Still Rowing....

Four homes down is the creek we cross to get to school.  The marker shows 2 meters.  The creek SHOULD be flowing UNDER the bridge.  Bridge, you ask?  2 meters down.

But the road past our house has been closed for days now. Rockhampton, where the brown snakes and crocodiles (but not the ones that'll eat you, mind, just the ones that'll take a bite outta ya!) are coming into homes with the flood waters, is an hour north and west. New South Wales is as far away as Florida from New York. So that our biggest problem has been a wet yard and an overflowing pool running out of salt. Since the salt comes from Rockhampton.

Today the names of flood zones are starting to sound familiar. Low-lying areas in Strathpine are being urged to evacuate. That's where the mall and the library are. That's where we go to the movies and lunch. That's only ten minutes away by car. Which you can't drive because roads all around us are closed. And you can't use the bus or train because they aren't running. Brisbane – BRISBANE, for crying out loud, is sand-bagging against flooding.

We were just there Saturday. On the water and then the museum when the rains started again.

We can't get to the beach because Caboolture, on the way, is cut off.  And Bribey Island, where our beach is, is closed.  The circle is closing.  Bray Park, the community next to ours, is being evacuated.  Only the low lying areas. mind you.

And the rain just doesn't stop.

It is really awe-inspiring.

Hamming it up outside the museum in Brisbane on Saturday

I think of so many tragedies in the world. The shooting in Arizona. (My GOD America, do you really need to CREATE your OWN disasters?) Tsunamis and earthquakes in the past two years. And Haiti. Of course I think about Haiti. It's been almost a year. And nothing has changed. Except maybe for Sean Penn who really seems to have found his element, God bless him.

And I think of how lucky we are to be here even in the midst of the flooding. I have NEVER EVER seen rain and water at this magnitude and I have seen a LOT, not only in Europe but also in Haiti and Africa. The rain hasn't stopped in 48 hours. After weeks of almost continuous rain that has the previously sun-baked earth around us looking like a marsh. Until now it has just been weeks of wet, and dark, but now there is thunder and lightning. With no signs of stopping and the waters rising around us. And more and more rain predicted for the rest of the week.  Highs aren't even expected until later in the week.  This is only the beginning.

I think of the folks in Toowoomba who spent the night on their roofs waiting for the helicopters this morning. And of how I would HATE to have to do that in the lightning.  (And I think of the 8 dead and 70 missing and realize those were the lucky ones too.)

At least it is warm here though, and no one is freezing.

And at least we have roads and dams and evacuation plans and emergency crews.  (Friends, neighbors and family - Aunt Merle - have been in constant contact today, offering trips to the supermarket, a TV set which we have finally accepted and board games and building blocks for the kids.  Everyone is checking up on eachother and everyone is helping.  The worst always brings out the best in people everywhere.)

Flooding of this magnitude would devastate Haiti as much as last year's earthquake did.

I'm writing to let everyone know we are all right. And we are.

But as the dam waters continue to thunder out the gates – the levels are at 172% and rising – you realize just how much an illusion your sense of control really is. We feel lucky that we don't have much to lose – although our crates have now arrived in Brisbane harbor and are being sand-bagged as I write. I liked the idea of them on a boat all this time. What better place but on an ark?! Until I realized today that if they do get flooded – that if we lose those ten years of photo albums and all my books – well, I realized what those crazy people on TV who have lost everything mean when they say that their possessions really weren't that important in the first place.

For me, a bad day in Australia is better than a good day anywhere else.

I'm SUPPOSED to be rowing THIS boat down THIS stream.

Funny though, all this time I'd been imagining a kayak, not a police escort to a highschool gymnasium on high ground!  (Don't worry - it'll be a LandRover and it'll be at Emily's.)

