CHAPTER TWO
CAST OUT OF NATURE


After my heroic first day, I believe life settled down but I have no way of knowing for sure, as my family history has pretty well disappeared. My parents both passed away some twenty years ago and Liesbet, who was five years older than me and who remembered more of our youth, died of a brain tumor more than two years ago. I do know that when I was about two, we had to flee Borneo. At that time, Kelantan or the bottom Dutch part of Borneo became part of Indonesia and the liberation troops came through firing guns. As they marched past, my parents made us lie on the floor with all the furniture and mattresses surrounding us, before taking the first boat out and landing in Malaysia. Malaysia was ruled by the British and for the colonists, life was comfortable. We had a nice house with four servants, and the swimming club was five minutes down the road. Our mother would take us to the pool every afternoon, where we could play with our friends, staying cool in the water, while the ladies could sit and chatter or play Mahjong. Actually, my mother got bored with this frivolous life style and, as she was a trained kindergarten teacher, she started her own school. Young children loved her and she had no problem handling twenty-five children with the help of the maid. For me, it was not always so great. I did not appreciate sharing my mother with so many children. One day I got so upset that I threw a temper tantrum and my mother called the maid over and told her to take me to my bedroom until I behaved myself. This was a horrible experience for me and I still remember the feeling of not being wanted and being banished for saying what I needed. I know that my mother had a job to do, but she could have handled it differently. I wished she had held me and let me know that I was the most important person in her life at that moment. That little episode certainly reinforced my feelings of not being able to trust the world and that it was best not to show my feelings. On the whole, though, I know I had a very loving home life.
Part of the tropical lifestyle was traveling back to the home country. Every three years, we would get a six-month paid vacation. As commercial air travel did not yet exist, we would take a three-week cruise from Singapore past India up through the Suez Canal and on to England via the Mediterranean Sea. This was a wonderful exciting trip, and then we would rent a cottage in Holland, and use it as a base, to travel around Europe and visit family. On one of these trips, when I was seven, my parents had to decide what boarding school my older brother and sister should attend. In British colonial days, it was the custom to send children to boarding school when they turned nine in order to get a proper education and be indoctrinated into the system. They chose Michael Hall School, about thirty miles south of London. This was a co-ed boarding school based on Rudolf Steiner’s Waldorf Education and would allow the three of us to be at the same school. At the end of the vacation, my siblings had to start school so my mother and I stayed on in England for an extra six months. I was allowed to join Class One where I made many friends and loved my teacher. It was a wrench for me to go back to Malaysia and go into the local army school. I still remember the day I decided that I had had enough. I was a very dreamy boy and had no idea what the teacher was talking about, which didn’t bother me. Anyway, he called me up to the front of the class and realized I was eating candy, which I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed. He promptly made me spit it out in front of everyone and stand in the corner. When I got home that day, I informed my parents that I wasn’t going back and that I wanted to go to school in England. I made such a fuss each day that they finally relented and put me on a flight to England with some friends. I arrived back at boarding school at Easter time at the grand age of seven but was lucky in that the three of us were all in the same hostel with about twenty other children. Liesbet would come and read me a story before bed every night and tuck me in. I loved school and still have some of the letters that my teacher sent to my parents. This one was written just after my return.
Dear Mrs. Moora,
Walter seemed to settle in at once and seems very happy except that he thinks he is too clever for Class One and tells everyone so. I don’t quite know why he thinks this except he writes easily and well. However he works hard in spite of this and enjoys the lessons. He is a strong character and good boy, who will lead the other children in the right way. I can imagine how you must miss the children, I think it was very brave of you to let Wally come, but I am sure he will be much better off away from that school.
With best wishes,
Joyce Russell.
Another letter that was part of my first class report went as follows. “Wally works well on the whole, though he is fond of play time too. He doesn’t say that he is too clever for the class anymore, as he realizes now that some of the others know more than he does. He is just about right for his age as he knows the letters and will be ready to start reading next term. His writing is very good and his number work about average. His chief friend is David Newbatt as they are together in the hostel and both are choleric and can stand up to each other. They are very good for each other. Wally is friends with all the children, he has been asked out many times. He is so good-natured and such fun that they all love him. Yours sincerely, Joyce Russell.
I have very fond memories of that time but I always felt a little different, as I had a stranger’s accent wherever I went. Even after living in the States for more than thirty years, people still ask me where I come from. With her three children in England, my mother was torn between being with her husband in Malaysia and with us, so when I was nine we all moved to New Zealand so that we could be together as a family. Our first house was in the country, surrounded by fields and bush. As children, we were able to roam the countryside and explore nature. I remember one afternoon in particular, as I was passing through a patch of bush, that somehow the birds sounded different. New Zealand is famous for its many native birds, that are well known for their beautiful song and I had always felt at one with them. But now the birds felt outside of me, as if I wasn’t part of nature anymore. I was a spectator and felt horrible. It was a fleeting moment but I have always remembered having this experience of being cast out of paradise. I have spent much of my life trying to regain oneness with nature and the spiritual world.