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.
Friday 27 March 2020
Monday 10 February 2020
I sit on the same couch I sat on to write the last post where I detailed the ups and downs of my journey through the Kahurangi forest. This time I've spent a few days with Mikey in his campervan doing little hikes and swimming and climbing and seeing majestic views on either side of a 2 week stint at an intentional community called Tui. Tui is pronounced "Tewey" which rhymes with "dewey" of the dewey decimal system, if you're into that. The tui is a native bird here in NZ and also the brand name of the balms that the people of the community make in a factory just down the dirt road from the community. It is located at the end of the road, just up against the Wainui car park which is 1 end of the Abel Tasman coast track, one of the 'Great Walks' (backpacking trips). This means that the local scenery and landscape is idyllic: crispy turqouise beaches, rock formations with personality, lush greenery, and the most starry night skies.
Tui was pretty varied. There wasn't internet there- only ethernet- and my laptop is too new for that. So I was able to internet on a borrowed ethernet-capable computer when it was available and some very sparse moments (mostly in the middle of the night) when there was one bar of cell service and I turned on the data. This was a cool thing for me -- not quite as full on as the 2 weeks prior of actual no internet, but still a significant minimization. Thing was, it felt fine for the most part. Again. I was in a held and contained space with a schedule of 6 hours of work/day with a lunch break in the middle, and 3 day weekends which somehow filled up despite attempts at having them be 'chill days.' There was a cohort of 4 of us - Me and Mikey, and 2 women who I am tickled to have had the opportunity to spend a fortnight with: Lucia and Juliana. We were a multicultural bunch which was nice and fresh. We stayed in 'the community house' which is a very spacious and dated house with an enormous kitchen and 2-3 different living rooms. Lots of cobwebs abounded. We also got to use freshly ground up rye flour and peanut butter which was a delight. We did a fair bit of baking and cooking too. Zucchinis are going crazy there right now- kind of like mid-late July back in Portland. Another month or so and it'll be tomato time there. I was able to eke out 2 batches of pesto from the basil in the garden as well.
----
It is now a few days later and I was lucky enough to attend a sangha (meditation community group) last night that meets weekly in someone's house, much like my beloved Aspen Grove Sangha back in Portland, but this one was a zen sangha. Main differences aside from the format and people include the age demographic-- I am certain all the attendees in this group were over age 55. I forgot how common that is among meditation groups because I got so used to the hip young Aspen Grove group. Checking my ageism here. And the other difference was the rigidity. Of course zen is more rigid but it struck me that the attendees were also somewhat rigid in their thinking. There was widespread opposition to the idea of any kind of verbal / dialogue / sharing component happening in their group space. I know I come at this from the place of having found a wholly nourishing and wonderful sangha that prides itself on the skillful inclusion of this relational component. There seemed to be preconceptions of such a part devolving into 'idle chatter' or 'esoteric sharing group' which were said with disdain in the discussion I witnessed. I really loved everyone's commitment to the group, to their own truths, and to being in service of the desires of the group's strength, integrity, and continuity. They were so welcoming to me and even solicited advice and information from me when I shared with them about my group back at home.
I feel sadness having only encountered this group here in Golden Bay as I prepare to leave-- I would have liked to have attended it more in the past few months but it's really fine. What it has done is shift my orientation more towards finding groups like this in other places I may go to which feels like a positive forward look.
I look forward to moving on from Golden Bay and spending a few days in Nelson again where I hope to play a pickup game and go to a psychodrama evening meeting. It's been a long time in coming- I've been researching the psychodrama options here since I got here.
Other developments in my psyche and experience include my own growing disdain for physical manual labor. I would relish something in a temperature-controlled environment, seated, repetitive would be fine- or a childcare or human-relating indoor job. I know, famous last words. But I've spent the better part of the last 3 weeks doing challenging physical work outside like digging, moving dirt, weeding, and other things that leave my IT bands and hips and knees feeling pretty wrecked. I imagine if I were 10 years younger it might be different. That said, one of the other woofers at Tui was 10 years my junior, so kudos to her and her dedication. An energetic woman who gave me a ride yesterday down Takaka-Collingwood highway told me that her reasoning for not doing as much outdoor adventure stuff was because her muscle mass has decreased and her bones have broken down. The way she put it felt quite stark - I know these things are true and happen as you age, but she seemed just fine with it. I spent about a year attempting to un-adhere my identity from out physical outdoor pursuits but then when my ankle healed I fell right back into that groove. I hope with more insight and greater perspective. I hope. Anyhow, this woman was lovely to spend even just the ten minutes of the ride with. I had just bought a bag of peaches from a nearby farm and when I offered her a peach, her instant reply- full of vim and prosody- "is the pope catholic?!?"
I leave you with that.
Tui was pretty varied. There wasn't internet there- only ethernet- and my laptop is too new for that. So I was able to internet on a borrowed ethernet-capable computer when it was available and some very sparse moments (mostly in the middle of the night) when there was one bar of cell service and I turned on the data. This was a cool thing for me -- not quite as full on as the 2 weeks prior of actual no internet, but still a significant minimization. Thing was, it felt fine for the most part. Again. I was in a held and contained space with a schedule of 6 hours of work/day with a lunch break in the middle, and 3 day weekends which somehow filled up despite attempts at having them be 'chill days.' There was a cohort of 4 of us - Me and Mikey, and 2 women who I am tickled to have had the opportunity to spend a fortnight with: Lucia and Juliana. We were a multicultural bunch which was nice and fresh. We stayed in 'the community house' which is a very spacious and dated house with an enormous kitchen and 2-3 different living rooms. Lots of cobwebs abounded. We also got to use freshly ground up rye flour and peanut butter which was a delight. We did a fair bit of baking and cooking too. Zucchinis are going crazy there right now- kind of like mid-late July back in Portland. Another month or so and it'll be tomato time there. I was able to eke out 2 batches of pesto from the basil in the garden as well.
----
It is now a few days later and I was lucky enough to attend a sangha (meditation community group) last night that meets weekly in someone's house, much like my beloved Aspen Grove Sangha back in Portland, but this one was a zen sangha. Main differences aside from the format and people include the age demographic-- I am certain all the attendees in this group were over age 55. I forgot how common that is among meditation groups because I got so used to the hip young Aspen Grove group. Checking my ageism here. And the other difference was the rigidity. Of course zen is more rigid but it struck me that the attendees were also somewhat rigid in their thinking. There was widespread opposition to the idea of any kind of verbal / dialogue / sharing component happening in their group space. I know I come at this from the place of having found a wholly nourishing and wonderful sangha that prides itself on the skillful inclusion of this relational component. There seemed to be preconceptions of such a part devolving into 'idle chatter' or 'esoteric sharing group' which were said with disdain in the discussion I witnessed. I really loved everyone's commitment to the group, to their own truths, and to being in service of the desires of the group's strength, integrity, and continuity. They were so welcoming to me and even solicited advice and information from me when I shared with them about my group back at home.
I feel sadness having only encountered this group here in Golden Bay as I prepare to leave-- I would have liked to have attended it more in the past few months but it's really fine. What it has done is shift my orientation more towards finding groups like this in other places I may go to which feels like a positive forward look.
I look forward to moving on from Golden Bay and spending a few days in Nelson again where I hope to play a pickup game and go to a psychodrama evening meeting. It's been a long time in coming- I've been researching the psychodrama options here since I got here.
