One Crowded Hour

It’s fair to say that our experience living in Austria was a life changing one. For a year we lived in a bubble surrounded by the most stunning natural environment, blissfully ignorant of things going on beyond it. Television commercials and radio news passed like white noise. The most exciting thing was the procession of cattle returning from pastures, elaborately dressed in garlands of flowers and clanging with bells. Or the Knodelfest: a table stretching the entire length of the main street in town where townsfolk feast on all manner of dumplings. Or finding decorations to put on your doorstep to mark the change in season. Or learning how to make Elderflower juice. Or Kaisershmarm. Or wondering if we would be able to understand the old man who lived downstairs, should we bump into him on the driveway.

            We became accustomed to living the simple life: a small wardrobe, one cup and plate each, one good knife that actually worked, spending weekends wandering the mountain trails and having a picnic of ham and cheese rolls at stream-sides, the odd city break to let us know we were still part of a wider civilization.

            And then, we came home.

            And that was a shock.

            The crowds, the noise, the busyness. And it’s Perth we’re talking about here. The most isolated capital city in the world. And a far cry from a busy one.

            We felt like we didn’t fit in. Displaced country bumpkins. We pined for the mountains and woods and streams. To wear muddy boots every day. The distinctive change in seasons. One-euro scoops from the ice-cream parlour in the village. We hadn’t missed the shops. Or cafes. Not beaches either. As wonderful as those things are in Perth, if those are the things you like.

            A friend assured me it wouldn’t last, we’d get used to it again, we’d fall back into old ways. I was doubtful. But I nodded anyway.

            So we got on with things.

            We’d ‘missed a go’ at celebrating birthdays with families and friends, and it was an enjoyable thing to get back to and for that we were thankful. Amelia and Noah started at a great Montessori school a stone’s throw away from home, and I met lovely new people there. I enrolled at Uni and it opened up a whole new world and I soaked that up too. Maciek eventually found his feet with work and carried on the mountain biking he’d started in St Johann, albeit in quite different territory. He got back into tennis, and also met new like-minded people. We had friends over for barbeques, as is the go. The kids joined after-school activities even though we vowed not to get busy and complicated with things like that, but that’s what you do in the burbs. And I started work too; a job I soon became immersed in and loved. We spent fun times with friends, and everything was great. On paper.

            Because we couldn’t shake the feeling of something missing. Some deeper connection. Some deeper meaning. The simplicity of everyday things. Smelling the roses and all that.

             We tried for 18 months to recreate what we had found in that little village in the Alps. I took an interest in Australian flora that I’d never much noticed before. We collected sticks and gumnuts and dry old pine cones and made Christmas decorations and proudly handed them out as gifts. Because, that’s what you do over there. We had an Adventkranz each December and started a tradition of making gingerbread for the scents of a past experience. Instead of indoor plants we had a winter tree, and hung hearts and other chintzy things off it, like it was normal. One Sunday we collected more sticks and built a fairy house, just because, and proudly displayed it front and centre. But to everyone else these things were just weird. Or ‘different’, if  people were being polite. We were trying to bring the energy of the Austrian Alps to the suburbs of Perth. And inevitably, it didn’t work out. We were searching for something that just wasn’t there.

            But still, we got on with things. Because everything was great.

            But we didn’t buy nice furniture. And we didn’t put pictures in frames and decorate the walls. And we stuck with our old run-down car. And we didn’t commit to new iPhone contracts. And we didn’t buy a rabbit like we’d promised. And we had half-hearted attempts at growing veggies and herbs in a garden we couldn’t be bothered with. And we left the old bathrooms untouched. And held on to that really old dining table. Because, to us, it just didn’t feel like home.

            From the moment we landed in 2012 we played with the idea of leaving again. And if things on the surface weren’t going so well we may have just gone back then. We went to New Zealand to check it out as a possibility. We looked at Melbourne. We considered Canada. Tasmania. Even parts of America. England came up as a maybe. But that never lasted too long. We wouldn’t be able to earn enough money. And what about the weather? Everyone moaned about the weather.

            But we watched ‘Escape to the Country’ religiously. We dreamed. Said ‘we could afford that, a house like that’. But really, they only film in summer, don’t they? And surely they must edit that filming or something, to make it look so lush and green and inviting? And reality yanked us back down with a thud.

            We went for a holiday over Christmas 2014, thinking we’d know either way when we got there. If we could live there or not. We scoped out potential areas. Had a look at potential schools. Caught up with friends and family. And we loved it. The cold air. The excitement of coming snow. Christmas markets. Frosty walks to the pub for lunch. Cracking the ice on puddles. But still. There was no definite yes or no. We couldn’t be sure. How would we make it work? How could we pick up all the good things we had in Perth and move them there instead?

