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July 30, 2020, Journal
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July 30, 2020, AirBnB reviews
My AirBnB review for the Regent, as a host:
This place is fantastic! It has a peaceful, comfortable vibe, and you’re minutes away from several beaches. The Regent is a perfect host: considerate, helpful, and knowledgeable. The place is very clean, comfortable, and warm. Nice kitchen with everything you need. Do yourself a favor and stay here! It’s a home away from home.
The Regent’s AirBnB review for me, as a guest:
Warm friendly person, clear communication, clean and tidy. I recommend X and I would be pleased to host her again.
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July 29, 2020, Journal
Unending ribbons of rain prevented me from taking my regular morning excursion, which ostensibly involves a benign mixture of yoga, tourism, and tramping through the West Coast’s forests. It’s far too damp to pretend that being outside is synonymous with ‘vacation’.
Today, the Regent’s company will have to serve as my daily distraction from the pain of being unlovable and barren. He’s so alive; so eager to talk about anything. Was it just the four months of Covid-19 isolation that we’d all endured, or was it a longer loneliness that had been begging for dissolution? His expressiveness reminds me of the few times in my childhood when I’d taken a precious school friend up to my room, my sacred space, and shown her all the treasures that I’d collected in my handful of years: shells and dolls, plastic horses and dream castles, books and bones and a long, shimmering snakeskin. Those rare friends slithered out of my life consistently, but I do remember how joyous that initial intimacy was.
Show-and-tell to a loving and genuinely interested audience is a childhood fantasy come true. The Regent deserves that. Why not? He loves to talk, like all men do, but our relationship is something special. He’s read my blog, and he knows who I am… at least to some extent, at least between March 23 and April 22 of this year.1
This blog is written in my honest voice. I really like it, and I want to share it, but I reckon everyone feels the same way about their voice. My voice is usually drowned out by the voices of other, more important people, and I always end up hating those relationships. Sharing my words with the Regent so early on might not have been the wisest idea, given the content herein, but it’s put me in a unique position of power. I’ve been heard on my terms. Is this the first time that a person has voluntarily taken the time to listen to me?
Of course, you talk to men on dates, but they don’t listen. They just stare at your flesh and think of their next brilliant quip. If you do manage to capture their interest with words, they’ll twist that connection into a competition and tell you how they’ve done it better or more dramatically. I always end up wasting my night, staring at them in forced adoration as they orate ad infinitum. Every time, I pray that we can stop this dick parade and maybe discuss something like two human beings. They never notice my kindness and respect in letting them drone on, and they absolutely never allow me to drone on. If I go on for more than five or six consecutive sentences, they stopper my lips with a kiss and move right on to sex.
Funny. If you replace the sex and kisses with yelling and whippings, they’d be exactly like my parents. Funny, funny patterns.
This is different, though. The Regent already knows me. My parents have never read my words. None of my exes have, either, except the Quaker, back in 2018. The thing is, I’m not sure that I want them to see my strength. They love me for my softness.
My words are my weapon. Divorce taught me that. I destroyed my ex-husband with my words, as much as one can destroy a vampire. He conquered me physically so many times, but I used my exquisite, sharp words to claw away at his deformed heart until it finally bled tears in recompense for the pain that he’d caused me. They were all so surprised that I’d hurt him. They thought I was prey, too.
It would be lovely and marketable if the sword of truth that my writing wields was a handy kitchen tool that I could use to slice off a piece of New Zealand to share with the world. But it is a weapon. Slicing away the Veil, sentence after sentence; a sword destroys boundaries. Humans love to peer within the hidden architecture of our character to find the juicy flow of life, a reminder of their own vitality. It’s the same old story: following the Universe’s injunction to look, perceive, know… to penetrate darkness with light. Then we can fulfill the only desire of the Universe: to lovingly see Itself in all Its naked glory.
Finally, that primal hunger to be truly seen and known is being sated. In my fantasies, that is love. I’m often wrong about such things.
The Regent hasn’t mentioned my writing, but it seems to have created a shortcut to our friendship. He sees me as a person without him ever having to listen to me speak. I feel heard, and he feels secure. I also feel exposed, as I cannot forget that these words expose my vulnerable vital organs to the world. He seems enchanted by my boldness. Is it a fox’s fixation on a mouse?