Other developments in my psyche and experience include my own growing disdain for physical manual labor. I would relish something in a temperature-controlled environment, seated, repetitive would be fine- or a childcare or human-relating indoor job. I know, famous last words. But I've spent the better part of the last 3 weeks doing challenging physical work outside like digging, moving dirt, weeding, and other things that leave my IT bands and hips and knees feeling pretty wrecked. I imagine if I were 10 years younger it might be different. That said, one of the other woofers at Tui was 10 years my junior, so kudos to her and her dedication. An energetic woman who gave me a ride yesterday down Takaka-Collingwood highway told me that her reasoning for not doing as much outdoor adventure stuff was because her muscle mass has decreased and her bones have broken down. The way she put it felt quite stark - I know these things are true and happen as you age, but she seemed just fine with it. I spent about a year attempting to un-adhere my identity from out physical outdoor pursuits but then when my ankle healed I fell right back into that groove. I hope with more insight and greater perspective. I hope. Anyhow, this woman was lovely to spend even just the ten minutes of the ride with. I had just bought a bag of peaches from a nearby farm and when I offered her a peach, her instant reply- full of vim and prosody- "is the pope catholic?!?"
I leave you with that.
Sunday 12 January 2020
So much has gone on in the past 2 weeks. It feels fairly surreal. It is January 10 and I am finally going to be sleeping in a bed under a roof- something I haven't done since December 26. I am excited and relieved for this luxury of a dorm bed in a hostel. And not just any hostel! A hostel I had the most warm and fuzzy feeling from spending a weekend in a few weeks back in Takaka, a tiny hippie town in the upper left corner of the South Island.
I'll backtrack with some concrete details. I finished up 2 weeks of picking blueberries in the lovely and bucolic Windsong Orchard in Marlborough and got picked up by a new meditation friend, Mikey. We were both slated to volunteer in the kitchen at the Mix Festival, a New Year's yoga/creativity/consciousness/hippie gathering in a swath of grassy land alongside a frigid river at the edge of Kahurangi National Park. We slept in his van and endured the contrast of tense, time-sensitive kitchen work with the back and forth between sauna and river. As these things tend to go, friends and kindred relationships appear when I'm doing the least striving and hoping for them. Sucked into the whirlwind of my first ever festival and in the frequent presence of a strapping German I've become quite fond of, a little group of roughly 5-7 of us formed and spawned. A bit happenstance and borne of proximity- similar volunteer shifts, close tenting/campervan quarters, and a fresh likemindedness yielded connection that blossomed and ebbed. Then it was New Years eve and amid the fire poi spinners on a rectangle of sawdust I facilitated a group of us in a Teepee in a meditation. We wrote earnestly on collected rocks, tossed the in a stream, sat together in the cold night and listened to Jordan's song 'Already Broken' reverberating from my phone.
Hamish, a redneck kiwi farmboy who claims discomfiture with the openness and frivolity at this festival had a pivotal role. Through the week of the festival he hunted, hugged, slaughtered, and butchered 2 muttons (older sheep) from the nearby forest which was the meat that fed us. I've never been so close to this process and given that I'm a meat eater, I probably should. Hamish seemed to have a rough and cavalier exterior [the fact that he was blood-spattered and dripping with sweat as he wrestled the dead animal with his gleaming knives certainly informed my initial schema. He ended up being a soft-hearted feeler who felt like something of a kindred spirit, especially when I found out we were both born in 1988. He's a skilled back-cracker ("the butcher's touch") and slipped me a few quality pieces of chocolate throughout our kitchen shifts. True to form in this small country, I've already run into him in another city since we said our goodbyes a week ago.
Between the festival and my current perch atop a couch in this hostel with electricity, heating, and modern amenities, I spent 5 days out in the bush. It wasn't clear to me what would transpire following the festival. Would I keep hanging with Mikey in his campervan? Would some of our little 'festival family' do some tramping (backpacking) together? It was up in the air for longer than I'm usually comfortable with. I've been trying to embrace the not knowing and leaving things to be decided at the time itself- even more than than I've gotten into the habit of since moving to Portland. Sure enough, we (5 of us) decided the morning of to glom our plans together and head up the road to the closest carpark (parking lot of a trailhead) in the Kahurangi National Park in the Northern part of the South Island. We were advised that only a 4WD could handle the gravel road up to the carpark (kiwi term for parking lot) but heard otherwise from some seasoned outdoorsy festival-goers and decided to give it a go.
Cast of characters:
Julian: A really like-minded German who's been traveling for the past few years. Follows his heart and his stomach (orients around delicious and hearty food and meals, as well as authentic heart-sharing).
Nicole: A spirited and idealistic German from Austria who's in art school and knows herself very well. She's unfortunately been plagued with sickness for much of the festival but we've gotten closer from being campervan-neighbors even as she's been bedridden.
Mikey: A tender and sweet soul, also German, also knows himself very well. Perhaps the least brazen of the group. He has a deep love for splitting wood, is my age, and 5 months into his working holiday visa. We met from a backpackers facebook group a few weeks back and meditate together.
Zoe: The only kiwi of our group, she's in travel/exploring mode in her home country. A humble leader who knows a lot about plants, the backcountry, and checking in with oneself.
Me: The narrative voice here.
So we set off for a 2 day trip to climb Mount Arthur, a peak in Kahurangi national park that was relatively close to the festival we were at. On our first day we ran into a few hikers who advised us to take a detour to stop into a hut where there was a warden, and run our Mt. Arthur plans by her. We did, and learned of the dire weather forecast for the next few days. She helped us concoct an alternative plan and as we pored over the map and reconfigured our hut passes, part of my brain began to grip and cling to the plan we had devised over this new series of options based on whether huts were to be full, weather was to hold up, and other unknown factors. The first coincidence of the trip: Zoe and the warden recognized each other from a different hut in the forest years back. The warden had been on a longer solo journey and Zoe was on a family tramping (backpacking) trip. Armed with a new plan that was to last more than our initial 2-day planned jaunt, we plodded away from Salisbury hut and towards Balloon hut (in case you want to look them up).
There were very few people in the bush that we ran into, but it seemed every time we ran into someone, we had a connection with them. Adrian crossed paths with us that afternoon and we got our first glimpse into an ineffable phenomenon characterized by a vibrant gleam of peace in the eyes and an open heart that shines through every interaction. Adrian had maybe 2 weeks of food in his pack and was planning to hike with Dan, a well-loved volunteer at the Mix Festival who was also in the same forest. Dan earned the affectionate moniker of 'poo-tenant Dan' as the steward of composting toilets and the mooncup station at the festival. We were giddy with excitement than Adrian knew Dan and that they had met in the backcountry one year ago. Dan was ahead of us on the trail and we hoped to run into him later.
At balloon hut we hung up our sweaty shirts and donned dry ones and tucked into what seemed to be ample supplies of food: 1 kg of cheese, 1 kg of peanut butter, 1 kg of hummus... little did we know what good rationing would have done us.
As I write this I think I'm getting some of the order wrong, because I know that early on we stopped at an iconic shelter under an enormous rock and sank carrots deep into our peanut butter kilo. So the details are now hazy; forgive this trip report.
The first night was spent at Dry Rock Shelter, where we cooked in a DOC (department of conservation) provided pot balanced precariously over an open fire. So precarious that it fell just as it was about ready, and quinoa and veggies spilled all over the dusty ashen ground. The first of Nicole's expertly dehydrated vegetables were not to be wasted though, and she painstakingly washed individual pieces of capsicum (kiwi term for bell pepper). The heroine we all deserve. Meanwhile we kept our heads up and cooked more quinoa from our 1 kg bag of it. That night was bitterly cold. I'd venture to say it was 35-40 degrees Farenheit with the wind and exposed air as we were simpy under a rock outcropping which sheltered us from rain but nothing else. This is wayyy colder than I prefer to backpack but there we were.
Julian took pride in his role of fire-tender and was up each morning gathering wood and getting a fire going. I don't want to underappreciate how nourishing it is to have someone always keeping the next fire in their mind. Nicole always kept the next cup of tea in her mind, Zoe always kept the big picture in mind, Mikey always kept the social fabric of the group in mind, and I [feel like all I always kept in mind was] myself and my own well being; physical, emotional.
The days are all blurring together as I think of them, but I'll see if I can suss out what happened next. After the first day the weather went downhill. We were already into a loop that moved us away from the original Mt. Arthur plan and towards the Cobb reservoir and Cobb valley. We spent the 2nd night in an actual hut called Myttons hut which was poorly insulated but a structure with a roof nonetheless- an upgrade from the shelter as it were. Fire was of utmost importance again as this day was the first of the frigid and soaking days that we walked through wind and rain with minimal visibility and maximal type-2 fun.
