There's No Place Like Home

Where in the world is KH?

KH is at home. In Australia.

SURPRISE!

I know, I know. I apologise for fooling you. There was only a handful of people in on it and had I made it public to... the public... that would have ruined the big heart-palpitating surprise I had organised for my clueless parents. They had no idea, until I was standing at the front door at 9:30pm last night.

I am not sick or ill or unhappy. In fact, it's quite the opposite. It sounds unbelievable, but I actually reached a point where I felt ready to come home. You can't blame a girl. After 15 months of living out of a suitcase (or three) I started to miss certain things - my fancy summer dresses, my high heels, my books. And you know, my friends and family.

The realisation that maybe I didn't want to move to Vancouver came to me about half way through the summer. I came to realise that if I moved to Vancouver, I would have to set up a life for myself all over again. Find a job, make enough money to support my addictions (to clothes), find a house (preferably where I didn't have to share a room, again), find friends, find hobbies, find a local watering hole. I would have to set up my life all over again, put myself out there, be the fearless ball-buster. And I thought, I could be a fearless ball-buster in Vancouver. Or I could move home to Australia, set up my life again and be a fearless ball-buster in Sydney instead.

And for the first time, the idea of going home didn't rise bile in my throat. It actually sounded, kinda nice. Seeing my friends and family, moving back to Sydney, drinking good coffee, going running on my running track - all the things I loved about living there. But also, implementing all the things I want for myself now, like satisfying this parching thirst I have for making art and music.

So I made one of the biggest decisions I've ever made. I rebooked my flight for September. I came up with a detailed plan for arrival, wherein my best friend was going to pick me up on the Sunday I arrived and then her parents would drive me the two hours home to surprise my parents.

The week leading up to my departure was tough enough - all those ghastly goodbyes I had to make - but by the time I got to Vancouver airport, I felt like I was ready. All I had to do was get on the plane.

Then the plane sprouted a fuel leak.

I was stranded at Vancouver airport until 1am (five hours after my flight was scheduled to leave) when they finally decided that despite the plane no longer leaking fuel, it was not safe to fly (yah think?) and the flight was cancelled. They had organised buses to take us to a hotel, but having a plane-full of people all trying to do the same thing is like being stuck in a perpetual line for a Disneyland ride. By 4:30am I finally climbed into my hotel bed only to wake up at 9am the next morning, feeling like I was suffering the world's worst hangover, and be told that the flight was rescheduled for noon on SUNDAY.

So there I was, stuck in a Vancouver hotel, wobbling between insanity and reality as I tried to work out if this was all a cosmic road sign that I was supposed to stay in Vancouver and not return to Sydney.

But my flight eventually took off, with me in it and after another night's stay in Auckland, I touched down in Brisbane on Thursday morning and into the welcome arms of one of my best friends. I hung out with her for the day and then she put me on a train bound for my home town.

Half way there, the train broke down. They put us on a bus.

Half way home on the bus, a rock flys up from the road and smashes the driver's side window.

They put us on another bus.

I finally make it home where my friend's mum picks me up and we make it to my house without anything going wrong. With more excitement in my stomach than I knew what to do with, I knock on the front door. My dad answers, acknowledges me with a bemused face and next thing my mum is coming down the passageway wailing like a banshee. I'm pretty sure they both thought I was a figment of their imaginations. They're still waiting for me to disappear in a puff of smoke.

But it's not a dream. I am home and my journey, this beautiful adventure that has been the last 15 months of my life is over. It doesn't feel like it though. I feel like this is just another port on my travels and tomorrow, I will pack up all my belongings and head off again.

But this is for real and it's for good, for now at least. I thought I would be scared and bitter about coming home, back to a life which I fled from 15 months ago. But what I have come to realise is that my tale might be over, but it's not the end of the book altogether. This journey was just another short story in my life's collection. Tomorrow, a new adventure will begin.

I don't think I'll ever understand how everything came together like it did. How I ended up at Appel Farm; how I started working as a musician in Banff; how I travelled for 15 months without running out of money, losing my posessions or getting bed bugs. The person I was 15 months ago pinned all her hopes and sanity on this trip. She was looking for something she didn't yet understand. And she returned having found it.

