I’ve mentioned earlier that Wellington is very similar to Seattle on every level. The artsy and vegan familiarity isn’t the only reason I picked this city to do a WWOOF volunteership.

The climate is also similar to the Pacific Northwest. Whatever experience is gained here can be applied back at home. The difference is that it can get very windy, with gales exceeding 100 km per hour. Eek!

It’s actually been relatively calm last week, which made it all the more pleasant to pull weeds out of the garden.

I have been getting intimately familiar with onion weed by pulling up the roots and bulbs. Here is an example of a small patch I worked on last week. 

Pulling up all of those onion weeds looks deceptively easy, but it was actually time consuming because the roots ran very deep. Tearing them out from under the surface also exposed some of the fattest earthworms I’ve ever seen, which attracted the birds that would eat them…watching nature take its course before my own eyes.

I can’t express how glad I am to be here. It feels so good to volunteer and be a part of something again. For a while in Seattle, I was living on the periphery.

Currently I’m staying with two lovely hosts who make me feel so welcome and appreciated. And we cook the most delicious and nutritious vegan meals together. Finding the right hosts can definitely impact the experience, and I am so grateful for that. Their place also gets plenty of natural light, which is crucial for winter months, at least for me.

That’s what I’ve missed: something so human as the feeling of belonging somewhere and being a part of something meaningful. With WWOOFing has come a sense of purpose and community. 

It can be easy to go back to my super introverted ways. Isolating oneself is so much easier to do once all basic needs are met. Maybe I’m not ever the type who gains energy by being around tons of people, but last year I have noticed that while isolation keeps people from hurting me, it has been slowly rotting my world. It had gotten to the point where it actually was doing more harm than good, yet I was so wrapped up in its comfort, that it was hard to see a way out. 

This is one reason why I’m traveling. And then traveling just for myself got old. I was looking another purpose outside of my own world that could still be practical and fulfilling. 

Am I trying to be a good person? I don’t know; I ain’t a saint or anything. All I know is that I’m trying my best here like everyone else. I do know that healing or self-improvement cannot be done alone; there needs to be a sense of care and community involved. And it’s not always easy or glamorous. I still fuck up every now and again. But this growth is so far a net-positive.

The expression “tearing out old roots and plant new seeds” has never been more relevant.