"To live is the rarest thing in the world - most people survive, that is all" Oscar Wilde

I always crash land, and this time was no exception, but perhaps this landing was more painful because I am no longer on my own. I am now four, a family of four and whether I like it or not, I am intrinsically aware of the effects this move from Australia to Chile has on my family as individuals, and how it effects us as a whole.

"Oh, they'll be fiiiiiiine, kids adapt so easily. It'll be such a wonderful adventure" was the general advise given to me before we left, yet when my five year old confided in me;
 "Mummy, when we were in the airport before we got on the plane to come to Chile, I heard a little voice in my head say "I wish we didn't have to go to Chile, I wish I could stay in Australia forever with my friends at Seaforth school"" my first concern was that she was hearing voices, which lets face it, is never a good sign, my second concern was that I was dealing with an astute and sensitive five year old trying to come to terms with the fact that she was about to leave everything she has ever known.

It is a fine act trying to keep my cool around my five year old as she begs me not to take her to school because "nobody plays" with her, or when I am driving her to school from the corner of my eye I watch her looking out of the car window with the saddest face I've ever seen, or when I have to wake her up in the morning and dress her like a baby, while she is sobbing into my neck.

"What's happening to her?" JC asks me, desperate for a solution "That's not her. Where is she?"

Instead of flinging my arms around my daughter and sobbing with her I hear my rational voice calming her, telling her I know how she feels, and that every day will get easier and before she knows it she'll be playing with the other girls in her class, and that this reality, this life, will soon enough feel like normal and it will feel like her life, as opposed to a life she is watching through a window.

While my five year old has a somewhat clear sense of distance and time, my two year old does not. Little P talks about her best friend Lily at least thirty times a day, she tells me she is going to Lily's house for dinner, she is going to meet her in the playground, she is going to play with Lily at pre school and when I pick her up from pre school she tells me;
"Today I played mummys and babies with Lily and Amelia".
I nod and smile and bite my lip, but my five year old tells it like it is;
"You are not going to see Lily, Paloma. Lily is far away. We are living in Chile now. She is not at your pre school, you are not going to have dinner at her house".

Some news is better delivered to a sibling by a sibling.

I save my tears for telephone conversations with JC as he sits at work at his new desk, in his new office, with his new colleagues trying to do a new job.
"How are you? How's your day going?" He asks.
I start crying because I can't ever hold it in with him.
"What's wrong, what's happened?" He is desperate.
"Everything. I hate everything"
"Be specific. What exactly happened today that you hated?" He is in practical-work-mode.
"I just miss our life in Sydney" I begin.
"How can you miss it when you've only been here for 4 days?"
"I just DO. You can't tell me I don't miss something, you are not me"
Silence.
"You've been crying every day. How long is this going to go on for?"
"As long as it takes" I shout "I can't switch off my emotions".

I want to escape. I hate everything. I'm trying to work out how we can leave, but I can't think of an escape route. I can't be bothered to start again. We were happy, why did we have to change everything? I don't need any more new experiences, I've done it. I've had loads of new bloody experiences I'm over them. I don't want more culture or challenges. I want to live in one place forever, never move. Ignorance is actually bliss. What's the point? I'm fine speaking crappy Spanish, I don't want to know your culture, go to kids birthday parties where there is not one piece of fruit in sight and where kids drink coke like it's water, where nobody else seems to be allergic to peanuts apart from my daughter, where nobody uses their indicators when driving. I don't want to live in a place where the term "allergies" is a euphomism for not being able to breath properly because of the dangerously high polution levels, where I can't even see the magestic Andes mountains to my East because the sky is covered by a blanket of smog caused by the over use of cars because people are too lazy to walk to the corner shop, where people depend on nanas to wash, cook, serve them, look after their children and if they don't have a nana they freak out as if their entire world has collapsed, where there is a chasm between the rich and the poor, and where abortion is illegal.

JC listens to all of this. He listens to me slating his country and culture and then he looks at me in the eyes, puts his arms around me says; "I know", and then he laughs.

*********

"To live is the rarest thing of all - most people survive. That is all" Oscar Wilde.