Ciao for now. xo

Here's To The Future (um, someone hand me a drink...)

I could count the amount of days I have spent in the USA over the last 15 months or I could just sum them all up and say - a lot. So, after a lot of days spent in the Land of the Free, I have returned to the Home of the Mounties.

Even at the tail end of summer, Canada manages to be chilly. While all my fellow Vancouverians (Vancouverites? Vancouverers?) trot around in cut-offs and tank tops and apply sunscreen (whaa...?), I am in leggings and a cardigan and sleeping beneath the biggest comforter (that's Canadian for doona) imaginable. Seriously, every duck native to the mid-west was primed and plucked for this thing. A human could drown in the down.

By no means was San Diego hot, at least according to this Australian, but returning to the wintery world of Canada only further reminds me that the summer truly is over and my time in America has come to its end. I've said goodbye to Appel Farm, I've said goodbye to my friends and I've said goodbye to WaWa warm cookies. Let's just stick the knife in a bit further and say goodbye to the warm weather, shall we?

My bitterness stems from having an amazing final week in San Diego. I could not think of a better way to spend my final days in America (although lying on a banana lounge at a five-star resort in Mexico does spring to mind...). Mackenzie and her family were the kindest hosts, making room for me in their homes and lives and giving me the locals' guide to San Diego. We went biking around Coronado Island, ate wicked Mexican, visited the Birch Aquarium and each night, returned to the warm comforts of home. No fighting for kitchen space in the local hostel or counting sheep while some nameless backpacker with a sinus problem snores light a freight train in the bed next to you. Just the couch, a blanket and the most adorable Shnauzer-cross-poodle you've ever seen dropping a floppy frizbee in your lap and looking up at you with hopefull eyes.

But that said, on return to Vancouver, I remembered what is was I loved about this city. Sure, my last visit was for all of 32 hours and the visit before that, a tidy 2 days, but I know enough about Vancouver to feel confident that given the opportunity, I could make a happy life for myself here. Last night, my Vancouverian and Appel Farm friend, Zosia took me to an abstract theatre performance in Granville Island called Brief Encounters. It was a mixed-medium performance where 12 artists from different disciplines are paired together and given two-weeks to create a 15 minute live performance. Watching each creation and later discussing them with like-minded artists instilled in me an incredible sense of purpose and belonging. For the first time since leaving Appel Farm, I felt excited to be a creative individual out in the real world and to be finding a new Appel Farm to belong to.

So here's to the future, whatever that might be.

Ciao for now. xo

The Goodbye Girl

Last year, my summer at Appel Farm passed by so slowly I could count the hours. This year, it was a zip line I flew down in a delirious rush. Nine weeks may as well have been nine days. It felt as if I arrived at camp one day, pale-skinned and buzzing with anticipation, only to leave the next day with a tan and the weary look of an old woman who has been living in a bunk surrounded by 16-year olds for the last nine weeks.

How another summer has so quickly come and gone is beyond me. As I type this from the seat of a plane soaring over the dirty landscape of New Mexico, I feel slightly bemused by the thought that camp is over. Nine weeks of classes and counselling and telling the campers not to squirt ketchup straight into their mouths is over. It feels like it was just a figment of my imagination which, for one beautiful moment, became something tangible. Then it disappeared like all figments do, back into the abyss.  And I carry on forward.

It would be lovely to fool myself into believing I will be back at the farm next year, but I know it wouldn't be true. I have sucked the place dry of everything it had to offer me and I have offered it two very willing summers of my life in return. I've come to realise that I'm ready for new adventures, which means no more escaping back to the USA each June. As I drove away in the rain on Sunday, I turned around and took one last look at the place where this whole rollercoaster first started in 2010. I remember that day now like a bunch of images flashing from an old film roll– catching the yellow school bus from New York, pulling into the Appel Farm parking lot, the first time I stepped into the bunk, the first time I even spoke to the people whose arms I cried into when I left.

Had anyone told me this is how it would all turn out two years after first deciding to apply for a summer camp, I never would have believed them.  That I would have a great time, yes. But that I would be so in love with Elmer, New Jersey that I would return for another year? That I would find a crazy kind of salvation? That having to say goodbye to those friends is like no heartbreak I’ve ever known? I don’t think that hopeful yet naive version of myself would have believed that.

