The first few weeks of 2012 are proving to be very auspicious indeed.  I’ve hired helpers to maintain the grounds at both the Hoon Hay and Wainui houses; we’ve scheduled a few strapping young woofer lads to come help us get the new woodshed and garage in order in February;   my mom’s health seems to be improving after a few months of not being so well; and I just generally feel happier.  I am a sun worshipper after all.

2012 has just got to be better than last year.  Even though 2011 had some very wonderful moments in it,  I also had one of the emotionally hardest years in my life.

One word:  earthquakes.   We’d thought we’d been through the worst in September and December 2010.  But then Christchurch got slammed in February 2011, causing much destruction and loss of life.   Then a few months of quiet and another round of good rolls came in June.  I found myself trying to put on a brave face but underlying my exterior I was anxious and wondering how much more I could take.   I wasn’t the only one – the backlog for counselor appointments was months-long.   So I started taking my ‘earthquake remedy’ formula, a type of Bach flower essence here in New Zealand.  I think it helped.     I stayed strong and things started to feel like they were getting back to ‘normal’ as we came into spring – industry was picking up, people seemed a bit happier, and then, WHAM, we got hit with another frightening round on December 23^rd which put a damper on a few people’s holidays but not mine as I was determined to enjoy Christmas and New Years!  But since then, they seem to be coming fairly frequently though less volatile.   I guess this is my new ‘normal’.

2011 was also the year for visitors by friends and family.   We had three months of house guests (Friends Darek, Andrew, Pam, and the Scanlon parents came) on top of our two months abroad and Bruce’s further two months to London and California all added up to about six months of not focusing on our Wainui and personal projects.   It was great to spend so much time with family and friends but our travels abroad were a whirlwind and I was ready and glad to get back to New Zealand in November.

In between all the visitors, we kept plodding away with our Wainui renovations.  We finished up the outbuilding early in the year having added two new bedrooms and a full bathroom/laundry room area;  we built a retaining wall and second large woodshed;  we laid a new floor and finished up my bedroom; built a tree-house; and as many of you know from my last post,  we gutted and installed a new modern kitchen.    All throughout we had our builder friend Ollie living with us.    It was the second full year of renovation work with people constantly in my space and a few times I lost it as I just couldn’t take not having much of my own ‘quiet’ time.   I am a border-line introvert and my batteries get charged from alone time which I found lacking in abundance.

Because of the never-ending-someone-is-in-my-house-all-the-time grueling schedule, we only took three wwoofers last year and it showed.   And since we are an organic permaculture property, we don’t spray herbicides or pesticides to kill weeds and invasives and instead rely heavily on human people power to work the land – pulling weeds, cutting blackberry, digging garden beds, pruning trees, etc.   And we just didn’t have the human labour resource to tackle any of these areas.

When we returned from our two-month trip abroad in November, I nearly had a heart attack when I arrived in Wainui and saw how much everything had grown.  The spring rains were plentiful which meant the spring weeds were quite bountiful.  I kicked into overdrive mowing, weeding, planting and felt like I was losing the war against the very powerful and clever mother nature.

As we rolled into December, frantically trying to get the kitchen preparations ready on top of trying to maintain the grounds for two homes, I started to feel quite demoralized.  Hence our decision to hire some help.   And now that we’ve wrapped up the main renovations at Wainui, we are beginning to claim our lives back and get onto a schedule that is more suitable to us.   I’m excited to start hosting woofers,  I’m excited to head out and enjoy summer in New Zealand,  and I’m excited to think about possible travel plans abroad for 2012.

So see ya 2011.   Bring on 2012 and all that you have to offer!

When I last left off, we were busily prepping the kitchen for installation.

In early December, we got the floors all finished with a stain that blended well with the floors in the living room and dining room.

Ross Ambler from Ambler Joinery was on-site for two days working away with Ollie to install the cabinets.   There were a few hiccups but nothing that couldn’t be overcome easily.   The cabinets and sinks were finally in!

We were all blown away by the transformation of the kitchen.  It felt huge and it felt quite modern, a far cry from the old ‘bach-style’ kitchen that once was.

But no rest for the weary.   In the following week,  Bruce and Ollie installed all the kitchen cabinet handles,   installed the sink fixtures,  did the wiring for the undercounter lights, installed the range hood and vent, and cut some plywood as a temporary countertop since the granite countertops are not coming until the end of January.

