I’ve Found Myself in a Time Warp.

Einstein’s theory of general relativity  suggests that gravity affects space and time. I hope I didn’t lose you after that first sentence. Hang in there. The larger the mass of a planet is, the stronger gravity affects how time passes. For example, on Earth, time ticks slower than it does on a smaller planet, like Mars. There is less of a gravitational pull on Mars, and if we were to walk on Mars we’d feel lighter and jump higher. I’m writing to you now, feeling absolutely weightless as I have somehow found myself stuck on the smallest planet in our solar system, Raglan, New Zealand. Months feel like weeks and weeks feel like days. I cannot slow down time no matter how hard I try. I don’t remember Elon letting me board one of his spaceships and the landscape looks similar to a few places on Earth, but I’m convinced this cannot be the same planet I've spent the past 26 years on. I’m experiencing such a lack of gravity that I’m basically floating. Floating through days of surfing, yoga, having long conversations over coffee with friends, laying in the grass, reading books, eating fruits that grow off the trees, walking barefoot through town, and getting lost in the constant live music that the talent of this small coastal town attracts. I’m just simply being. Being Hannah. What day is it? What time is it? What MONTH is it? Don’t bother to ask me. But I can tell you in precise detail when high and low tide will be today, if there’s a swell and what direction the wind is going. 

I’ve mentioned countless times on this blog that I’m going with the flow. That’s the big surrender to my travels that I learned early on. But a major factor to the flow that we cannot ignore is my budget. As I see the money I have saved for this big world wide adventure lessen, it motivates me to keep moving while I still have the means. But in Raglan, this factor is on pause. I managed to get myself free accommodation in exchange for working in the garden and I was able to make enough cash to cover some extra expenses teaching yoga. I naturally couldn’t get myself to leave this community and the budget factor wasn’t even asking me to. At first, slowing down was hard. I actually didn’t know how to. I even felt a little guilty about it. But this time warp I’ve found myself in is also a part of that flow, and when I take a step back I am overwhelmed with how grateful I am to even be able to slow down like this. What a cool opportunity. Some people go their whole lives rushing. 

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my lifestyle here and I think I’ve cracked the code for what three factors are needed to be happy, healthy and at peace (at least for myself):

1. A way of moving that is combined with nature. Maybe it’s going for walks or runs where there are trees and trails. Could be skiing or yoga outside. Whatever. Just rolling around in the grass? Cool. But for me, here, it’s surfing. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I am absolutely addicted. 
   

My friend Gemma managed to get a pic of me in Manu Bay

My favorite surf spot in town

The bummer about surfing in New Zealand and this blog is that I have zero pics or videos of me catching a wave. My sister doesn’t even believe I can stand up on a surf board. I never bring my phone or camera down to the beach when I’m surfing so you’ll have to just take my word. That’s all I got. I’ll tell you about one of my favorite surf sessions that will go down in my life’s history. 

It was some day of the week, high tide was in the late afternoon and will be dropping around sunset with very low wind. This is prime surf conditions, especially with my 8’ board. The waves peel perfectly, take a while to break and have some steepness to them that gives a bit of a challenge. The waves were predicted to be about shoulder length height and there isn’t a cloud in the sky. The crew I’m volunteering with at Solscape are surfers from all over the world. France, the U.K, Netherlands, Italy, Germany and the lone American. We tossed our boards into a couple of vans and headed down our road to one of the best surf breaks in New Zealand. We run into the water like kids and paddle out. I instantly see about a dozen other friends from town. They also got the memo. There’s some competitiveness to surfing and a big no-no is dropping in on someone else’s wave that they’ve already caught but when you’re with your friends “party waves” are acceptable and so much fun. I caught a few right off the bat. I’m working on my left turns. I see a wave coming on the horizon, position myself right next to its peak, look forward, paddle my heart out and pray that I’m fast enough to match this wave’s power, look to my right, see the wave begin to break, suddenly all of my force is taken over by the wave’s momentum and I’m caught in the perfect spot for my board to glide down the side of this pink and orange swell of water that is reflecting the sky. Right foot up, then left, stay low… I’m gliding. I can’t help the muscles on my face form into a smile. I ride this wave for what feels like eternity all the way to the sand. I’ve rocketed up to a place where gravity and time doesn’t exist at all. 

I catch a few more like this, and on one of my paddles back to the line up I notice perfect waves are coming but no one is taking them? I stop to sit up on my board and look in the direction everyone else is facing. The sun is taking up what seems like a quarter of the horizon as it sinks below the line where the sea meets the sky. An almost full moon is rising over the mountains behind us and no one can think of a word to speak at this moment that can describe this sight. 