These rainy days have been ideal for working on my blog. Like everything I do, it takes forever because I like things just so. The tricky part is presentation. It’s always got to be fresh… new words to say the same things, covering up the obvious: that it’s all just a pile of zeros and ones; shaken, stirred, and served fresh daily!
This sort of mental and emotional challenge requires all of my attention. Sitting on the Regent’s guest couch, I fall into the memory of those lockdown days at the Lodge as though I’m falling into a hypnotic state and diligently tap my story into my cell phone. Sometimes I’ll sit there for two or more hours, and I often feel the Regent considering me from a distance. I’m spending as much time typing as I am hitting that tiny delete button with my fat, almost-40-year-old fingers. I need a proper keyboard.
It occurred to me that I might be able to buy a used laptop online if I could use the Regent’s address as a destination, so I asked him for permission yesterday. I love watching him be generous. Pride sits well on a Maori. That lifted barrel chest displays his culture just as obviously as the Regent’s full lips and well-creased eyes.
This morning, the Regent was eager to show me his Virtual Reality toys. In his casual Kiwi way, he waved at the small stack of VR units still in their boxes under his TV.
“I got a great deal on these,” he explained, “I want to set up a gaming room in downtown Westport.”
“Really?” This was the first time he’d mentioned any sort of career or community involvement. “What a cool idea! We need more social spaces, and I bet you’d get tons of business.”
“Nah, yeah, I’ve got a connection, and I can get a good space for cheap. It’ll just be a bunch of VR stations where you can rent these by the hour, and just play and chill.”
The way he said ‘chill’ made me giggle.
“Chell.” I mimicked his accent as well as I could, trying to curl the outer edges of my lower lip down and in so I could achieve the same delicate conch-shell shape. “Where’s the ‘i’? I think you mixed it up with your ‘iggs’ for breakfast.”
“Eegs!” the Regent insisted with mock outrage. “They’re eegs. Always been eegs. How do you say it?”
“Eggs… it’s almost an ‘a’ sound, actually.” I laughed at my American assumptions. “I guess it makes more sense your way. You say the ‘e’ sound and then a ‘g’… what else does a person need from two letters? It’s perfect.”
“Yeah, sweet as.”
“Another one!” I pointed to a Kiwiana poster at the far end of the living room that was simply a collection of Kiwi sayings and slang2 in a variety of jazzy fonts. “There, on the left: sweet as! You really do say all of the stereotypical words! I love it. And I especially love that it’s completely unironic. You’re a perfect tour guide.”
“I’m Kiwi as.” the Regent’s puffy chest rose as he laughed. “Here’s one that’s not on that poster: jafa. Have you ever heard that one?”
“Jaffa? A city in Israel? No… Sounds like something I’ve eaten before, though… Isn’t it a sort of chocolate-orange cookie?”
“No,” the Regent smiled wide and enlightened me. “Jafa, with one ‘f’. It stands for ‘Just Another Fucking Aucklander.’”
“Ahh! Awesome! Is there some sort of rivalry between the big-town snobs and the rural salt of the earth? Are Aucklanders really terrible or something?” It felt like getting the goss from the girls at work after a few days off – my ears were tingling to know about the juicy local social alliances.
“Auckland is just full of these assholes who think they’re king shit, with their huge cars and their fancy clothes. If they could, they’d buy up all the land and make wineries. The rest of New Zealand can’t be bothered with them.” The Regent shrugged. “You’ll see, if you ever get there.”
“Pff.” My disdain was obvious. “Doubt it. Sounds like Americans. Sounds like exactly the type of person that would destroy a continent for financial gain. Sounds like what I’m running from. It makes me so happy that there is a derogatory word specifically for city folk like that.”
“They’re basically wanna-be Australians. And Australians are wanna-be Americans. Out here on the South Island is where you get the real New Zealand.”
“Do you have any idea how lucky you are to be a citizen here?” I was serious for a moment. “This country is so real, and pure, and people are actually reasonable! I mean, they actually have common sense and they use it! You have no idea how rare this is in the States. I hate it there, and I don’t want to go back.” I heard my petulance, and I rushed to justify my discontent. “Americans are scared, stupid, and angry. I mean, you know. You’ve watched TV.”