When backpacking in the cold, wind, and rain, without any epic view due to the conditions, it really becomes an internal mental situation for me. As Julian aptly described it later, there was a period of resistance and then an embracing. At some point I became resigned to the fact that my shoes and socks and clothes and backpack were drenched, and took solace in the fact that I was "out there in the bush," moving my body, had a fire and roof over my head to look forward to, and was with 4 other quality and earnest new friends. This was enough to fuel me.
In hindsight, a pack cover would have been a good thing to take with me. I thought a garbage bag could do the trick. I was wrong. In the end I opted for putting all my things in the garbage bag inside my backpack and let the backpack get wet while the stuff [sort of] stayed dry. If we had been staying in tents and not in huts with options to make fire, this trip would have been 100% miserable and quite different. We tried out hardest to avoid asphyxiation from the fires in the huts by evening and hung out all our wet gear, fiddling with its orientation to the fire every 20 minutes. Zoe read us bedtime stories and Julian cracked open chocolate bars. Nicole made tea and Mikey wrote in tiny handwriting in his notebook. I made concerted efforts to be a giver rather than a taker and put others in the group first. I see people being kind of selfless in many ways and though it feels foreign to me, I like to try to 'fake it till I make it' in this way.
Day 3 dawned and this was where we started to get antsy. We were all in each other's company and though we liked each other, our respective penchants and needs grew slightly more defined and rubbed up against each other in the microcosmic bottle we inhabited out there in the bush. We had barely ran into anyone else and reasoned that most trampers had left the forest due to the cold rain and wind. We were running low on food and had at least 2-3 more days until we could finish our loop and return to the carpark. So we devised the following foolhardy plan: Julian and Nicole hike up along the Cobb ridge and eventually reach Asbestos Cottage (funny name for a hut, eh), Mikey and Zoe hitchhike to town to get us more food and then hitch from town to a different trailhead that's a 2 hour walk from Asbestos Cottage. I opted for what was supposed to be an easier, mild walk along a dirt road to get to Asbestos Cottage. No part of me wanted to walk along an exposed ridge given the frigid spitting rain. We calculated the hiking times and thought we'd all be there around 2 pm. Zoe, Mikey and I headed out towards the road that I was going to walk and they were going to hitch from. After a half hour of walking, the first car went by. I ducked into the nearby bushes so the driver wouldn't be as deterred by 3 trampers than 2, and about 10 minutes of talking at the car window transpired. In the end, they only had room for 1 extra person so Zoe took the ride into town and assured us she would meet us at the hut later. I was all geared up for my solo day of hiking but quickly readjusted by frame of mind and was happy to be joined by Mikey.
A bit more walking along the road and we took the first right off the road and back into the spindly network of trails. According to my memory of the map, we had to take this right off the road, and then a left, and then we'd be at the hut. Straightforward. It was a steady uphill climb from the road and we were long since completely soaked. We talked about our families, the nature of the universe, emotions, god, traditions, social phenomena and relational dynamics, a bunch of juicy stuff. All the while keeping a keen eye out for our next turnoff. The first few signs we saw had names we didn't recognize, like "broken bridge." There was no broken bridge on the map. We carried on, letting our our deepest exhales and fists pumping the air when we saw "unmaintained track to Asbestos cottage" on a sign. I was alternating between using trekking poles and squeezing the poles in my armpit so I could warm my numb fingers. There were many instances of unclear signage, losing the trail, and backtracking. Visibility was limited and icy hail stung our faces. My wool shirt under my rain jacket was sticking to me from sweat and rain. We had somehow ended up walking along Cobb ridge, overlooking the reservoir. "This must be a beautiful area" I kept telling myself as I struggled to right myself against the wind. Too bad all we could see was gray, mist, and hair blowing in front of our eyes. I had a feeling the way we were walking wasn't right, and there were considerable elevation changes and slippery rocks we had to move carefully on in the rain. Not wanting to descend the entire exposed ridge only to have to retrace our steps, we stopped for a moment, took out my phone under Mikey's poncho, and looked at the map I had taken a picture of at the trailhead where we parked.
Egregious error here-- the map I had photographed was of the Mount Arthur area and we had already hiked out of that zone further north in the park, so I didn't even have a map of where we were. I felt my heartbeat quicken and my nervous system activate. My mind immediately went to the fact that I didn't know the '911' equivalent for NZ. Mikey checked his phone for his map photos and it promptly died. I turned off airplane mode and amazingly had service and was able to turn on my data and download a map of the area from the DOC website. What a relief. In the meanwhile, 10 days worth of email/messenger/whatsapp notifications flooded the screen. I swiped them away one by one and we figured out that yes- we had to backtrack, we were heading in the wrong direction. We made it back to the 'unmaintained track to Asbestos hut' sign, excited to at least have the word 'asbestos' on a sign. We took what seemed to be as unmaintained a track as possible and had several instances of reaching a clearing with many options, a trail that diminished, and a host of other unclear moments on the path. After some amount of time, a few slips and scrapes, more hail, a lot of treacherous and slippery rock, and considerable elevation change, we arrived at Asbestos cottage. What a feeling of uplift and elation! Mikey jumped up and down outside the windows as we heard voices inside and were certain they were our friends. We found the stooped door and barreled in...to find a woman we didn't know. She was not a fan of our boisterousness but the mood softened as we explained ourselves and she shared that she was on her way out of the hut. She was the first other person we saw all day and perhaps we forgot how to behave among strangers. Mikey hurt his knee on the last leg [ha] of our journey so he cozied up in his subpar sleeping bag on one of the rickety rocking chairs that housed pellets of rat poo and I kept on my sopping wet clothes as I hunted for any remotely dry firewood thicker than the twigs already stowed under an awning.
I felt a smugness that we had made it to the hut first as Nicole and Julian casually thought they would beat me (taking the "easy road"). It was 3:45 pm when we arrived. Not too long after, Susannah, a quirky solo-traveling middle aged woman came into the hut. There were 5 of us who were hoping to stay in the hut though only 2 of us were presently there. The hut was small and had 2 bunk beds, so now there would have to be 2 people sleeping on the floor. I didn't know the etiquette for 'reserving' a space in a first-come-first-serve hut but it seemed wholly uncool to assert that she couldn't stay there because "our friends are on their way." And good thing, because Mikey and I didn't have any firestarting source. Again, really unwise. Susannah had matches and we made a fire. After some lazing about warming ourselves in sleeping bags, meditating on a crinkly mattress, and reshifting our dripping clothes before the fire, we went for the final food we had- plain tortillas and some wilted spinach leaves. It was a dry wrap but it didn't matter. What an amazing mouthfeel to have food and be dry. I wondered what Nicole and Julian would think when they arrive at the hut and saw that it was me and Mikey, even though Mikey was supposed to have gone to town with Zoe. Inside I was so thankful things had transpired the way they had, because given all the challenges with routefinding I would not have wanted to make all those judgement calls on my own. Especially in the rough weather. I found strength from being in a duo with Mikey.
