House of Dreams

Grey skies fill my vista as I look out the windows of my study. The beautiful new apartments across the small road from us are almost complete and new neighbours are moving in. Lit Christmas trees inside the new walls are giving life to the building site that has been our view for the last 18 months. The fabric of lives who will make up our new vista is something I look forward to with eagerness. I can make a thousand stories about their lives and likely not meet a single one of these humans. 

Christmas is upon us. And for some it is but one day of the year. For others, like me, it is a month long of expectation and joy, of sparkling lights that colour my nights. A sense of joy always hovers close. This year though, for everyone, in every country, it is a strange time. A virus still wreaking havoc on lives, and now the season of Christmas is feeling the chaos. Familiy reunions tested and found wanting, through restrictions, lack of flights and a virus that marches on. The difficulty lies in the unexpected halt of travel between states and suburbs. Back home in Sydney, the Northern Beaches has shuttered the usual migration of Christmas traffic across the country. An unexpected and rapid rise of infections no one saw coming. 

Here in Amsterdam it is quiet. Our friends and family have run out of words. They feel our life has been hard in a time of COVID. We continue to live in a world that is restricted, for months now, since March. But in that bubble, we travelled, we discovered, we found new destinations. We experienced Europe as we thought it would be.  And yes, we have, in the last four months, missed the freedom of travelling to a new city, a new village, but it hasn't been difficult or hard. We have each other. We have a sense of adventure that fuels our contentment. Our home here is warm and beautiful and modern. We are waiting for that moment when we can take to the skies again. Speaking to Thomas every day has helped make our life complete. 

We have booked and paid, perhaps ambitiously, for a week in Malta in Italy in April after Easter. We need that small window that gives us forward looking hope. 

It's fast approaching.  I've saturated my ears with my favourite Christmas songs. Our apartment is aglow with Christmas lights from the tree. Candle consumption has gone through the roof. Every evening I light many to make it feel like Christmas has arrived early. COVID rules in the Netherlands are enforced without easing of the restrictions.  Our daily infections have peaked at 7500 per day, ebbing and flowing, however not declining. And therein the challenge.  A quiet Christmas on the cards, limited to three additionals per household. 

Christmas in Europe will be very different for us this year.  It's also almost the time to count down to our return to Australia, although I must not fall into that way of thinking. I love what we have here, but perhaps, knowing we are half way through our time here, and our return is now imminent, makes me both happy and blissed out.  We've been here in Europe now for 18 months - a year and a half. The latter sounds longer.  All in all we'll have been here for three years by the time we return in mid 2022. I'm not in a fast forward frame of mind though. The next 18 months stretch out before us with joy and fresh expectation. The only factor to alter that will be Thomas - if all continues to go well for him and life is at an even keel, we can live out these next 18 months with joyful intent.  If it all goes pear shaped, we will accelerate our return home.  So that's the nub of it. Not ours to control, but ours to live with positive intent. 

I have learnt so much in this market, and the global scale of the work has been utterly invigorating. I love the work, I love the stretch of skills, I love the sophistication of the programs and the clever people I'm surrounded by.  With hope, some of that innate cleverness will rub off on me.  I feel the influence of this thinking; nothing is impossible, and solutions present themselves without effort. Having at our disposal all the hallmarks of an international agency means we have easy access to research, creatives, and hugely impressive global thinkers.  It's means we always have the means to put our best and most impressive foot forward to our clients. I work on the third largest global client. The learnings every day are immense and life changing.  I will return to the Australian work environment on a different level and scale of thinking. I am no longer the person who left, I am a new and evolved thinker. I may not have this chance again to work internationally,  so I'm soaking up all that I can. I like the way the world looks. It's an ever changing landscape in an ever expanding world. I'm where I need to be. 

Paul Kelly on Spotify singing How to make the Gravy in early December, is making me feel deeply homesick. 

So Australian. The Aussie accent sending me into spirals of missing. I can't even. Put this into words. It's a desert of Australian accents here in Amsterdam. I miss the warmth, the beach, the sun, the sweet, soft, green grass in our backyard, and the smell of tall tree gums that line our street. The crazy bedlam of the Manly Corso, the malls overflowing with summer loving, sun-kissed people. My people. Picnics on the cliff looking out across the blue ocean. 

Christmas in Europe will be a little bleak.We feel like orphans - well fed ones, but like orphans nevertheless.  COVID restrictions means we are limited to three guests in the house on Christmas day. There's going to be a run off on very small, underfed turkeys this year, no one will need the large ones. They'll be kept frozen.  

Our annual Queensland drive home for Christmas is as far away from reality as finding an airline ticket back to Sydney from Amsterdam. Thomas will be an independent child of mine at 20 this Christmas season. He bought his own Christmas tree for the first time, a rite of passage perhaps. Travel caps for incoming Australians returning home are still few and far between. Four weeks with Thomas in Amsterdam over Christmas is a dream that's well faded as we get nearer to the universal holiday.  

We'll embrace the European Christmas in a year of COVID, because we have to love what we do, and where we are.  Life is too short to have regrets. We'll have love and light and family in our apartment, a tree that's already sparkling with promise and an early arrival of presents and parcels from Australia keeps our heads and hearts full. All my Christmas parcels to Australia have left Amstedam, only the cards are left to send. 

Not to me. But to you. Always a day so close to mine. Almost tripping into November. 

You will have turned another year wiser, more confident, kinder I think. A soul with depth. You've never lacked in that regard. Children grown so tall and with excellent genes from both sides. Mine is 20. So grown up and independent too. Although yours are younger. 

I miss Thomas. My first birthday without him here beside me. Pain and joy - both sides of the coin. 

I think Ben Folds needs to take a bow. Friendship is a many layered tapestry. So many colours. And hidden stitches that no one is ever meant to see. 

I will spend the day with family in The Netherlands, with Tim my forever companion who made it possible to be here in northern Europe. I feel wise, stepping into shoes that sometimes feel too big for me, in a global role that is so global, I feel like a conquerer. But also a quiet observer, surrounded by worldly, clever, intellectuals.  Different to the industry crowd in Australia, but pushing me into a global way of thinking. So there's that silver lining I will always be grateful for. 

Hope you are happy, fulfilled; for you deserve all this. Hail, truth slayer. Another year. 

Europe is rising with infections in the second wave. The onset of colder weather is stretching ahead with a sense of ominous persistence. It seems to impact every layer of living.  But there are others, countless others worse off than us. So I cannot sit here at my desk, on a Sunday afternoon, in the beautifully historical city of Amsterdam and pound on my keyboard about the reckless, remorseless injustice of COVID. 

Grey, bleak weather always makes me look inward. We are about to meet November, so quickly the year has flown. It is a week of birthdays this week. How do I feel about another year? I'm grateful for all that I have, family, friendships and good fortune. But sometimes it's lonely here in Europe, the ability to move around and make new friends has been greatly curtailed. And visitors from Australia that would have marked our summer with high grade joy, are no where to be seen due to the virus. They may be absent for at least another year. That feels heavy. 

At odd times, it feels healthy to wallow, to confront the sense of missing. It gives me an anchor. I can't succumb to this though. I must see the silver lining, the adventure that is simply defined as living in Europe. I'm living a dream we've worked hard to attain. Life will always be unexpected. In those layers of unexpected moments we can always find joy. But if I think of the absence of Thomas, the sense of deep comfort when I hug my child who I miss most, it is hard to find my anchor and move forward with conscious brightness.