“Yeah. The whole world knows what Americans are like.” the Regent’s chin wobbled in unambiguous assent. “Why don’t you stay here?”
“Can I?” I shrugged away his answer. “Everything’s still so strange with Covid. Do I belong here? Can I afford it? Maybe once we get to Level 2, I can look for a job.”
“Well, while we’re still stuck at home, do you want to try the VR?” The Regent really is good company. I must remember to compliment his excellent hosting skills when I write my review for AirBnB.
“A hundred percent.”
“Here, start with this.” He flipped through the options that popped up on his TV and rested on an Aquarium Immersion. “It’s just a small interactive world where you can try out the controls and see what it’s all about.”
A heavy set of goggles was strapped to my head, and the Regent pressed little control sticks into each of my hands. Darkness cleared, and the goggles showed me that I was underwater, facing a digital reef that swayed to a digital current. The sticks allowed me to navigate, as though I was propelling a little metal cage that defined the inside edges of this virtual aquarium. Fish swam past, traversing the field of my goggles with long, elegant strokes while anemones pulsed beneath me.
Visually, it truly seemed immersive; in a false, cartoonish way. VR could feasibly be quite entertaining. During my ten-minute session, I was extremely aware of two simultaneous realities: moving the hand controls and goggles to accurately interact with a world which only I can see, and how insane I looked as I did so. The cognitive dissonance was too much for me to bear, so I gently removed the lie from my head. It felt like quitting a job. I returned the VR set to the Regent with much gratitude for this new technological experience.
“It really feels like you’re surrounded by water! Amazing!” I used the moment to add some encouragement around his idea of opening a gaming room. He’s clearly lonely here in Westport.
“I’ve got stacks of these in the garage,” the Regent boasted. “I knew VR was going to hit big, so I wanted to get ahead of the game. Once Covid dies down, I can get the business into gear.”
“Once Covid dies down… How many times are we going to say that over the next few months?”
“It just won’t go away. And people are acting like eegs, making it worse. Did you hear about the idiots that escaped from quarantine last week?”
“What?! No, what happened?”
“They just had to get out of isolation,” he shrugged, “I guess they flew in from Australia and were under quarantine. It was a handful of people that just fucking jumped the fence and made a break for it. It was up north. They’ve been at Level 4 lockdown basically since this whole thing started: shelter in place, that sort of thing. We’re lucky to be at Level 3 and to be able to travel between towns. They’re going nuts with all the restrictions up there.”
“I got the impression that Kiwis were happy to follow the rules, or at least the Covid rules that impact public health.”
“Down here, yeah. We kind of go along to get along on the South Island.”
“There aren’t many people here. I guess that helps you respect and appreciate boundaries?”
The Regent pursed his curvy lips. “Yeah, and a lot of the farmers are used to being isolated and chained to their farms. They’re very conservative here in the South, especially when you get down towards Invercargill. Strangers bring change, and they don’t like either of those things. Lockdown was just fine by them.”
“And that’s not the case in Auckland?”
“Mostly, yeah, Kiwis will follow the restrictions. We’re all about family, whanau3, and we want to protect each other. Whanau isn’t just your immediate family, it’s your cousins and their cousins and anyone that we want to include in our circle. But we definitely have our share of radicals. That’s where Greenpeace was created, and those hippies are serious.” The Regent was flipping through his phone to find evidence for his assertions. A rather dry timeline of New Zealand’s Covid events appeared.
“See, here,” he scrolled, then paused. “24 July… five people abscond from a managed isolation facility, making a total of eight who have done so.”4
“Abscond!” I laughed heartily. “I love it here! They make it sound like Scooby-Doo and his gang are in trouble! Do they seriously need to keep Auckland under quarantine for so long? I know we’ve had new cases, but there’s been basically almost no deaths, and absolutely none since May 28th.”
“We’ve had 22 die.” The Regent’s pride was also a remembrance. “The first one was right here in Westport.”
“I’m so sorry. I forgot about that.”
“No, compared to the death toll in America, it is almost nothing.”