At last we heard voices and we all shared big smiles as our friends were at the door to the hut....but it was Zoe and Nicole! How did they get together, Zoe was supposed to be coming from town, and where was Julian?! By then it was close to 6 PM and we all had stories to tell. Zoe began to share how the ride she got dropped her off close to the Hangdog climbing campground where she ran into poo-tenant Dan. Even he had bailed on the tramping due to the weather. What were we still doing in the forest? She had to get another ride into town to the grocery store and felt rushed to make her way back to a trailhead since so few cars would be headed into the bush in the bad weather. Empty backpack now filled with provisions for us, she managed another ride towards a trailhead that could link up with the trail to Asbestos hut. As she walked along the road, another car passed her! It slowed, and out came...Nicole and Julian. This is where Nicole began to tell her story. She and Julian started out for the ridge and after giving it a valiant effort they decided that it was unwise to continue. They had trouble keeping their upright balance in the wind and Julian didn't have any rain gear. He thought about the dream Zoe had the previous night in which he died, and decided it was not the day to be a hero and pass over an exposed ridge in such conditions. So they backtracked and hiked up to the road, to take the same way I [supposedly] had. By the time they got to the road it had been about 3 hours and they were daydreaming hard of getting a ride into Takaka, meeting up with Mikey and Zoe (they didn't know it was only Zoe) and having a coffee in a warm cafe. So they wrote a note to me on a piece of cardboard, put it in a ziploc bag, and affixed it to the door of a hut they thought I would go to (?) They took the first ride they could towards Takaka and called out for the driver to slow down as they saw a neon orange figure making its way down the street. It was Zoe....on her way to the trailhead out of town. She had done the shopping. They got out of the car, shared stories of their respective travails thus far, and Julian decided to follow an intuition of his to meet his friend in town and come back the next night and join us at another hut. So Nicole, Zoe, and the backpack of food set out to hike 2 hours to Asbestos Cottage, which is where we had all met.
I was pretty dumbfounded that Julian had bailed in that way after his big-strong-man persona of hiking, but have come to find lots of respect for him following his truth. Plus he promised to bring us some more food the next night at Flora hut. Which would hopefully be our last night out there.
All the while, Susannah listened to our excitement and unexpected turns of the day. We traced what we thought our routes were with pruny index fingers on the large map on the wall, fed the fire thin twigs on the regular for hours, and ate with dirty hands and minimal bowls. In the end it was auspicious we had one less person that night in the hut. We moved mattresses next to each other to the 'living room' in front of the fire and let Susannah have the 'bedroom'. The 4 of us shared the 3 mattresses and Mikey tended the fire throughout the night, the selfless man that he is.
What a bunch of learning experiences. It's really true what they say--- there won't be flora or fauna here in NZ that will kill you like in other places. No bears, no poisonous snakes or harmful plants (hmm, really?) but the weather will do you in. Summer, winter, anytime. (It's supposed to be summertime here now.)
The next day we woke up to sunshine. What a miraculous treat. We sat and meditated together before beginning our day and took lots of breaks while hiking, one of which was to dip in a beautiful rocky swimming hole. We ate wraps with kumara and butternut squash hummus and finished off a chocolate bar. It felt like another plant from the days before.
After a chill day of about 4 hours walking we got to our final hut for the night. My knee was feeling it but we still threw the disc around for a while in celebration of the end being in sight. Julian met up with us freshly showered, boasting of his amenities of the previous night and doting on us with a fresh bar of chocolate and savory chips. Thank you Julian for joining the group again.
I'll backtrack with some concrete details. I finished up 2 weeks of picking blueberries in the lovely and bucolic Windsong Orchard in Marlborough and got picked up by a new meditation friend, Mikey. We were both slated to volunteer in the kitchen at the Mix Festival, a New Year's yoga/creativity/consciousness/hippie gathering in a swath of grassy land alongside a frigid river at the edge of Kahurangi National Park. We slept in his van and endured the contrast of tense, time-sensitive kitchen work with the back and forth between sauna and river. As these things tend to go, friends and kindred relationships appear when I'm doing the least striving and hoping for them. Sucked into the whirlwind of my first ever festival and in the frequent presence of a strapping German I've become quite fond of, a little group of roughly 5-7 of us formed and spawned. A bit happenstance and borne of proximity- similar volunteer shifts, close tenting/campervan quarters, and a fresh likemindedness yielded connection that blossomed and ebbed. Then it was New Years eve and amid the fire poi spinners on a rectangle of sawdust I facilitated a group of us in a Teepee in a meditation. We wrote earnestly on collected rocks, tossed the in a stream, sat together in the cold night and listened to Jordan's song 'Already Broken' reverberating from my phone.
Hamish, a redneck kiwi farmboy who claims discomfiture with the openness and frivolity at this festival had a pivotal role. Through the week of the festival he hunted, hugged, slaughtered, and butchered 2 muttons (older sheep) from the nearby forest which was the meat that fed us. I've never been so close to this process and given that I'm a meat eater, I probably should. Hamish seemed to have a rough and cavalier exterior [the fact that he was blood-spattered and dripping with sweat as he wrestled the dead animal with his gleaming knives certainly informed my initial schema. He ended up being a soft-hearted feeler who felt like something of a kindred spirit, especially when I found out we were both born in 1988. He's a skilled back-cracker ("the butcher's touch") and slipped me a few quality pieces of chocolate throughout our kitchen shifts. True to form in this small country, I've already run into him in another city since we said our goodbyes a week ago.
Between the festival and my current perch atop a couch in this hostel with electricity, heating, and modern amenities, I spent 5 days out in the bush. It wasn't clear to me what would transpire following the festival. Would I keep hanging with Mikey in his campervan? Would some of our little 'festival family' do some tramping (backpacking) together? It was up in the air for longer than I'm usually comfortable with. I've been trying to embrace the not knowing and leaving things to be decided at the time itself- even more than than I've gotten into the habit of since moving to Portland. Sure enough, we (5 of us) decided the morning of to glom our plans together and head up the road to the closest carpark (parking lot of a trailhead) in the Kahurangi National Park in the Northern part of the South Island. We were advised that only a 4WD could handle the gravel road up to the carpark (kiwi term for parking lot) but heard otherwise from some seasoned outdoorsy festival-goers and decided to give it a go.
Cast of characters:
Julian: A really like-minded German who's been traveling for the past few years. Follows his heart and his stomach (orients around delicious and hearty food and meals, as well as authentic heart-sharing).
Nicole: A spirited and idealistic German from Austria who's in art school and knows herself very well. She's unfortunately been plagued with sickness for much of the festival but we've gotten closer from being campervan-neighbors even as she's been bedridden.
Mikey: A tender and sweet soul, also German, also knows himself very well. Perhaps the least brazen of the group. He has a deep love for splitting wood, is my age, and 5 months into his working holiday visa. We met from a backpackers facebook group a few weeks back and meditate together.
Zoe: The only kiwi of our group, she's in travel/exploring mode in her home country. A humble leader who knows a lot about plants, the backcountry, and checking in with oneself.
Me: The narrative voice here.
So we set off for a 2 day trip to climb Mount Arthur, a peak in Kahurangi national park that was relatively close to the festival we were at. On our first day we ran into a few hikers who advised us to take a detour to stop into a hut where there was a warden, and run our Mt. Arthur plans by her. We did, and learned of the dire weather forecast for the next few days. She helped us concoct an alternative plan and as we pored over the map and reconfigured our hut passes, part of my brain began to grip and cling to the plan we had devised over this new series of options based on whether huts were to be full, weather was to hold up, and other unknown factors. The first coincidence of the trip: Zoe and the warden recognized each other from a different hut in the forest years back. The warden had been on a longer solo journey and Zoe was on a family tramping (backpacking) trip. Armed with a new plan that was to last more than our initial 2-day planned jaunt, we plodded away from Salisbury hut and towards Balloon hut (in case you want to look them up).
There were very few people in the bush that we ran into, but it seemed every time we ran into someone, we had a connection with them. Adrian crossed paths with us that afternoon and we got our first glimpse into an ineffable phenomenon characterized by a vibrant gleam of peace in the eyes and an open heart that shines through every interaction. Adrian had maybe 2 weeks of food in his pack and was planning to hike with Dan, a well-loved volunteer at the Mix Festival who was also in the same forest. Dan earned the affectionate moniker of 'poo-tenant Dan' as the steward of composting toilets and the mooncup station at the festival. We were giddy with excitement than Adrian knew Dan and that they had met in the backcountry one year ago. Dan was ahead of us on the trail and we hoped to run into him later.
At balloon hut we hung up our sweaty shirts and donned dry ones and tucked into what seemed to be ample supplies of food: 1 kg of cheese, 1 kg of peanut butter, 1 kg of hummus... little did we know what good rationing would have done us.
