Is it time to buy the farm?

9/23/2020

I've been camping out in No Mans Land for months - years actually, if I'm honest. Trying to decide where to go next. Covid conveniently legitimised this for me by providing The Gap, aka The Pause. It's also been very helpful in terms of limiting my options and narrowing my choices. Now it seems the time has come to make a decision. Is it time to buy the farm?

The worm farm, that is. On the surface of things, that sounds laughable. Hardly a big deal. Just a $200 investment with no risk involved. But to me, it's huge. A paradigm shift, a fundamental, life-changing change of direction. It means I've decided to settle down. Here.

Lockdown provided The Pause which legitimised my indecision. At the same time it significantly narrowed my choices.

When we left to live in Vanuatu, we packed up our life into five cardboard boxes that travelled with us, and a storage locker in Auckland which housed our most precious stuff. We sold/gave away/found new homes for everything else, including two high functioning worm farms. It was 2010 when urban recycling didn't have much traction and we couldn't find anyone to take them on. Eventually they were dumped on my non-veggie eating brother, and, well, they didn't thrive. My husband still hasn't forgiven me. If we're going to get another worm farm, we're going to need to be around to take care of it.

Last week I was told that even if the responsible tourism assignment I was supposed to be doing in Timor-Leste goes ahead in the near future, I'm now considered too old (ie, too much of a medical insurance risk) to do it. The news wasn't entirely unexpected and covid has highlighted the misgivings I already had about the viability of growing tourism as a revenue source in developing countries. Even so, I felt grumpy and rebellious about the 'too old' bit. But also grateful. Because now my choices have been narrowed even further. I'm inching closer to buying the farm.

The valley where we live is awesome. I'm constantly amazed at how lucky we are to be here. In the early morning a couple of days ago I climbed the walkway to the ridge above it, and got lost in the view. When we first went into lockdown, the leaves were turning autumn gold. Now blossoms and bright new leaves are re-colouring the brown winter treescape. Here's a picture: