I was thinking today about my initial dread of coming to America, and my terror at what seemed like a blank, open, empty life stretching before me, bereft of all the things that shaped my daily life back in London: going to the gym, travelling to work, working, seeing friends, the necessity of doing housework, of cooking - all the while having at the back of my head an awareness of what a fabulously rich culture London has to offer in terms of theatres, lectures, art galleries, historical sights and all the myriad of things that make up its teeming, bustling kaleidoscope of a microcosm.

Today I realised just how much of my time in London was spent in trying to fit everything in - friends, laundry, cooking, gym etc etc. The nature of London was such that everything became exhausting - yes, I could pop down to the shops when I needed a pint of milk, as opposed to here, where I have to get in the car and drive, but everything equally took so much longer. I lived in Clapham, and if I wanted to go and see a friend in Fulham, it would often take me the best part of an hour to get there, despite it only being a few miles away. Then I had to consider the last tube home, or trying to find a parking space when I got there, or remembering the lights for my bike if I was cycling. Meanwhile trying to fit everything in meant that I always felt on the back foot - guilty that I hadn't seen a friend with a new baby for weeks, short changed that I hadn't been able to spend long enough at the gym, hassled and stressed that the laundry was never ending and always had to be fitted in between the breakfast toast and trying to leave the house on time for work. As for taking advantage of the culture - forget it. Occasionally I would get to an exhibition - and leave feeling guilty that it was something I didn't do more often, wracked with that emotion rather than the pleasure of simply enjoying what I had seen and learnt.

Here the same daily tasks apply - there is still washing to be done, we still have to be fed. But, in the absence of so many friends, and living in something more akin to a wilderness than a big city, life becomes pared down somewhat - simpler, less stressful. With that comes an opening up of horizons. With fewer demands on my time in the form of having to make money (I am very lucky in that I don't have to have a job out here) and fit in a hectic social life, I am discovering that the world is my oyster with very few boundaries on what I can and cannot do.

Of course there is still a tension - there is so much that I want to do that I feel the familiar guilt creeping up every so often - that I have not spent long enough reading the text for my next writing class, or that I wish I could spend longer writing this blog, for example. But surely that tension is what makes up the joy of life in some capacity? After all, what I was dreading was a surfeit of time - an existence spent solely doing those menial tasks that so quickly become unsatisfying in their very repetitiveness - the laundry, the cooking, and so on. I am one of those people for whom life needs to be full in order to achieve anything - if I have very little to do I end up doing nothing at all, whereas if my day is so jam packed with things that it seems there is not enough time to do anything, I manage to achieve much more, and, arguably, an output of far higher quality. If I did not have a full calendar, for example, I would have nothing to write about in this blog, other than the daily view out of the kitchen window. The joy of moving to somewhere outside of your comfort zone is making something meaningful out of life. I had forgotten what that was like. I was so comfortable in my daily routine of stressfully trying to fit everything in that I had failed to reach out and try the new things - there simply wasn't time.

I'm not sure if I'm making much sense here, but perhaps I can make an analogy through landscape. London is a series of villages. Despite living in one of the greatest cities in the world, its inhabitants tend to stay in their own areas and rarely venture out into new areas of the capital to explore. There's no need, after all - everything is on your doorstep. And so we settle into that comfortably full routine of trying to fit everything in and not stretching our horizons.

America, by contrast - or certainly Kansas, is huge, vast - a wide open expanse of rolling hills (yes, hills, it's not all just prairie). And you have to travel to get to certain things - I drive 40 minutes twice a week to get to Lawrence, where the university is; we drive the same distance the other way to get to Kansas City. You have to do it - there's nothing where we are. And, as you drive through the landscape appreciating just how huge it is, you get a sense of possibility, of the vista opening up. It is intoxicating, this feeling of being able to do anything, be anyone. Having foolishly dreaded being forced out of my comfort zone, I have come to appreciate it enormously. I highly reccommend it.