Again, WE ARE FINE! WE ARE HOME. WE ARE NOT BEING EVACUATED. And, while we are SURROUNDED by flooding and evacuation, the general consensus of neighbors who gathered to watch the creek flood its banks is that Lawnton is on high ground relative to surrounding area.  The water would have to rise by 45 meters for us to be in danger.  We are at 2 and rising.  So far we are to remain where we are. Still plenty of puzzle pieces to work on, more Clue games to play and a TV and DVDS on the way.

Still rowing...

Rowing (News from just outside the Flood Zone)

I thank you if you are too worried about us to appreciate the irony. We leave Germany after the coldest, darkest, wettest summer anyone can remember, bitching and moaning about the terrible climate in Europe, only to end up in the midst of the largest flooding in recorded Australian history. Which, although admittedly short, still shows that Australia likes to do things bigger than anyone else.

If you haven't picked up a paper or turned on the TV recently (which we hadn't!) let me be the first to inform you that the size of the CURRENT flood area in western Queensland is larger than the size of Texas, another place that likes to do things BIG! Texas, I believe is a quarter of the size of the USA (excluding Alaska, which alone is more than twice the size of Texas and I believe one-third the size of the continental USA). I'm awed by scale.

To put this in a European context, the area of the flooding is more than the size of France and Germany COMBINED.

I say CURRENT flood area because it is still raining. Heavily. And unbelievably continuously. Meine Damen und Herren, Mesdames et Messieurs, we may have lost the Ashes to England this year (honestly, whatever THAT means, but it is apparently a pretty big deal!), but we've got the highest recorded rainfall.

In a country whose early exploration is measured in lives lost to drought.

Before we came, eastern Australia had been experiencing two years of severe drought. The dam in our area – the one that has supposedly been saving our butts up until now – was measuring 16% capacity. All five gates are now open and spewing torrents of excess water. Where I am not sure. I don't quite get how dams are saving us from flooding. Capturing the excess water up to a point, I guess. Controlled release perhaps. There is talk of building more dams – always an issue in Australia – to prevent flooding in the future. Although dams destroy natural habitat. And although this has never happened before.

It's an illusion of control.

There is something awe-inspiring about being in the center.

This, of course, because we have been protected by the dam until now, and because we are safe at home with plenty of food. And water. Hah hah. We also stocked up on puzzles and board games (Ryan and Andrew are old enough to play CLUE now – YAY US!) at the mall on Sunday. And bought a sound system that includes a radio for public emergency broadcasting. And a CD player for dancing to Shakira.

So that so far our biggest concern has been keeping the kids amused indoors for weeks at a time. Something I am used to post-Christmas in the Northern Hemisphere. The absence of a TV has actually helped, I think, since we were forced to rely on ourselves early on and not lulled into semi-catatonia early on by relentless TV watching.

We've made it to the movies twice. (GO SEE TANGLED! It is AWESOME.)

The sun came out on January 2, for Ryan's birthday and we made it to the beach.

We're on the fourth Harry Potter book, the fourth of a unicorn series, a few Star Wars. Andrew is half-way through the Beast Quest series. Ryan has read a handful of chapter books ON HER OWN.

Damon had read all the Harry Potters and Star Wars books aloud and has read three more on his own. Something he hasn't had time to do in years.

We're also working on a 750 piece puzzle, having worked our way through a half- dozen 100 piece puzzles. The twins can do 50 pieces on their own.

Matthew can spell his name, my name, Aidan's name, Opa and Meka. In upper AND lower case.

Aidan is starting to spell his.

I've begun working on inverted poses in yoga. Which means the kids walk into the bedroom and have to speak to me upside down from where I'm doing a headstand in the corner. And I can do a downward dog with two four-year olds crawling around underneath me playing tunnel.

I've also started Qi-Gong in the mornings and am FINALLY getting the hang of meditating.

The kids, meanwhile, are running around in their underwear. But -as I see it – after six weeks indoors – we are doing pretty good!

We've had Aunt Merle, Damon's Nana's cousin, checking up on us regularly. And the neighbors offering rides to the market for supplies.  The TV and extra games for the kids just showed up - donated by a friend from school in order to keep us in touch with evacuation information and to keep the kids from beating eachother silly while we wait for news.  They've also offered to host us  - they live on TOP of the hill that we live on the bottom of - even after seeing all four kids and knowing what they are getting themselves into by offering.   So that we are taken care of.
 

