part of me is still in Australia I still smell the fragrance of the winter flowers and hear the magpies warbling their beautiful harmonies I still feel the weight of my new granddaughter in my arms and see her sweet face looking back at me and when I look up at the stars from my backyard in the States I feel those stars connecting me to the skies above Australia I’m living in two worlds now -Karen Molenaar Terrell
feeling rejected, dejected, jettisoned and ejected and it occurs to me that this is a choice I am making and Father-Mother Love says, “I love you. You are Mine. Forever and always, beyond time. I will never reject you. I made you for Me. Let go of little ego, let go and just be. You have more important things to do than to spend your time appeasing a human ego no part of Me or mine.” -Karen Molenaar Terrell
I left a land of cockatoos and palm trees and landed before I left in another time zone under gray skies and Douglas firs – Karen Molenaar Terrell
In the end, we arrived back in America a couple of hours before we left Australia. Yes, I’m here to tell you that time travel is, indeed, possible.
There is a seventeen-hour time difference between Australia and where we live in Bow, Washington. So we lifted off from Vancouver, BC, on July 5th and landed in Sydney 18 hours later on July 7th. And from that point until we arrived back in North America yesterday, everything has been a little upside down and backwards for me. In Australia, the sun moves along the northern sky and rises on the right; Folks drive on the left side of the road; and Australians have their winter when North America is having its summer. On our return, we left Sydney at 8:40 am on July 25th and arrived in Vancouver 15 hours later – and two hours earlier – at 6:40 am on July 25th. Whoah.
***
Australia was wonderful. The people are friendly and fun. The birds are full of color and music. The flowers are vibrant. The winter weather is like springtime in my part of the world.
I met so many amazing people “down under” – the helpful, smiling security folks at the airport; the travelers from Canada who waited with us in the customs line and let me know that I’m not the only one who’s always checking to see if my passport is still where it needs to be – apparently other people check to see if their passports have somehow leaped out of pockets and purses, too; the woman who laughed with me when, after my husband asked me if I needed help, I pulled my heavy suitcase out of the baggage carousel at the Sydney airport and repeated Aussie Helen Reddy’s lyrics, “I am woman/hear me roar”; the staff at Karen’s Diner and the staff at the Baytouna Lebanese restaurant; the cheery cashier at the coffee shop who taught me how to say “table seven” (“tible sayven”); the police officers and soccer fans celebrating the women’s soccer team in Sydney; the firefighters at the cafe; the confident, competent, lovely midwife who delivered my new grandbaby; the line of passengers at Sydney airport who laughed with me when I got into their line accidentally and almost boarded the wrong plane – “Americans!” I said, shaking my head, and grinning in embarrassment, and they joined me in my laughter and helped me feel accepted in my human-ness; and the wonderful woman from Quebec I met while waiting to board the plane I was actually supposed to be on, who shared how she travels from Canada to Australia twice a year to visit her son and daughter (who both married Australians) and to see her grandchildren. She inspired me and helped me realize that I’m not alone in the physical distance I have between my son and daughter-in-law and grandchild – that other people are in similar situations, and that we all want our children to live the lives they need to live, even if it means they’re on the other side of the world.
***
I’m thinking about all that needed to happen for our beautiful baby granddaughter to arrive on this planet. I think about the miracles that brought little Marilyn here. Her maternal grandmother, Kim, had to survive a year in a Vietnamese prison, working as slave labor, after being caught trying to escape from Vietnam when she was 18; her maternal grandfather, Ben, had to escape from Vietnam on a terrifying boat ride before finding a new home in Australia. Little Marilyn’s paternal great-grandfather, my father Dee Molenaar, had to survive a desperate situation in 1953 on K2, the world’s second highest mountain – his life hanging on the end of a rope belayed by his climbing teammate, Pete Schoening. Little Marilyn’s paternal great-grandmother, my mother “Moz,” was the tenth of ten children – somehow managing to squeak into birth after her mother had decided she was having no more children after birthing number nine nearly killed her. Little Marilyn’s paternal grandfather, my husband Scott, had to impulsively get in a car bound for the west coast with his friends and start a new life in Washington State so that we could meet and marry and start a family. Little Marilyn’s parents, my son and daughter-in-law – one from Washington State and one from Sydney, Australia – had to both decide to visit a Buddhist retreat in California during the pandemic, in order for them to meet and fall in love, and bring Marilyn to us.