There was much that happened between leaving Appel Farm on Sunday and boarding my plane to San Diego this morning, but the only part of it that I can remember is crying. And when I wasn’t crying, I was blinking back tears through bloodshot eyes and sniffling like a crack addict. The last 24 hours has just been one big blur of ‘lasts’. I looked into my best friends’ faces for the last time and I cried into their collar bones as we held each other for the last time. And in the glow of the Philadelphia lights, I had to ignore the unspoken fear that maybe these are summer flings, just like any other. Maybe our love will suffer in the lonvegity. Maybe we will become lazy with writing emails or making dates to call each other despite the time difference. Maybe the overwhelming sense of friendship which consumes me now will be reduced just to photos and anecdotes shared at the family dinner table. As untrue as I know that will be, the thought of it makes me want to vomit.

But as my eyes well up all over again, I feel no relief in the unsatisfying consolation that my friendships with these beautiful people are not in fact ending. Being best friends but in different countries is not enough. iPhone apps and email and Skype don’t create the same memoires. Seeing someone’s face on a computer screen is not the same as walking to the coffee shop with them. A letter in the mail is not the same as a conversation in person. The friends I left in Australia would vouch for this, which makes me the constant in this equation. I am the foolish masochist who continues to knowingly put oceans between herself and the people she loves.

And I know that I should be grateful that we found each other at all – kindred spirits are not easily stumbled across. But I can’t be a member of the Pollyanna Club on this one. I am handing back my badge and just being plain old down in the dumps.  

Think I’ll go cry some more now.

Ciao for now. xo

To Making It Count

The first two weeks of Second Session have flown by and I am staring down, quite blankly, at the last two weeks of camp. Ever. I know this will be my last summer at the Farm. Maybe not forever, but for now. It is time for new adventures. So as tired as I may feel after seven weeks of camp, I know I have to make this last fortnight count.

Week Seven at camp is often referred to as ‘The Wall’, something the counsellors hit with full force. We get tired, grumpy, burnt out and we start looking towards the end with growing anticipation. That’s easy enough for the counselors to feel after seven weeks of camp life, but compared to us, the Second Session campers just got here and they want and deserve the same memorable month that First Session had when our energy was at its best. Our lack of energy inevitably ruins the Second Session experience.

I hit ‘the wall’, a little prematurely, about a week ago. One too many difficult camper-related situations which required intense communicative problem solving on behalf of my co-counselor and I, left me ready to bow out gracefully.

In an attempt to return, or at least remember, what life is like outside of camp, Caitlin and I spent out day-off last week, walking around the Grounds for Sculpture park in Pennsylvania. It was nice to feel cultural again and to discuss art in a way which two adults could. Rather than asking leading questions and prying the answers out of the campers like you pry flesh from a stubborn oyster. After that we disappeared into the rainy-labyrinth of Philadelphia. We got, what Caitlin refers to as ‘fancy coffee’, ie. a latte, and read The New York Times in a cafe in Bella Vista. We went real-estate snooping for Caitlin’s new apartment. We went to our favourite Mexican restaurant on Morris St and we saw Crazy, Stupid Love at the cinema. After a day of doing what normal people do with their free time, we returned to camp, where I felt like I had finally scaled ‘The Wall’.

The two-week campers of Second Session left on Sunday, leaving a large six-camper hole in my 14-camper bunk. Saying goodbye to them made me feel like a parent sending her children off to college. I had taught and counselled them as best as I knew how in the two weeks they were mine and now I could only hope that I had somehow brought them up right. The first two weeks had held some special memories – the rainforest-themed camp dance, the scavenger hunt where my bunk dressed up as my co’s hairy, English camp boyfriend and all the random, sometimes serious but most ridiculous conversations we had before going to bed.

 And then there were eight. I can finally count them all on one hand. After feeling like I was living in an episode of Big Brother, it’s now strange having so few campers left in the bunk. But I’m looking forward to the next two weeks with the eight girls I have left.

It’s not about counting the days, but about making them count.

