A Small World After All

My last night in my hometown of Pickering, Ontario, Canada was not what I had planned. I had envisioned a calm cruise into the sunset and clear sailing upon sunrise. After farewelling beloved family and friends who had come to farewell me at my leaving party, I got back to "packing". But it was more like I got back to "panicking".

Holy crap! I was really doing it! I was moving to New Zealand! All chips in! We don't do things in half measures around here! Plane leaves in twelve hours!

Your ship will come in eventually, Kinipela!

When the evening came, all the bravery and courage in the world could not help me. And any bravery and courage I had -- which everyone declared me to possess in spades -- drained away. Excitement mutated into dread. Even though this would be my fourth journey to NZ and I knew what was waiting for me (sun! beach! surf! woo hoo!), I felt freaky, foolhardy, and flummoxed. It felt more and more as though I were about to walk an extended gang-plank that reached over the North American continent, clear across the Pacific Ocean. This, only to be dropped from a fantastic height somewhere downunder and over a bit on some random, floating specks near Antarctica, where life is rumoured to exist. Although outwardly I seemed to be having a crisis (aka a really really huge tantrum) about which bikini to take along among my 23 kgs of immigrant goods, I was utterly and truly wondering what the hell I was doing. It seemed insane. Canada was all around me, safe, secure, and not adrift in the middle of a vast sea. It's one thing to live on the shores of the Great Lakes. It's one thing not to be able to see the other side of Lake Ontario. It's one thing to live in a country with the world's largest coastline. But this adventure gave whole new meaning to the Canadian motto, a mari usque ad mare. God help me!

The Great Lake Ontario

Sleep was difficult. I clung to my sheets and every so often would start in memory of what was coming. With each realization I emitted a kind of groan, as though the world were dissolving around me. The ship of my bed was rolling on uncertain waters. The urge to heave-to, bury myself in the hull and wait out the whole ordeal was tempting. Were I a different kind of person, I am almost certain I would have jumped ship. Pulled the plug. Aborted mission. It was that awful a night. It was the gurgling of a soul drowning in a body that was made of holes.  

Nevertheless, on the morning of February 19th, 2012, despite serious misgivings and a good dose of "WTF", I said good bye to mum and dad at Pearson International Airport and in what seemed like the blink of an eye, I was in LAX. Because I was flying through the USA, there was no opportunity to linger with my parents and get used to my imminent isolation exercise. US Customs and Immigration/Homeland Security is in your face the second you check in for the flight. With what felt like a sudden wrenching before time, I burst into the uncontrollable tears of a small child who fears their unseen mother has been swallowed whole by the mysterious and dangerous aisles of a huge department store, never to return. I was, perhaps, reenacting a classic scene of immigration. 

Somehow, through the whole process of applying for NZ residency and planning for my grand departure, my logical mind had convinced me -- as I think it has convinced us all -- that it's no big deal to pick up, jump on a plane, and move to another country. Skype! Email! SMS! Holograms! Global Village! Transferable Skills! English! It's a small world after all!

Whatever. I know from experience that when you are in a foreign land, feeling lonely, looking out on some bizarre landscape that's not your own, listening to languages or accents that continually mark you out as alien, making due with what's to hand even if it's a passable approximation of what you know and love, it is hard not to pine for the comfort of the presence of friends and family who, if the world weren't so damn huge and if we hadn't made it even huger, would be just up the road. And Skype does not cut it! Skype cannot give you a hug and a cup of tea and say, "there there, it will get better". It drops calls and tells you your signal is inadequate.

But somewhere over the International Dateline, the tides turned for me. Those awful feelings of foreboding, finality, and plain, animalistic fear evaporated. Although nothing really prepares you for how you will really feel when you take the initial plunge into unknown seas, somehow by facing it head on you realise how often fear is simply a prelude to amazement and fulfillment. Just as I hadn't really known how sad I would feel leaving my "home" behind, I hadn't really known how amazing it would feel to enter New Zealand as a resident, not a foreigner, and be welcomed "home" by the immigration officer! She must have got a third-degree burn from the beams of joy radiating from me! What a triumphant moment it was for me to present my Canadian passport with the stylish, blue sticker in it that declared me a resident of New Zealand ... indefinitely!

Haere mai! Haere mai! Haere mai!

Welcome indeed!

Six years of waffling, one year of forms, hoops, loops, fees, interviews, examinations, blood tests, x-rays, photocopies, true copies, original copies, fingerprints, RCMP clearance, emails, phonecalls, planning, banking, 20 hours of flying, 23 kgs of summer clothing and $5 in my pocket  later ... this Canadian girl made it to Auckland by the grace of God and her own steam. 

And the first thing I did in my new country of residence was run outside, breathe in that salt sea air, kiss the ground, and say AMEN!

It is a small world after all.