Frida's World, a blog

Just lately, the blogging world opened a crack and I fell through ... discovering a stunning new series of people, all inter-connected in this 'other' world.

Frida's Notebook was one of those new blogs that leapt out at me ... she's a New Zealander who wanders the world, working and making a difference in places like Palestine and Afghanistan.

It was her recent Sunday Scibbling post that convinced me she was someone just a little bit special. I printed it off to take it traveling with me and ended up reading it in a small bedroom in Alsace. It made the trip in my camera bag, and I read a little on a sunny bench while in Luxembourgh too.

I'll give you a taste of what I found so special in what she wrote ... in so many ways she could have been speaking for me. It was titled 1996 Goodbye New Zealand

Goodbye my homeland. Goodbye my turangawaewae, my place to stand. As long as I know you are here, I will never be lost. But now I need to leave. I need to be away from here. Suddenly you seem too small to contain the pain that is burning within me and the desire that is bursting out of me. I could drive through one day and a night and come to the edge of your beautiful shoulders. I need to go further. I need to spread out my arms and not touch the edges. I need to get lost in a sea of strangers. I need to stand in the middle of a desert so vast I can sense the majesty of the universe and imagine being lost in it myself. I need to cast myself into the world with no one beside me. I need to discover again what I can do alone. Though I will always return to you, though I belong to you, goodbye Aotearoa.