Category Archives: thoughts

Thoughts: I am my Father’s Daughter

A beholder of a US passport and an American accent it was not easily understood by some why I would seek ‘home’ in a a seemingly far off land. I had been called selfish for for wanting to move my family across the ocean when jobs, schools, and homes could be found closer to my husband’s family. Without jobs or a place to live my husband and I took the leap across the pond. It can be quite scary and we managed it through support of many kinds, the biggest coming from the big man upstairs. I also find comfort in knowing that my father, though no longer with us since 2008, was keeping us safe. He is the one reason after all that I would need to move back home to Europe.

My father left home to join the USAF Academy at the age of seventeen and served 30+ years as an US Air Force officer and a veteran of the Gulf War in the ’90s. He did six tours in Europe: three in England, two in Italy, and one in Germany. That is roughly seventeen years living abroad and he got to see much more of the world through his work and free travel. They say a girl’s father is one of the most influential people in her life, and this is the man who shaped my life, my worldview and my love for travel. I am my father’s daughter. Returning home to Europe and living in England has been bittersweet at times. Let me clarify that statement. It has been completely sweet like Cadbury’s milk chocolate, life itself will always have challenges and stress points. The bitter part has been that my father is now no longer here to experience this part of my life with us and his grandsons.

It has been four years and half years since he was taken from this life, and that loss is still felt. When the photographs below were taken at his funeral at the USAF Academy I was crying daily. I may not cry daily today but I find little things will trigger tears over my father not being here. I was looking at photographs from a friend’s trip to Austria and Switzerland, places from which I have fond memories with my dad. In one sentence I went from the excitement of hoping to go there on our next trip, to sadness that my dad could not meet us there. I will forever have him in my heart and every trip I take will be that more meaningful for it. I just wish I could do more for my dad’s presence in my sons’ lives. So I do the best I can here in England. I have photographs of him up, trinkets from his life and we share stories about him. Some of my favourite stories are the ones my husband shares about my dad. They only knew each other for a few years through trips and rare holidays, but he became the son my dad never had. They would talk on the phone longer than my conversations with my dad. I admit I became envious of their relationship but in retrospect I am so glad that they were able to get close. I would not have wanted it any other way. To know my dad and my mum love and appreciate my husband for who he is means so much to me.

I do not have a whole lot of photographs with my dad and the last ones taken at his funeral. We had a lot of friends of my dad write, call, and visit at his memorial in Tucson, Arizona. But at his funeral we had long time friends from my dad’s time with the military in England. It meant so much to have them there for my dad and for us. Though we were all hurting inside over the sudden loss, it is nice to see the smiles in the photos because my dad was always smiling. He could find the best in everything. He could make friends with people from all backgrounds. It is that part of him I hope I can channel into my sons to carry on the ‘Nystrom’ way of life. The life of accepting others, the life of loving to travel, and to live every moment to its fullest.

Live Aloha.

Remember Charles.

** For more information on photographic services contact bonnie[at]bonnie-rose[dot]co[uk]

Weekend Letter: ‘Never Want to Leave’

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‘I Know I say this every time we go out (on a country walk). But I never want to leave.” – Ryan, my husband

My letter for this weekend is getting out much later than I would have liked,

but we were out most of the afternoon.

If you read my blog you will know that my family loves

to go on country walks in our home of Bath, England.

Today was supposed to be a short walk followed by a play at the park.

However yesterday we got poured on

and it made trekking through the mud today hard to resist.

With hunter wellies on and coats for the chilly air,

my family of four enjoyed being outside and getting a little dirty.

The quote above was spoken by my husband to me while we started our journey.

I love seeing him so happy.

I cannot remember him every being this in love with a place before.

When you ask your love to move out of country for you,

you just cross your fingers and hope it is going to work.

Even though the two of us will have been in country two years this coming May

we find ourselves in a continual honeymoon state.

Maybe this is what happiness and contentment feels like

when you are not having to move every couple of years.

I like learning new things about life like that.

Like how my husband now has a new fondness for crossword puzzles.

How working in England has trained him to spell things the ‘English’ way.

For example adding that extra ‘u’ or using an ‘s’ instead of a ‘z’.

My boys are assimilating too.

I have to admit its hard to get cross at your son at dinner

when instead of stating ‘i hate ______’

he says politely ‘I am not keen of ______’

To which I will return with,

‘Thats nice, but finish your food.’