Ciao for now. xo

Return To The Farm

In my wildest dreasms, I never expected to be back at Appel Farm as a member of their staff. I thought I would get tangled in the yards and yards of immigration red tape or I wouldn't have a dollar to my name or someone in Australia would be willing to employ me and I would be on the first flight home. But somehow, the cosmic planets aligned and I find myself right back where I started 12 months ago.

It's strange being back in the place where my elongated journey began. It was the place where I first became a 'traveller', where I remembered what it was like to be a teenager - to be 13 and have Matt Eaton call you 'weird' and know that he was right, where I rediscovered talents I'd left to rust from lack of use. The summer of 2010 set me up for the year that I've had. It prepared me to embrace opportunity and to not cower in the shadows out of fear or the distance from familiarity.

But this is no longer 2010. This is 2011. The staff is not the same staff I shared so many memorable experiences with. The campers will not necessarily be the same campers I taught to write haikus and who told me about their temporary boyfriends. The buildings are the same and the grounds are the same. Everything is exactly the same, but yet completely different.

I knew this feeling would flood me. It was my greatest fear in returning. How could anything possibly trump my 2010 experience? How could anything come close? What if I made the wrong decision? What if the new and returning counselors couldn't meet a middle ground? What if I couldn't find the place where I belonged in this new cohort of counselors? What if everything goes pair-shaped and my perfect 2010 is ruined by a miserable 2011?

As the new counselors clung together and the returners tried to work out where they belonged, I realised we were equally intimidated by each other. We each wanted the same thing - a memorable summer - and it was equally up to us to make that happen.

It doesn't happen overnight, but it does happen. Somehow, during the training and the workshops and the never-ending meetings and the social activities held during Staff Week (okay, and the alcohol-induced karaoke at Steakouts where I unintentionally won myself a position in the Steakouts Karaoke Championship), we came together. We worked out how to free ourselves of our high expectations and we bonded over the most obvious thing - camp.

It's the day before the campers get here and I remember exactly how I felt in 2010 - hungover from the previous nights' staff party, overwhelmed with information, terrified one of the children was going to hot glue their hands to the art table while under my lack of watch and absolutely, positively exploding with excitement. This year, I'm cool, calm and collected. If not still a little hungover.

I guess some things don't change.

Ciao for now. xo

The Corss-Country Chronicles: The Long Road Back

After 18 days driving across 12 states, listening to 27 hours of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and drinking more bottles of Lemon Snapple than I have digits to count with, Molly and I finally made it to Philadelphia, PA - the last destination on our long road back to Appel Farm Summer Arts Camp.


After regretfully leaving New Orleans, we made a few pit stops on our trip back north. We spent a lovely 12 hours in Nashville where I was lucky enough to catch up with an old Appel Farm friend and re-sample the musical delights of Nashville’s downtown. From there it was on to Winston-Salem, NC where we watched the NBA finals and slept on the floor of Molly’s cousin’s apartment. We then drove on to Washington DC, playing chicken on the highway with a semi-trailer so Molly could take a photo of some travelling piglets. We stopped for a day in the US capital to give our best wishes to Barack and hang out with some old friends of Molly’s. Then after packing up the car one last time, we drove the final three hours of our trip where Molly dropped me off in Philly before heading onwards to New York City.

After the long slog to get back to Philadelphia before Molly had to be at camp, it was a relief to finally be somewhere for more than 48 hours. And it was a comfort to be back in Philadelphia - the city which had come to represent 'days off' and escapism while working at camp last year.

We had a little reunion in Philly with my closest camp girlfriends and when I wrapped my arms around them and looked into the faces of these people I never thought I would see again, it hit home that camp was about to start. The long wintery months spent pining for New Jersey and intolerable humidity and my creative companions had finally become a reality. A reality that hit the pit of my stomach and sent in reeling.

A few of us journeyed to Atlantic City to catch some last minute rays and relaxation before we made the one hour drive to Elmer, New Jersey - a car trip that was mostly spent squeeling with excitement, like only girls can.

And when we came to that all-too-familiar stretch of country road and the Welcome to Appel Farm Arts Camp, I knew I was home. After 12 months of travelling, a complete year since I first left Australia, I was finally home.