            For a time in your life you imagine that certainty exists. You can pretend that all the worrying you do and the dotting of i’s and the crossing of t’s gives you control over things but it doesn’t. There are no guarantees. And as much as you try for it, perfection doesn’t exist either. Life just happens. Sometimes you like it. And sometimes you don’t.

            In 2016, some things were working well for us. I had written my novel and was offered the opportunity to sign with an agent in London. I was working a lot at the school, and although found it challenging and stressful at times I was learning so much and was loving it. But other things were coming undone. Maciek’s work slowed down and then stopped. Amelia was experiencing a social catastrophe which, by the looks, despite all our efforts to help her to manage it was sending her into a breakdown. At the age of just-turned-10. And there were a few other things along with it. And that paper that had been looking so good started to crinkle and fade. Certainties we had clung to, things for which we had made conscious efforts to ensure their success were hanging by a thread. Change was looming. Like a season itself.  It was heavy and sweeping and impossible to ignore.

            So, in mid-October we finally made the decision. It took us a month of this way or that. Yes let’s do it. No let’s not. There came the deadline for a resignation at the school, for myself and the kids. And I let it pass. Because we’d decided but maybe we hadn’t? But time ran out. I had to say it out loud. Officially. I had to offer it in writing.

            And so it was done. We had decided to move to England. In February 2017. Why? For hills and mud and countryside? For seasons and castles and history? A return to exploring our roots? A recreation of a past experience, in a country where we could actually converse with people? Proximity to Europe? Really? Some were supportive. Some said we were brave. Some said they wished they had the guts to follow their dreams like that. Others just thought we were mad.

            And then there was Trump. And that made us think the whole world was mad, so what did it matter anyway?

            We put the house on the market. We set about selling our stuff.

            And then the unthinkable happened. Something that no-one expected.

            We lost a beloved person. Just like that without warning.

            Mamo. Marysia. Babcia.

            Mum. Mum-in-law. Grandma.

            Taken suddenly and far too young.

            And we walked through the following weeks in a fog.

            Shock. Disbelief. Grief in all of its forms.

            Leaving, then, was left out of things. The decision had sunk into shadow.
            There are no certainties. No guarantees.

            There is no perfect path to walk along.

            Life is a gift that offers itself only once. And gives us no clue of how long it will stay.

            We battled hard those months and still do, with grief as well as with guilt, as the decision we’d made came creeping back in, about what was the right thing to do.

            Our hearts were split either way.

            But, letting go doesn’t equal forgetting. And in leaving you never stop loving.

            So, now, we find ourselves here in the Devonshire countryside.

            Because she always told us to do what makes us happy. And we know she would want us to follow our path, however invisible it is, if that’s what we really wanted. We know she is with us on this journey. And we know she’s having her say on many fronts with her magical way with words!

Recently, during all of the sorting and packing, I came across a card I had collected whilst living in Dublin. Sometimes you wonder why you just can’t throw things away. What’s the reason for holding on? For 17 years I’ve had this card, packed away in a suitcase along with the other Irish memorabilia I’ve kept, to one day put up on walls or display on shelves. Of course, as to be expected, there’s a photo on it of a pint of Guinness as well as a Celtic knot. Typical touristy stuff. But there’s also a quote by Oscar Wilde. And it sums up the past six months to a tee.

            Because within that time there have been all of these things: An offer of a job I know I would love but had to decline; a resignation from a wonderful school; two months of home opens and the sale of our house at the very last minute; the sudden and devastating loss of a loved one and the depths of sadness that came with it; the celebration of a special 60th birthday at almost the same time; various 40th’s of special friends; the sale of all of our things, anniversaries of births, deaths and marriages; the packing of most meaningful things into boxes kept in a shed; holding hands with a friend through an unforeseen crisis, the birth of a beautiful niece, and those are just the things that come most readily to mind, all of them surrounding the final and heart-wrenching decision to leave the safety, comfort, security and love of all that is familiar and plunge ourselves into uncertainty.

            And I found this card.

            And it was like it had been waiting for that particular moment. Like it would know that only at that moment I would read it and understand.

“One can live for years sometimes without living at all, and then all life comes crowding into one single hour”

Oscar Wilde

(1854 - 1900)

                                                                                                                                      

Dreams have the potential to sound lofty and idealistic. But with hard work and courage they also have the potential to come true.

Life is a gift that offers itself only once; an invisible path that begs to be followed.

We’d love you to follow us on it.

And ...

At least this time we speak the right language!