Locked down

Hi all.
I meant to write this earlier today but got sidetracked by facebook scrolling- everyone's uplifting messages about how to survive and make it through these unprecedented times, little videos of recipes or cute baby stuff or cute pet stuff or ominous sharing of some sinister article detailing the US's faulty handling of it all.

Then I got sidetracked by reddit....r/portland, r/ultimate, r/newzealand, r/nyc, r/solotravel...these are some of my subs these days. And now I'm here, to share a bit about the ways life has been for me over the last month and a half since I last posted.

Not a whole lot has happened externally aside from the escalation of CV and its associated tolls- physical, global, emotional, mob-mentality. Most notably internally I further developed an attachment to a special person that has been characterized by a fairly volatile ongoing dynamic that activates parts of my brain and nervous system in ways that are pretty unpleasant. A component of these instances is the belief and sense that it is 'always' this way, and the state at current clouds and overarchingly envelops all other states such that conclusion-type and fatalist thoughts pervade.

There have been some lovely times too -- a day we biked about 75 km, from Twizel to Lake Ohau Lodge and back, both biking along the Te Araroa (a very rocky trail meant for hiking, that runs the length of the country) and the much more biking-appropriate Alps2Ocean trail, a 6-day bike track that goes from Mt. Cook/Aoraki (the highest point in NZ, draped in snowy majesty) to the coast in Oamaru.

Some firsts for me that occurred in this time:

-standup paddle boarding -- I feel like I was pretty good at it, but it made me so damn dizzy that for the rest of the day I felt seasick. Bummer I have a hypersensitive vestibular system because it is a delightful activity.
-learning to- and enjoying- playing chess! I know, hold the phone. But wait, there's more out-of-character things:
-becoming more comfortable with canines! I even willingly touch them sometimes and recognize differences in facial expression, body language and behavior.
-I ate my first hard-boiled egg. It was all chopped up finely mixed in with a robust salad. Ew. But I did it.
-I lived out of a car for 5 weeks. Mikey's campervan. It was a valuable experience if tumultuous at times. I am fortunate to not be relegated to living in a car long-term because I like my creature comforts of running water at will (hot and cold), electricity, light, outlets, internet, space to stand and sit up straight and move, etc. Color me posh but it's true.
-Made my first loaf of buckwheat chia bread, and learned the term for the type of food preparer I am: a "chuck it in cook" (pronounced with a British accent "chookitin cook")
-Tolerated [out of necessity] porta-potties and other subpar bathroom situations
-bodypainting; giving and receiving. Super pleasurable medium for a lot of reasons!

Logistically and with regard to the conjuring and fostering of my identity around certain things, it's been challenging. I arranged to volunteer at and attend the annual conscious dance workshop in early April, 2 separate Psychodrama workshops (after the first was canceled for non covid reasons), a room to rent in a sweet house with good people in a nice spot outside of Nelson, 2 babysitting gigs during the month I'd be renting the room, and attending and presenting at the national adventure therapy conference here in May, over my birthday. All these things were canceled in a cascade of first-world disappointments. So I was left with travel and residential arrangements that were for naught and the letdown of these areas of interest of mine (and more importantly, a sense of control over my time and activities and productivity and meaning) were gone. But at that point there was nary a CV case here in NZ and things still felt slightly distant.

Meanwhile I cared a lot about people 'back home' in my life, largely located in Portland, CO, and NYC, and tried to keep abreast of their situation albeit indirectly. I still felt like it 'wouldn't impact me like that' though.

It was maybe 2 more days wherein changes were afoot. More signage. More closures, restrictions, alarm. The library was closed indefinitely. Schools were closed for a month at minimum. A sense of urgency everywhere. And then the 48 hours-till complete lockdown was announced. I found out about the lockdown during my clingy attempts to connect to communities I've been nourished by in years past - T-group and Aspen Grove Sangha had both moved to Zoom so I could participate. Except living in the van without outlets or wifi, and libraries with wifi were hard to come by, as were cafes, so I salvaged something. I think I was hunched outside the Twizel library at the time and felt a knot in my throat. It was hard to see people isolated comfortably (or so I imagined) in their houses in Boulder when I didn't have a house to go to and faced a 4-week minimum lockdown.

I say 'lockdown' because that's what it is called here, and it is actually adhered to. People are all taking it very seriously, both from what I've seen from posts on local subreddits and facebook groups, as well as talking with and witnessing interactions and behaviors outside in town in the days before, and during the first 2 days here so far. This country is so damn unified and the instructions from the prime minister are so damn clear, concise, and delivered with brevity and poise. I've never known a 'politician' to be like this...it is simply night and day from the U.S. People here are worried and anxious, but they feel taken care of. (I'm not superimposing this idea - I am spending the foreseeable future living in a house with 3 kiwis).

