Busytown: Sons for the Return Home
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some more thoughts:
before you start wander around the house, take lots and lots of pictures of every little corner, every special place
There is a tardis thing that goes on with houses, old houses are always much larger on the inside than the new one you move to - it's why you end up with 8 boxes of stuff you can't figure out where to put (we had shelves built, lots and lots of shelves, an honest to god dining room converted into a library, and still had 8 boxes left)
You have to get really evil with those 8 boxes, they will stay there stacked in the hallway mocking you, resolve to get rid of one box every weekend until they are gone ....
Eventually your new house will do the tardis thing, as you find all the nooks and crannies it too will expand to fit
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In late 2008, I had only just begun to follow PA and one Saturday, in early December I think, I avidly followed the posts as people commented on a bill being debated under urgency in Parliament. This was the bill, introduced by the new National government, which brought in national standards. And Jolisa, I remember being amazed that someone was commenting from the US as this bill was passed and I learned a whole lot about the failure of similar programmes around the world and as a teacher I was afraid. And later I came to realise your place and significance in the PA community and have always enjoyed reading your contributions.
There are some NZ schools who have bravely stood up against the implementation of national standards but they are being backed into a corner. I admire their stand as they recognise and explain the inherent flaws in such a system as national standards, especially as we approach the stage when schools are required to report on the progress their students are making in relation to the standards and provide the figures to back up this progress.
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Danielle, in reply to
(you need a way to subtly make the "I'm not an American, despite the accent, I was born here" point
When I met Jolisa she sounded excellently New Zildy to me. (But people occasionally mistake me for an American. So perhaps I have a tin ear.)
I'm sure with a lot of lamps you can just change the plug (or get one of those plug converters) and you're away laughing. (Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for any house fires.)
It *is* the timesickness that does you in. I wasn't away from NZ long enough to have this problem, but I know my husband does in reverse, having been gone nearly a decade. He will visit his hometown in the USA and every year or two it's mutated irrevocably. People don't live where they used to, or they died, or that thing everyone did - no one does that thing any more. So moving back to it *would* be like going to another country (albeit a vaguely familiar one).
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We have moved far too many times, including four (4!!!!) international moves, and we have learned one thing from it. Moving is hell. Even moving home to New Zealand is hell.
Also, seconding (thirding / fourthing) what other people have said about bringing cars. Don't.
My very best wishes for the big move home.
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I still have a box sitting in the basement packed 30+ years ago with all sorts of things we brought back from Canada. Why........is...it...still....there.....We still can't bring ourselves to dump it...sigh...
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BenWilson, in reply to
On slotting back in, I think that your memories of being abroad should not be suppressed or forgotten, in the desire to fit in. You are the the sum of your life to date. Certainly, people will not be anywhere near as interested in it as you are, but that actually goes for everyone anyway. I guess the thing to remember is that the experience itself is not of interest to people unless it is told well, or relevantly, and that goes no matter what you've done with your life.
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Well, sort of. “Moving back to New Zealand” is not exactly the same thing as “going home,” is it?
Very much identify with every single thing in this post. But I'm still so, so envious. A friend has just moved back home with her two children, and eldest daughter was already in the swing of the barefoot to school thing on her first day.
Hope all your moving goes well, and wishing like crazy that one day it will be me wondering how to negotiate the time-slippage.
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I've said this here before - "home" is a funny thing, it's often where you're not - for years after we moved back "home" was Oakland, now it's caught up with us and is Dunedin
As far as detecting accents, I'm quite screwed as far as Kiwi vs. US is concerned, can't hear my kids accents though I know they have them, and of course can't hear my own - I have a US accent in NZ, even after so long back, and a somewhere-maybe-british accent in the US - there's nowhere on the planet I don't have an accent
When we first came back, about a week before my daughter started school (1st form, ie 11), she came to us, she'd decided she needed to get rid of her accent before she started school so she would fit in - we had to explain, and assured her that her accent would help her stand out and find friends - in the end it was a non-issue
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BenWilson, in reply to
I have a US accent in NZ, even after so long back, and a somewhere-maybe-british accent in the US - there's nowhere on the planet I don't have an accent
I think of it as the "international accent". Hordes of children have this, even without leaving home now, but it used to be the sound of children of ambassadors and diplomats and other semi permanent ex-pats.