As I write this I think I'm getting some of the order wrong, because I know that early on we stopped at an iconic shelter under an enormous rock and sank carrots deep into our peanut butter kilo. So the details are now hazy; forgive this trip report.
The first night was spent at Dry Rock Shelter, where we cooked in a DOC (department of conservation) provided pot balanced precariously over an open fire. So precarious that it fell just as it was about ready, and quinoa and veggies spilled all over the dusty ashen ground. The first of Nicole's expertly dehydrated vegetables were not to be wasted though, and she painstakingly washed individual pieces of capsicum (kiwi term for bell pepper). The heroine we all deserve. Meanwhile we kept our heads up and cooked more quinoa from our 1 kg bag of it. That night was bitterly cold. I'd venture to say it was 35-40 degrees Farenheit with the wind and exposed air as we were simpy under a rock outcropping which sheltered us from rain but nothing else. This is wayyy colder than I prefer to backpack but there we were.
Julian took pride in his role of fire-tender and was up each morning gathering wood and getting a fire going. I don't want to underappreciate how nourishing it is to have someone always keeping the next fire in their mind. Nicole always kept the next cup of tea in her mind, Zoe always kept the big picture in mind, Mikey always kept the social fabric of the group in mind, and I [feel like all I always kept in mind was] myself and my own well being; physical, emotional.
The days are all blurring together as I think of them, but I'll see if I can suss out what happened next. After the first day the weather went downhill. We were already into a loop that moved us away from the original Mt. Arthur plan and towards the Cobb reservoir and Cobb valley. We spent the 2nd night in an actual hut called Myttons hut which was poorly insulated but a structure with a roof nonetheless- an upgrade from the shelter as it were. Fire was of utmost importance again as this day was the first of the frigid and soaking days that we walked through wind and rain with minimal visibility and maximal type-2 fun.
When backpacking in the cold, wind, and rain, without any epic view due to the conditions, it really becomes an internal mental situation for me. As Julian aptly described it later, there was a period of resistance and then an embracing. At some point I became resigned to the fact that my shoes and socks and clothes and backpack were drenched, and took solace in the fact that I was "out there in the bush," moving my body, had a fire and roof over my head to look forward to, and was with 4 other quality and earnest new friends. This was enough to fuel me.
In hindsight, a pack cover would have been a good thing to take with me. I thought a garbage bag could do the trick. I was wrong. In the end I opted for putting all my things in the garbage bag inside my backpack and let the backpack get wet while the stuff [sort of] stayed dry. If we had been staying in tents and not in huts with options to make fire, this trip would have been 100% miserable and quite different. We tried out hardest to avoid asphyxiation from the fires in the huts by evening and hung out all our wet gear, fiddling with its orientation to the fire every 20 minutes. Zoe read us bedtime stories and Julian cracked open chocolate bars. Nicole made tea and Mikey wrote in tiny handwriting in his notebook. I made concerted efforts to be a giver rather than a taker and put others in the group first. I see people being kind of selfless in many ways and though it feels foreign to me, I like to try to 'fake it till I make it' in this way.
Day 3 dawned and this was where we started to get antsy. We were all in each other's company and though we liked each other, our respective penchants and needs grew slightly more defined and rubbed up against each other in the microcosmic bottle we inhabited out there in the bush. We had barely ran into anyone else and reasoned that most trampers had left the forest due to the cold rain and wind. We were running low on food and had at least 2-3 more days until we could finish our loop and return to the carpark. So we devised the following foolhardy plan: Julian and Nicole hike up along the Cobb ridge and eventually reach Asbestos Cottage (funny name for a hut, eh), Mikey and Zoe hitchhike to town to get us more food and then hitch from town to a different trailhead that's a 2 hour walk from Asbestos Cottage. I opted for what was supposed to be an easier, mild walk along a dirt road to get to Asbestos Cottage. No part of me wanted to walk along an exposed ridge given the frigid spitting rain. We calculated the hiking times and thought we'd all be there around 2 pm. Zoe, Mikey and I headed out towards the road that I was going to walk and they were going to hitch from. After a half hour of walking, the first car went by. I ducked into the nearby bushes so the driver wouldn't be as deterred by 3 trampers than 2, and about 10 minutes of talking at the car window transpired. In the end, they only had room for 1 extra person so Zoe took the ride into town and assured us she would meet us at the hut later. I was all geared up for my solo day of hiking but quickly readjusted by frame of mind and was happy to be joined by Mikey.
A bit more walking along the road and we took the first right off the road and back into the spindly network of trails. According to my memory of the map, we had to take this right off the road, and then a left, and then we'd be at the hut. Straightforward. It was a steady uphill climb from the road and we were long since completely soaked. We talked about our families, the nature of the universe, emotions, god, traditions, social phenomena and relational dynamics, a bunch of juicy stuff. All the while keeping a keen eye out for our next turnoff. The first few signs we saw had names we didn't recognize, like "broken bridge." There was no broken bridge on the map. We carried on, letting our our deepest exhales and fists pumping the air when we saw "unmaintained track to Asbestos cottage" on a sign. I was alternating between using trekking poles and squeezing the poles in my armpit so I could warm my numb fingers. There were many instances of unclear signage, losing the trail, and backtracking. Visibility was limited and icy hail stung our faces. My wool shirt under my rain jacket was sticking to me from sweat and rain. We had somehow ended up walking along Cobb ridge, overlooking the reservoir. "This must be a beautiful area" I kept telling myself as I struggled to right myself against the wind. Too bad all we could see was gray, mist, and hair blowing in front of our eyes. I had a feeling the way we were walking wasn't right, and there were considerable elevation changes and slippery rocks we had to move carefully on in the rain. Not wanting to descend the entire exposed ridge only to have to retrace our steps, we stopped for a moment, took out my phone under Mikey's poncho, and looked at the map I had taken a picture of at the trailhead where we parked.
Egregious error here-- the map I had photographed was of the Mount Arthur area and we had already hiked out of that zone further north in the park, so I didn't even have a map of where we were. I felt my heartbeat quicken and my nervous system activate. My mind immediately went to the fact that I didn't know the '911' equivalent for NZ. Mikey checked his phone for his map photos and it promptly died. I turned off airplane mode and amazingly had service and was able to turn on my data and download a map of the area from the DOC website. What a relief. In the meanwhile, 10 days worth of email/messenger/whatsapp notifications flooded the screen. I swiped them away one by one and we figured out that yes- we had to backtrack, we were heading in the wrong direction. We made it back to the 'unmaintained track to Asbestos hut' sign, excited to at least have the word 'asbestos' on a sign. We took what seemed to be as unmaintained a track as possible and had several instances of reaching a clearing with many options, a trail that diminished, and a host of other unclear moments on the path. After some amount of time, a few slips and scrapes, more hail, a lot of treacherous and slippery rock, and considerable elevation change, we arrived at Asbestos cottage. What a feeling of uplift and elation! Mikey jumped up and down outside the windows as we heard voices inside and were certain they were our friends. We found the stooped door and barreled in...to find a woman we didn't know. She was not a fan of our boisterousness but the mood softened as we explained ourselves and she shared that she was on her way out of the hut. She was the first other person we saw all day and perhaps we forgot how to behave among strangers. Mikey hurt his knee on the last leg [ha] of our journey so he cozied up in his subpar sleeping bag on one of the rickety rocking chairs that housed pellets of rat poo and I kept on my sopping wet clothes as I hunted for any remotely dry firewood thicker than the twigs already stowed under an awning.