“America could use a culling.”
“America could use whanau.”
1 thousandpetalsproject.com/april-22-day-28-journal/
2 https://www.shopnz.com/blogs/nz-travel-and-culture/nz-slang-words-and-what-they-mean-to-us
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July 27, 2020, Journal
A hole carved into a hillside caught my attention as I was driving down route 6 for my usual morning adventure. This scrubby, sunny spot was far from human habitation, and I was joyously alone. The Regent doesn’t seem to have an occupation that might shift his focus from me.
Carmen bumbled to a halt on the side of the empty road, and I crossed over. The soil in this part of the West Coast reminds me of the dense red clays of the Appalachian lowlands. There, the flat clay particles stack together and form an impenetrable mass that might as well be rock. Nutrients are locked away to all but the most pernicious roots, so the land is both barren and overgrown with useless weeds. Here, the land belongs to itself, graciously excusing itself from usefulness.
It was probably a lot of fun for some fellow and his mattock to come out here and chip away at this remote bit of the South Island. The hillside crumbled easily, but it was hard enough to hold the vague shape of stairs leading up to a small tunnel. Hoisting myself up the sketchy stairs, I found myself in a vaguely symmetrical hole, about four feet tall and two feet wide. The floor was packed down quite well, but New Zealand couldn’t help but cover the damp walls with lashings of moss and a festive fern or two.
I stumped, huddled, through the tunnel, only to find that it was no more than thirty feet long. The opposite end was obscured by the desiccated skirt of a tree fern. Long layers of dry leaves shook like the roof of a tiki bar when I pushed them aside.
There was nowhere to go but straight down. I clung to the outer edge of the hole, finding a ledge that led to a knot of roots to the left. From there, I could see the tiny, steep-walled valley clearly. It was all dense brush and thick, dark leaves that could have been easily accessed from the road, had anyone wanted dangerous footing and lacerated shins. Nothing else, not even a hint of ancient castles or burial sites or even rare, exotic flora.
The tunnel has absolutely no purpose. It goes from nowhere to nowhere, like 18th century follies in English gardens. It tunneled solely for the sake of tunneling. Fucking adorable New Zealand.
It encouraged me to sit right there in the present moment. I shuffled around, settling myself and my backpack until the tunnel’s view was framed perfectly in its front doorway. Maybe this was the whole point: the view.
Yin and yang swirled around each other in the tunnel’s arched frame: ocean filling the shore, vegetation slipping down the hills, and land cupping the river-like road. It sorted itself out as I smoked a morning joint and meditated, the long winter shadows drawing the bright landscape straight like the teeth of a comb.
If only the future could keep its distance… if only it wasn’t so cold, I’d stay here in this mossy birth canal forever and refuse the right of re-entry into the harsh world from which I emerged.
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July 26, 2020, Journal
I entangled myself in the exposed roots of a tree that lay bleached and heavy on Carter’s Beach. It was an easy walk along its trunk to get there; head to toe. I felt light and peaceful, so I meditated a little.
Along came a fellow (don’t they all?) to puncture my peace. He was gray and leathery with small yellow eyes and several missing teeth. Like a moth to a flame, he couldn’t take his eyes off my face, and he approached steadily.
“Hiya!” His speech was an uncomfortable grumble, as though multi-syllable words had dislodged from his mouth along with his peg-like teeth. “Where ya from?”
He thought I said Canada, and I thought he asked if it was warm in Canada.
“Yes,” I replied, “It’s summer in Canada now.”
“Nah, nah, is thare wimmen in Canada?” He clarified. “Cuz I’m gonna go get me one.”
I didn’t know what else to do but laugh. He was so eager to explain his maleness! Is this inarticulate mess also the Divine Masculine yearning for the Divine Feminine? A fish spewing his sperm into an ovum-laced river is more elegant.
“Wanna have some fun?” he asked.
Although his directness was satisfying, I told him that I was having fun right where I was, thanks. Falling silent, I relaxed against the tree and let my gaze settle peacefully onto the ocean. The rickety fellow eventually left.
When I was in Nimbin, Australia, back in early February, I asked my lover, Mark, what the New Zealand accent was like. He couldn’t really pin down what made their accent different from an Australian accent, but it was, and Mark said that I’d see for myself that all Kiwis are a little weird.
