Life Down Under

City girl turned country

That's exactly how I felt about myself as I leaned over the fence watching the late afternoon sun disappear behind the silouette of a farmhouse and the red-brushed trees lining the paddock where Josie the horse was grazing. Did I mention that this was in my back yard? It was at that moment that I felt miles away from my familiar suburbia/city upbringing.

Taylor and her little friend/neighbor, Abigail, enjoyed a long run-around in the big field next to our house this afternoon, while all us adults (Abigail's Grandma, mom, dad, Nana and Grandad Walsh, and I) leaned against the fence watching the girls and chatting about nothing really in particular. Bek (Abigail's mom) acutely pointed out that this was the New Zealand version of "porching". (For those of you unfamiliar with the term, " Porchin' " is American slang for sitting on your front porch, sipping a glass of ice tea, serenely watching the world go by). It was kinda one of those moments where I felt more noticably the extreme difference of environment and lifestyle that I live now, compared with the life I once knew in America.

Not that every day is filled with lazily leaning against fences shooting the breeze watching my 4 year old princess run and dance and freely enjoy the sunshine and cool air of fall. Actually, those 45 minutes felt much more like the exception rather than a rule, so much so that many times I was interrupted from my own reverie wondering what I was supposed to be doing that I was forgetting, only to remember that there was actually nothing else beckoning me; and in fact that this was the most important thing I could be doing: enjoying watching my daughter enjoying life.

Perhaps I need to make an effort to be deliberate in putting aside all the "important" things which must be done and stop for a minute to enjoy. To quote the song from the movie Mr. Holland's Opus, "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans..."