In Poem

I am surrounded, drowning in, being buffeted by poetry.  I feel it coursing through my insides, too impishly quick to yet parse together.  Maybe it’s the solitude, having no recent conversation apart from some awkwardly sweet banter with my singular roommate, a doe-eyed German who bemoans the cold but refuses the extra blanket proffered as we huddle before the fireplace, the only source of heat desperately needed to circulate our blood before we beat a hasty retreat to our respective beds, 4 duvets deep, and almost warm enough.  I don’t know how to give words to songs unsung, to dreams tucked deep.  Maybe it’s best I get out of their way, these words that suffer and dare to give speech to unspeakable.  I have a feeling they’ll come in their own precocious time, whether or not I’m here to catch them. 

There’s something intangible here, something holy.  A holiest of spirits carving me with exquisite delicacy as I lose myself here in this God-soaked wilderness.  I am falling, head over heels, into the mystery of sun-drenched secrets whispered on the wind, into ancient truths huskily echoed among the restless mountains.  Mysteries that heave and bulge against the confines of overflowing souvenir shops and land carved into pasture.  Mysteries that seep through packs of tourists like me barreling arrogantly through this island, naively believing we'll understand this land of the long white cloud, this Aotearoa, from the end of a bungee cord.  We the progeny of so many well-intentioned generations who believed we could own land, we could tame and cultivate this good earth into something more than what it is, something better than what it’s always been.  I feel the mountains groan and sigh, the rivers moan and weep.  But still and all, here I stand.

Sometimes I wonder who among us remembers, if any of us pay proper homage to the Holy that surrounds us, the Holy that is in us.  A divinity with which we’ve been entrusted, despite our failings.  We’re deceived by our fleshiness into forgetting our Holy, the breath that breathes us, our diaphanous insides.  But I remember now.  She’s all around, this Holy.  And as she continues to sculpt her shorelines and my laugh lines, to compose her treetop symphonies and deep sea sonnets, I realize: I'm not simply surrounded by poetry.  I am the poem.

Through The Wild, Wild West

Kate from Kansas, or RMB as I fondly call her, are on the move.  After disentangling ourselves from our coziest of nooks, we began the long haul down the coast.  Driving here in New Zealand is an art, for many reasons.  Apart from adjusting to left-sided driving, you are simply surrounded by magnificent distraction.  You don’t know until you come around the bend whether you’ll be astounded by snow-capped mountains, ducking beneath one of hundreds of waterfalls flowing above your head, or gaping open-mouthed at the surf rushing up from Antarctica to beat mercilessly onto the surface of the road on which you’re driving.  And that’s saying nothing of the endless hairpin turns, of careening around cliff after cliff, trying to dodge the gravel shooting like bullets from beneath the tires of the trucks skidding past, heavily laden as they are with freshly cut timber.  So you pull over.  Again and again, you skid to a halt and bust out your camera, saying to one another, “Can you even believe this?!”  Eventually you hop back into your sturdy little rental, only to do the same so many times over that your 6 hour drive imperceptibly becomes 10, and you arrive at your destination bleary eyed, but oh so happy to be here, to be taking up space on this island of imaginings. 

I know it’s winter, off-season for all but the ski bunnies living it up on the slopes of Queenstown.  But I’m glad to be here now, glad for the quiet, and space, and peace.  The early sunsets and late sunrises lend themselves to shortened days, but for me, right now, it’s a balm of gently forced rest after this year on the move.  Pop always told me that the best medicine is fresh air and sunshine, fresh water and exercise.  This place is the quintessential dose of all those things, and I need to remember when I go home, I can’t be long without them.  For my own sake, or those who have to be around me.  Yikes.

Kate and I continue to take full advantage of this perfect Kiwi medicine, hiking primordial glaciers, bounding across suspension bridges hanging precariously over swollen rivers, going on (failed) evening hikes in search of glowworms.  We dive headlong into the freezing deep night from our barely-heated room to ogle the glittering sky, the beginning of all things here at the end of the world.  Together we’ve become most dedicated investigators of the melty goodness and variety of Cadbury chocolate bars, and tasted just why Manuka honey is so dang expensive and so dang worth it.  Our days are full of shared hopes and fears, of giggles and peanut butter and jelly; Americana, we are.

Tomorrow we’ll part ways, Kate heading north to sort out the next steps of her new island life while I head to a teeny tiny, out-of-the-way-at-the-end-of-the-island town, on my ever loving quest to taste the world’s best oysters.  I’ll be sad to say goodbye to her, but not too much, because I’m confident that ours is a lifer of a friendship: whatcha think girlie, reunion 2017… British Columbia??

With A Winner

I think a part of me judged her before I consciously realized it.  Rocky Mountain Barbie, casually beautiful without even trying.  Thankfully though, I forgot my insecurity about five seconds later: we got on famously.  She’s tender and brave, and loves tramping around the outdoors as much as I do.  Our shared humor is the perfect synergy of 70% nerd, 20% dumbdumb, 5% dirtbag, and 5% snort.  I get the distinct impression our fellow hostel-mates secretly think we’re assholes, but that’s okay: we think we are hilarious.  Together we decided to stick, as much to our mutual delight as to the chagrin of those we’d encounter along the way.  Poor guys.