It was no small feat to get all that done before the holidays set in.  The sink faucets proved to be a challenge as we kept purchasing the wrong parts which isn’t fun when the store is one hour away.

We also picked up our stained glass windows for the alcove and Ollie finally got them installed as well.

Then it was another week over the holidays to install all the shelving and wipe out all the cabinets and finally start putting things away!   Oh, my heart sings.  We have a gorgeous kitchen now, while not 100% complete, we’re about 90% there and it is totally operational and joyful to work in!

Here’s a try at some ‘before’ and ‘after’ shots:

Another massive (and perhaps the last) project to just about tick off the list!  Just the matter of getting countertops in, making the chopping block counter for the island,  painting the walls, figuring out a back splash, and finishing up the alcove.   All in good time!

You can see from the photos that we only had six small cupboards and the rest of the kitchen design was ‘open’, ie: we had stackable wooden shelves which served to hold all our pots, pans, dishes, cups, glasses and the like.      We’ve often had four to six people working in this kitchen and we always made it work.

But it was really time to make the kitchen the proper heart of our home.

And so when Bruce returned early from his overseas trip last July, I insisted that we make the push to get the kitchen done before the end of 2011.

Bruce met with an architect friend while in Los Angeles in May and Fro drew up initial plans which we really liked.    During July,  Bruce and I met with a joiner (cabinet maker) here in Christchurch and hired him to make the cabinets.  We selected our cabinet style (shaker style, light coloured macrocarpa) and granite for our countertops.

Bruce took Fro’s initial plans and fleshed out the details to come up with an L-shaped kitchen complete with double stacked upper cabinets.   We’re also having a center island made on castors and we’re extending the kitchen flow into the living room by having cabinets made next to the wood-burning cook-stove.    All up, I think we’re going to have a combination of 55 drawers and cupboards when it’s done.   Surely that should be enough for all our needs!  Considering we have no other cabinetry/closets in the rest of the house, we decided more is better.

In August we gutted the kitchen.  Ollie worked on taking out the hot water cylinder and Shacklock coal range which we never used.

Purple wired up new electrical boxes and Pete put in all the new plumbing.

Ollie worked on putting up a new partial wall and kept on gibbing.

It was a week of chaos as six of us lived in a house with what was now a sprawled out kitchen.  The stove and fridge remained in the demolition zone,  but the pantry and excess items got moved into the 3^rd bedroom and the kitchen work area shifted into the dining room.   The bathtub became the washing area.  So in essence, the entire rest of the house turned into a giant kitchen.   Truly a mess!

And then we left on our holiday for two months.

So now we’ve been back three weeks and the boys have been busily working away.  Bruce and Ollie finished putting up the gib.

Last week Ollie made huge progress in moving the kitchen window and opening the outside wall to build an alcove.   We decided to create a little extra space by putting in an alcove which will house all our ‘science’ projects:  jars and bottles in various states of sprouting, fermenting, drying, etc.   We’re adding in a few stained glass windows which should be visually lovely while also letting in a lot more light.    I purchased two six-foot long stained glass windows a few years ago on Trade Me for super cheap.  Some of the panes had cracked and these are getting repaired this week.  The woman at the shop said these were ‘mercedes’ windows and would cost about $1500 each to make now.  Go me!

This week has been sanding week:  the walls had to be sanded and primed and the kitchen floor had to be sanded, stained and left to cure for a week.

It’s a messy job and we did our best to seal off that part of the house so as to keep the dust out (and yes, that is Bruce wearing a vintage 1976 t-shirt which he still fits into!).

Oh the joys of living in a house that’s undergoing a massive renovation!

Cabinet Installation date -  December 13^th and 14^th.   Stay tuned!

We’re home a little over two weeks from our major trip abroad.   I’m thrilled to be home but things have been a bit of a blur as we have arrived in the full force of spring.    Both houses were/are overgrown with weeds and the grass in Wainui was standing proudly at a over a foot tall.

Both houses suffered from some internal issues as well.  Our Christchurch house fridge went on the blink in our absence and we arrived home to a very smelly house as the freezer had defrosted and had not been fully emptied by our neighbor who was keeping an eye on the place.   So it was a day of emptying and washing out the fridge and freezer as well as labouring ten hours to weed the yard.  Thankfully neighbor Kareen did keep up with the mowing so the property had some semblance of tidiness.