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well mine's (apparently) obviously a US one .... people make strange assumptions about my politics, morals, religion, etc based on it
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For me coming back to NZ, the weirdest and unexpectedest thing was to feel homesick, when I’d supposedly come home. That left me in a transient grey space for at least 2 years.
Moving back after 6 years away was a shock. I was in a very awful and weird headspace for two years.
I guess the advice I’d give is to think of it not as “returning home”, but rather moving to a totally new country that you’ve never lived before. Eventually, though, you’ll wake up one day and it will feel like home again.
And if someone had told me that in that two years I would have hugged them. The dissonance between the 'home' of the mind and the 'home' of the real world Aotearoa NZ was just something weird.
One piece of advice – allow yourselves a year (at least) to get used to being back in NZ. Stranger in a strange land and all that.
Two at a minimum. And the feelings you feel will be entirely and wholly natural so go with them.
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I'll be the one to say that I don't identify with much of this. Well, perhaps having a small number of things that are precious to you. I don't know if it's age - I am young, after all. For the last few years I've lived under the 20kg weight limit (and that includes climbing gear and a 50m rope...). I knocked my possessions down to less than 50 things last year. Of course, if I had a spouse and children, the calculus would be different, but I'm not sure how much.
My own parents lived from a van during the 1970s, a single suitcase in Hong Kong during the early 80s, and an entire family in a four door Cortina with a trailer during the early 90s. (We also lived in houses, and accumulated things too, of course). It may simply be culturally inculcated.
I've been taking cues from Sterling's last Viridian note (adapted and adjusted elsewhere):
..divide your current possessions into four major categories.
Beautiful things.
Emotionally important things.
Tools, devices, and appliances that efficiently perform a useful function.
Everything else.It may be too much for some, but as a guideline, I think it works rather well.
Roots are strong, people are important, but things are transient.
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And if someone had told me that in that two years I would have hugged them. The dissonance between the ‘home’ of the mind and the ‘home’ of the real world Aotearoa NZ was just something weird.
Yeah, I've been back seven months after four years away. I feel disloyal for not feeling more comfortable here (though I have no intention of being the complaining ex-expat). Not everything is difficult - some things are very easy. Others aren't.
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I believe garden tools may require steam cleaning to satisfy MAF? (professionally done with a certificate or receipt to prove it, probably).
Worth the effort if they are quality items, but not if they are just cheapies from the local bargain house...
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Danielle, in reply to
Yes, perhaps one bit of advice could be"warn your kids that people will say dumb shit to them based on what appears to be an in-depth sociological study of random episodes of COPS and American Idol".
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Wow - this is why I shouldn't post just before I clock off for the night. And yet, it is exactly why I should post just before I clock off. Fantastic, honest feedback along every possible dimension. You guys are amazing.
Paul, I was counting on you to show up and tell me how it's done, right down to the Christmas ornament tip. You should write a book. Actually, we should write a book, or go into the resettlement advice business as per Sue's suggestion. (And ten years, really?? That went fast!)
Stuff-wise, my inclination is to bring everything (what we don't use we can sell at the other end, right?), but my fantasy is always to just travel, monk-like, with a pair of sandals and a begging bowl (or like Spike Milligan, with a toothbrush and a credit card). Somewhere in between is probably how it'll happen.
I wish I could bring that part of the doorframe, but it'd be a tricky thing to match and patch in a historic house. Plus, we're just one layer of history on this old house. But good advice for the record, for anyone else contemplating it: take the doorframe, take a photo, or start out with something more portable in the first place, like a bespoke yardstick.
Am telling myself that the real yardstick is the boys themselves, and they're all the evidence I need that growth has happened :-) I just can't shake the weird feeling that leaving here will also mean leaving the ghost of their respective childhoods behind, y'know? But by that token, my own child-ghost is still roaming the hills of the Hutt Valley, and I'm OK with that.
Again, thank you all for weighing in - will assimilate it and respond more later. The first of many farewell dinners is about to be served!
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BenWilson, in reply to
My own parents lived from a van during the 1970s, a single suitcase in Hong Kong during the early 80s, and an entire family in a four door Cortina with a trailer during the early 90s. (We also lived in houses, and accumulated things too, of course). It may simply be culturally inculcated.
So you're a gypsy and your home is the road?