Fraught relational dynamics exacerbated by the close proximity living, impending turmoil of lockdown, and cultural/language barriers yielded a 24 hour period of icy silence between us. What impeccable timing for a spur-of-the-moment decision, eh. To determine how/where we were going to spend the lockdown and arrange to get there. Fortunately I was able to reach out to a few people here who I've met so far and we had the option to go to a dear woman's house in Dunedin, who led the psychodrama evening we attended a few weeks back. She has been a total godsend (we stayed at her place for 3 nights and enjoyed the luxuries of a simple kitchen, hot shower, and astute conversation). At the last minute, the housing opportunity that had been null and void became available again- the person who's room I was going to rent decided to spend the lockdown with her boyfriend and was open to renting the room to me.

Against what was becoming a tauntingly idyllic backdrop - lake Pukaki in the foreground of Mt. Cook - we went to sleep knowing that the next day was going to be crucial in securing and physically reaching whatever destination we decided on for the next month+. It was a fitful night and my intuition was strong and continuous in telling me to go to Nelson (where I am at current.) I bargained, made peace with valiant self-compassion that whatever decision I made would be right, and tried to give myself reassuring pats about the time-sensitivity and tension of the situation. In the morning, the bathrooms at the free-campsite were already boarded up and a woman from the 'local council' drove in to ensure that we all had a plan of somewhere to go for the lockdown that was in the South Island, because "it starts at midnight tonight." What?! I thought we had till tomorrow night at midnight! She assured us that it was midnight 'going into' Wednesday, rather than the midnight after Wednesday. I felt nauseous under the pressure. I was in a tiny town in a pretty remote part of the South Island -- about 15 km outside of Twizel, and there was no public transit to speak of. I would have to rely on hitchhiking which is generally fine, but not with a time limit. And I had no idea if people would pick up a backpacker in such a climate of fear.

I somehow made a very hard and painful decision and I decided to depart from Mikey and the campervan, and make my way up to Nelson with 14 hours until the lockdown. This would be a 10-hour drive if I drove without stopping as the crow flies. It's complete unwise to depend on hitching such a distance in this kind of time limit.

I did it in 3 rides. A kind, upbeat, and pragmatic French couple heading to the airport in Christchurch to try to get on any flight back home to France before the lockdown, a rural farmer on his way to pick up a few 'chooks' (chickens) and ducks for his homestead who mused about having 6 bedrooms in his house and wondering if he could help out people who didn't have a place to stay, and of all people, Nelson ultimate frisbee mainstay Jim Risner. Yep- I got a ride in a small town called Amberley, north of Christchurch, from someone who I know from the frisbee community here....all the way to the house I am currently sitting in. that was about 6 hours of driving, cramped with my backpack in the front seat as all his belongings were behind us, up to the ceiling. It was an emotionally and physically exhausting day and I am grateful still, 3 days later, to be in a house with electricity, space, a kitchen, a shower, a VIEW OF THE SEA from my bedroom, my own room, wifi, and a bunch of food I bought on my first full day here.

It is a really chill vibe in this house, with one of the people being an avid thru-hiker and vipassana practitioner (that's how we met, at a meditation) and a couple who are kindly and warm. We don't have any high-strung-ness (at least not overtly, yet) about the virus and practices. I mean my offhanded suggestion to one housemate the other day that we wash our hands when we come back into the house was met with a halfhearted 'that's a good idea.' Now I'm not one to rock the boat, and I don't really think we can control whether we get it or not. If it's airborne, or lives on surfaces... I mean we have all touched and breathed in recent weeks. And we will do less of it now that we're home, but we'll still go to the grocery store and aren't going to sanitize our peanut butter upon arrival home. Or should we?

I feel scared of what is to come - what will my mental state be like? Also how much grieving will I find myself doing. For people who might die, for things going down unexpectedly.

I have made it through 2 days of this now. I've already made pesto and tomato jam from scratch, pizza dough and a pizza with the aforementioned, and done some other less complicated cooking like eggplant slices and hemp milk hot chocolate. I have plans for more buckwheat bread, chickpea flour flatbread, fruit and nut smoothies, babaganoush, and now that I have a freezer at my disposal, I think I might just go ahead and get some frozen chicken tenders/nuggets. It's been a solid 2 years or so since I had those. Maybe in a few weeks, on a darker day.

I've had a few heartening video chats connecting with friends far away from here and am very interested in having more of these, so if you read this and would like to do so, please let me know and we'll set up a time. I'm 20 hours ahead of PST.