As I deconstruct my life here in Auckland, sort through belongings, place furniture and possessions into storage, empty the house, whittle down a backpack to the bare essentials, while conscious I will be carrying everything on my back…….I keep returning to memories of a concert at the Auckland Town Hall over a year ago, when Glenn Hansard was at full throttle in the Auckland Arts Festival, alongside the sweetest Irish singer, Lisa Hannigan. Part of the nostalgia of hearing Irish singers (my “duchas”) when so far from home, part of the damn-fine show they put on that night in Auckland, the concert left an indelible impression on me, as Hansard finished off the set with a cavalcade, full 20 musician ensemble, traversing throughout the Auckland crowd singing the Dick Blakeslee song “Passing Through”.
Here’s the link to it. (((That didn’t embed, so here is the link! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQYaWsMcYx8)))
If you take the time to listen to it in whole – yes it is over 15 minutes long! – you will get what I mean by this first blog post.
We all are passing through this life – meeting people, sharing time with people, leaving people – all the time journeying through our lives. If you are reading this, I am happy that you are part of my life in some way!
“Passing through, passing through.
Sometimes happy, sometimes blue,
Glad that I ran into you.
Tell the people that you saw me passing through”
On my penultimate day in New Zealand, I have time to ponder a little. I am sad to say goodbye to great friends and family here, but happy to have spent time in Aotearoa. Two years turned into eleven in this epoch of my life. No regrets as I pass through.
And I am totally excited to pass through four months of travel and adventure as we snake our way to Ireland, two kids in tow. I am at the ‘sometimes happy’ stage of that journey, as we set off on an adventure through Australia, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. Not sure what will be in store, but know that we have people to catch up with again, especially in Australia, and know that there are people we have never met who will leave abiding memories with us.
Parsing belongings to bare essentials has been liberating. Decluttering and dematerialising our lives is giving me the space to think about other things; stepping out of my life for a while, exiting the comfort zone of work/income, leaving the certainty of having a roof over our heads and all of that is a sort of escapism. Someone asked me what I was most looking forward to on this journey, and I realised that it will give me time to reflect.
So it’s slan and haere ra for the moment, and no doubt you will see us passing through this blog over the next few months. Keep on humming the tune!
Catherine and Daniel
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