A few people are taking their last waves in. My German friend Jasper and I are the only ones left and we agreed that we’re not finishing this session without one last party wave. We wait like tea bags in the sea for a set of waves to come, I catch a glimpse of the biggest wave I’ve seen all night coming in and Jasper yells “This is the one! Turn left right away and try to stay close to me!” We paddle forward, the wave takes my board and I notice I’m quite high up. I lean into it anyway  and the nose of my board is heading down the steep slope of the wave. I pop up and there is a fraction of a second I’m free falling into the curve of the wave. It gives me butterflies and makes me wobbly, I feel I’m about to slip out but a moment later I’m locked in the perfect position and the wave is taking me left. I look over and there is Jasper, right next to me, with the biggest smile on his face. He turns his board closer to mine and reaches out his hand, I grab it without hesitation and now we’re surfing and HOLDING HANDS. I cannot make this up. Laughing like someone told the funniest joke we surf side by side hand in hand, at least 50 feet into the shoreline until the wave breaks behind us and without getting off our boards we lay belly down, STILL managing to hold hands and ride like penguins until we wash up on the sand. We decided that we needed to get a beer together after this. Best surf moment in both of our lives. 

1. A way of means. This doesn’t necessarily mean a way to get rich, but a way to get by without financial stress. Even better if it’s something that benefits others and provides a challenge. For me, it’s teaching yoga. This will change throughout life but for now, leading yoga classes and being paid for it is more than enough. It’s funny, when I first started I was so nervous. I would stay up with my headlamp looking over my notes, replaying my flow for the next morning over and over again in my head, and after teaching about ten classes I could think of a general idea of what I wanted to include in my session and could run it as I go. My best classes are actually the ones I prepare the least for. I know that yoga can include some emotional release, trauma stored deep in our bodies, I learned this in my training. But I didn’t think about what it would mean for me as a yoga teacher to have students experience this kind of transformation that goes beyond physical in the classes I’m leading and it’s been such a beautiful addition to this practice.  Gardening and some housekeeping here and there are my fun little jobs too.

I hosted a free pre surf yoga class on the beach. What a turn out.

1. Community. When you’re not just a face in a crowd. I’m no longer a stranger here, or someone just passing through. I can’t even walk into town to get my laundry done or grab groceries without stopping for hellos. I can’t ride my scooter back up to Solscape without a honk or a wave of someone I know passing by. Someone told me the locals have referred to me as “American Scooter Girl” lol. A coffee date with one person turns into many, many chairs pulled up around the table. Every Wednesday is Open Mic night at the local bar and music spot, I know the people singing on stage and everyone in the crowd. I never imagined that a small town, like in the Midwest, could be filled with people from all over the world. This isn’t a big diverse city, we have a couple of restaurants and a few bars but in one day here you could meet people from countless countries with different stories. Mostly people in their 20’s to 30’s that once worked jobs like accountants, marketing managers, teachers, lawyers, even doctors that put all of that hussle aside to surf and work in coffee shops or help with landscaping. It’s a funny thing, this place. Reminds us that it doesn’t have to be one big race. We can pause. 

One of my favorite people in this community is our neighbor at Solscape, Denny. Denny is a retired mechanic. I can’t reach him by phone but whenever my scooter breaks down (which it does way too often), I leave Denny a note on his kitchen table and by the end of the day he has it fixed and running again. Saint Paul Park vibes. Denny is going to buy my scooter from me when I leave town.

Every Wednesday night I have a sleepover at Mimi’s “house” (another shack). Did I mention that I’m still sleeping in a surf shack with no electricity? We have a plan that someday we're going to meet up somewhere in the world with our traveling husbands and kids and tell them about the time we lived in separate surf shacks in New Zealand, our hair was bleached from the sea and sun, we were broke and never wore shoes. 

You’re never too old to have a sleepover with your best friend. We set our alarms for some ungodly hour to get a surf in before we both work the next day and can never get enough sleep because we’re up gigging and talking about boys. This never gets old.

A couple of weeks ago a few people were leaving Solscape, going back to their home countries, so we had a special sauna session on the Solscape property. We decided it was a good moment to go around and share our best memories from this little period of time in our lives. Someone described life here as “childhood” and I couldn’t think of a better description. Life here is playful. It’s light. It’s fun. It makes us creative and curious and it feels like we have all the time in the world to figure the rest out.  

Reaching out to you all, back on Earth, to tell you that I am happy, I’m healthy, I’m thriving and healing this grieving little heart of mine. I have a clear vision of my goals ahead, my travels ahead, and know that this won't last forever but I am pretty damn lucky to have tiptoed my way across the galaxy to this special place. 

Stay tuned for another blog post this upcoming week, I managed to get myself out of Raglan and into the northland of New Zealand. There’s a shark and accidental dreadlocks involved. Here’s a picture of a red kiwi if you’ve never seen one before.