Joseph Conrad had an interesting insight into sailors in Heart of Darkness. He said they were the biggest home-bodies of all, so much so that they took their home with them everywhere they went.
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if I had a spouse and children, the calculus would be different, but I'm not sure how much.
It's an entire new equation. You have been warned :)
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
I wish I could bring that part of the doorframe, but it’d be a tricky thing to match and patch in a historic house.
I figured that might be an issue - but just for interests sake find a local cabinet maker (NOT a builder) and ask how much it would cost - it may be stupidly expensive - but it may not and it's always worth talking to a good cabinet maker, they're interesting.
On fitting back into New Zealand - the hardest part for me was adapting to the changes in our circle of friends - we knew some had got married and some had broken up, but it was seeing one (married) friend snogging another friend's husband that really threw me for a loop. I expected relationships to have changed but not values, in hindsight people's values change all the time so I shouldn't have been surprised.
Nevertheless I discovered old enemies had become interesting people and eventually fast friends and discovered some folks who used to be fun to talk to were now boring and vice versa. Of course as many of those changes were in fact changes in me. But it took time to adapt and I had to remain flexible and not assume that things would be the same as it ever was.
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Ever since reading your post I can't get the Diddy earworm out of my head. Fortunately, I like that song. Weird, eh?
As for schools not being overly enthusiastic about adopting the standards, the one our three go to in Sandringham is holding out pretty well. But, there is news of considerable pressure being applied to recalcitrant schools. There does seem to be a number of principals willing to stretch the limits of the offside line to the maximum though.
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Sacha, in reply to
Roots are strong, people are important, but things are transient
Gold
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Sacha, in reply to
people make strange assumptions about my politics, morals, religion, etc
the downside of decades of successful pop cultural imperialism
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the downside of decades of successful pop cultural imperialism
It's gone beyond that, and become a bad habit, a perpetual laziness reached into to justify New Zealand and make people feel better about their own inadequacies.
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Sacha, in reply to
Do you see a difference in the way we do that with the US rather than all manner of other nations we've seen less from? I imagine Belgians and Indonesians get less shit.
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Paul Campbell, in reply to
Paul, I was counting on you to show up and tell me how it's done, right down to the Christmas ornament tip. You should write a book. Actually, we should write a book, or go into the resettlement advice business as per Sue's suggestion. (And ten years, really?? That went fast!)
Well 7 years - close enough to 10 at this point
I really looked for on-line advice and help when we came back, dealing with the NZ consulate was a real disaster - especially for my wife's visa (turned out we could just turn back on her 20 year defunct residency - it never occurred to us that that was an option). We still ended up camping out side the DC consulate for a day to get everything settled once we were on our way
I even went into the local NZ Immigration dept office in Dunedin asking if they had any giveaways for new immigrants,m stuff like "how to enroll your kid in school", "how to find and sign up with a doctor" ... stuff you hadn't done as a student but now you have kids you suddenly have to do - I walked away empty handed.
How about a web site somewhere with hints and tips (and stories)?
I wish I could bring that part of the doorframe, but it'd be a tricky thing to match and patch in a historic house. Plus, we're just one layer of history on this old house. But good advice for the record, for anyone else contemplating it: take the doorframe, take a photo, or start out with something more portable in the first place, like a bespoke yardstick.
For those starting out in the kid business - let me repeat my suggestion above - people move, all the time - grab a piece of wood a couple of metres long, paint it in bright colours - use that - we had friends decorate one for each of our kids at their baby showers, one has an arrow "grow this way" painted at one end - now that they've stopped growing we really need to take that one last measurement of both of them
I just can't shake the weird feeling that leaving here will also mean leaving the ghost of their respective childhoods behind, y'know?
we worried about something like that - the kids have kept in touch with their friends (facebook in particular) as they head of to college, and I think that's what matters - we're going to go back "home" for xmas this year, I'll take the kids back to the old house and ask the new owners (not the ones we sold to) if the kids can have a look, I bet it looks smaller to them - I remember some teenagers showing up at our door not long after we bought it and we were happy to let them wander - we'll take them to places we took them to as kids.
Even for us adults places change, Cody's book store isn't there any more on Telegraph, but Berkeley's still full of that wonderful mix of hippy-children, street people, street stalls, street politics etc that I miss in somewhat staid Dunedin
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