He’s right – they are.
It’s the grandness of the Land of the Long White Cloud1 coupled with a sparse population. There’s air in everything: caught between the snowy alpine peaks, leaking from the crystal-clear night sky, blowing over flat farmland, and bustling in the overly-manicured hedgerows2.
This is what gives Kiwis clarity of perception and an open heart. Air is the element of the heart chakra3.
An excess of the element of air is in their speech, too. Vowels are pronounced differently out of economy: they flatten the ‘e’ and cup their ‘i’ into a ‘u’ to avoid cracking their wind-chapped lips… ‘fush and chups’… Their words are lighter, yet more precise than an Australian’s. Like the Kiwi bird, they are comfortable probing from a distance: to them, space is a tool, not a barrier to intimacy.
Perhaps because people are more rare here, they are more precious. A Kiwi seems weird to a foreigner because Kiwis will make and hold eye contact without hesitation. They skip right over small talk to bravely face uncomfortable emotions and raw truths. Like the wild birds that dominate the animal kingdom here, they don’t know what it’s like to be hunted, so they go where they will (in conversation and in motion) with complete ease and self-confidence. If you find a bird crossing the street in New Zealand, and a car comes speeding towards it, you’ll see that the bird walks to safety at the edge of the road; it does not fly. It’s not worried. It has no fear.
That’s it. That’s what differentiates New Zealanders from the rest of humanity, and that’s why they’re weird. They are beautifully unafraid.
My suspicion is that it’s nature, not nurture. Just imagine being able to stride confidently through long grass without fearing an infectious tick bite, or scaling a cliffside without fearing a hidden rattler in the rocks. There are no snakes, no wolves howling in the night, and no poisonous creatures lurking in dark holes; no lions, tigers, or bears. Kiwis spend their summers shoeless and connected to the Earth: there’s no foot and mouth disease or rabies4 to scare them into sole(soul)-destroying shoes.
If the opposite of fear is love, then the generous New Zealand social system must be a natural extension of their strong sense of security. It’s the safest, kindest, and most honest country in the world, and that’s why it’s so difficult and expensive to achieve residency here.
Kiwis are damn lucky to be born into this majestic land that knows more of love than of fear. I’m lucky to have a chance to experience this authentic, open-hearted way of life. The Regent is the first proper Kiwi that I’ve really gotten to know.
1 https://teara.govt.nz/en/1966/aotearoa
2 Stairway to Heaven, Led Zepplin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXQUu5Dti4g
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July 25, 2020, Journal
The Regent bought an aluminum contraption at the grocery store that would serve as a disposable grill at our beach barbecue. We had an array of veggies to share and skewers of meat for him. While we were shopping, I found a kilo baggie of small, waxy tubers in dreamy sunset colors labeled ‘yams’ that woke my passion for culinary adventure.
“Nah, yeah, those are good.” the Regent was happy to introduce me to this edible member of the oxalis family. “Traditional Kiwi veges. Just like potatoes, you know? You roast them up and they’re sweet as.”
“We have yams, too, only they’re sweet potatoes; what you call kumaras. These are something new and fabulous! I must try them!” Squirreling them into our shopping basket, I was nearly giddy with the pleasure of sharing a grocery run with someone. I made sure to pay for the yams and the Regent insisted on purchasing the rest.
Before we left, I asked the Regent to walk me through the process of buying a lottery ticket. I’d only done that once or twice back home, and the whole idea was foreign to me. To me, playing the lottery is literally throwing money away on a scrap of paper, but my mother had gone to great lengths in her last email to tell me that the stars were aligned for me to have a huge financial windfall. I’d regret it if I didn’t listen to her and take this gift from heaven. I couldn’t tell if the Regent found my mother’s assertions intriguing or off-putting, but he ended up buying a lottery ticket for himself as well.
