bweb travels

Riding the Big Wave

I have been having dreams about tidal waves lately. Or just gigantic ones, I guess. I will be minding my own business by the water, and by way of a sixth sense I look out to the water and can see the wave coming. And I know what to do when it comes. I hang on and ride it out. Other people are surprised and things get swept away, but I hold on.

It reminds me of the time that my German/Australian friend Sandy and I did a meditation on the beach at Palm Cove. The wind was blowing swiftly and the waves were crashing so hard we couldn’t even hear the meditation recording coming out of my phone. At one point, I felt something crawl across my leg. I gasped, we hopped up and shown our lights on what appeared to be a large centipede scurrying away. I was glad that I hadn’t seen it when it was on me, cause it was creepy as!

After our meditation, we drew cards from her deck. One card that she drew for me was the big wave. The description of it went something like this: Everything you are experiencing now is preparing you to ride the big wave. Every twist and turn is strengthening you for what the future holds.

I feel this to be especially true now that I am home and working this new job. It is testing me. I’ve had to muster confidence and courage to step up into this professional role- to move forward in being an expert and a specialist. It is time to stick it to imposter syndrome and do the work. And yet at the same time, not being afraid to not know everything. To lean on others to raise me up. And it is a time of compromise. I am growing in the sense that I realize that being dedicated to one thing is saying ‘no’ to a whole host of other things. Lions don’t loose sleep over sheep. I don’t have time to think about the safety of the shore when I am high up on this wave, soaring into a new horizon. 

I have always envied entrepreneurs and their passion. I could never see myself in their shoes, selling digital products and hustling for profits. “Where do people find the motivation to wake up and sell every day?” is a question that would linger in my mind. That began to change when I went to Australia and worked on permaculture farms.

Seeing the farmers providing food for neighbors sparked something in me. It feels much more pure compared to what I’ve known my whole career. Sure, at the end of the day they make money and support themselves, but it is not a means to make profits. They are more interested in the symbiotic relationship of the land and the community.

The idea of feeding people-- sharing my love and happiness through food-- is more appealing to me than trying to reach into their wallets through a strategic business plan and a digital platform. It is a more wholesome trade.  It is more human. And I really, really like that. 

“Hey, nice chacos!” – The moment I knew Brian was cool. After all, only the coolest backpackers have them. And Brians have Yellowstone rainbow pool design on them, so you know he’s a badass. 

“Hey, thanks, chacos are awesome!” – The moment I walked away and almost MISSED the opportunity to be Brian’s friend. Luckily, fate would give me a second chance. 

Later that week I would head out into the middle of nowhere woods in Eungella national park to Platypus Bush Camp with hopes to see a Platypus. This humble but very cool campsite had a few platypus viewing pools and hand painted signs advertising “bum nuts” for sale. (Um, “bum nuts” are eggs. Like chicken eggs. BEST LINGO EVER.) 

I pulled into the parking lot and behold, Brian was there! Always good to see a familiar face. I learned that he happens to be covered head to toe in awesome tattoos, hikes long tracks around the world, writes code and has a good eye for photography. He shared some goon and we admired the stars. 

Later we would be reunited Byron Bay where we walked the beach and hiked Mount Warning. And then Sydney where we walked downtown, saw the bridge, the iconic Opera House and then the Botanic Gardens. We admired all the trees and plants and I bought a whole stack of tacky postcards. 

Australia Backpackers have an incredible resource in 2019… The Internet. And, each other. Every big town has their own backpackers group which makes it easy to make friends and organize trips, etc. When I was in Cairns I posted about planning a rainforest trip. Mel was the only person who liked it, so I took a look at her profile. Later it would turn out that I would never make such trip to the rainforest due to van problems. 

Later I wound up in Townsville, 347 km down the coast. I had just come from a dingy farm in Bramston Beach where I was asked to leave after just two days. I then tried to park my van at a hostel outside of Townsville and it was so creepy I ended up getting a bunk at this place instead. By the time I got to my bunk, I was feeling cagey and aggressive. 

Then Melissa walked through the door. I was immediately disarmed when I saw this familiar face. “Hey, I know you! You’re the girl who liked my post on the Cairns Facebook group!” She looked at me like I had three heads and laughed. She didn’t remember, but humored me and told me about her Cairns experience. It turns out that she and I are both plant based “chefs” who felt (and continue to feel) defeated by Australia. We bitched about it together and it provided me some comical relief. 

That night I made dinner and Mel helped, making some awesome Tahini sauce. The next morning we went for a sunrise hike up Castle Hill. We declared it a moment of new beginnings. We parted ways after that but kept in touch over social media. 

Kelly is one of the kindest, sweetest people I have met in Australia. I get the sense that she can read people well and tune into what they really need in that moment. She was there for me when I really needed someone to lean on, which she maybe didn’t even realize!

Kelly and my paths overlapped just by chance. She was supposed to be off on vacation and I was to watch her dog for her, but she decided to stay home for a couple more days and so graciously let me get settled in my new rooms for the next 10 days. 

Once we got to chatting, I asked about what she does and she told me all about the school she works for. It is a great community that brings up refugees. She teaches English as a second language to kids. She told me about how they show up so shy and quiet but after time they learn, get more comfortable and express themselves freely and how beautiful it is. She told me about a morning ritual at the school where they sing a song together and the lyrics are about unity and being there for each other. I think it is beautiful that a place like that exists and how amazing it is that she gets to be a part of it and make it real. She gets to help them transform and become a part of this foreign society. 