I felt a smugness that we had made it to the hut first as Nicole and Julian casually thought they would beat me (taking the "easy road"). It was 3:45 pm when we arrived. Not too long after, Susannah, a quirky solo-traveling middle aged woman came into the hut. There were 5 of us who were hoping to stay in the hut though only 2 of us were presently there. The hut was small and had 2 bunk beds, so now there would have to be 2 people sleeping on the floor. I didn't know the etiquette for 'reserving' a space in a first-come-first-serve hut but it seemed wholly uncool to assert that she couldn't stay there because "our friends are on their way." And good thing, because Mikey and I didn't have any firestarting source. Again, really unwise. Susannah had matches and we made a fire. After some lazing about warming ourselves in sleeping bags, meditating on a crinkly mattress, and reshifting our dripping clothes before the fire, we went for the final food we had- plain tortillas and some wilted spinach leaves. It was a dry wrap but it didn't matter. What an amazing mouthfeel to have food and be dry. I wondered what Nicole and Julian would think when they arrive at the hut and saw that it was me and Mikey, even though Mikey was supposed to have gone to town with Zoe. Inside I was so thankful things had transpired the way they had, because given all the challenges with routefinding I would not have wanted to make all those judgement calls on my own. Especially in the rough weather. I found strength from being in a duo with Mikey.
At last we heard voices and we all shared big smiles as our friends were at the door to the hut....but it was Zoe and Nicole! How did they get together, Zoe was supposed to be coming from town, and where was Julian?! By then it was close to 6 PM and we all had stories to tell. Zoe began to share how the ride she got dropped her off close to the Hangdog climbing campground where she ran into poo-tenant Dan. Even he had bailed on the tramping due to the weather. What were we still doing in the forest? She had to get another ride into town to the grocery store and felt rushed to make her way back to a trailhead since so few cars would be headed into the bush in the bad weather. Empty backpack now filled with provisions for us, she managed another ride towards a trailhead that could link up with the trail to Asbestos hut. As she walked along the road, another car passed her! It slowed, and out came...Nicole and Julian. This is where Nicole began to tell her story. She and Julian started out for the ridge and after giving it a valiant effort they decided that it was unwise to continue. They had trouble keeping their upright balance in the wind and Julian didn't have any rain gear. He thought about the dream Zoe had the previous night in which he died, and decided it was not the day to be a hero and pass over an exposed ridge in such conditions. So they backtracked and hiked up to the road, to take the same way I [supposedly] had. By the time they got to the road it had been about 3 hours and they were daydreaming hard of getting a ride into Takaka, meeting up with Mikey and Zoe (they didn't know it was only Zoe) and having a coffee in a warm cafe. So they wrote a note to me on a piece of cardboard, put it in a ziploc bag, and affixed it to the door of a hut they thought I would go to (?) They took the first ride they could towards Takaka and called out for the driver to slow down as they saw a neon orange figure making its way down the street. It was Zoe....on her way to the trailhead out of town. She had done the shopping. They got out of the car, shared stories of their respective travails thus far, and Julian decided to follow an intuition of his to meet his friend in town and come back the next night and join us at another hut. So Nicole, Zoe, and the backpack of food set out to hike 2 hours to Asbestos Cottage, which is where we had all met.
I was pretty dumbfounded that Julian had bailed in that way after his big-strong-man persona of hiking, but have come to find lots of respect for him following his truth. Plus he promised to bring us some more food the next night at Flora hut. Which would hopefully be our last night out there.
All the while, Susannah listened to our excitement and unexpected turns of the day. We traced what we thought our routes were with pruny index fingers on the large map on the wall, fed the fire thin twigs on the regular for hours, and ate with dirty hands and minimal bowls. In the end it was auspicious we had one less person that night in the hut. We moved mattresses next to each other to the 'living room' in front of the fire and let Susannah have the 'bedroom'. The 4 of us shared the 3 mattresses and Mikey tended the fire throughout the night, the selfless man that he is.
What a bunch of learning experiences. It's really true what they say--- there won't be flora or fauna here in NZ that will kill you like in other places. No bears, no poisonous snakes or harmful plants (hmm, really?) but the weather will do you in. Summer, winter, anytime. (It's supposed to be summertime here now.)
The next day we woke up to sunshine. What a miraculous treat. We sat and meditated together before beginning our day and took lots of breaks while hiking, one of which was to dip in a beautiful rocky swimming hole. We ate wraps with kumara and butternut squash hummus and finished off a chocolate bar. It felt like another plant from the days before.
After a chill day of about 4 hours walking we got to our final hut for the night. My knee was feeling it but we still threw the disc around for a while in celebration of the end being in sight. Julian met up with us freshly showered, boasting of his amenities of the previous night and doting on us with a fresh bar of chocolate and savory chips. Thank you Julian for joining the group again.
Friday 20 December 2019
I am at a place called "Windsong orchard" which I was at last year for a week and had a good time, so I got back in touch to return. They have been a fruit orchard for over 30 years here, in many ways pioneering the organic movement in this district of New Zealand. They also were instrumental in getting the local weekly farmers market established and have been hosting woofers here since like 1990, when they still had to look through the manual and write letters to inquire about possibly doing work exchange here (!)
I wrote a dear friend an email and thought- why reinvent the wheel? So here are some excerpts from it. This blog probably has like 1.7 viewers so it needn't be all wrapped up in a nice bow with a beginning, middle, and end.
Again this is not everything, just a tidbit but I am pleased to say that at the 3-week mark I am feeling more settled than I was at the 1 week and 2 week marks. Thinking a bit more long term, feeling a bit more confident in my ability to spend money, save money, use money, and be wise about it. Also keep balance so now spend all day slaving away in the hot sun and also being engaged in some sort of purposeful routine and surrounded by a healthy and necessary degree of nice nature and quality people.
Next week I will have my first sailing experience (I hope) and also embark on my very first festival on the outskirts of Kahurangi national park, where I will be volunteering with the food prep/meals.
I wrote a dear friend an email and thought- why reinvent the wheel? So here are some excerpts from it. This blog probably has like 1.7 viewers so it needn't be all wrapped up in a nice bow with a beginning, middle, and end.
I have been thinking a fair bit about the culture with migrant workers/day laborers as that is essentially what I am doing now as I am woofing here picking blueberries- minimum wage basic labor. There is an emphasis on speed and efficiency (not to an unhealthy degree- it is a friendly and warm family fruit orchard - but still) and I am working alongside a girl doing her internship from Denmark and a guy our age from New Caledonia. Who even knew what that was?! It's a close by island that is a French colony. His name is Arnaud and it's pronounced ahhh-no. He is sweet and sentimental and knows very little english so everything we have communicated has been laborious and broken. That said, he has managed to casually drop that his mom was imprisoned for protesting/being an activist against the governmental seizure of ancestral lands (?) and during that jail time his father divorced her. He was 18 at the time and has since had no contact with his father because the fact that he divorced his mom when she was in jail is "not morality" (in the words of Arnaud.)
There are too many blueberries and not enough pickers! So we ended up with 2 extra hands in the form of young German guys. They are very different but both needed the work and are just looking for whatever kind of day labor they can do. They have a really strong sense of life being ideal if one has a "job and a girlfriend" which will lead to getting higher in the company your job is in and then starting a family. I recognize I have resistance to that paradigm which is definitely related to the fact that I feel I missed that boat. Veiled in the openness/write your own script thing I profess.
Here they call a bathroom a "toilet". So people sometimes say weird things like "I got lost in the toilet" or "I banged my head in the toilet". tehehe.
Also flip flops are jandals. And breaks in the middle of the workday are "smokos."
Chanuka occurred to me to the degree that I googled when it was. But thankfully after about a decade of trying in various times and ways to make any jewish involvement feel right/good/comforting, I've all but given up on that. Like, if I happen to be offered a yummy looking latke I will not turn it down. But that is the extent of it.