Our destination, Omau Cliffs beach, was on the way to Cape Foulwind. It was nice to enjoy the roadside scenery as a passenger. We played tourist and tour guide again, talking about my favorite subject; New Zealand, as she casually angled the long blades of flax that flanked us to catch the piercing rays of the now resplendent sun. Winking like flashbulbs, the spiky plants led us to a pebbly cove where obstinate cliffs suffered the onslaught of the relentless sea. The wide beach was joyfully wild, with massive driftwood logs set in a pristine canvas of unblemished sand. Brackish tidemarks patterned the shore.
“Wow.” I was grateful for the salty crash of ocean and the appetizing winter breeze. “Thanks, Regent. This is a gorgeous spot for a picnic.”
“Yeah, nah, I thought you’d like it. One of the best beaches around here.”
“Absolutely. I want to get in the water so badly!”
“Yeah, go for it.”
“It’s cold. It’s winter. I’d be crazy.”
“Nah, it’s good. Up to you.”
“I don’t have a swimsuit.”
“Don’t need one here. It’s New Zealand.”
“I’ll do it,” I threatened. Half of my cells were already pulling towards the ocean. The other half were quite cozy under my winter coat and possum sweater. “Seriously. You won’t think I’m nuts?”
The Regent shrugged noncommittally, lifting his hands and eyebrows to relinquish my story back to its origin. After a few furtive glances around the empty beach, I shucked my layers. The West Coast air was cold, but it didn’t carry the bite of snow like winters back home. Nevertheless, the fine grains of sand felt like crushed ice beneath my bare feet. A long, sloppy shelf of sand kept the depths far from the comfortable length of driftwood where we’d set our bags.
It was all at once or not at all. I plowed steadily into the cold, frothy waves until they pounded at belly and breasts. The water had an inky quality, and as I dove under to wet my head (once, twice, thrice), I felt how darkness could be perfectly clear and clean and revitalizing.
Shuddering, I returned to our driftwood campsite and quickly dried my frigid skin. I dressed quickly as well, pretending that the Regent’s pretense of ignoring me was genuine. He was carefully setting up our tinfoil barbecue.
“How’s it going?” I asked him as he poked at the small supply of coals that came with the kit.
“Great. We’ll just get it lit, and then we wait for a wee bit to get the coals going.” His round face was shuttered against the sun’s rays. “How was your swim?”
“Fan-fucking-tastic!” I felt fresh and sparkly from my recent scouring in the sea. “I love it here! Well, can I help with lunch at all? Maybe cut up some veggies?”
“Nah, we’ll just throw some oil on these yams, and the meat already has spices. It’ll be a while, though. Maybe half an hour, 40 minutes, until everything’s cooked.”
“Cool! Ok, sounds like a perfect time for some yoga! Want to join me?”
“Yeah, nah, I’ll stay here and watch the barbecue.” The Regent waved me away. “Have fun with your yoga.”
I did enjoy a short yoga practice. The barbecued veggies made a delicious lunch, but the yams were slow to soften and crisp. After much poking, we decided to leave well enough alone and let the tinfoil fire pour out its remaining energy in a protected hollow in the sand, hoping that it would be sufficient to cook the waxy yams.
In that time, I learned about the Regent’s family in Hokitika. His family holds significant power in that region, and they own land on the thick river that serves the town. They’d fought hard to win the rights to their native land and the rich resources of the river. The Regent tried to stifle his tribal pride, and it was adorable. The story had a fairy-tale quality, rich with the treasure of Pounamu1 and rife with British colonialism. It had come down to legal battles: fighting on enemy turf. The Regent’s family had a splendidly long and prestigious Whakapapa.2 They were warriors that kept winning, generation after generation. They were the history-writers of Hokitika, and they conquered the courtroom with the same fierce determination that won them these islands seven hundred years ago.
Like the other potentially powerful Maori boys of his generation, the Regent had been sent to the best schools in New Zealand so that he could learn the enemy’s tactics. He’d attended a military school in Wellington and later moved to Sydney for several years in some sort of rite of passage.
It is common for freshly-graduated Kiwis to try to find their fortunes in Australia. New Zealand is simply too small for big dreams. Not only is the cost of living cheaper across the Tasman Sea, but the wages are higher and the opportunities more abundant. Kiwis eagerly sow their wild oats in Australia’s expanse. Some stay, but most return when they realized that New Zealand’s lushness is far better at balancing out the harsh southern sun than volatile deserts, impersonal cities, and a pandering parliament. The Maori, especially, were inevitably drawn back to their tribes. The outside world is no place for a warrior.
