Now that I have been in New Zealand for several months - five, to be exact - I can't help but ask myself what I am writing, in my many entries here. Oh, I have relayed my travel stories, sure: here is an outline of everything I have done, what I have seen; but maybe you are getting bored of anecdotes and descriptions of scenery.
In my first entry, "Weeks Away," I described my sense of baffled, terrified excitement on the eve of my journey. I had never been overseas, had never really done this thing, this "traveling," which always seemed to me remote and ideal and abstract when I heard my peers speaking of it.
Now I'm here, and I'm doing it, and it's no longer very intimidating, just day-to-day. I understand, now, about hostels and road trips, tenting, farm work and very long holidays, and finally, what it means to meet other travelers - that brief intense flame, gone instantly. I understand homesickness and I understand travel sickness.
I think New Zealand was a good choice to 'get my feet wet', though. It has whetted my appetite for more sights, now that I have seen some of this isolated country on the other end of the world. And it does seem, really, to be all country. New Zealand is essentially miles and miles of empty country: just livestock grazing in endless fields; and little belts of wood, or native bush; and distant oceans of hills, like the shapes of giants sleeping under grass - here a face, here a shoulder; there are muddy canals that run through little settlements, with unpronounceable names, and little weather-worn shops; always, poplar and fig trees edge the horizon, as if cut from paper; everywhere, tangles of flowering flax plants leading down onto beaches. . . and a big sky; despite the mountains, the sky always seems so dominant, seeming to press down on you in its enormity, always exposing you to the distance of the farthest clouds.
But there I go describing the scenery again. Well, fine; it has certainly earned a place in my heart. The country has always held a place there. It's the Shire, really: "the fields, little rivers." Even the smell (ocean, hay) reminds me of Pender, and of golden summers.
Sure, New Zealand has its differences; but it is, essentially, very familiar. When I first arrived, I delighted in new birds, new trees; there were accents, and different road signs, different stars, and a hundred little things to remind me that I was not at home. I think that the novelty has worn off, though. Now I begin to realize that New Zealand is about as close as I could have come to visiting another piece of Canada on the other end of the world. So much of it looks just like BC, and so much looks like California. The little towns are so much like Langford, built for motorists and families that shop in bulk.
I seem to be back where I started, thirsting for something more, something foreign. For isn't that the point of traveling? To cast yourself into unknown and unfamiliar scenes - to put yourself outside of what is normal, what is comfortable?
A few months ago, part of me worried that I wasn't really making it, here in New Zealand. I was homesick and confused. What if I have spent my entire life so far dreaming of traveling the world, only to find that I wasn't really cut out for it? So much, I longed for my life back. I missed strolling through my pretty home city, with its flowers and its buzzing shops, the double-decker buses, the crowds, the picturesque harbour, everything familiar and easy. I no longer remembered the dirty pavement, the homeless, the smell. I could see only the park, flowers rambling up the trunks of trees, and the beach, joggers and dog-walkers on the boardwalk, and the gabled houses, brightly painted, stone walls crawling with ivy. I missed sitting in the pub with my friends. As Christmas came, I missed my family, and felt that I had abandoned them to their cozy traditions; and there was a bitterness in my throat as I longed for the winter, and the familiar smells of good things to eat, and the sound of their laughter.
So much, I longed for a life of my own, a life like that. I wanted a comfortable home, a garden, my books around me, a good kitchen where I could learn to bake bread. I wanted a dog to keep me company on long walks through the country. I wanted to get my Master's degree and become a librarian, and to learn to speak French, and to join a book club. I wanted to get married someday and to have children of my own, people who would fill my life as I grew old, and fill my house with their laughter.
It took several weeks, but eventually I came round. I realize, now, how much I want those things - but I realize how much I want something else first. To give up on my dream of travel would leave me feeling defeated and disappointed in myself.
No, I want to see things with my own eyes: I want to walk through open-air markets full of exotic fruit, and see street signs written in unfamiliar characters, and people dressed in strange costumes, and buildings of unusual design. I want to witness the landscapes of the world - rice paddies, mountains, plains. More than anything, I think, I want to see the idols of my imagination: the Great Wall of China, the Pyramids of Egypt, The canals of Venice, the vistas of the Himalayas, the African grasslands, the Amazon jungle, the streets of London and New York City.
It is as though I am riding on a pendulum swinging.
And so this trip has served its purpose. I have begun to learn something about myself, although it is hard to describe what. I am learning, I guess, finally, what I want out of life. I am learning that I want it all, and that my time is short. I will be twenty-seven next month: time, maybe, for a family and a career; but I am of an immature mind, perhaps. My thirst to see the world has not even begun to be satiated.
So we will extend our plane tickets, and stay until September after all. We will stay here in Blenheim for several months, and work, and save money. We will wait for the seasons to change, and then we will buy plane tickets to Southeast Asia, and ramble on somewhere very unusual to us, somewhere where we don't understand the language, and where there exists a long tradition, which we have never been a part of. Even a few weeks, a glimpse of that world, I think will be enough for now.
I want to go home more than I want to stay here - I admit it. But I want to go elsewhere much more than I want to go home.
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