A Counter-Cultural Move

It is Auckland anniversary weekend. The sun is high in the sky and we are down at our local swimming spot cooling down for the 2nd time today. Above the river we can see part of SH2 winding through the gorge. The cars are crawling. “Thank god I’m not in that traffic,” I say to a local sun-wrinkled woman. “It’s all those bloody Aucklanders going home,” She scoffs with disdain. I laugh back as a local who been here all my life. Of course, I did not tell her that up until 4 weeks ago, I was a bloody Aucklander too.

On 17th December, My husband, 2 children, cat and 13 chooks said Ka kite to our comfortable lives in Auckland to live a year focussing on Connection and Simplicity. Home for us now is 2 cabins with an adjoining kitchen with floor space totalling 30m2. We are living off-grid and as self -sufficiently as possible with the sun powering our lights, water pump and composting toilet, wood heating our outside chimnea and fire bath (under the stars) and gas for cooking and showering. Our tiny whare is plonked on the most beautiful splice of land tucked away just behind the Karangahake gorge. We have just under an acre with a young orchard, enough room to play a rugby game and a magnificent redwood tree to recline in a hammock under if one so wishes. We are on the doorstep of the hauraki rail trail and a hop jump and skip away from swimming holes.

You may be assuming that my family are one of those tree huggie, purple pant wearing, kimchi breath hippy types. Although I do feel an affinity with these folk, we are a pretty regular family who after living 9 years in Auckland, decided to live life a little differently for a year.

The idea came to mind near the end of 2016. I had finished a typical day of a typical week of a typical year of my life. After a busy day at work, I picked the kids up from after school care to come home and

1. Clean up the remnants or this mornings mess

2. Nag the kids to tidy their mess

3. Supervise their homework

4. Sneak handfuls of potato chips behind kids back

5. Nag kids to tidy up

6. Waste time on facebook

7. Supervise piano practise, threatening the kids with no tv time if they fail to comply

8. Waste time on facebook

9. Cook dinner

10. Tell kids to get off my laptop

11. Realise that we have people coming at 7pm for a church band rehearsal, freak out, scream at the kids to clean up whilst racing around like a mad woman to clean the house giving the façade to those visiting that my house is always immaculate

12. Tell kids to get off my phone AND tidy up their mess

13. Greet husband returning from work and almost promptly pressure him into tidying up

14. Glance my form in the mirror put off by my increasing midrift.

15. Tell husband and kids to get off phones whilst sneakily my googling how to lose weight

16. Watch some fit mum on youtube swearing by losing tummy fat by doing burpees every morning.

17. Watch the mum do her burpees while grabbing another handful or chips

18. Put dinner on the table whilst watching news on the TV, rushing the kids to bed before people arrive

19. People arrive, giving the appearance of a serence mother of two who can handle whatever life throws at her with grace and patience

This pattern was not unusual but this particular night, in the shower I cried, overwhelmed by how full force life had become, like a lobster slow cooked in a pot, I felt like a fraud in my own life. Don’t get me wrong, a large portion of my life was great, I had nothing to complain about it really, but by succumbing to the ‘rushing women syndrome’ I felt my life had been a series of events without time to just ‘be’. Deep down, I needed to slow down, and have time to reflect, spend quality time with myself, my family, creation and the creator and to sieve out that that did lead to this. A friend talked to me about living counter-culturally and this resonated with me deeply.

SO, a year later, here we are at the beginning of our journey. This year we will consciesly try strip away the busyness and pressure that a mortgage, societal expectations, personal expectations and materialism can place on us to focus on living rather than doing.

I am excited by the challenges and learning our family with be imparted and will love to share my learnings through this blog.

Thanks for listening

Rosh