Speaking of Judaism, I had a horrific experience with a hick/NZ Navy family here last week. I was straight up in a fight/flight/freeze state. And upon reflection, I wonder if it wasn't like some genetic/ancestral trauma activations. (I can't help it - I am orienting this way now.) I can't remember if I told you about it or any snippets. But at the very beginning they said "you aren't vegetarian, are you?" in an accusatory tone. I proudly and smugly said "No!" But then I added "But I don't eat pork" (I was careful to say pork rather than pig, because I have learned that saying pig is like saying 'cow'- it is something vegans do to personify and show how uncouth and cruel it is that some people eat cows, etc). Just my luck. "Oh- well! We happen to have a fridge full of ham right now. Not sure if we have much else, actually." She then asks why I don't eat pork. I tried to give her a cavalier yet diplomatic answer: "I was raised in a really religious environment that professed to not eat pork." Keep it short and sweet, no details or identifying factors. She asked which religion, so I said "Judaism." She sneered and said "No. We don't have that here." I was kind of dumbfounded. She repeated "We don't have that here. You mean like...Jewish? No, that's not here."
---
I feel like something got switched on or off in me at that moment. I was vulnerable, at their mercy for my food and lodging, without any kind of vehicle or escape plan, and in a very rural place where there were no buses and it would take hours to walk to the nearest road I could hitchhike. Somehow I spent 2 excruciating days there in isolation, during which I was tasked with weeding and after an hour pulled my lower back. I did end up eating things that weren't pork, thankfully, but every other comment was like a snide thing about Americans, my clothing, the way I washed dishes, everything. That- and inappropriate comments about their 2-yr old daughter like "She was a total surprise. We never wanted kids." and "I would definitely not rush into this (gesturing to the little tot,rolling her eyes.)
Now I will say that I probably took everything a bit too intensely and the way I describe it is probably a strong reading into the facts on the ground. But there was something in the air/environment that made me not feel safe and all parts of my mind and nervous system were aware of it. It's easy enough to say "oh, some uneducated and sheltered rural hicks." and Wave them away and chalk it up to a weird travel experience. But as a sensitive and feeling person, it knocked me down and out. Physically with my seized up lower back, and then when I finally arranged to get out (made contact with a random person with a campervan from a backpacker message board who said he liked meditation) and told them of my plans to leave, they accused me of being a bad communicator, reneging on my agreement, underhanded, and threatened that "it's a small town" and word gets around fast -- this in regard to the fact that I told them my next stop was to woof at this fruit orchard and they said they knew it and would basically smear my name. That was when I started to feel faint. I was standing my the wall in the living room holding my water bottle and I dropped the bottle and sank to the floor. It must have been quite a scene. The dad said "what's going on - you look totally disorientated." I wasn't that far gone to still think a little judgemental snippet about how he mispronounced that word, only to find out later that it is a British pronunciation much like 'aluminium.' Whatever.
Boy, I'm getting all worked up just typing this out. I am so so grateful though, for the events that transpired once I got out of there. They ended up driving me into the nearest town where I agreed to meet up with this backpacker and I felt so much relief to just be in the podunk grocery store. I wandered numbly through the streets until I found a park and lay down, stretching and breathing. I think 2 hours past as I was efforting into slowing down my exhales and counting each breath, just trying to come down from the last 2 days. Or maybe it was 3 days. I realize it could have been a fool's errand to meet up with this other backpacker who's facebook profile was blank except for the name "Mi Bla." And a picture of a nice landscape. But I needed any kind of escape. And preferably one on my terms. It ended up being a wonderfully like-minded conscientious German who, despite his limited English, we were able to establish a shared resonance, respect, and fondness fairly early on. We walked around town and then drove to a nearby beach. Got in the water, stacked rocks, played in the sand, repeat. I could feel myself unfurling and knew that my back muscles were already on the mend, being around a trustworthy open-hearted peer, with freedom of movement and words.
After a day with this timely godsend, I met up with a friend I had met last year from the states who's currently 2 years into his time in NZ and in a frustrating battle with immigration for a work visa so he can do a job he is quite qualified for and got offered. Bryce took the ferry from Wellington and I met him at the top of the South Island and we drove 4 hours up to Golden Bay, to a hostel that further uplifted me and has now far and away qualified as my favorite hostel experience. Kiwiana has a ping pong table (!) which was a big pull in me booking it. It is super small and intimate, and probably has room for 15 guests and a few long-term volunteers. The kitchen closes at 10, and everyone was so friendly, welcoming, and helpful. It was a complete 180 degree shift from the industrial hostels where everyone is just on their phones. My fingers are getting sore (actually, they were getting sore from all the blueberry picking) so I will wrap this up. Thanks for hearing me and wow I am so relieved again, to be in a safe place. A place that feels safe. What is it about safety. It is hard to say. But I do wish I weren't so porous and heavily impacted by people around me. I have spent years knowing that I am, and trying to NOT be. To cultivate all that I need to exist within. And then I had this attachment therapist back in Portland who insists that such a feat is fundamentally impossible for humans, as we are governed by our attachment systems and it is in our nature to get 'downloads' from people around us. Hmm.
Again this is not everything, just a tidbit but I am pleased to say that at the 3-week mark I am feeling more settled than I was at the 1 week and 2 week marks. Thinking a bit more long term, feeling a bit more confident in my ability to spend money, save money, use money, and be wise about it. Also keep balance so now spend all day slaving away in the hot sun and also being engaged in some sort of purposeful routine and surrounded by a healthy and necessary degree of nice nature and quality people.
Next week I will have my first sailing experience (I hope) and also embark on my very first festival on the outskirts of Kahurangi national park, where I will be volunteering with the food prep/meals.
Monday 9 December 2019
Monday evening
Most immediately, I became aware of the fact that an island off the North Island of NZ which is a volcano, blew this afternoon, killing some people and injuring more. I saw some videos and read some news articles. It very well could have been me, as I'm a tourist. I just happen to be in the South Island right now and I was more monitoring the floods and land/rockslides that have rendered a large chunk of the South Island impassable due to the road damage. In particular, Franz Josef area where I spent some time last year. I feel more justified in having done my advanced directives at the very least, and intend to contemplate death and dying more as I continue to practice [meditation].
I've now felt my first several senses of community and they are sweet. But quite fleeting. The hostel (locally called a "backpackers") I've been staying at here in Nelson has a few solid folks who are long-termers and I feel very safe, comfortable, appreciated, and a sense of belonging amongst them. So I stayed for 5 nights instead of 4, and will be heading out in the morning to my first workaway, a family who owns a wine tour company in a vineyard-filled sprawling area about 2 hours south of here. It's rural, and I anticipate helping out with various tasks around the house, cooking, cleaning, and childcare for a little tot- not sure how old. I am looking forward to being in a real kitchen and having access to spices, oils, and raw ingredients. I hope. I have no idea what the dynamic will be, but I'll find out. I'll also relish being around a kid again and being able to engage in home-maintaining tasks, whatever they may be.
These long termers include a very bro-y mountain biker who is camper-vanning around from Squamish, CA, a bearded twinkly smiled Yang-gangster from Cleveland who immediately pinned me as American due to my Nalgene and Osprey (yup), a charismatic Brit named Callum who has a tattoo of Thing 1 and Thing 2 prancing on the inside of his bicep, a spunky German girl who's got a job at a local Italian restaurant and a French girl who is gluten free ("not by choice") and is also a solo traveler.
Part of me wants to really get into some of the emotional underpinnings to everything that happens rather than simply report happenings and remarkable circumstances. I haven't quite figured out how to disclose with grace and skill and measured boundaries rather than an unfiltered vulnerability that is not wise to have on the internet.
The beach tournament was challenging disc-wise, as the wind was so intense the entire time, except the 2nd half of the very last game on Sunday when instead of gale-force winds, there was monsoon rains. Very hard to complete any passes. Several games went by without any break points. It was more like an homage to ultimate than anything else. Communal-energy wise it was really great and I relished in feeling again, a sense of belonging and purpose. Being a part of something, generally accepted, and able to engage. I even reconnected with a few people I had met playing pickup here last year, and got that fervent buzz of a tournament when there is just so many hours in a 48 hour period spent amongst people that it's like a crash course in getting to know random strangers. At least for me, playing in a hat tournament in another country.