The worst we've had to do is cancel Ryan's birthday party on January 15.  Since she's traditionally had her party in June anyway, she's being a trooper about it.  And we've been invited to that same friend's house to play Wwii instead.  If the creek between our house and theirs recedes from the road and neighborhood (I'll post the photos separately in order to explain them) and decides to become a creek again that is.

It's all good.  Because we have friends, neighbors and family watching out for us.

Dear Oprah

Having defined the new breed of American-Australians, I now find myself writing for them.

Dear Oprah,

Because, let's face it, if you want to speak to the United States, it's best to begin with Oprah.

Dear Oprah,

We're glad you like our country, we really are. We like it too. And yes, the Australians really are the most unbelievably friendly people you will ever meet. Even if you aren't wealthy enough to buy an 18 bath home while you are here.

We can't blame you for being surprised at how fantastic it is. Or that it is here at all, for that matter. Most of us didn't know Sydney from Melbourne when we got here either.

And we're not going to blame you for comparing us to Disneyworld. (Well, okay, maybe some of us are.) It's okay. You're not only human, and therefore fallible, but you are also American. How can you know that the highest compliment you can pay someone just might NOT be comparing them to America?

You are the best of what America has to offer. You are kind and you care. (Thanks for all those laptop computers by the way, nice work.)  You do good and you mean well.

Which is why we are sure you will share our concerns with the American public, and perhaps even the world.

Australia really does seem like the best place on earth. Newsweek liked it too.

What they don't tell you about is the spiders.

Sure, we got sun.

But did they mention the snakes?

The education system is one of the best in the world. (Sure beats the heck out of the USA.)

But have we mentioned the sharks?

Endless opportunity. Jobs.

But you know that most of the country is desert, right?

Universal health care that works.

And saltwater crocodiles. Good thing about the health care.

A coastline of white sand beaches.

Surrounded by the deadliest jellyfish in the world.

All of which doesn't mean that we don't want your tourism dollars.

Maybe it's best you do think of us as Disneyworld.

Better yet, as Atlantis.

We are a figment of the imagination, Oprah, a happy dream, a charming memory.

We're something nice to reflect upon when the weight of the real world seems too much for American shoulders.

But let us lie quietly, dear Oprah, under the Southern Cross,

Protected by the waves of the Pacific.

And the sharks, dear Oprah, don't forget the sharks.

Flotsam

We've discovered some unexpected flotsam on our trips to the beach here.

Flotsam, as in: 

1.the part of the wreckage of a ship and its cargo found floating on the water. Compare jetsam, lagan.

2. material or refuse floating on water.

3.useless or unimportant items; odds and ends.

4.a vagrant, penniless population: the flotsam of the city slums in medieval Europe

(taken from dictionary.com)

While I don't think of us as useless or unimportant, vagrant population fits and I like that concept of odds and ends.

And it fits better than jetsam, which as it turns out is: goods cast overboard deliberately, as to lighten a vessel or improve its stability in an emergency, which sink where jettisoned or are washed ashore. (also from dictionary.com)

Our being here is chance and good fortune, nothing deliberate about it.

The flotsam that finds its way to us, as kindred spirits with familiar accents, are other American-Australians. (African-American-Australian, Irish-American-Australian, German-American-Australian; the most important part being the Australian.) Turns out we are part of a once-unknown species that may be more prevalent in Australia than previously supposed. It's hard to tell. We're pretty scattered. We breed with the local population. (In fact, that seems to be what got most of us over here in the first place!) But more than that, we love it here so much, that we don't make waves.

If you look closely, you might be able to pick us apart from the other Australians by our goofy grins of disbelief. We just can't believe we're here. We just can't believe how lucky we are and how good we have it. (We're the ones who cry during the national anthem and take pictures of the flag.)