It has been a lovely weekend with my family and I look forward

to all the weekends to follow.

From my family to yours,

have a great Sunday!

Perspective of Moving for a Spouse

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Can it really be March so soon? The year seems to be moving on so quickly and everyone I know along with it. My husband has been in his new job since the beginning of the year. Our boys have both been in their new schools for the last fortnight (see translation: two weeks). My social newsfeed is filled with the busy lives and on goings of friends and acquaintances across the globe.

Our life in Bath is already proving to be my most favourite so far of our time abroad. It helps that for the first time my husband and I do not live in a tiny flat. It is our first time with a place that beholds a staircase and a garden in the back for where the boys can play. I really enjoy my morning tea after the boys have left for school. I look out our bay window at the view of a english quilted countryside dotted with sheep. It is the equivalent to living in Hawaii and anticipating the next beach day. With cuppa in hand I look forward to our next country walk and the hopes of sun.

This weekend however our walk was postponed due to the sickness of one of my sons. On top of that I have been spending quite a bit of time in the house. Sprinkle in a bit of unfruitful job searching and its been a combination for a bit of cabin fever. Not a great place to be when you have a lot of time to think.

I have been thinking a lot recently about having to start my life over and over again. It is easy to compare your life or circumstances to others, though not something we should ever do. I have been guilty of this and its made me feel sorry for myself and feel like I have failed. I started looking for motivation and was coming up empty handed. Point in case my initial self portrat though fueled by ideas came and went with no results to which I was happy.

I found a quote this weekend which helped to turn things around. “It’s better to start over than to give up entirely.” So I started my self portrait over. I put aside my great out of the box ideas and went for a more organic approach: emotion and feeling. As I was in post processing it occurred to me that this quote did more than get me out of a minor funk.

As a military brat, as a US Air Force wife, and now as an Expat’s wife my life is constantly stopping and starting again. We did move to Europe for me initially but we are still moving to places based on my husband’s career. Which I love because he is doing something he loves and that makes me happy. Yet here I am starting over again and to be honest the period of transition can be a lonely place.

Finding a new job in a new country can be challenging. Different qualifications and job histories can be needed in one place compared to another. For example my cosmetology license in the USA that qualifies me to be a hairstylist, make up artist, and esthetician differs from a hairstylist or beauty therapist qualification in the UK. All the photography jobs I have found thus far require a degree, and not solely based on my body of work in portfolio, published work, and experience from Hawaii.

A transition is just that, a period between on time and another. A challenge to get through. If I have to start over a million times over, it is better to get up and try again than to give it all up. I admit my failure to be self doubt and those feelings of being inadequate, insecure and overwhelmed in the mist of my CV, cover letters, and job applications.

I am going to keep going and look positive as I continue my life in a new place. Its one day at a time and one goal to the next.

In the words of a little blue fish ‘Just keep swimming.’

QUESTION: What do you find most challenging about starting over? Or what keeps you going when you are working towards a new goal?

I Found my Smile

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One reason I blog is because I love to write and share photographs. When we moved back to England I wrote a piece entitled ‘I found my Smile’ and shared it with my friends on a facebook note. It was written during a big turning point for me as this nomadic free spirit. As a Third Culture Kid (TCK) I have no real home to go back to and I always wondered what direction life would have me go. I really wanted to share this letter with you all.

“The last fourteen weeks have flown by and I have yet to cease photographing every second of my return back to England. So much so, that between my iPhone captures and my DSLR photographs, I have filled up almost all my available space on my latest external hard drive. From capturing daily memories to photographing the beautiful aspects of my European surroundings, there always seem to be something catching my eye. My taste buds have also been continually won over by a variety of Cadbury chocolates, copious amounts of tea, and delicious meals my husband has prepared with all English ingredients. The most meaningful of these are the ones that I have grown up with as my personal ‘soul foods’. I have long been teased by Americans for my extreme fondness of Beans on Toast, and now I can not only order it at almost any food establishment, but it is also common to find jacket potato with beans & cheese on the menu, which is another of my favourites. These once believed ‘bonnie-isms’, have been clarified in my mind recently that I claim more to being English, than just holding my UK Passport. Of course I am not saying liking a certain type of food is sole reason to claim a nationality. Being a Third Culture Kid, I can compare it to waking up from a coma and suffering amnesia. It is the little things like tastes, sounds and smells that instantly take me back ‘home’ and for a mobile girl with no home per-se, that means the world in my eyes. Finding happiness and a sense of peace, has cemented itself as an important milestone in my life. It has been a decade since I moved from my ‘homes’ in Europe to the USA, and I have had my share of loss, persecution and trials specifically in the last three years of that time. I have also experienced growth and knowledge through the hard times, forever changing myself into whom I am today. Through the thick of it I cried out in anguish to God, but now I can now look back and see the work that has been done on me. The devastating loss of my dad, the loss of my marriage at one point, and the loss of friends when I needed them most is an accumulative total of pain I would not ask to be put on anyone else. I have learned to rely on myself and that being on your own will not kill you, but make you stronger. Looking back in retrospective on my life, I can honestly say I know who I am and everything that is my world today, holds so much value against any stressors that may come my way now.

