being weary. Weary of trying, and not accomplishing. Weary from distance in time and geography and understanding. But, like you, each morning starts a new day with (usually) some fresh hope. Just keep on keepin’ on, we’re pulling for ya! 🙂
Ted, Weary is a hard one, but every morning gives us another crack at overcoming it. I think it is sometimes a good idea to look and see what it is we are trying to accomplish and wonder at it.. you are pretty good at goal setting though.. , c
Our time zone and schedule differences do not always allow me a timely comment, but here is a late one. In teaching and loving international students over the years, I have observed an odd phenomenon. It is sometimes easier to be in a country that is totally different—language, religion, climate—than one that has similarities.
Now that is a very interesting observation. I will think about that one. Thank you Alice and no matter what time i get your comments I always delight in them.. c
Keep your little stone tucked safely away in your pocket and smell it and rub it on your face any time you need to feel home again. *Hugs*
Of course, you have all of us: your ‘web’ family!
I look forward to your stories while back home in December.
We will have a great time doing the travelling, I hope you will like what you see when we go there.. Local knowledge is a wonderful thing..c
I sing to my garden as well. This was a beautiful read. You are a beautiful person.
Thank you, what a lovely thing to say and great to see you again.. c
I sing to my garden and my trees.
Thank you for this. I’m having one of those days, and I see I’m in good company. That helps. 🙂
There are many of us having washing basket moments it seems, so you are indeed in good company.. c
I live in a house that has been in our family for several generations. It is in a rural community where many of us are 5th generation. Even so, I have moments like yours. It seems like every 20 years I have a new batch of people who know me. At first this was because of work, I had 3 major jobs in my lifetime. Once it was because of the child and meeting the families of his friends. Each time a chapter closed it brought a new group of friends who had no idea who I was “before.” None of my present friends knows the person who trained and shod her own horses, and rode them thousands of miles on the trails, for example. I still have 2 ancient horses, and they remember. All the people friends see is an old woman who can barely walk. I’m starting to understand why old people often have a faraway look.
Jan, I took a lens that needs repairing to the old codger the other day, He is pretty handy and at 94 knows quite a bit about mechanisms. I said to him but who else would I take it to? You have the tools and the knowledge. He said But i don’t want to break it. When was the last time you broke something I said. Other than his leg he could not tell me, well i said. can you fix it? Of course I can, he said and smiled. Being old only makes you more useful to the people around you. I will guarantee you that there are many many people who see way past the old lady who can barely walk. The blog world is interesting though. The way you have always written i would never have picked you as older.. I would love to meet your two ancient horses, bet they have some stories. c
I put your blog on FB today. Before I opened your blog this morning, with feelings of anticipated pleasure, I found myself thinking, the earth must have gratitude towards this woman, and the animal kingdom within her patch is gloriously loved. I think what you do unseen is celestial; yup i do, that word just popped out. Celestial will do rather nicely; hugs and love and terrific admiration.
Celestial is a wonderful word. I have always loved angels! Thank you so much for sharing the message. Thank you.. c
In the shower – that’s my place for a good weep. For me it is often about how I ended up trapped in a life that doesn’t seem to fit… and that I don’t have the courage to change it. I wonder if it is full moon? 🙂
I’ve heard many times, that New Zealanders are easy to recognise overseas, because we are the ones who carry a piece of home – usually around our necks! I know I do – a paua-shell necklace travels everywhere I do… maybe you could get yourself a piece of something when you are here in December? XXXOOO
I have worn my greenstone paunamu around my neck now for oh, it must be fifteen years now, maybe even twenty. You know I had not even thought of that, it is always warm and always there and i had forgotton i wore it.. well done janet.. I am shocked that my little stone is what i think of and there is this big hunk of south island greenstone around my neck.. (laughter!) I wonder how you are in a life that does not seem to fit, but you should take out the words Ended Up.. It is not ended yet.. Anything could happen, I love paua.. c
You are so right. Whenever we have a moment, just think of tomorrow. Tomorrow is always a new day to do the things you couldn’t do yesterday.
yes, always we can get up and work again tomorrow.. all is never lost.. morning Kay.. have a lovely day.. c