The Regent failed to mention why he’d ended up alone in Westport, but he intimated that he was an emissary of his family in some capacity. It’s not my place to pry.
Yam-scented plumes of smoke eventually stopped floating towards our driftwood chairs. The coals were growing cold, and the warm golden yams were succulent and salty in our eager mouths.
1 https://hakatours.com/blog/pounamu-the-story-behind-new-zealand-greenstone/
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July 24, 2020, Journal
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July 22, 2020, Journal
This is almost impossible. Almost. But for the Divine, nothing is impossible and the improbable is hilarious.
I got to Pohara Beach yesterday, (just outside of Takaka) and I like it here. Being alone has given me the gift of slowly reconnecting to my faith. That sounds Christian. That is not at all what I mean.
Faith is essential in yoga, and if I follow any written rules, it’s those in the yoga sutras1. Clearly, brahmicharya2 (abstinence) has been a problem for me recently. Faith in a higher power, ishvara pranidhana3, is the last in the list of 5 niyamas4 (observances) that tell us how to take care of ourselves in order to enjoy yoga (union).
This is how we align our inner moral fibers so that they, as well as our muscles and nerves, can be an efficient conduit for God. Everything doesn’t have to be aligned perfectly for the spine to be a divine superhighway, but the more of your being that is set straight and smooth, the more inviting of a pathway it is. It’s just a matter of allowing enough linear space within you to let the river flow. It took me a decade.
That superhighway, once built, has always been there for me, but it can be difficult to access if you allow the weeds and brambles of the world to obfuscate the path. It’s best to keep it in good repair with daily maintenance: yoga, meditation, oil massage, time in nature, correct eating and sleeping habits… All these observances take up about half of my time, money, and attention. Just so that I can get high from feeling a strong current of God pulsing through me.
Is this wrong somehow? It feels so good to carry a live current in my spine. Feeling heaven must be wrong.
Ishvara pranidhana is when you surrender to being the wire and you let your life whip wildly across the cosmos as that live current sizzles home to itself.
Where did it start? When I made the decision to go north to Takaka last week? When I decided to extend Pup’s life by a year with evil surgeries? When the great human chessboard of the Covid-19 Lockdown was set into position in March? When I slept with Moshe in April? Is this because I made a wrong turn back in Nelson two days ago and ended up at a hippy crystal shop buying weirdo crystals like vanadinite and apophyllite?
This morning, I spent an hour searching the internet for my next safe haven. Following the path of least resistance (well, more accurately, of least investment), I found a very inexpensive room in Westport on AirBnB. There’s always a very good reason why a room is inexpensive, and at the peak of winter in the South Island of New Zealand, that reason was often a lack of heat. That wasn’t the case with this particular room – the host specifically mentioned a space heater. I scoured the listing. A kitchen, an indoor bathroom, a comfortable-looking bed, access to the washing machine… I kept scrolling down… where was the reason? Perfect reviews… a pleasant suburban location… the page ended with a profile of the host. His photo had been taken from a distance, so his round face occupied no more than 24 blurry, brown pixels.
Nevertheless, my heart lifted and I smiled at the certainty of our confluence. Yes. That One. And I knew that was the reason. There’s always a reason.
The room in Westport wasn’t going to be available until the following night, though, so I had to find shelter in Takaka one last time.
Did God take the reins today in the café at noon, when I read an ad for discounted accommodation at a local hostel? When I decided to have the half-price chocolate-hazelnut croissant that has given me no end of belly cramps? As I smoked a mostly medicinal joint in the alleys between route 60 and Motupipi Street? When I rolled into the parking lot of Takaka’s tourist information center5 around 2:34pm? Did I make even one single decision today? Ever?
Carmen’s wheels hadn’t even settled into the parking spot I’d chosen before a dented mustard-yellow caravan pulled into the lot. It parked near the pay showers, and I thought I saw a familiar face through the windshield. Impossible.