Since the day I moved away from Europe in 2000, I knew I would return back ‘home’. Any friend I have made in the USA in the last decade has known that has been my goal. I have not faltered with that dream. But along the way from acquaintances, friends, family, and even now to people I have just met here in England, I have been asked why I would want to move away from the USA. I hold US citizenship, I have an american accent, and I was born to two Americans. Although they grew up in the USA, I grew up moving across military bases in Europe until I was about seventeen years old. I personally feel I have never been able to assimilate into American life, with other Americans, in the USA (despite the numerous places I have lived over there) and from my study of Third Culture Kids as Adults, I understand that it is perfectly normal for that to be the truth of the matter. But in the last decade I have been forced into this Mold ‘ala Americana’ by my peers, my teachers, my bosses, my mother, and my husband’s family. Yet all I have wanted is to be accepted for being different, having a multifaceted life of culture as my nationality, and for being a girl who just loves to live and experience all life has to offer. Every therapist or psychologist that I have met with has met my goal to move back to Europe with a rigid opinion that doing so would be a bad life choice on my part. To this day I still do not know how to relate to people who are not personally a TCK, despite their professional qualifications, that I’m not moving to Europe to relive the past in a unhealthy mindset. I have moved back to Europe because of growing up there in my developmental years, I have formed a sense of nationality and home to that area, and it holds something for me that America could never offer. It is like the analogy I have heard of where you live in a blue society and everyone is trying to force you to dress in blue, but you come from a yellow society where as much as you could acclimate into that world you were not fully accepted as yellow. So you step out, standing out in green because that is who you truly and are most happiest. For me, I am a mixture of more than just two cultures, countries, or continents. I am a Third Culture Kid and I have always been proud of who I am, even if I am continually misunderstood. Which is why this move has been so important to me. The one question, spoken by many, looming over my head, “What if you move back, and find that you are not happy?” It is a pretty big ‘What if’ and especially given the big process of moving my family to another country. There was a slight fear, that what everyone felt would happen, would be true. Because then I would truly not have anywhere in the world I could ‘move home to’ and feel at peace. With such a long wait to return to Europe, with leaving so much pain behind me and mixed in with everyone’s opinions about moving, I embraced life by the hands and took the leap.

Still I may be in the honeymoon stage of living here, but theres an undeniable fact that resurfaces daily. Despite any stresses that have come along the way with uprooting to another country, I have indeed found my smile. For the first time in my life, I am not waiting to move somewhere else or wanting to be somewhere else. It feels like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. Its not even a specific of wanting to be in Brighton, England, but just being back home in Europe that means everything to me. It has been eighteen years since I was in England before, and I am enjoying every aspect of it. Its familiar and comforting, but new in its own right. I love my days off because I can enjoy all England has to offer with my family, who have not lived in Europe before. I enjoy going to work because everyone I work with is a pleasure to be around. I love my coworkers and I love my clients, it feels so rewarding. I’m not going to make this a blog about ‘American girl drama’, but from the social interactions I’ve experienced in the US compared to England there is is a huge difference with how people relate, respond, and problem solve with each other here than what I’ve experienced before in the USA. It just drives home to me that this is where I am supposed to be, because I finally do not feel like I’m not having to force myself into a cultural way of acting or acceptance that is foreign to my upbringing in a multicultural and mobile world. It has been a huge moment of clarity for me, for witnessing the way I react to negativeness that may come my way. In just the last three months I have heard negative things said about me through other people, I have had people say toxic things to me directly, and I have witnessed things that are simply stated not very compassionate. Yet the overwhelming state of peace and an almost zen like attitude that has befallen on me since being here has made resilient and accept that toxicity will always be present, but I am in control of how I react to it. I am so happy to be here, so happy to be having my family here to experience a life I have wanted so much to live that it simply does not matter. I am stronger than I have ever given myself credit for and I can be indifferent..but I don’t have to be angry. That is how finding my smile has changed my life. If my life of growing up in lands far, far away is the beginning of my fairytale, this return to Europe is certainly not the end to my story.”

