First Brushstrokes, First Words
Collage of Life, 2003
The Blog…the beginning
As an expat, I learned to live with goodbyes—the kind that came with each move, each departure. At first, it was family and friends I left behind in my home country. But over time, it became children, friends, and the places I grew to love abroad. With each country, another child stayed behind to attend university— each farewell adding a new weight to the journey.
In 2003, I was living in Sydney, Australia, missing New England more than I expected. I longed for the familiar light, the rhythm of the seasons, the poetry of place that had always spoken to me.
A wise friend and artist once told me, “Paint the feeling.” I had never picked up a brush before, but something in me knew—if I could give shape to the swirl of emotions, if I could place them on a canvas—I might begin to feel more at home in my life abroad.
Finding an art studio and a teacher willing to guide a beginner wasn’t easy. But I did it. And with each brushstroke, I began to uncover something new—about myself, about belonging, about what it meant to carry home with me.
The painting became a collage of memory and longing, a quiet bridge between past and present. I turned to the poets who had always grounded me—Longfellow, Frost, Dickinson. Their words found their way into the piece:
“A boy’s will is the wind’s will” from Longfellow’s My Lost Youth became
“A woman’s will is the wind’s will” for me.“Return the traveler to the shore.”
“Often, I think of the beautiful town that is seated by the sea...”
“I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”
A quietness distilled.
Shape the thoughts that stir within.
When the painting was finished, I called it Collage of Life, hung it on a wall, and felt the threads of homesickness begin to release.
A few years later, we moved from Sydney to Auckland, New Zealand. The painting came with me and found its place on another wall. But leaving Sydney was especially hard. Our oldest son stayed behind to attend boarding school, and my closest friend was still there—two goodbyes that weighed heavily on my heart.
In Auckland, the ache of starting over returned. It was familiar by then, but no less tender. I missed the rhythms we had built, and the version of home I had just begun to trust. But I threw myself into volunteering and quickly settled into a new rhythm, learning just how powerful community can be—no matter where you live in the world.
In 2009, we moved again—this time to a small village outside of London. Leaving never got easier. Friendships always felt like they were on the wings of a plane, waiting to take off or just landing. Painting wasn’t going to solve this one.
So I turned to writing. Quietly, I began a blog and named it Collage of Life. It felt like the right place to land—a way to keep track of what I was feeling, a space to hold the unfolding story of our expat life. That journey eventually took us to life in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and then on to Hong Kong.
In 2012, shortly after arriving in Vietnam, we bought a farmhouse—Tahilla Farm—in New Hampshire. I had visited it during trips home and held it close as a dream for the future. When I returned to the States and stepped into retirement in 2018—and my husband, Mr. H, followed a year later— it finally became home for good.
This blog post was first written in 2009. Today, in 2025, I picked up the pen again—to add a final note to Collage of Life, the way a painter might return to a canvas after time has passed. A quiet gesture of closure. And with it, a beginning, too.
I never painted again, but I found other mediums—writing, photography, and eventually the creation of Tahilla Gatherings—each one a way to remember those first brushstrokes. That early painting taught me how to express the inexpressible, to shape the thoughts that stirred within.
From Australia to New Zealand, to England, Vietnam, and Hong Kong—Collage of Life was the thread that carried me through. In 2012, it brought me to Tahilla Farm. And in 2018, I stepped fully into the life I had been writing toward.
Now, I write simply as myself—Jeanne Henriques—gathering the past, reflecting on the present, and imagining what will be.
