one year (and one week)

we have
a room
with a view

Last Monday was the first anniversary of my arrival in Australia.  The photo above was the very first picture I took as a resident.  I remember being struck by how everything was so new and clean and bright.  It's true what they say in all those 'immigrant experiences' of Australia; there is something about the strength of the light which both intensifies and bleaches at the same time.

It seems important to mark this milestone.  A lot has happened this year.  I arrived on a Sunday.  CNN went to work the next day and I walked around our local shopping precinct at such a loss about what I was meant to do.  How do you begin a new life?  I bought a tomato and olive scroll for lunch and chewed it slowly to pass the time, watching the traffic go past.  In those early days, I loved looking at our view and spotting the vivid purple of the jacarandas - it's now that time of year again.

Things happened that weren't very fun.  Unemployment, having practically no money (CNN and I were constantly flirting with the possibility we wouldn't be able to pay our rent and paid a lot of overseas withdrawal fees on our rapidly depleting UK bank accounts - a very middle-class kind of having no money, but it was stressful, nonetheless) and a job that was so poorly managed I was diagnosed with situational anxiety.  And yet, in spite of everything, I fell pregnant and found I could be happy here.

One of the biggest contributing factors, in a roundabout sort of way, was my trip to London and Hong Kong.  There is something so  rejuvenating about being with people who know you and love you and understand you.  The joy I felt when I was overseas came back with me and has been with me since.  A big thank you to each one of my lovely people for playing your  part in that.

Sometimes, it is only by leaving that you learn what you might gain if you choose to return.  I felt an unexpected tug of the heartstrings as my taxi dodged past early morning traffic from the airport back to our flat.  The familiarity of the route and warmth of the sun and the distinctively Australian semis and redbricks soothed me and reminded me that I am home.