Out in Wainui, we encountered further problems.   Rats had gotten into the house and had a field day, running amok amongst our makeshift kitchen which currently sprawls out over several rooms while we’re in the midst of the kitchen renovation.   Rat poo and walnut shells and chewed bits everywhere which equated to several days of cleaning up and washing everything.  On top of that, the second fridge, which was empty and had gotten unplugged before we left, accidentally had it’s door shut for the last two months.  That meant mould and lots of it.  So another day of scrubbing out another fridge.  Pretty gross.

The veggie gardens were all but non-existent.   All the seedlings I had planted prior to the trip had been munched by sheep.   From the amount of poo on the grounds, I suspect the rogue sheep had a very nice holiday at our place, traversing the upper, side, and lower gardens at their leisure.

Bruce got on the mower and spent a few hours getting most of the grounds under control, but two weeks later and I’m still trying to get all the hand-mowing completed.  All the finishing work around the uneven terrain where the sit upon mower can’t go is usually finished by moi.     Mowing and weeding is about all I’ve done.

I’ve weeded about half of the veggie beds and did uncover a few edibles.  We’ve got heaps of parsley, leeks, broad beans, some salad greens, a few peas, some silverbeet, fennel, rhubarb, edible flowers, and some very old celery standing about 3 feet tall which has been processed into delicious soup.     Here’s a photo of the chaos of the lower veggie garden.  I’ve weeded out a couple of beds.  In this garden is thriving rhubarb, broad beans, leeks;  a few fruit trees,  and new seedlings which I just planted out.

The garlic bed is doing well and the pear, peach, apple, and quince trees are all forming fruit.  So things aren’t so bad.    Here’s photos of the 20 three-year old asparagus crowns we have, the broad bean patch, and the garlic patch:

On the plus side,  Nina was thrilled to see us (and vice versa) and is up to her usual antics – whinging in the car and wanting to snuggle under the covers.   She lost a bit of weight (unlike us) and seems to be much better socialized (like us!).

The weather has been pretty awesome.  Here’s a shot from the front lawn with a cruise ship in the harbour.   Apparently we’re due for 90 cruise ships this summer season, almost one a day.  That’ll be great for Akaroa township.

And the kitchen… well, it’s all a go.    More in the next post….

It’s good to be home!

And if you’ve clicked through to this page, it might do you some good to read it all the way through despite it dealing with the subject of death.

The prospect of death has been one of my life-long fears, a fear I will hopefully be confronting head on in my upcoming Jill Purce workshop which starts this Saturday.  It’s the reason Bruce & I have  journeyed all this way to London – to spend a week with Jill Purce in an intensive healing voice workshop which will focus on purging fears, anxieties, phobias and the like using the Tibetan spiritual practice called Chod.    I don’t really know what this all means or how exactly we’re going to accomplish this, but I’m open to the experience.  And I’m sure to write about it once we’re done.

But back to the reason for this post.  My travels over the last six weeks has allowed me to meet with dozens of friends around the country.  It’s been great catching up – on  love, marriage, divorce, kids, parents, jobs, and, well, life itself.   Many of us are at that age of dealing with aged parents and facing the inevitable loss that will come;  we’re of that age where as a parent, one needs to think about their children’s future should something happen to us;  we’re at that age to think about grown-up things such as the need for wills, estate plans, and our post-mortem wishes.

Which brings me to the subject of eco burials.    If in life, we aim to be environmentally conscious, why not also in death?   How many of us have actually given thought as to what we’d like to happen upon our deaths?  How many have actually written it down and/or let other family members know our wishes?      How many of us know what our options are?

I came across the following article about eco-burials a few weeks ago in Eucalyptus Magazine, a free Bay Area publication and it gave me pause for thought.   Bruce and I have spent some time thinking about our post-mortem wishes, but I hadn’t come across some of the more recent options that are available to us.

Green burials – the thoughtful way to return your body to the earth.  It appeals to me and it’s catching on, both in the United States and in New Zealand (and I’m sure in other countries as well).    Have a read through this article and let me know what you think.    As we celebrate our lives, so should we celebrate our deaths.   Shroud decorating parties, anyone?