Ciao for now. xo

The Sister Dearest Series: Part One

It’s been a month after the fact, but my sister was here. In Banff. With me. 

Thought I should tell you all. It seemed like something worthy of blogging about. Even if it has been almost a month since she was here.

Tale of the tardy blogger strikes again.

Given that it had been six months since we had last seen each other (the last time being our jaunt in ol’ N.Y.C), we decided the occasion should be marked by a little trip to Whistler, BC – home of the 2010 Winter Olympics and pretty much every sexually transmitted disease known to man, thanks to the hordes of 20-something snowboard and skiing extremists who flood its village every winter season.

As Bethany was flying in from Sydney, we decided to meet in Vancouver and make stop-over. We spent a whole 24 hours there which was just enough time for me to decide that I wanted to move there after summer camp finishes in August – consequently adding another 12 months to my never ending North American adventure.

While 24 hours definitely wasn’t sufficient time to see everything Vancouver has to offer, we squeezed in as much as possible to our time-pressed itinerary. Such experiences included:

- Afternoon tea with Zosia Cassie, my beloved bunk director from Appel Farm
- An afternoon stroll through the famous Stanley Park

- Breakfast at 'Crave' on Main Street. No espresso coffee, but deliciously gooey poached eggs made up for it

- Shopping, wandering and more shopping
- Lunch in Yaletown, the yuppie-ville of Vancouver where sister dearest fit right in

But the real gem in the Vancouver crown was dinner at 'Salt', a wine-and-cheese bar where the menu consists of nothing but cheese, meats and condiments and all you drink is wine, wine and more wine. We had a lovely waiter who received a rather generous tip, given that he was considerably more delicious than the blue-cheese cheesecake he recommended for dessert.

From Vancouver, we made the two and a half hour bus trip to Whistler where I was reunited with Clare Thomas, another Appel Farm friend who was to be our host for the next two days. Even on arrival, it was clear why Whistler reigns supreme as the leading destination for snow bums. Not only is Whistler Village like an alpine country town that you just want to paint red, but the mountain is so close you can see the runs from the highway exit.

It must be awfully nice dragging one’s hungover butt out of bed and stumbling straight onto the mountain. Instead of, say, a 40 minute bus and gondola commute that could make any iron stomach churn with last night’s bad decisions.

We spent two days riding Whistler and Blackcomb mountains, a fairly expensive experience which was without a doubt, worth every penny. Both mountains are a bevy of green, blue and black runs where one not only experiences every form of terrain, but every form of weather as well. The mountains are both so high that riding from top to bottom can take you from bluebird sunshine to snow to white-out to spring slush in all of 20 minutes. We were there Monday and Tuesday and even then, the lift lines were that bit too long, which only made me wonder what the weekend warriors must put up with every Saturday and Sunday.

When we weren’t snowboarding ourselves into a powder high, we were experiencing the village’s evening delights. With Clare as our guide, we visited Moe Joe’s club, Longhorns Saloon, did a spot of karaoke at Crystal Lounge (okay, so I did a spot of karaoke while Clare and Sister Dearest watched) and ate a few too many late-night poutines from Zog’s (where I’d make a reference to Peak Season – MTV’s reality TV representation of working in a snow town – but that would mean admitting that I’ve watched an episode.... or seven.)

Despite trying not to, I found myself constantly comparing Whistler with Banff and feeling just that wee-bit jealous. It is easy to be immediately smitten with everything Whistler has to offer – the village atmosphere, the incredible mountain conditions, the simple satisfaction of saying that’s where you did a season. It was so different to what I’ve known for the last half of the year and with Banff beginning to feel like the winter of my discontent, I wondered if I had made the right decision choosing Sunshine Village.

But on returning to Banff, with Sister Dearest in tow, I couldn’t help but feel a little proud of the town I’ve called home for seven months. The Rocky Mountains looming tall in every direction, being recognised as ‘that girl who sings at Bruno’s’ when I’m walking down the street and the days when the sky on top of Goat’s Eye mountain is so blue and so clear that there’s nothing hidden on the national park’s rocky outcrop.

Fine. I heart Banff.

Whatever.

Ciao for now. xo