New Zealand Trip: Part One

20.12.06

Brisbane looks prettier from a distance.

The bulk of the aeroplane hurtles across the ditch like an awkward ibis. Out the window, there’s a rounded gap in the dark clouds, as though there is a sun rising, where there is none.

There are four screaming babies strategically placed around my seat.
Did I once cry on planes?

Have you noticed that some people never read the comics on Minties wrappers?

We are sitting by the wing, the unmoving wing above a ‘swiftly-tilting planet’.

In the rental car: my glow-in-the-dark shoes look like disembodied feet in the darkness.


21.12.06

Last night it poured. Four duvets couldn’t keep me warm. The weather never changes in Dannyvirke.

My old cat is happy here. She likes the cold.


23.12.06

Aoteroa is drenched this Christmas, watercolour-blues and –greens running into one another. Hawkes Bay is as constant as ever. The water around it holds it still. I feel more solid here, less insubstantial. I’m trying to gather things to me: ideas, colours, feelings; things to make me more whole.

I love NZ architecture: wooden white-picket wonders, damp & cosy. My aunt’s house is spectacular. I have always felt safe here.

I hate using other people’s bathrooms.

Listening to Cat Stevens/Yusef’s new album, An Other Cup. “And if a storm should come & you turn away, that may be the time for you to be saved.”

The book I am writing in is falling apart. There’s string over here… My pocket knife’s still sticky from when Danii picked sunflowers. I’m surprised I got it through customs – I forgot about it entirely. But it will cut this string.

We lay lavender on Nana’s grave today.


We spend today wishing we liked it as much as yesterday
or tomorrow.


24.12.06

I keep thinking about water. It has no shape, but takes on the shape of its receptacle. It is always changing. It has an identity. It can’t be pinned down. It has strength. It is viscous. It can be moved through. It leads somewhere. It gives life. It supports life. It takes life.

I am the captain, the first-mate, the slave, the passenger, the whore, the sails, the wheel, the ship, the keelhaul, the waves, the fish, I am the water.


25.12.06

Christmas Day. Roast kumera & bleeding raspberries. Turkey, ham, beef, chicken, tofu. Sunshine across the bay for the first time. I am wearing my red dress.

I long for silence.

Nothing ever really changes.
Nothing ever really stays the same.