We do tend to cluster in small groups and exchange phone numbers. If you listen closely (and can understand our accent) you'll hear us talk about things other Australians take for granted. ''And the schools, can you believe how good the schools are?'' ''Oh yeah, it's way better for raising kids than back in the U.S.'' (And no, I haven't heard ANY of us refer to it as 'back home.' More like, 'back there'.) And, of course, ''yeah, the Australians are unbelievable. So friendly. So laid back.''

General consensus of this flotsam is that we ended up in the right place.

''Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.''

Who would have thought we'd find the American dream?

Right here in Australia. 

Swimming Lessons

You've probably heard about the flooding we've been having here in New South Wales and Queensland. No? Well, it's one of the advantages of life down under. We escape the public eye. You have no idea what true freedom really is, America, until you disappear from the news.


After two years of drought, where it got so bad that the koalas were coming down out of their trees and begging for water from garden hoses, this past October was the beginning of the rainiest spring ever recorded in this area, since they started recording over one hundred years ago. (114 years, I believe, and that's a LONG time for this young country!) The creek down the road – the one they assured us hadn't flooded in over ten years – has flooded three times in December.

At one point, after a particularly rainy week, the kids looked at me and said, ''with all this rain, we might as well be back in Germany.'' I had to remind them that they were saying this dressed in shorts and T-shirts.

We've made it to the pool quite often though. The temperature has never dropped below 25C – the water temperature – which, although the Australians think we're crazy, is warmer than the pool in Hildrizhausen EVER was....HEATED! Plus, someone's gotta keep the water level down.

So that the twins have gone from being able to swim a few strokes from the side of the pool into my waiting arms to leaping and diving and dancing like porpoises upon the waves. Porpoises on crack cocaine, perhaps, but porpoises none-the-less.

We can't afford the swim lessons that every self-respecting Australian child takes every summer. Kids here swim earlier than German kids learn to ride two wheelers without training wheels. And let me tell you, that's pretty darn early. (Four, okay, the answer is four.) If they can't swim by prep school, they learn it there. With refresher courses every year. Swimming is big here. Yay me. How did I manage NOT to grow up in the country that so far encompasses every single one of the values I hold dear?!

Swimming. We swim almost daily and the boys jump and dive and twist and wriggle around the pool while Ryan gracefully guides her lithe figure between them doing her laps.

It ain't pretty. Aidan swims like Andrew did a few years ago. The lifeguard in Boeblingen almost went into early retirement. They both like to sink to the bottom, blowing bubbles on the way down, thrash about a bit under the water, and then surface after about thirty seconds to gasp and gulp for air. The trick to getting them to swim is to ignore the drama.   (Matthew meanwhile, cuts through the surface of the water like a shark; he is showing signs of being every bit as graceful as Ryan.)

Underwater they are all as graceful as porpoises. It is so much fun to see them twirl and dance. Underwater, they are birds in flight.

And, I think, what are swimming lessons this summer going to teach them that they aren't already learning on their own? Proper strokes would be nice. Staying above water a bit more will be helpful in the long run. But, the rest of it, the joy and the basic skills, they are learning as they dance and play.

They need to breathe. They need to stay afloat.  Eventually, they need to get to shore.

Which, it suddenly hits me, is what it's all about.

Christmas Greetings - American Style

I've had some complaints from Lori about my recent blogs. Well, not so recent anymore since I wrote this almost three weeks ago – plus quite a few others – and really just haven't had the chance , or perhaps the energy, to get online at night when I finally have the kids down and access to the internet. Contentment seems to be taking away that hard edge. That plus food shopping, malls, parks and beaches on public transport. (The kids are FIT! We have cut our walking time to the train station almost in half!) It's all good, no worries.....and if you don't hear from me for a few weeks – it's just the peace and contentment of finally having found home. I'll rave about the sunshine and the friendliness, the schools and Medicare, the beaches and......


''Glad you're happy and all, but do you mind toning it down a bit? You DO realize that it's snowing here, right?!'' (This from Lori quite a few weeks ago already.)

So that this seems like the perfect time to finally post my American Christmas Greeting, a spoof of those once-a-year updates you get letting you know just how perfect everyone else's life seems to be going while you're still wondering WHERE yours is going.

I wrote it last Christmas just for kicks but then didn't post it because I was scared that people who WERE sending me cards would feel I was mocking them and stop sending them.

DON'T stop sending the cards. I love them and live off of them all year. Now if only I would send you all my address – check on facebook this week! I'll post photos and...no...we don't mind receiving belated Christmas cards in 2011!

This is for you Lori. And for Babette – who sends fantastic Christmas photos of the kids scuba diving and snow skiing every year, but doesn't rub it in – and who thinks I'm witty and is therefore brilliant! (Keep those cards coming folks, I really DO like to hear how brilliant your lives are!)

(It's taken me over an hour just to force something I've already written online - forgive me, I miss you, I just lose any and all good will fighting with the internet.  The kids ALL start school on January 22.  I'll be in touch then!)

Merry Christmas!!!   ENJOY!

DISCLAIMER:ALL PERSONS AND EVENTS ARE ENTIRELY FICTIONAL. ANY RESEMBLANCE TO PERSONS IN MY PRESENT, PAST, OR FUTURE IS ENTIRELY COINCIDENTAL. THIS IS MEANT TO BE A TONGUE-IN-CHEEK SATIRE OF AN AMERICAN CUSTOM AND NOT MEANT TO CRITICIZE, CONDEMN OR OFFEND. OF COURSE, IF I HAVE TO EXPLAIN. ALL OF WHICH MEANS, PLEASE KEEP YOUR CHRISTMAS CARDS COMING. I DO LOVE HEARING FROM YOU. AND WHEN I GET THIS RATHER BAD HUMOR OUT OF THE WAY, I HOPE IT MAKES ROOM IN MY HEART FOR SOMETHING TRULY BEAUTIFUL. I PROMISE, I'M WORKING ON IT!



An American Christmas Greeting


Merry Christmas friends and family,

Another year has come and gone in which none of us has had the time to visit, phone, email or even twitter. Check us out on Facebook if you get a chance.

And so we'd like to share news of our family with the 400 of you who are closest in our hearts during this joyous holiday season.

All of the kids are, of course, in the gifted program at school, the school being the best in the entire country. Our son is the star of the soccer, baseball, and basketball teams and is training for his black belt in karate, the youngest ever to do so at the age of seven. He also plays a Stradavarius. Our ten year old daughter is travelling to New York City on the weekends to dance ballet professionally. And weren't we surprised when NASA called to ask her opinion about the latest space station. All of which somehow led to a modelling gig. She'll also be in the Olympics next year for stadium jumping. We've enclosed the photo of her on her new Thoroughbred. My husband meanwhile is never home, business (which obviously is booming) taking him to Shang-hai, Syndey, Berlin, Moscow and Paris this year alone. And yet he somehow finds time to coach the soccer team, sing in the church choir, travel with the cub scouts and volunteer at the local homeless shelter.

I am not doing much, still busy with homeschooling the youngest two before they enter preschool. They are trilingual now, at the age of three, but having some dificulty reading the French. I've repainted all the bedrooms in our six bedroom home (photo also enclosed) and made curtains to match. In between preparing organic vegan home-cooked meals for the entire family (grown in our own garden) and sewing all of our clothes, I have found time to open my own silk-screening business, currently bringing in $40,000 a month, in addition to continuing to work as a cardiologist at the local hospital.

Wishing you and yours a blessed and holy holiday season. (The Connors)

I LOVE YOU GUYS!   MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM RAINY (BUT NOT SNOWY!) QUEENSLAND!