 At that stage in my journey I was going through a bit of heartache. I had been thinking about an old flame and how I missed them dearly. I opened up to her about him and she said “he sounds wonderful”. It was so soothing to my aching heart to hear some kind of affirmation that my heart was in the right place. 

I enjoyed moments between John and I because we are very different people but had a great deal of respect for each other. It seems like this is very rare in our world today!

When I arrived on his farm, I knew hardly anything about gardening and he taught me some basic things like how to spread mulch efficiently and what to weed and what not to weed. He dealt with my inexperience in stride and for that I am grateful.

One of my favorite memories of John is when we were doing work out in their young food forest. I was up on the swales and couldn’t figure out how to turn on the tractor. He was 100 ft away and trying to shout instructions my way. I couldn’t understand what he was saying (this is surprisingly not at all rare with the Australian accent) and shouted back “No hable Australian!” He walked my way and loudly muttered “Dang foreigners!” We both had a laugh.

John and I had many conversations about sustainability and food. He had an understandably skeptical (possibly resentful) view on vegans but was polite and respectful to me about my lifestyle. Actually, he and his wife hosted a vegan BBQ AND vegan cooking workshop (by yours truly) on the same weekend when I was there, so that speaks volumes. At the end of the day, they both really like food and want to share with people, especially those who like healthy, organic food!

During our chats I acknowledged that food production at large has a lot of work to do to be sustainable and that meat is just one part of that. And he pointed out that while meat is the most destructive food product, there are more sustainable ways to produce it too. We agreed that is true. We talked about the militant vegans who give vegans in Australia such a tough reputation and I expressed to him that I don’t approve of their destructive ways. (I find it counter productive to the movement— If you’re interested I can send you the blog I wrote about it.) It was refreshing to have an intellectual, non-emotional conversation about these things and not dwell on diet titles and rules but rather on systems and practices. We both see ways to have a better world, and it is much more meaningful to focus on that rather than our differences.

Bud has to be one of my favorite and impactful people I met in Australia. Bud is an American man from Florida who has lived in Australia for most of his life, but still has that sweet southern accent that was so comforting and familiar to hear when I arrived at my fourth WWOOF destination, Acacia Health Retreat. 

Every night at dinner we would bow our heads to pray and he would thank the Heavenly Father for all he blessed us with and asked him to lead us to what needed to be done next. Having been a preacher, Bud had no shortage of inspiring words, related to the Divine or otherwise. There were many meaningful conversations that took place around that table and I was very grateful for the time and space to contemplate my own spirituality. 

My favorite memory of Bud was when we went to church on the first sabbath that I was there. The pastor got up in front of everyone and said “Well, there was someone who was supposed to do the teaching today, but they are not here, so, who’s going to do it?” Everyone looked around the room, confounded. Noemi, the WWOOF host at Acacia said, “Don’t worry. We’ve got Bud.” As if she had a secret weapon in her back pocket. Bud, with his head held high, worn iPad in hand, stood up and took his place at the head of the room and delivered a powerful, passion filled sermon on the fly. Totally badass. As he delivered the lesson, the audience savored his every word. It was clear that this is what Bud does best, and it was a prime opportunity for him to own it and shine. I know it can be rare to see people in this form of themselves, so I truly appreciated the opportunity to witness it.

Australia has stripped me down. The real me has been exposed over and over, quickly. Staying in a new place every week, being dropped into a new environment with new personalities to navigate, it is emotionally wearing.

I have lost my filter and tell people what I really think. I have lost my patience with people and come off as not-so-nice. For all the times I have been lifted up and celebrated and have faced twice as much loneliness and rejection. For all the times I’ve had big laughs, I’ve cried just as hard. I’ve gotten the message through being asked to leave farms, a bad airbnb review and dirty looks. Sometimes it feels like “we don’t like you” but really all it is is “we’re all different”.

All said and done, this will be my route of mainland Australia. 

There are a lot of things in Australia that have frustrated me.

People, culture, systems, circumstance. Something as small as not being able to plug into an outlet because my adapter is too big so I need to move across the library really tick me off. I got all the way here and now I might need to go back home because my charger won’t fit?

Things like bank accounts, insurance, technical problems and two-step auth have broken me. I’m locked out of my Dropbox account and thus can’t access my files because of my new Australian phone number?

At the extreme end, getting work done on my car wiped out my bank account and put me out by a month and I chose to cancel my trip to the rainforest so I could fulfill my commitment to arrive to a WWOOF host on time, which happened to be the single strangest and crappiest situation I experienced in Australia.

I've been cooking for people in Australia and here are some things I have learned/learned to assume:

It's a good idea to do a diligent ingredient check before the event. Make sure you do have everything and don't leave it up to assumption. Prepare things like spice mixes and other combinations of ingredients ahead of time to speed up the cooking process.

If you're going to cook for people, plan to shop. Take all the leg work out of it for them. It is a drag to get other people to contribute.

For workshops: at a certain price point (?) People are in it for the experience. They want to have fun and if they learn something it is a bonus.

Local ingredients as much as possible

For dessert, organic and Paleo customers are my customers as well as plant based and vegan.

Nut cheese in the US has a long way to go compared to Australia