Our house is dominated by costume creation for Halloween right now.They are running a ghost train at the local esplanade through some beautiful forest and they employ students to dress up in hideous costumes and jump out of bushes.
Manaaki and I were standing in line waiting for the ghost train and I found a rare moment for some self-reflection. Or should I say social comparison? Most people in the line were young parents, but so diverse. There were the couples in front of me. One woman with beautiful grungy pink hair and another with blond streaks and a headband. They were not my people. And then further up there was this woman dressed in nice jeans and a black merino jacket and wearing the coolest hat. It was like a knitted fox's head with cute ears. Her style seemed kind of Portland-esque and very cool. Alternative but friendly. I wanted her hat. I wanted to be her. Suddenly I wanted to move to Portland and take up knitting alternative animal hats, although I've never been much good at knitting.
Instead I am a plus-size, greying, queer Mama with cheap second-hand clothes covered in cornflour from the messy play at kindy this morning. I don't know what pigeon hole people put me into when they meet me. Do I want to know? Should it matter?
I guess I wonder if I will ever really belong anywhere. I feel a warm welcome from the community at Manaaki's school and at my raranga course, but I am not Maori. I'm lesbian, but not one of those cool, sporty lesbians with great hair. I wear op-shop clothes, but I don't fit those vintage fashions that look so styley.
I suppose the group I most identify with is people who have experienced mental distress. A shared experience of overcoming trauma is a powerful glue. And that experience is indisputably mine, although some may dispute its value.
I stand at a crossroads. Seeking some form of work outside the house. Seeking a home in a new country. Seeking a reinvention or finding out who I was all along.