Why Lawnton? (Part One: Down the Stream)

Ryan and Andrew probably hadn't even reached their classrooms on their first day at Lawnton State School – a week to the day after landing on the runway in Brisbane - when the school secretary leaned over the reception area and conspiratorially called me over. She looked both ways before she popped the question that was on her mind. (Okay, maybe not, but in my mind three weeks later she did!)
''WHY LAWNTON?'' she asked.

She meant the town and not the school. (More raves about THAT later! Less than 200 kids, an engaged teaching staff, caring administrative staff AND personalized attention for EACH student? Why NOT Lawnton State School?!)

What brings a family from the United States – the bolder, louder sibling across the globe – through the wonders of Europe to land on the shores not only of Australia, and Brisbane, but of LAWNTON, a tiny suburb north of Brisbane. The mall? The wonders of Target and Big W? Lawnmowers on Sunday? (YAY – Sundays as they SHOULD be! But more on that later too!)

I'm beginning to realize that 'Row, row, row your boat...gently down the stream'' really DOES say more about life than most people ever pick up on. (Also that sooner or later I will have to begin spelling realize 'realise' but baby steps on the personal growth here.)

There is a current to our lives, and clinging to branches or escaping onto flotsam and jetsam is only a temporary – and false – sense of control over where the great river of life is bringing us.
Have you ever felt that you were in exactly the right place at the right time, that you were EXACTLY where you were MEANT to be?

When my shrink asked me that over 15 months ago, in September 2009, I cried. (I cried a lot in 2009 so it came as no surprise!) The only time I had ever experienced that before (and I now know that I'm lucky that I have ever experienced it at all) was 20 years before, on a bus in Kenya. My new friend, Kristy, shared it too, as we sat together in the back of the bus taking us to the rest of our lives. THIS was where we were meant to be. THIS was right.

20 years later, in Holzgerlingen, I cried. If THAT was who I was, then I was lost. Because there was no way I was going to get back onto that bus in Kenya with four kids and bills to pay.

That month I decided to look into jobs in Australia, a continent that, quite frankly, had never really interested me before. English colony. Bah.

But Damon could get citizenship there. It had a universal health care system (unlike Germany whose system REQUIRES all citizens to be insured but doesn't offer them all that privilege – it's an obligation, NOT a privilege, which - in my mind at least- are polar opposites). It spoke English. And it had jobs, jobs, jobs. Unlike Europe, it recognizes MY degree. Unlike Europe, it respects Damon's degree from the USA. And, again unlike Europe, it encouraged skilled immigrants with programs such as tax incentives for first-time home buyers in Australia.

And the damn education system didn't condemn my daughter to prostitution at the age of 8. (And while this might seem like a gross exaggeration, where else is an underappreciated sensitive soul going to go in an outdated feudal system that already has her pegged to finish school at the age of 14?!) Hey – at least the prostitutes have a pension plan. And health insurance!

So that when I went back to my shrink and told her we were moving to Australia, it didn't take much time until she was convinced it was the right move for us. (I do like to think she wasn't just trying to get rid of a difficult patient because, frankly, we had lots of laughs too and compared to the rest of the saps I saw in there I was a bright ray of sunshine!)

My shrink was on board before I was entirely on myself. (I still wasn't sure I wasn't running ''from'' something instead of ''to'' something.)

''Oh.'' she said. Her face lit up with understanding and she visibly relaxed and settled back into her chair as if she'd finally put the last piece into the puzzle of my discontent.

''You're an adventurer.''

And from that moment on all she did was give me the tools to let go of my flotsam and jetsam and to row, row, row...........

Not exactly the answer the school secretary was looking for that first Friday at Lawnton SS. Not the answer I gave. (Although, in the rewind of my mind's eye I like to see me leaning casually across the reception window talking to her about the movement of my life, as she wearily begins to slump and fade into her chair, politely regretting that she ever asked me in the first place!)

Not what I meant to write about either.

Unfortunately this is what happens when I don't clear out my brain's cobwebs on a regular basis. (And who knew they could build up so quickly up there?!)

Why Lawnton? Because it's where the river took me.

I call Anita that October for our weekly two hour pre-English group chat....