From Eucalyptus Magazine, September, 2011:

Death is a subject that most Americans don’t like to talk about, read about, or even think about. We plan for weddings, births, and retirement, yet few among us plan for our own death. But when someone dies, it’s not just his or her loved ones who suffer the loss. Death takes an environmental toll on Mother Earth, too.

According to the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA), more than 60 percent of Americans choose to be buried in a casket in a cemetery (or their loved ones select that option for them). But the environmental cost of a traditional burial, including the metal and concrete production required for caskets, vaults, grave liners, and tombstones, is substantial. The damage is exacerbated if the deceased is embalmed, a process that uses toxic chemicals including formaldehyde to temporarily preserve the body. After an embalmed body is buried and begins to decompose, the embalming fluid leaches into the ground, contaminating soil and groundwater.

Joe Sehee, executive director of the New Mexico-based Green Burial Council, a nonprofit advisory group that promotes sustainability in the death care industry, points out that nearly 1 million tons of metal are buried in caskets in the United States. We bury enough metal each year to rebuild the Golden Gate Bridge, and enough concrete to build a two-lane highway from New York to Detroit.

Sehee says that with increasing awareness of the environmental cost of traditional burials, “green burials” have become more popular. “We continue to get more hits on our Web site and more inquiries,” Sehee says. “People find a great deal of solace in not only being environmentally sound, but also in returning to earth and feeling that their death is somehow connected to their life.”

Typically, a green burial service involves burying a body without the use of embalming chemicals, metal, or cement. The body may be buried in a biodegradable casket or no casket at all. Instead of taking up space in a landscaped cemetery, the body might be interred in a “green cemetery”—a nature preserve of nearly untouched land. Green cemeteries, also called natural burial grounds, eliminate the environmental costs of lawn and landscape care, including irrigation, as well as upkeep to graves and headstones.

There are currently 22 cemeteries with natural burial grounds certified by the Green Burial Council. One of them is Fernwood Cemetery in Mill Valley, a few miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge. Its 32-acre green cemetery looks exactly like the hilly grasslands and mixed forests of the adjacent Golden Gate National Recreation Area. There are no large gravestones, vaults, plastic flowers, waving flags, or mowed lawns. Embalmed bodies are not permitted. Natural rocks, wildflowers, or trees serve as grave markers, and each burial site is recorded for posterity with Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates.

Fernwood’s manager, Kathy Curry, says she gets calls from people who have read about green burials or heard about them on television, but the practice is still not widely known. She describes her business as “an educational process.”   “I think a lot of people don’t know that it is possible,” says Curry. “Often it’s just a matter of letting people know that [green burial] is an option and what it means. Then they’re interested.”

Sehee says that aging Baby Boomers are the demographic most interested in green burials. “They gave birth to Earth Day,” he says. “Baby Boomers want to participate more fully in their end-of-life rituals in a manner that is compatible with their values.”

The idea of green burial is not particularly new, nor is it particularly American. In Europe, more than 140 green cemeteries exist. The United States has only 15.   “There’s    definitely an increase in awareness of people wanting to do a green burial,” says Jerrigrace Lyons, executive director of Final Passages in Sebastopol, an organization that provides education and instruction for people interested in family-directed, home funerals. “We’ve had a lot of people wanting to choose that option.”For example, when Sebastopol resident Roberta Ryan lost her husband, Steve Rodin, she chose to give him a green burial. Rodin had been a landscaper for 30 years.

“He was a man of the earth,” says Ryan. “He had always been connected to plants and the earth and really understood the cycles of life.” She felt that a green burial was what he would have wanted because “he lived a green life. It was very much a part of his value system.”    Rodin was buried at Sebastopol Memorial Lawn Cemetery in an old-fashioned pine box with rope handles. Ryan pre-purchased a site right next to her husband and wants the same simple treatment when she dies.

There are other sustainable options for negotiating our departure from this mortal coil. In 2009, nearly 37 percent of Americans who died were cremated, up from 25 percent just 10 years before. In Canada, that number was more than 68 percent in 2009. Still, many eco-conscious consumers are wary of cremation because the incineration process requires fossil fuels (typically natural gas) and releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. In response to this criticism, the cremation industry has made efforts to decrease its carbon footprint. Some recent changes include using chimney filters to reduce emissions, employing solar energy to power furnaces, and utilizing the most fuel-efficient cremation containers.