Written by Bonnie Rose August, 2011

A year and a half later I look over that letter and at the girl who felt and wrote those words. What I really take away is how important it is to be yourself and to find the happiness in life. I mentioned in the letter that I was experiencing the ‘honeymoon’ stage and to be fair I feel like I am still experiencing it. Granted I did move to a different city in England this past December However the finer points of noticing the little things, finding happiness in the simple things, and sharing each cherished memory with your loved ones are key. Who says you cannot live live with a ‘honeymoon’ outlook. Life is so short and I hope you all find the love and happiness you each deserve.

I would like to thank the close few whom have been there for me especially in the last several years. You know who you are, and I am who I am today because of your kindness, acceptance, forgiveness, and love.

Five for Friday

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Dress: Primark; Belt: Bebe; Jacket: Kohls; Necklace: vintage consignment

1. I love being a mum in England. All the little things about my English childhood are becoming the memories that my boys will remember about their own. Ronan’s first two years of school in England were the same years I spent in primary school in Norfolk. I love sending them to school looking sharp in their school uniforms. They will learn to spell words they way I do like ‘colour’ and ‘flavour’. Instead of knowing the names of states, they will know the countries and capitals in Europe and to which ones they have traveled. They will continue to learn more about the history of the royal monarchy. Then of course the memories like the country walks, just like my dad used to do with me. The english birthday parties, the royal jubilees, and bonfire nights. Accents. I had an english accent twice, and one day they will too.

2. If my husband had to go away on a business trip, we would starve. Okay that is not necessarily true. I do know how to cook. Italian is my go to theme. Of course picking up a pizza does not constitute real Italian food unless it involves a short stop over in Napoli. However my husband does cook and I love to tell him how much I love his food. I can look into our european fridge and exclaim ‘We have nothing to eat’. While Ryan can look into our european fridge, whip something together, and it tastes amazing. From being a boy who ate canned vegetables to becoming an Expat man that cooks with a vast variety of organic vegetables he is like an artist. I may be biased. Lets be frank, I’m married to him and still get butterflies when he looks at me. There are many ways to my heart, and his cooking is one of them.

3. With as many times as I have had to say ‘goodbye’ I have a hard time parting with items in my wardrobe. I have at least five things in there that I owned back in high school (I graduated 2001) and still have quite a bit of my clothes from living in Hawaii. (because you know those tank tops are going to come in handy in the rainy cold english weather) Over the years I have gone through my wardrobe and gotten rid of things. Although I hold true to the fact that clothes must get together and multiply behind those closed doors. Then of course I have my (mostly black) clothes for working in the salon that have a little hair dye here or a bleach stain there. Clothes that would be okay to keep for work, but I could probably get rid of them just as easily. To be fair as hard as I am about my clothes I am sure I do not have half the clothes many fashionistas have in theirs. I would like to streamline my wardrobe to to only my favourites that I wear the most often. Must add that to my 2013 ‘To Do’ list.

4. I have started watching a new television programme with my husband called The Americans with Keri Russell, Mathews Rhys, and Noah Emmerich. The show centers on Russian sleeper spies operating in the USA in the 1980s. I got hooked after the pilot. I am hoping it does well and continues to progress as it has started. I get nervous starting new shows in case they get cancelled. Let me not forget Ringer with Sarah Michelle Gellar and Ioan Gruffudd or Pan Am with Christina Ricci. Has anyone started watching this show?

5. I am sure much like blogging, there are things we do out of passion that suffer the ‘highs and lows’ through out life. Photography I love. I was doing so many shoots in Hawaii and so much so that when we got to Arizona I was still editing work from over there. Then came a few more moves and fast forward to just having moved to Bath, England. Back at starting my business again. I would not do photography as a job if I did not love it. So I pick up hobbies to keep the inspiration and motivation going. Tomorrow will be my first self portrait for 2013. I had such a great time with this in 2012, and I hope you find it fun too. Anyone who wants to participate in Self Portrait Saturdays can and let me know so I can follow your work too.