*********

Cherry blossom trees line the street on which we live, and we have arrived when they are in full bloom. I cannot help but feel at peace when I walk underneath the trees, they smile at me and I am reminded of my years spent living in Japan, and the times when I celebrated the sakura (cherry blossom) with Hanami parties, which is when the Japanese gather underneath the sakura, drink sake, and celebrate the beauty of the blossom, the transience of beauty and of life and of the importance of never losing sight of the fact that life is a series of moments; if you blink you will miss it. I cling to the blossom tree as if my life depends on it, and a smile creeps across my face and little by little I start counting the small moments.

My girls ride their scooters barefoot to the plaza beneath the falling blossom.

"Dos ninos y dos ninas" announces my five year old pointing at two boys scootering, and then at herself and her little sister,
"Yes!"
If she only ever learns how to say "two boys and two girls" for the entire time we are here in Chile then we have made the right decision to come.

Every time I connect with another person, every time I brave the roads in my car, every time I discover a new park with trees or a neighbourhood with  buena onda,  every Spanish word uttered from my girls' mouths, every day my children go to school with a smile on their face, every moment I feel like I am learning something, and every moment I see JC smile after I've told him about something good that happened in my day it makes me want to scream at the top of my lungs;
"It's not that bad. It's actually ok. See that? Did you see that? That was a good thing that just happened!"

When we watch Amaya's class show and see her, 4 weeks into her new life, stand on stage, microphone in front of her, singing on her own in front of all the mums, dads, students and teachers I can't stop the tears flowing, but this time they're for a different reason.

I've heard it's usual for most people to land in new places with excitement and energy, and then after a few weeks the culture shock sets in and that's when they crash.

Nope, that's not me, I always crash land and that way things can only get better.

sleeping schmeeping

                                                           
"I feel like we're sleeping on free samples" says JC as he attempts to come back to bed for the fifth time after having been up since 4.45am with the little one. I laugh and imagine fifteen minute sleep sachets attached to the pages of Marie Claire magazine.

We take it in turns to get out of bed to provide toast, milk, cartoons, wipe bottoms, and negotiate fights.

Between 6.30am and 7.30am we manage to sleep; the girls have all they need in the sitting room to occupy themselves for an hour.

I dream that the little one is calling my name but manage to change the scene and push the noise out of my head.

Of course I am woken to find her at the end of my bed;
"Mummy, mummy Amaya's done a poo. I want more strawberries."

JC springs up from bed to search for the rogue poo.

"Where has she done a poo?" he asks the little one, who's following him shouting "You're a poo daddy."

They discover Amaya on the toilet.

"Wipe my bum mummy" she calls, seemingly oblivious to the fact that her father is standing directly in front of her.
"But mummy's sleeping. I'm here, let me do it"
"Noooo, I want mummy"

I fall out of bed and into the toilet where I skilfully attend to the big one's, ahem, big one. Once completed I walk back towards my bedroom but am tackled en route by the little one.
"Mummy nooooooooo, don't go to sleep. Come into sitting room I want Peppa Pig and strawberries". I huff really loudly so it comes out as a growl, and mutter profanities under my morning breath.

Once strawberries and Peppa Pig have been provided and both girls are on sofa, cozied up under their duvet I let it out;

"Right girls, we need to talk. I'm being serious here, you have to stop waking up so early, honestly, we need to work something out. What can we do? When it's light outside you go back to sleep, no I mean when it's dark outside you go back to sleep. Understand? You turn over in your comfy beds and fall back to sleep. OK? Look at you, you're both exhausted." I point at the big one "You've got bags under your eyes, you're pale and tired and you're still sick from yesterday, you need rest. And you," I point at the little one "Look at your bags, you're tired too and why do you think you've been crying all morning, it's because you're TIRED. Really, it's the weekend and I need to sleep so I can have a nice, happy day. Quite frankly it's selfish. I mean it. Really I do. So please can you both just work it out?"

Blank stares.

I get back into my bed for one final attempt;

"Nice speech" says JC.
"They think I'm mental" I say.