Some cremation companies are opting for more high-tech solutions. Smart Cremations in Redwood, Washington, utilizes computer software that reduces cremation emissions by 30 percent, according to the company’s senior vice-president Jill Larson. The software is designed to make the burning process cleaner and more efficient.  “The fuel energy from the body and container are maximized, which in turn reduces the cycle time and therefore fuel consumption,” Larson says, adding that scattering someone’s ashes is “neutral” on the environment, meaning that it is neither good nor bad for the earth. “Cremation is growing by leaps and bounds,” Larson says.

The number of Americans who choose cremation over burial is expected to reach 51 percent by 2025, according to the NFDA.  For the family of the deceased, opting for either a green burial or cremation can save a substantial amount of money. The NFDA states that a traditional burial costs an average of $10,000 ($6,500 in funeral costs and $3,500 in cemetery costs), whereas according to Larson, a cremation costs about $1,300. “We’re talking almost a tenth of the price,” she says.

Joe Sehee of the Green Burial Council agrees. “A green burial is a lot cheaper than a traditional burial. There are cost savings since embalming and burial vaults are not required. And eco-friendly caskets tend to be less expensive than conventional ones.”

A traditional casket costs between $2,000 and $10,000, depending on its materials. Biodegradable caskets are usually made out of inexpensive materials like rattan, wicker, or even cardboard. One Bay Area company, Colma Cremation and Funeral Services, sells caskets made of willow, seagrass, or bamboo for less than $1,500. Funeral Director Joseph Stinson says, “When given the choice, [people] will go for natural as opposed to artificial.”

Wrapping the body of the deceased in a shroud may be the most inexpensive option. Kinkaraco Green Burial Products, based in San Francisco, sells biodegradable shrouds priced at $399 and up, which can be used either with or without a casket. Available in a variety of fabrics including linen, hand-woven wool, and silk dupioni, the shrouds come with a handle and strap system that allows the body to be lowered for burial.

Kinkaraco’s founder, Esmerelda Kent, says that shrouds have been used for centuries by people of many religions. Burial in a shroud, she says, “is a practice devoid of unhealthy chemicals, glues, toxins, or violating invasive procedures, which allows only organic matter into the earth without metals or any synthetic fibers.”

That idea of organic decomposition appeals to Corrina McFarlane, an eco-conscious, 54-year-old Santa Cruz resident. McFarlane has decided that when it is her time to go, she wants a green burial. Specifically, she wants to be buried in either a tubular-shaped coffin made from a willow tree or in a shroud made of organic cotton. She sees her future green burial as “a continuum that’s in line with my life choices.”

“If you’re a person who has been ‘lit up’ by all of the concepts surrounding sustainability and leaving as light a footprint as possible, then you are not breaking faith with the choices you’ve made in your life,” McFarlane says.

For resources in New Zealand,  see  Natural Burials NZ and this article on NZ eco funerals.

Now on the second leg of my trip across the States back to San Francisco, I have a few hours to do some debriefing about the reunion weekend.

What just happened?

The short answer is I had a hell of a good time.  Shockingly so.

There were activities throughout the weekend and my reunion festivities started on Friday night when me, Cathy, and Lisa met for dinner with two other ol’ pals, Joy and Diane.  The five of us and a handful of others used to pal around throughout high school and go to and host lots of parties together.    My god, it was fun to see them.   We were thrown back to our high school antics, when at the restaurant which was filled with geriatric dancing seniors, we asked and were allowed to move to a more ‘quieter’ table and nearly burst out into tears when the owner/manager made us take our napkins with us as we switched tables.  What, you couldn’t wash the extra napkins?   Two hours flew by in an instant as we bantered about and caught up on the gossip.    Here we are then and now:

We then descended next door to Uncle Henrys bar where we caught up with about 30 of our classmates.  Oh my gosh, I hardly recognized some of the guys.  But once I was reminded of their names and I could recall their faces, I could still see their boyish features now disguised as men.  And yeah, most have lost their hair, so they looked a little different from their wavy-locked looks of the70’s.    That’s what happens when you’re almost fifty.

The women, on the other hand, were easy to recognize.   We don’t seem to age as much as we’re fortunate to have culturally accepted died hair.  Our thing is the big M – menopause –  and we shared a whole lot of laughs as we talked about the sweating and the change.   So I don’t know which gender has it worse and I guess it’s all just part of life.