There continues to be ups and downs, disappointments, moments of pause, rapture at the beautiful nature, distress and resignedness, lament and shame. Doubt and wistfulness, glee and relief and longing.
And I left my cute little mini Dr. Bronner's bottle of soap I brought at a hostel in Auckland. So now I'm soapless.
*If you are reading this and have any questions about NZ, travel, me, or otherwise, feel free to comment and/or otherwise get in touch with me and ask, and I will address it in this blog.
I've now felt my first several senses of community and they are sweet. But quite fleeting. The hostel (locally called a "backpackers") I've been staying at here in Nelson has a few solid folks who are long-termers and I feel very safe, comfortable, appreciated, and a sense of belonging amongst them. So I stayed for 5 nights instead of 4, and will be heading out in the morning to my first workaway, a family who owns a wine tour company in a vineyard-filled sprawling area about 2 hours south of here. It's rural, and I anticipate helping out with various tasks around the house, cooking, cleaning, and childcare for a little tot- not sure how old. I am looking forward to being in a real kitchen and having access to spices, oils, and raw ingredients. I hope. I have no idea what the dynamic will be, but I'll find out. I'll also relish being around a kid again and being able to engage in home-maintaining tasks, whatever they may be.
These long termers include a very bro-y mountain biker who is camper-vanning around from Squamish, CA, a bearded twinkly smiled Yang-gangster from Cleveland who immediately pinned me as American due to my Nalgene and Osprey (yup), a charismatic Brit named Callum who has a tattoo of Thing 1 and Thing 2 prancing on the inside of his bicep, a spunky German girl who's got a job at a local Italian restaurant and a French girl who is gluten free ("not by choice") and is also a solo traveler.
Part of me wants to really get into some of the emotional underpinnings to everything that happens rather than simply report happenings and remarkable circumstances. I haven't quite figured out how to disclose with grace and skill and measured boundaries rather than an unfiltered vulnerability that is not wise to have on the internet.
The beach tournament was challenging disc-wise, as the wind was so intense the entire time, except the 2nd half of the very last game on Sunday when instead of gale-force winds, there was monsoon rains. Very hard to complete any passes. Several games went by without any break points. It was more like an homage to ultimate than anything else. Communal-energy wise it was really great and I relished in feeling again, a sense of belonging and purpose. Being a part of something, generally accepted, and able to engage. I even reconnected with a few people I had met playing pickup here last year, and got that fervent buzz of a tournament when there is just so many hours in a 48 hour period spent amongst people that it's like a crash course in getting to know random strangers. At least for me, playing in a hat tournament in another country.
There continues to be ups and downs, disappointments, moments of pause, rapture at the beautiful nature, distress and resignedness, lament and shame. Doubt and wistfulness, glee and relief and longing.
And I left my cute little mini Dr. Bronner's bottle of soap I brought at a hostel in Auckland. So now I'm soapless.
*If you are reading this and have any questions about NZ, travel, me, or otherwise, feel free to comment and/or otherwise get in touch with me and ask, and I will address it in this blog.
Monday 2 December 2019
First few days having reached the destination
I've been struggling a bit the last few days. Upsurges of emotion have swelled and peaked from seemingly miniscule catalysts, leaving me tossed and akimbo. There have been a few of these, and I found my responses to be even clearer than in the past. The qualities of these swells are fairly familiar and definitive by now. The sense of overarching foreboding, the irrelevance of time. Concepts like relativity, perspective, and reason are remote. My recent polyvagal orientation had me orient immediately towards reaching for co-regulation opportunities with people. Thank you to those of you who met me and showed/continue to show me love and stability. Being shown attuned love and steadfast presence is something I did not get as a kid and am working on internalizing the idea that it is possible.
--- --- ---
The one hitchhiking attempt I've made thus far has yielded pride and humility. Phil from Tonga gave me a ride that took 15 minutes and would have taken 2 hours on buses.
---- ---- ----
Tempering assertiveness and practicing extending vocal interjections, rescinding hasty demands. The default for this body and persona is to defer, allow, assuage, quell, soften, assist, morph. Be malleable. Fill in, smooth.
Thank you Eitan for reminding me to give it a chance. I will give it a chance.
--- --- ---
The one hitchhiking attempt I've made thus far has yielded pride and humility. Phil from Tonga gave me a ride that took 15 minutes and would have taken 2 hours on buses.
---- ---- ----
Tempering assertiveness and practicing extending vocal interjections, rescinding hasty demands. The default for this body and persona is to defer, allow, assuage, quell, soften, assist, morph. Be malleable. Fill in, smooth.
Thank you Eitan for reminding me to give it a chance. I will give it a chance.
Thursday 28 November 2019
Podcasts Creeping Into My Life
Of course I've known about podcasts for years but similar to many things, I turn the other cheek and avoid the bandwagon. Sometime in the last 6 months or so, I finally got on board. I think it began in anticipation of some travel- an attempt at occupying myself on the plane. Or while I'd bike the half hour to or from the gym I had been going to in Portland.
I had heard of a few and checked them out, to minimal yield. This American Life, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, The Moth. I will admit there is something about knowing that a podcast is widely lauded that repels me. This is in no way based in logic. These days I've been listening to a fair bit of travel podcasts (unsurprisingly) in implicit and slightly sub-but mostly conscious ways of psyching myself up for this trip. These have been Dirtbag Diaries and Zero To Travel. And the occasional geeky avian or meteorological podcast by a kiwi to 'acquaint myself with the accent.' I mainly vacillate between travel/backpacking podcasts and trauma/somatic/attachment podcasts. Peter Levine and Gabor Mate are interviewed on a lot of them.
I'm writing this from a king-sized clean and soft bed in Kailua, Hawaii. In an auspicious facebook post reply, I learned that an old friend from Boulder contra dance's parents live here and would be tickled to host me for this 24 hour Thanksgiving layover. It's the end of a long day that began with a 6:30 AM alarm, waking me up from a dream that vividly highlighted my ongoing challenge and practice with assertiveness. I cleared up the last of my room, made one final illegal-dumping run to a big trash bin at a neighboring apartment complex, and drank echinacea elderberry team with a splash of unsweetened vanilla hemp milk. Bye-bye Portland.
Something that's been so profound thus far with this transition is the bringing to the forefront and recognition of communities I have become a part of, formed and fomented (I don't know what this word means but it belongs here). I have worked pretty hard to think through all the aspects of life that would need to shift and end, how that would go, and how to carry it out. A real executive functioning bonanza. I gave 2.5 months notice at work and stewarded that as best I could. It feels like a distant memory now, every Tuesday and Thursday since Oct 2015 heading down to Oregon City. Finding my favorite Mexican food ever, including that which is in Mexico itself, just 2 blocks from my workplace in OC - Super Torta.
Communities... I went to the Tuesday night contact improv jam one last time. It's been maybe 2 years since I've attended regularly, but I must have gone enough that I know a critical mass of people, made an impression, and got some love and care when I announced by departure. I've had some extra special one-on-one hangouts with people over the last week, mainly from Aspen Grove. Really cherish my one-on-one sits and hangouts with sangha members. Even though it took us a year+ to finally make it happen. Even at home, my relationship with my community members [affectionately termed 'fostervillains'] has taken on a sweet and more authentic and deliberate texture in recent days and weeks.
Writing this is a bit laborious, because I'm doing a lot of considering of who might read it and what they will think. That's unnecessary caretaking. It's also clarifying, and I really doubt it'll last through this trip, but I am still on board with the idea of going for it and seeing how it unfolds. I have a desire to connect with people in my life, express myself, share and be shared with, see and be seen. And heard. This could be a platform for that but it also begs the dichotomy blogs often split upon: sharing the narrative details, or sharing my emotions that undercurrent the observable aforementioned?
Tomorrow I leave on Thursday morning. Thanksgiving. After a 9 hour flight to Auckland, I'll be arriving about 10 PM Friday night. I guess this is how you miss Thanksgiving and Black Friday.
PS: The plane to Honolulu was so empty I got a row of 5 seats to myself.
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