Windy Wellington

Wellington 11-16 April

The weather was unbearably cold on Friday the 13th. I wore two coats and two scarves and downed a very very long shot of coffee from Fuel just downstairs from Jennifer’s apartment. Listening to Yoshimi Battles The Robots I bounced towards the bleak harbour hoping for another coffee. Kaffe Eis on the lagoon was closed on this unhappy occasion but the harbour looked just nice and quaint and full of memories.

On a day like this I am reminded of a younger me - pondering at the cross roads and trying to get to some place far ahead in the clouds that loom the harbour. Its these grey days that bogged me down. Somehow I feel like I'm almost there again in that dark place. Not really knowing what's ahead but knowing that the future will clear up soon and it is up to me to make the most of life and opportunities.

I thank every day for the friends I still have here those that I know their face and voice and person and soul where ever I am no matter how long its been since I last saw them. They will never let me down and they will do anything for me. I feel very priveledged to have them with me unconditionally, even when I turn up at their house with a suitcase and covered in rain. I think when you become older you understand these connections much better, and you don't need to put any effort into understanding each other - it comes so naturally and transcends time, space and distance.

I look around the street, full of people moving a hundred miles an hour, searching half heartedly for faces I know. There were three or four. They looked at me and looked away - they know me but they chose to not engage - a mutual way to say that the other person is not really in their phone book anymore.

I have lost a few good friends from my youth for various reasons. I used to grieve, perhaps I still do. But you learn that there's a reason for everything and you almost make yourself believe in things like karma or fate. To console yourself? I miss those people in my life, like there's a hole in my heart, but you learn that they have moved on and maybe you have too. Its the people that can move with you and will always be with you spiritually that are worth the effort.

I felt like I was getting swirled into the crowd on Lambton Quay. I am surprised that hardly nothing has changed in the four years I’ve been away. Particularly for a big city. Updated fashion and new coats of paint I suppose. But the expression on people’s faces and the distance and pace of their stride, the way they dodge oncoming pedestrians and protect their latte from spilling. The way they look side ways when they see a person with a beautiful coat on wondering if it was from Kate Sylvester or Gregory’s. The way they glance at their reflection in the shop windows to see if their recent weight-gain had shown.

Looking at myself in the mirror I don’t feel like I’ve come far. But when I close my eyes I do.
It is the land, the weather, the clashing tides on the rocks and the new sprouting fern in the gully, that breeds this quirky clan of people. Darkly dressed, unassuminglt chirpy, laid back but serious, . I felt like I’ve returned to a mystical retreat in the depth of the bush.

I'm at Wellington Airport now bound for Hamilton, place where I grew up, and perhaps fled. Sitting against the bay window in the rare boarding gate at Wellington Airport and a flight to Chatham Islands is about to take off 5 meters in front of me. A white koru speeds past me and I somehow still wonder why I ever leave.