Did your life go according to plan? Happy Festivus from Waiheke.

Kia Ora my loves.

Not all of you patrons out there celebrate it, but nevertheless, from these strange parts down under: a happy festivus and merry christmas to all of you.

I love and care about you all.

Heather Cox Richardson just said something in her post that resonated deeply: for many people, Christmas marks the point where the light starts coming back.

The light.

I’m down under, it’s nearly 9pm and still light. In NYC it’s 3am.

I still feel the light needing to come back. She’s slow.

Greetings from Waiheke, Aotearoa New Zealand, where I found myself living during the pandemic for about a year and a half. It still feels unbelievable to me.

9pm here and 3am in NYC. I got to know those time changes intimately.

I remember those horrible nighttimes of May 2020, the month after I felt my marriage and the pandemic shockingly did not let up; I remember getting up at a panic at 2am and waiting, waiting, waiting for time to crawl forward so that I could call a friend in the states….any friend. Anyone who could talk it through and help me feel not crazy; not alone. I felt so indescribably alone.

I don’t feel like that anymore. Not quite like that.

The room is still dark, but my eyes have adjusted.

Christmas always magnifies everything times three.

If you’re going into already-fragile systems, beware. Everything’s magnified. It’s like everyone’s drunk on trauma.

Speaking of trauma !

I just pulled a photo from April 2020.

I had told nobody on the Internet what had really happened.

This is what I looked like. Felt like. I posted a lot of these, but could say nothing.

That was nearly 5 years ago.

Funny, how time slows and speeds,

We spent our Christmas today on Waiheke surrounded by kids, family, friends who got to know me - and, more importantly, Ash - deeply during those pandemic years.

This bizarro period of time in New Zealand - 2020-2022 - bent my soul into an entirely new shape, and the shape has not stopped beckoning to be understood; the new shape keeps annoying and pestering me and asking to be explained. I’m hoping to find the edges of it - still so confusing, still so formless on most days - through the new book.

So here I abide, I research, I ask, I take note, I listen, I grieve.

I lost two really important people from Waiheke - Bianca and Susi - who meant so much to me, and the grief is still hitting really hard. It’s hard to process their deaths while I’m not here, among the community.

Ash is at home here.

He knows where he is; the pukeko, the tui, the kereru.

None of this was the plan. But these were the birds he learned.

The pohutakawa, the agapantha, the hibiscus. These are the plants he learned.

None of this was the plan.

Christmas sushi? Whoddathinkit.

Did any of your lives go according to plan?

No?

No.

Of course not.

So…..

I’m sending love to every single one of you.

Through a certain lens, one could say that I have been unlucky lately, but bend it 13% to the left and color it up and I am, instead, the luckiest artist and mother in the world.

I got to slow down.

Life took me out; I took life up.

Dance partners forever, me and life, me and love.

Stepping on each others feet eternally and vying to lead, never graceful, always passionate, never pretty, always real.

Everyone….

I love you all so much.

Merry Christmas and may you eat well, laugh freely, and find a way today to feel some deeper meaning, whatever madness may be happening in your world right now.

May you hear some music today.

Listen for the surprising love. Listen for the invitation.

It may come in the form of a stranger, it may be a bird at the door. It may be a phone call from a family member, asking to come in.

Or not.

It may be you, knocking on the door of your own mind, asking for a bath and some time alone.

Answer.

Wish me luck with the writing.

It’s so easy to get distracted, especially here.

Love,

Amanda

P.S. Koro showed me how to smash hibiscus flowers into a sunburn remedy ;)