After a few days of rain and bad flooding all around this region (worst in the last 200 years), the sun has come out again. I run on sunshine (as most folks probably do); my batteries get filled with only a brief showing of this shiny source of life. This morning, as I was driving Maksim to school, I was hyper-aware of how peaceful and happy I’ve been here. Almost everything passes, the good and not so good, so this will too. But in the meantime, I’m happy!
It’s wintertime here now, so even though it’s sunny most days, it’s cold. A good friend came by a couple of days ago. She was crocheting a hat, and I wanted to learn from her. She was a great teacher, even though I was an impatient student. Still, I stuck with it and crocheted my first hat that same evening. I wore it this morning, and it contributed to my blissful state.
Then I thought of a dinner out last night with two dear Kiwi friends and all the fun we had. It was one of those perfect evenings. Even after spending all this time here and learning a ton of Kiwi English, I still have moments when I stare blankly, unsure if my hearing is going bad (which it is) or if I just don’t understand what is being said. So many fun examples of misunderstandings over the last year. Even with us all speaking English, there are plenty of situations when I feel I’m hearing a completely foreign language. Last night’s example, “he had a funny turn = he was feeling funny/weird.”Even kids find themselves in “funny” situations. Just the other day, Maksim was all mad about an adult telling him “good boy” over and over again. He said, “Mom, she treats us like dogs,” thinking of American English where a good boy is mainly used to address dogs while here it means “well done.” It took me a while to convince him that he just didn’t understand it correctly. It’s a nostalgic kind of morning, enjoying the sun, tea with a friend, enlightening book, easy, slower pace of life for another few weeks. I just had to share it with FB to remind me of this beautiful life next year at this time.
Refresh Journey 