I was nervous about coming and attending the reunion but some older friends of mine said that it would likely be fun because at this age, the pretenses are all gone, we are who we are, we’re in or out of our careers, we’re married, divorced, single, whatever.  We could be comfortable in our skins and just let it all hang out.

And that’s exactly what it was like.

Saturday evening’s event was held at fellow classmate Kevin’s wedding banquet hall and motel in Hopewell Junction, NY, about an hour north of Harrison.   Another fellow classmate, Ralph, who owns a bus transportation company, offered to drive a bus load of attendees to/from the reunion.   I elected to drive myself and spend the night at the motel.

The party started at 7 pm and it kicked off with a bang.   As soon as one walked through the doors, one was transported back in time.   Every time I turned around, I was saying ‘Oh my god, there’s so and so.’   Everyone was in such good form, so chatty and full of life.     And certainly the open bar and home-made skull-and-cross-bones vodka punch helped loosen the tongues.

I had so many fine conversations with people, I barely sat for any length of time.  Two of our teachers were there – Mr. Taischoff, one of our math teachers;  and Mrs. O’Donnell, one of our English teachers.    How magnificent that they could come.

At our age, life’s happening, full steam ahead, both good and bad.  I heard stories about how bitterly expensive it is to live here with exorbitant tax rates, high food prices, gas prices, and healthcare costs, just high everything.    Those with kids seem to be never-ending taxi drivers, carting kids from one function to another.  Some had kids as old as 26 right on down to one with a bun in the oven!   Many of us are caring for or dealing with aged parents or have recently lost their parents.   Divorces, marriages, births, deaths, sickness, health — it all comes full circle round.   That is the duality of life.

People have had all sorts of careers too, both blue collar and white collar – airline pilots, engineers, financial planners, recruiters, gardening businesses, flooring businesses, dental hygienists, paralegals, moms galore, book-keepers, accountants, executives, teachers, artists, dancers, photographers, private investigators, the whole nine yards.  It was just amazing to share and listen and laugh and take lots of photos!

Our graduating class was about 325 students and judging from the group photo, I’d say about 80 of us were there (with spouses, we were about 110).   That’s a pretty good turn-out.   Of course, I could not talk to everyone, and I was quite shocked when in the midst of a good conversation, the lights came on and it was time for the night to end.  Where did those five hours go?

There was so much more I wanted to know.  Were you happy?  Did you achieve what you wanted to in life?  What’s left on your bucket list?   Hopefully I won’t have to wait another 10 years to find out.   Let’s stay in touch.

The reunion committee,  Jackie, Wendy, Kevin, John, Carey, Ralph, and Pete deserve special thanks as they did a truly exceptional job.  They worked so hard to put together such a fine weekend.

Will I return for my 40^th?   I think it is highly likely!

I haven’t been to New York since 1998 when my parents sold the house and packed up for their Floridian retirement.   I’ve never kept in touch with folks since I left for California in 1989; and I didn’t see too many people when I came in 1998.    So what prompted my short visit back?    30^th Year Harrison High School Reunion.

I never would have called myself a reunion person.  My past was the past and I was far, far away in California and now even further away in New Zealand.  But a funny thing happened.   Early this year I awoke from a dream about one of my high school classmates.  For years I’d wondered how he’d been, often trying to find him through Google without success.   This time, something prompted me to check Facebook.  Lo’ and behold, there he was, and that moment of reaching out set me off on a trajectory of amazing connections over the last six months.

Through connecting with him, I found out about the upcoming October reunion.   I knew back in March that we were going to be in Kauai for the September wedding, but I still wasn’t sure if I wanted to make the effort to come to New York.

Facebook is truly an amazing gift to the world.  Through Facebook I connected with so many high school classmates and as the momentum for the reunion started, I began feeling a bit nostalgic to head back full steam into my past.  I pulled out my yearbook and went through all the photos.   Who are these people now I wondered?   What a fascinating longitudinal study this would make to see us all 30 years later.   (A documentary called the Up Series has done just this – followed a small group of children from varying London socio-economic classes starting at age seven and were re-filmed every seven years since.  They are now at 54-up.)

By the time July rolled around, I needed to make a decision and I decided to come back as part of my personal healing journey.  I needed to see if I still had things in common with people; if I would like them; if I could reconnect.  I consider myself a pretty progressive open-minded fiscally responsible and spiritually guided fun loving liberal and I wasn’t so sure that Westchester bred too many of those types of folks.

About a month prior to leaving for our trip, random other people from my New York past found me on Facebook too –  a cousin whom I haven’t seen in 27 years;  a couple of guys from my teenage work days at Finast Supermarkets whom I haven’t seen in maybe 20 years; and another dear friend who was part of my deaf family circle whom I  hadn’t seen in 30 years.   Oh my god, I needed to see these people.

Flash forward and here I am in New York for five days, two of which are dedicated to the reunion.   So much has happened in five days and it’s all been exceptional.

I have immense gratitude for my host, Maria.   When I put the word out on Facebook for hotel recommendations, Maria reached out and offered up a downstairs studio unit in her home.   I haven’t seen Maria since the day we left high school. I thought it over for about a day and then graciously accepted her offer.    As if that wasn’t special enough, she also let me use one of her cars and she and another friend Cathy dealt with my transportation to/from the airport.      Thank you.

I truly believe fate brought us together for Maria is on quite a journey of discovery with  new doors opening to her all the time; doors that I’ve walked through myself.   We had so much to talk about, so many similar ideas about life, and it was nothing short of a true pleasure to be so relaxed and comfortable in her home.   Her three daughters are gorgeous and her youngest such a ball of fire and her little white dog Baci took to me like my little Nina and I enjoyed her feisty company.

I saw my second Cousin Tre (my grandfather Santora’s sister’s daughter) whom I had not seen in 27 years – the last time was at her parents 50^th wedding anniversary celebration with the extended family.  I hadn’t spoken to any of them since.   Tre was an important mentor to me when I was a young girl.   Six years my senior,  we used to spend time together over the years from my early childhood through my early teens.  At that age, six years older meant a lot, and I would follow her and her teenage girlfriends around, watching, noting, questioning.   She was always nice to me and we used to laugh a lot.  And she hasn’t changed a bit – she’s still spunky and has a wicked sense of humor despite facing difficult times in her life.   We laughed quite a bit over our two hour meal together, talking about the past when we were kids and then about our adult lives.  I found out things about ‘the family’ I’d not heard about which gave me a different understanding about a few things that occurred way back when.

I also saw my third Cousin Sharon (my grandmother Masticiollo-Santora’s sister’s daughter’s daughter!) whom I last saw in the 1990’s.   She’s only three years my junior and we spent many Thanksgivings and Christmases together as well as many holidays in Florida at Grandma and Grandpa Santora’s and Aunt Bea’s houses.    She’s still the same and again, over a two hour meal, we got caught up on the past two decades.  So much to say, so little time.   She has also worked very hard in her life, facing many obstacles, and now has a wonderful 12 year old daughter.

My friend Mona I knew from around the time I was nine or ten through 17.   I am a child of deaf parents and so is she.   In my youth, my family and other deaf families spent a lot of time together on summer camping trips, often heading somewhere for a week over July 4^th and two weeks over Labor Day.   Our most formative years of teenage exploration with alcohol, love, and romance took place on those KOA campgrounds.   We only saw each other occasionally during the rest of the year, which is really hard to believe since she lived just right over the Tappan Zee Bridge.  What my memory recalls as being SO FAR AWAY is really just a 20 minute drive in adult world.   Go figure.

She and I gabbed for five hours as if we’d last seen each other yesterday.    We had so much in common:  thoughts on healing and holistic health, similar interests in literary fiction, similar explorations with energy and body work, a desire to eat organically and mindfully.  It was fascinating.   She’s also been on a long healing journey, facing many health challenges, but she seems well on her path to good health and a deeper understanding of herself.

I spent a bit of time with my childhood friend since grammar school, Cathy.  She picked me up from the airport, she met me at Sals for pizza, we went and got our nails done together, we went over to the high school, and she showed me around the ol’ hood.   It was so fun to see her – still the same girl deep down, now a mother of two grown children and happily married for 20+ years.  She still lives in Silver Lake and so she was a wealth of information as we went down memory lane.   Thank you Cathy!

