"I beg you, friend, be happy. I have the vague sense that on your capacity to be happy hangs our only hope."

People often ask me how I feel about Hobart.  How I feel about Stockholm.  Where is home?

Well, due to the amount of easy cliché sayings involving "home" that come to mind. I think that this is a very common question.  I, alas, do not have an answer.

 Our house in Hobart is a home.  We have invested into the maintenance and garden in ways that an apartment, especially a socially run Swedish apartment does not need.  I would say we have done a fair job of cluttering up the Swedish apartment, it is no match for the remnants of forty-five years worth of slogging stuff from place to place.  Stockholm feels like a vacation because we have so many friends there, and so much to do.  Hobart feels like home, but we are still quite insular in the sense that we don't engage with our community at large.  We are trying to work on that.  Our neighbor and house protector Sue left us a vase of daffodils to prove that spring is definitely coming on.

Tomorrow we will have been back here in Hobart for two weeks.  Zok played a lot of Croquet matches already, and now has a rather large trophy in his office.

I have started Yoga classes at a newish place by the waterfront.  Mostly we have been gardening and organizing the house.  Being gone for months at a time does impact the kitchen. 

I haven't studied Swedish, or gone swimming.  I haven't caught up on my issues of 'The New Yorker'.  

I did start the latest Ian McEwan book.

I have planted many seeds both flowers and vegetable.

I started to 'grow' a vinegar 'mother'- from a bottle of wine we opened and didn't like.

I am waging a serious battle against 'onion weed'.  I have given in and I am just digging out heaps with a fair bit of dirt as well.   They have to be bagged up, sealed up, left to smother in the sun and then they still have to be put into the garbage aka the "deep" landfill not into compost of any kind.

I caught the very last of the Magnolia blooms.  The Lilac tree looks months away from blooming, but the Swedish ones can come on quite late in spring so I am not worried yet.  My newest tree which I call a 'snowball tree' because of its blooms is thriving since Zok had the large tree nearby taken down.

The Clivia, (large orange flowers) that I divided all bloomed which I think is amazing, because seriously, I had to hack it out of the ground.  We added a second bird bath, onto the stumps of the tree that was taken down.  The single bird bath used to be at the corner of the house, on the old apple tree stump- however when the brick work was done they moved the tree stump (?!) too far back, so we are going to just pull it out.  We only left it there because we used to be able to see the flock of new holland honey eaters bath there in the evenings, which is hilarious, and really counts as entertainment.

However, birds do not seem to be attracted to the new location yet, so we might need to move them again, as the space might be too open.

Each day we find ourselves exhausted by our efforts and feeling as if we are farmers. (Ha!)

"...fly me to the moon...and let me play among the stars..."

This photo was taken in the early hours of our trip to return to Tasmania. Only hour number six. Now I am in a airline lounge, hour number 42.  Our flight leg from Dubai to Melbourne was re-routed to Adelaide due to weather and a lack of fuel. Two hours on the ground, in the plane, we finally returned to Melbourne. Here we had to get our luggage, have our passports checked, and the contents of our bags for quarantine. Lastly, getting to check in again, on the earliest available flight, six hours later. Bringing our door-to-door travel time somewhere around the 42 hour mark.

Australia can feel very, very, far away.

My brain is mushy. Also my perception is skewed, because after so many hours in a plane, the airport feels light, bright and fresh.

"The circus is leaving town, so Ruby dry your eyes...the party is over now...stop howling at the moon..."

Do you ever wish you could know what it is like inside another persons head?  I am fairly certain that I have been told more than once in reprimand "This is not about you." or "Why do you take things so personally?".

I think I need to examine these questions.  I know I have an affinity for 12-step speak.  This says something about me.  I am just not sure what it is.

I have some set of worry that stems from a selfishness.  A selfishness that did not turn into an addiction but one that colors my behavior in an unflattering way.

For all the work I have tried to do, to make myself the person I want to be there is still something I am lacking.

Like the hair, dust, and bitsofbetternottoknow that gather each day no matter how many times I clean up.  There is always a new event to challenge my idea of the person I think I am.

Does this seem a bit personal?  If this was the 1980s, I am sure I would have picked up the phone and dialed friends until I could find one to talk me around.  But who does that anymore?  Now, we have social sites that for me at least make me feel further away-mostly.  But of course I take things personally so I read intent into the announcements of posts.  But why?  I have enough friends who email me ahead of time, when something important happens, for exactly this reason, to spare me from finding out news in a public forum.

Why do I think I need to be that important to everyone?  More importantly why do I need people to like me?  I do not give a lot of thought to people I don't like.

I had plenty of relationships that did not work out, many that I ended- so I have been the perpetrator of such behavior.  Why does breaking up with a friend hurt more than with a love interest?

...and then there is Zok- truly he alone should fill up all the empty crevices.  I don't really want to know what is inside another persons head.  I don't want to read their diary or at least I wouldn't want to read the parts about myself, because that isn't about me, so much as about them.  Just like these troubles are more about me and less about others-once I write it out and take a good look.

Yes, there are some specific events that brought this deluge about - some family stuff, some attempted friendship disappointments, some life events elsewhere that I am missing out on.

I have been really happy- free of terror inside my heart and head happy-

So, really these current events are a test.

A challenge, that I will do my best to come through with grace.

And if I fall short of grace, well I will try my best to be kind to myself and others.