I've been feeling a little inattentive to my poor blog recently - mainly because I've been so busy in the past few weeks. Far from a life filled with idle contemplation - of the view from the window, the many channels of our new TV or simply the rest of the bed, I have, in fact, become inundated with daily tasks. Since arriving here, I have:

1) Started teaching a class in journalism at Kansas University

2) Started taking two classes myself, in Feminist Political Theory (scary) and Non-Fiction Writing (wonderful)

3) Joined a choir, the Kansas City Chorale

4) Joined a gym and started taking yoga classes

5) Started skiing regularly at Snow Creek, a small and hilarious 'resort' close to here

6) Hosted my first dinner party - and made pastry by hand.

On Wednesday, I start quilting classes.

So, plenty of food for writing - but so little time to write. Terrible excuse. I will do better. I also notice that my critical edge seems to be softening. Perhaps, dare I say it, I am becoming acclimatised to the American way of life? I've noticed it no longer frustrates me so much to drive at the cripplingly slow speed of 35mph, for example. Horrors. I need to discover my inner bitch again, immediately. Perhaps quilting class will help. I'll keep you posted.

I'm beginning to get seriously annoyed about something: specifically the packing of my groceries in the supermarket.
Granted, they do it for you here, which makes a nice change from wrestling with your wallet while trying to squeeze everything in to the least number of bags possible to carry home, all the time conscious of the beady-eyed woman behind you in the queue with the mountain of family pack-sized shopping and three squealing children.
But oh, the waste. Everything is double bagged - but everything, even if it's just the lightest of items. Today I was handed a double-bagged portion of kale. That was it - two bunches of kale in two plastic shopping bags, one inside the other. Another double bag held a single frozen pizza. And so on.
It's symptomatic of the general waste to be found almost everywhere in America - the fuel-guzzling cars that do 12 miles to the gallon, the endless packaging on everything you buy, the enormous plates of food to be found in every restaurant. It is the least 'green' place I have ever lived: you can even still buy tungsten bulbs.
Admittedly the vastness of the U.S makes you feel that perhaps it doesn't matter quite so much, this squandering of natural resources. It's hard to worry about your fuel consumption when the nearest shop is a 15-minute drive away, or bother that you're not painstakingly recycling everything when your garage comes equipped with three huge wheelie bins to bung everything in.
But surely that's why America is such a culprit as a nation, when it comes to making commitments to living a little more lightly on the earth? It's very easy to forget the damage we do, when the world around you seems so vast that you are little more than an insignificant ant crawling around on its surface. I know I leave lights on with more impunity here, turn the heating up higher (it is bloody cold after all) and don't feel the least bit guilty about jumping in the car at every opportunity - there's no public transport so basically no other way of getting around, other than walking, which is impractical on such a large scale, or cycling, which again, would take an age. But I do demand fewer bags in the supermarket - that, I will take a stand on.

This morning, I went to a gym class. "Morning stretch and tone", the blurb promised. It started at 7.30. Envisaging a group of dynamic, thrusting young things eager to get their daily exercise in before starting work, I hauled myself out of bed.

Oh what a shock I had. Instead of a group of twenty and thirtysomethings, I encountered a motley crew of what can only be described as Silver Surfers. Had I inadvertently missed something? Apparently not. The work people go to work earlier - 7.30 is far too late for them.

So I was left to the ministrations of Tina, the instructor. Again, something of a disappointment. Not a stretchy, life, inspirational being in figure-hugging lycra, but a middle aged woman with one of the largest arses this side of the Missouri. Into the CD player went one of the least energising CDs I have ever had the misfortune to listen to and off we went - on the dullest routine known to man. Excuse the superlatives but it really was that bad. Clearly if I want a pumping gym class, I'm going to have to get up an hour earlier.