I tried and tried for a better look as I walked up to the tourist information center, but all I could see was a pair of eyes watching me over the caravan. I couldn’t be sure because it was almost impossible. I mean, the odds are so slim. In this exact town, at this exact time? Highly improbable.
As I spoke to the woman at the front desk about my options for accommodation tonight, I found it hard to remain the dutiful tourist. The woman (Yvette, if her name tag is to be trusted) had a bright, earnest presence, like a high school girl friend that could keep any secret. Nervous with the impossibility of this moment, and excited by this rare chance to converse with an intelligent, friendly woman, I kept peering out the window to confirm the impossible. I think the isolation of the Covid lockdown was my excuse for telling kind Yvette every detail of my amorous adventures in Otago. Everyone was hungry for interaction. It was so exciting to tell my story and to be able to point out one of its characters in this very parking lot! He hid behind the caravan for a thousand years, rooting around for showering supplies until I gave up. Then I saw his face for a moment when he came around to the back of his caravan – yes!
It was him! It was Moshe from the Lodge! I’d travelled almost 800 kilometers and almost 11 hours to get away from my lovers in Lake Hawea. The one Israeli that I slept with during the lockdown was somehow a few dozen steps away. And he seemed to be avoiding me.
Clearly, the universe wants me to have sex. I can’t escape my dharma. Neither should he.
Doubt and that old fear of having a twisted and untrue perspective came up to my surface. Do I accept this dance from the universe? Or is this another cosmic joke?
“The bay has a way of bringing people together,” Yvette said, as serious as a witch. She was lovely and young, and she had this job because she has experience in this town.
I want to understand how it works. How do certain places hold and direct energy? Does it have something to do with astrology or geology or our own flawed search for meaning? I struggled with my determinism as well as Moshe’s, and asked Yvette whether or not I should approach him.
Yvette told me that I’d only seem creepy if I came from a creepy place, so I squared my shoulders, opened my heart, and went outside to talk to him. It appeared as though Moshe was in the shower. There were two outdoor stalls along the back edge of the visitor center parking lot, just to emphasize New Zealand’s thoughtfulness. They cost more than the showers we’d had at the Lodge during Lockdown, so I imagine that Moshe was taking every advantage of this luxury, as it appeared that he’d been living in his van. If he ever did emerge from the shower, he’d probably feel a little vulnerable. Waiting for him would be creepy, so I dared to leave a cheerful note under the windshield wipers and drove off.
And fuck if he didn’t call 3 minutes later. I almost didn’t answer, but I did. We chatted vaguely about our adventures over the past month. Moshe had explored the eastern edge of the South Island and was heading west, like me. Because I told him that I was staying in Takaka that evening, he assumed that I’d be there indefinitely. It wasn’t necessary to correct him. Moshe was on the move, and I felt a sense of relief that our relationship was so tenuous.
We’d had almost 2 months to form a bond during lockdown, but our age difference had made it easy to escape into our own respective languages and cultures, so that bond was slender and weak. I wanted a nice Jewish boy! But Moshe is really still a boy. He’s almost half my age, and frankly, he’s boring. Although I knew that it would make him infinitely more delectable, it would be unkind to show him the darkness and decay of maturity. There was really nothing else to say. I imagined him shrugging his wide, young shoulders as he closed with the hope that I might see him in a few days when he drives back through Takaka.
I won’t. That ten-minute conversation resurrected an ancient distrust of God and His Plan. As far as I can tell, the Plan involves continual mistakes and misinterpretations on my part in order to entertain the jaded Divine. This cosmic game, this lila6, has no object… How can I have faith in such devilry? It seems like allowing God to direct my life has run me headfirst into a brick wall.
Yvette seemed to think that there was unfinished business between us, but I think Moshe’s instinctive response to this afternoon’s chess board configuration was actually the wisest: duck and cover.
1 https://www.judithhansonlasater.com/writing/2014/11/20/tb7p1jhvohw7l9s03w3e6wxxtooy4p
2 dlshq.org/teachings/brahmacharya-celibacy/
3 https://www.ekhartyoga.com/articles/philosophy/understanding-the-niyamas-isvara-pranidhana
4 https://www.yogapedia.com/definition/5142/niyama
5 https://www.goldenbaynz.co.nz/directory-listings.html?id=148
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