What are the odds of ANY of that happening?!
Marilyn’s existence has made all our lives more important than they were before she came.
***
I have so much to be grateful for today. My heart is full. My daughter-in-law and son are already amazing parents – nurturing and conscientious, and in love with their new baby; my new granddaughter is healthy and strong and beautiful; my daughter-in-law’s mother, Kim, is generous and kind and took wonderful care of us during our stay in Australia. Instead of love being cut off from me and separated, the love in my life is expanding and including more people and places. My sense of what constitutes “family” is growing.
I always hope I’ll be seated by great people on my airplane trips – and I was especially hoping for that on our 13-hour flight to Auckland – and I hit the jackpot with my seat mate! I sat next to a wonderful young man, originally from Punjab, India, but relocated for the last five years to Auckland for work. He helped show me how to play the Solitaire game on the screen in front of my seat; pushed some buttons to see how the “food and drink” tab worked and ended up with cookies and a mocha which he handed off to me; and he used the map on the screen to show me where he grew up in India, and where he lives now in Auckland. He had a great sense of humor and we spent a lot of time laughing together. He helped the flight go faster for me.
Yesterday we went to a Farmers Market near Sydney and – as always at Farmers Markets – we met dogs with wagging tails, and people with smiles on their faces, and the air was filled with laughter and joy and the smell of good things to eat. I bought cookies from two wonderful women at the Gumnut stand who chatted with us about our travels and gave us a little bag of free cookies as a welcome to Australia. We met Maisie, a sweet black Labrador who licked my hand and smiled a doggy smile up at me, and her human, Anna, and her mates – who all laughed with me when I introduced myself as “Karen” and said, “But what are you going to do?”
When we boarded the train after the Farmers Market – and I was looking at a map on the train’s wall and trying to figure out when our next stop was – a very cool chap named Andrew with long dyed hair, shades, and fingernails painted black, came up to the map and showed me where the route would take us. As it turns out, I couldn’t have come upon a better person to help me with this – he actually works for the trains as a guard and was on his way to work on one of the trains when he appeared. Andrew also works as a photographer for musical events – and he and my husband, Scott, got into conversation about lenses and cameras and their experiences as professional photographers.
When we got into Sydney we walked over to the Opera House (of course!) and met all kinds of wonderful people there, too. There were the people who moved over for me so I could take pictures of the seal sunbathing below us. The seal did not appear to be moving and I asked, “Is he alive? He looks so chill.” The people who’d moved over for me smiled and reassured me that the seal was alive and he was just doing what we all should be doing -enjoying the moment. A couple of young men from India asked me if I could take their picture – which I did – and then, later, they reciprocated by taking a picture of me with my family in front of the Opera House – and did an excellent job for me.
Next to the Opera House is a botanic garden. On the way to the garden we saw a bride and groom having their pre-wedding photos taken. On the way back from the garden we came upon the bride and groom again. They looked so radiant and joyful that I felt the urge to capture their joy and share it – so I asked them if I might take their picture. They were happy to smile for my camera. I told the bride that her bouquet was beautiful and she looked at her groom proudly and said that they had made the bouquet together.
After our explorations around the Opera House we went to Karen’s Diner for dinner. My daughter-in-law, Christina, had heard about Karen’s Diner from a friend and had learned that people named “Karen” could be given a free drink there. The theme at Karen’s Diner is that the food is great, and the service is deliberately rude – but rude in a funny way. I loved the whole experience – our servers were great! – and I got a free milk shake out of the deal.
On the train back from Sydney I sat next to a lively, fun family with three youngsters aged five, four, and two. The father was originally from Jamaica, and the mother had lived back and forth between Italy and Australia during her growing-up years – between them they were citizens of three countries! The littlest girl played peek-a-boo with me, and soon Christina and my son, Andrew, who are due to become parents any minute, were chatting with the parents about the joys and challenges of child-rearing. There was a lot of laughter in that conversation.
I am loving Australia and the people who live here.
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 