Last night, our doorbell rang. I was sitting at my desk and couldn't see who was there. My first thought was 'Jehovah's Witnesses'. But no, this is America. It was our next door neighbours, come to say 'Howdy' and bring us a plate of home-baked goodies (disgusting, utterly sugar laden, but strangely addictive).
"Are you Australian?" they politely enquired. Clearly, in this part of the U.S., anyone else who speaks English must be antipodean. They were anxious to assure us of their neighbourly support in any matter. They have tools, they have cats, they have maps and local knowledge. Maybe next time I won't be so reluctant to answer the doorbell when I don't know who's there. Oh boy, I really am a long way from London.

Positive thinking: good or bad?

A very interesting article in a recent edition of The Times here. Barbara Ehrenreich is an American who has just brought out a new book on what she terms the 'cult' of positive thinking. Diagnosed with cancer, Ehrenreich was bombarded with messages of 'positivity', urging her to envisage herself not as a victim but as a survivor, which sparked off a train of events that let to her writing the book - something of a counterbalance to say the least.
Have I encountered a cult of positive thinking since arriving here? Possibly not to its fullest effect yet. But the theory makes sense - it ties in with the get ahead, do it yourself mentality that seems to be the prevailing mood of most Americans. The Major has been prescribed a book to read, called American Ways. In it, the author discusses this attitude held by many Americans, that our destiny is entirely in our hands, and nothing to do with economic or sociological situations or backgrounds. A good way to live? Yes, to some extent - but it can go too far. Yesterday the Major took a tour around Kansas City with a group of colleagues. They were shown by their guide an area which had been at the bottom of the food chain, economy wise - until local authorities decided to raze it to the ground and build a brand spanking new shopping centre on the site. Their tour guide apparently then started something of a diatribe against poor blacks in America: that they have no-one to blame but themselves, that they are lazy, wanting to rely on a welfare state that doesn't exist.
Sure, people should take responsbility for themselves. But the fact remains that some people are born with more disadvantages than others: whether it's because their parents are poor, they live in a socially deprived area, or one where the local schools aren't so good. As Ehrenreich is quoted as saying in the article, when discussing an Oprah Winfrey show: "she [Oprah] made some comment on the show about how it was all just a matter of attitude whether you get ahead in life and I just said, ‘No! I think that’s victim-blaming’.”
"Isn’t Winfrey, the prototype self-made woman, entitled to hold such an attitude?," the article asks. “I think it’s the most wonderfully selfflattering thing to believe, if you are rich and famous and successful, that ‘I did it. I did it all by myself, through my own essence.’" replies Ehrenreich. "I can imagine it would be a good thing to feel. We don’t as Americans tend to acknowledge interdependency. The debt you owe your parents, free public education and so on. It’s all ‘me’.”

Possibly all a bit full-on for a Thursday afternoon. But having just started teaching an undergarduate class in journalism at the University of Kansas, it will be interesting to see to what extent my students feel that their destiny is in their hands, and how much of it they owe to others around them. Once more, I'll keep you posted.

Today I really felt as if I was in a foreign country. And it all came about because of a trip to the post office.
Granted, visiting the post office in England can feel a bit foreign at times. Fine if you're going to buy brown paper, or string, or any of the myriad of small but useful things they sell. A nightmare if you're trying to work out whether to send your parcel special delivery, registered post, next day express - ad infinitum.
And so it is here. I had a number of things I wanted to do, from posting some thank you letters to sending documentation informing the Inland Revenue I had moved abroad. I dithered for ages by the rack containing different sized envelopes, typed with different things. The handy chart on the wall was no help at all - it might as well have been written in Icelandic.
"Excuse me, but could you tell me which of these envelopes is cheaper to send?"
The man looked at me as if I was a freak. "There's no difference at all," he said, before hurrying away from this mad Englishwoman who clearly couldn't even read.
Finally, I managed to select the right envelope. Then there were forms to fill in, my name to write over and over again and finally, money to pay - lots of it. Counting out the quarters and dimes, squinting at the writing on the coins, I couldn't have felt more foreign if I'd tried. Truly, I am in a different place.