As much as I find where I currently am in life frustrating, I am trying to make the most of what there is. How to balance things, so that they are just right for me.

Sometimes I like to block things out. I avoid my email, for one. I listen to my favourite songs loudly, letting the music take me away. I persuade Andy to take me for a drive, and I stare out the windows as the scenery goes by. One friend tells me I am avoiding life, but in many ways, I feel as though I am actually really experiencing it. I am doing something to change my mood, giving myself time to see things from a different direction. It’s like a little holiday from my exact situation in life. A time to let the ideas settle, like falling snowflakes. First they look pretty, then they must set, and then they water the ground they fell on. If I am constantly doing, I feel saturated and heavy. It’s like I must have some room, before I can absorb more. Time and space to grow in between.

These last few weeks I have been cooking Italian. I taught myself years back, when we got our first flat together in London. I worked my way through five Italian cookbooks (all of which are sadly still sitting in box in the UK, awaiting our return). An ex-colleague-becoming-friend of Andy’s came over for dinner a couple weekends ago. We were chatting generally, and she mentioned how she’d found the best coffee in Wellington, and that she and her friend had gone back another day just to be sure. It was at a place Andy and I had clean forgotten about, after our first few attempts to go there had resulted in us finding it closed. The following day we drove on over to give it another try, and I can attest that the coffee at the Mediterranean Warehouse is very good. I can also state that going through the door to the food store had me re-falling back in love with the cuisine. Finding good quality, affordable pasta again had me twitching my legs in a little happy dance. And then good canned tomatoes, yummy European cheeses and wine! HELLO, I said.

These past few months or so, I’ve even become open about my listening to country music. I, Emily, love Brad Paisley. It’s true. My friends even let me get away with a few of songs from his Christmas album at our mid-Winter celebration, down here in the southern hemisphere. I am past being mocked, and just shrug my shoulders now, with a sideways smile.

My personal soundtrack this week has been:

Kelly Willis – Don’t Know Why.
Brad Paisley – If Love was a Plane.
Cat Power – Naked if I Want To.
Francoiz Breut – Km 83 (This one never leaves me, I’ve listened to it non stop for the last 3 years. It may be, for me, the most beautiful song I’ve ever heard).
Carla Bruni – La Possibilite d’une Ile.
Brad Paisley – Ticks.
Shakira & Alejandro Sanz – La Tortura.
Gaetane Abrial – J’sais Pas Dire Non.
Feist – Let it Die.

& talking of Brad, this made me smile…

Andy Griffith always makes me smile