learning the hard way - so here I am ( back from down under)

I made a mistake.

I went to New Zealand to work for one last time, but it all felt wrong.

Things change. 

I have changed.

Where previously I relished the solitude and freedom, this time I was overcome by the darkness of my accomodation and the isolated place that I found myself in.

I upped sticks in the middle of a sleepless night and got on a plane back home.

I let people down, and for that I am sorry.

But sometimes we know what we need to do, and this was one of those times.

My actions bring to mind the poem of the recently deceased poet Mary Oliver, entitled 'The Journey'

It feels fitting to my recent circumstances, even though possibly intended to describe more radical changes of direction in life.



The Journey by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice–
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
‘Mend my life!’
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognised as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do–
determined to save
the only life you could save.

 *****

And as James Joyce said in Ulysses

'think you're escaping and run into yourself.  Longest way round is the shortest way home'

 *****

 

It is good to be home.