We were off to a brilliant start, hiking a bit of the Queen Charlotte Track off the northern coast of this southern island, a trek without achilles-snapping tendencies, thankfully.  As if our water taxi ride through Marlborough Sound could be any more stunning, we were given a performance by a pod of Hector’s dolphins, shy little guys, but oh so graceful.  I really believe interacting with animals is the most holy reminder of all that's good in the world.  Whether squishy or fluffy, sea creatures or land, they are to me, hope personified.   

Marlborough Sound

We slowly made our way northward, on a mission to hit Abel Tasman National Park before beginning to inch our way southward along the west coast.  Unbeknownst to us, the weather would soon turn, compelling us to curl up under thick blankets in front of the fireplace for the duration of the weekend, watching rainbows flicker in and out over the barren kiwi orchard adjacent to our hostel.  Before that though, we’d kayak the park, visiting colonies of male petrels looking for a mate, and islands of baby seals whining for their mamas to return with dinner.  It was as splendid a day as I’ve had, all the more so because I didn’t barf, which is kind of my thing when bobbing along on the ocean.  Bonus. 

Our departure from this park that is a national treasure was as difficult as emerging from under our cozy nest of comforters to head out into the frosty early morning dark.  But emerge we did, in effort to maximize the dawning light of a new winter day to begin our long drive down the wild western coast.  Watch out New Zealand, we Katies are coming for you!!

For a Year

Today is a year.  More than a year since my kick-ass goodbye party in Chicago, more than a year since I left my job and my friends.  A year since Mom and Kimmy drove me to the airport, talking me up, and talking about people they knew.  A year since I sat in the Philadelphia airport, waiting to fly one-way to Ireland, wearing Elise’s most beloved Cub’s t-shirt and the hiking pants I’m wearing right now.  A year since I met sweet little Josie and her equally sweet, if not more grouchy son, who drove me all the way to Galway.  I remember walking the wild western coast of Ireland, in a haze of sea foam and jet lag, wondering what the year would bring, who I’d meet, who I’d be.  The big picture of those wonderings, in hindsight, is too much for me, impossible to reflect on in their entirety.  But I can think about and acknowledge the little bits.  Because what has this year been, has any year been, but lots of little bits linked together like the finest of golden chains, worn thin by the salt of our tears?

How am I different, who am I now?  If anything, I’m much the same, if a little more… myself.  Both a little more open, and a little more skittish.  I’m more enamored with the world and her crazy people, as equally galvanized by love as I am fractured by hate.  I’m a little more inked and a little more brave.  A little more sun-kissed, a little more sun-damaged.  Sometimes I think I’m a little more tolerant, other times I’m concerned I’ve become decidedly less patient with nonsense, cultural or otherwise.  I’m more expectant and anticipatory, excitedly bracing for what’s to come.  I’m a little more idealistic and a little more realistic.  I feel a little more peaceful being single and childless in a world that stigmatizes women like me, even if on some days, I’m also a little more sad about it.  I’m a little smarter, and a little less sure of things.  Of anything.  A little drier of booze, but more saturated of coffee.  I’m more independent, and more in need of my people: there’s nothing like being solo for a year to teach you the value of relationships.  

This world is a big place, and we get to be here.  I get to be here.  This is no little bit.  I'm grateful.  So radically, terrifically, from-the-trampoline-into-the-ballpit grateful.  Let's see what's next.

To Middle Earth

It took me a minute to realize what I was feeling.  A kind of rejoicing, that a place such as this can exist.  Where the people are the friendliest, the air is pristine, and the land is raw.  The sea is a million shades of green at any given moment, jade and turquoise, pistachio and lime.  Crystalline and clear, it's home to more whales, dolphins, and penguins than anyplace, anywhere.  Commanding, magnificent, and proud, this is a place still seemingly as uncorrupted as the day is rose from the sea so many eons ago.  An island home to some of the most hilarious creatures I’ve ever met, big fat ninjas who are the best of company, and a reminder of the bulldogs with whom I was raised.  This place is New Zealand.

Before I left home last year, I thought I’d be zooming around this country in a camper van with a friend from home.  I didn’t realize that our southern hemisphere reunion wasn’t to be, or that I’d arrive here in the middle of winter.  It felt wrong to do Middle Earth without my Samwise Gamgee, but, as all bends in the road lead to somewhere, I kept on with my plan to do this country, even if it meant doing it, like the countries that came before, alone.  And thank God I did.

In my continued effort to remain present, I find myself basking in this joy, this opportunity to lose myself in this most perfect of places, with these most cartoonish of creatures.  I’ve lost hours and days among the seals, tripping over the fatties blending into the rocks as I climb among them, befriending the pups playing in the waterfall.  I’ve seen enormous sperm whales surfacing from the underwater canyons where they’re feeding just off the coast.  I’ve gotten sucked into the drama among a little blue penguin colony, as little Solo showed off for his new mate, and the little twin chicks begged for food.  It’s been glorious.  

Despite this saturation of majesty though, I still have to check myself.  Because sometimes I feel guilty for experiencing these things, for knowing this kind of joy.  People all over the world and in my own life, people I love most fiercely, are suffering.  Really, truly suffering.  And I’m not there, and can’t actively do anything to alleviate their pain, apart from praying and being in touch.  So maybe joy is a choice, believing in hope and beauty in a world laced with fear and pain.  That roly-poly seal pups will make me laugh out loud in the midst of acute heartache is proof of joy; that roly-poly seal pups are joy.  In fat rolls.