Wayfaring Stranger - as in...

..travelling through this world alone...That bright bright land, to which I go...I know dark clouds will gather round me, and I know my way be rough and steep... The beautiful fields lie just before me.

...the lyrics of Natalie Merchant's ballad stops me in my tracks, still and always.

I have companions along my way yes of course, close ones, treasures. And yet, there's an element of solitude in every life. Making my ways around the globe, through many lives, often a stranger. In the French way, like foreigner, not the English way like strange/weird/unknown. I've been one of those all my life: since I said eggs-eier at the age of two in England, learning my first English words.

Then to Malaysia, thankfully learning English there from another fair-headed girl who lived across the road, and in a Montessori pre-school. On to Australia, where at 7, I was told I must know about Hitler 'because you're German'! More strangeness. A childhood of wayfaring with my family, travels overseas to relatives and new shores across Asia and the Pacific, unlike many Canberra children at the time.

Then Sydney, making my way into adult life. Travelling again, now more to Asia between work and studies. Never making the gap year trip, never taking a big flying leap into the true unknown, always aware of needing to provide for myself, make something of myself.

Often a stranger, speaking German in Europe to avoid obnoxious Australians, French in Thailand to duck under the radar of the Germans or Australians there. Speaking all three with a cousin on a road trip through Vietnam, just to entertain ourselves and others. Because we could.

Then more ways, across Australia, with a new husband, then two surprising boys - treasures, perfect, so different though we made them both. Travels as the wife of a medical student, student life for him, motherhood and full time work for me. And a big decision to take it all to Newcastle, to settle, be responsible to our family. Another new start, a house, a garden, and always this restless stranger-self. Always from here/not from here.

And always the music, always songs, always searching out new tunes for the soundtrack of my life. Afro Celt Sound System, Buddha Bar, Natalie Merchant, Michael Franti. Again now, in Ireland, searching for new sounds. Kila. Michael McGoldrick. O'Death.

Launching

So, after more than a year of saying 'I-wanna-be-a-blogger', two more years of reading, looking, cruising and reading this online explosion, and possibly 158 days of noticing or thinking something which I could launch out here, I'm up on my wobbly blogfeet.

Observations about relocating a family from Australia to Ireland, about rich travels on the mainland, about the oddness of life in contemporary Ireland (that's most days, sure), about life with a shiftworker, about the temporary transformation from modern working mother to modern traditional homemaker! And also, observations about the experience of returning to Europe, born in Germany, but lived oh-so-many years in Australia: an exploration of roots and how they twine through my life, and the lives I helped create.

Oh and there's some oddball blogging going to go on until I catch up the many posts I shoulda made online, but in fact they made it only to my journal. Realtime blogging to commence soon.

A record of this bigger-than-ever year, for friends, family: including my own two small treasures, for the time they might want to read about their big year too.

It's worth it!

This going to the gym, battling with constant demotivation, tiredness, setbacks. It's worth it.

Skiing this week, (and how that even sounds) for the FIRST time ever, I was able to keep my legs and feet going in the same direction. Keep my breath, keep working on the cross-country piste in the clear sunshine, just long enough to see if I could get the hang of it. And get up again the next day, do something with the boys, sled a while, run across the field to get the cars and move them again, and still be ok at the end of the day. This sounds small, but is an achievement - I could NOT have done this for a week, 6 months ago.

So that's great motivation to go back, and go even harder, just keep going. Just when I'd thought it was all going nowhere. And I'll need a harder programme again too. My Painterwoman friend is blunt: if you're not seeing results, you're not working hard enough. Go back and crank it up to 8! Do more reps. Think of being in labour - it's not called labour for nothing, she says!. So this is not called a workout for nothing...

I'm not thinner, sad, but I DO have more endurance, more power. And a calmer mind, more able to deal with all the rest of the pieces which are now my life.

Life with a Shiftworker

We're getting used to this now. I know the week must be the night-shift week (ie 7 nights straight), when:

• LMM physically dreads going to work for the weekend ahead. The worst shift is 2200-0900h, 1800-0400h is much better;
• I stay up late most nights alone, too late, and end up dog-tired too. It's as if I'm staying up in sympathy, but that's dumb, because I get to sleep in the bed all by myself, which should be nice for a change;
• I shift clothes and stuff into the boys bathroom so I can shower after the gym quietly;
• I harass the boys to be quiet in the flat, or trawl around town trying to stay out as long as possible;
• A bleary-eyed man sends sms from the bedroom seeking tea and sympathy;
• I'm starting to hoard the clean clothes by about Thursday, planning the packing for 3 for the week ahead - washing and sorting outfits so we're ready for the next trip;
• I'm packing in the early evenings of the weekend, while staying out as long as possible during the days: passports, the right gear, the right bags, what else don't they need, empty the fridge?
• We pour the boys and LMM into some plane on the Monday and go.

The week after, it takes until about Wednesday for him to function again and the holiday really starts. We've used this week for something really good and new every month. This time, it's off to ski in Austria. Flying into Munich, oh we're in the swing of it now - and a car to collect straight away at the airport! And the switch into German won't be hard, it's only been a month. Accommodation organised by cousin, who changed accommodation at the last minute, to ensure we'd get plenty of snow. Exciting stuff - and so easy, we're here, used to eachothers' ways on holidays now. But yes, much the easier for us, having them there.

Next time Turkey, after that France! On our own then.