And most surprising of all was my re-connection with my high school pal Lisa.   She was not on Facebook, the reunion people didn’t have her contact details, and the details I had from the early 1990’s were no longer valid.   I wasn’t sure if I’d find her but someone told me they saw her working at the local vet.  So I called and though she only worked there once a week, the receptionist heard the plea in my voice when I begged her to get in touch with Lisa and pass along my number.   Lisa called me my first day back and I got to see her on three different occasions.    We had so much fun, laughing as usual.  Now divorced with two teenagers, she’s happy and as gorgeous as ever.   We vowed not to let the distance get in the way of staying up-to-date with each other.   This is me with Lisa’s dog Sonny:

For our junior and senior year in high school and some time thereafter,  Lisa and I worked at the local supermarket which was a few towns over.   Those were some of the best times and years of my life where we did some crazy stuff together with our band of checkout counter girls and shelf-stocking boys.   One of whom was Ricky who I happened to go to the Westlake prom with.    Lisa and I met up with Ricky for an evening and again, it was a night of laughs interspersed with the stories of our not so always happy adult lives.   Ricky, also divorced, has two teen/t’ween children.

I spent an hour or so driving around my neighborhood enclave of Silver Lake.  I went and saw my old house (102 Woodside Avenue) that I lived in from aged 2 through 24;

I drove by my elementary school and church:

I went down to the park where I spent many, many summers at day camp and playing on the softball team.

I had a Cinema Paradiso moment as I stood gazing upon the main street and the park.  Just as the protagonist glances around him hometown, gazing at 30 years of changes,  I too stood in awe as I recalled the changes from my youth, from the empty fields and rinky dink park to now what has transformed into a much more dense suburban community with nary an empty lot to be found and our rinky dink park matured with a state-of-the-art astro-turfed field and an additional swimming pool recreation area complete with slides which has been built in what was a wooded area.  All in the name of progress.

And I just gotta love being back in the land of the Italians!   I gorged on pizza, pasta, and Italian baked goods.  I went to Carvel for a big fat ice cream cone.  The neighbors across the street whipped out their wine barrel press one Saturday and started pressing the grapes to make wine.

These are my roots, my home town.  It was good to be back.

And for the reunion?  Well, that deserves it’s very own post.  Stay tuned.

We’ve had quite a hectic three weeks of non-stop movement as we’ve traversed the wider Bay Area catching up with friends and family. I think we managed to visit with *almost* everyone though there have been a couple of folks we just couldn’t manage to see (really sorry).

It’s been great connecting with people and having in-depth conversations about each person’s life. For most folks, things are just chugging along, though several are concerned about job security. Health-care costs are on the rise again, food prices are high (about the same as New Zealand), the roads are in various states of disrepair, and social services are being drastically cut. Over 70 California State Parks are slated for closure.  One of my friends in the non-profit sector said it was a good year as the company was still operating unlike several other well-known non profits which had closed down.

Life is hard, but it isn’t all doom and gloom. The Bay Area is still one of the best places to live – there are many beautiful aspects, especially the nearby parks and reserves and I’ve been able to get out and do a few good hikes: Mt. Tamalpias, China Camp State Park, and Armstrong Redwoods State Park.

We’ve also managed to stuff ourselves with lots of great food and I fear that a diet will be in my future upon returning to NZ!

I’ve had great fun visiting with all my little friends and bonding over some yoga poses.

And the family….. I’ve spent a lot of time with my 2 year old niece who is just gorgeous (yes, I am biased) and my sister and brother-in-law.

My parents flew out from Florida for a week and we all went up to the Russian River for the weekend where we just hung out, hiked, played tennis, and enjoyed some quality time with each other.

We went apple picking for an afternoon which was fun until some of us had a melt down.

Libran birthdays abound and I’ve had fun celebrating with my fellow Libran friends: Suzy, Manny, Roni, and Sienna.

I am grateful for the time I’m getting to spend with them and it will be sad to say goodbye. But my heart isn’t in San Francisco anymore and I don’t know what I’d do if we had to return. There’s a small part of me that misses the hubbub of city and business life but I don’t think that would be good for my soul. I’m still morphing into a Green Acres girl and not quite finished with developing my horticulture and homesteading skills. Birdsong calls. There’s still work for us to do in New Zealand. But despite the vast ocean that divides us, we will always remain connected to our hommies by the Bay (and elsewhere!)