Mightier Than Any Sword

hello and goodbye.

2012-01-15T14:20:00.000+13:00

well, people. it's time to move on.

this is the last post on mightier than any sword. i'm keeping the blog up but comments will be closed shortly.

please visit me at my brand new blog, the dreadful quaker.

three years.

2011-12-15T19:00:00.001+13:00

three years ago i arrived at the house of some friends for the weekend and discovered i'd forgotten my hairbrush and comb.

three years ago i discovered it felt good to not fuss with my hair.

three years ago a little voice in my head whispered, why don't you stop fussing with your hair?

three years ago i listened to that voice.

three years ago my hair began separating, forming tiny knots.

three years ago i had no idea of the patience that would be required, the acceptance i would need to learn, the frustrations i would go through with my forming dreads.

three years ago i had no idea i'd still, even now, be waiting for my dreads to grow! [although look how much they've grown since the two-and-a-half-year mark.]

three years ago i could not see the changes in my life - new relationships, new loves, a new faith - that my dreads would be witness to.

three years ago i had no idea just how awesome it would feel to have ropes of knotted hair swinging about my head [especially in the mornings when my hair requires ZERO attention!].

three years ago i didn't realise that i'd come to know each of my 33 dreads individually, that my fingers would learn to recognise each one by its shape and texture.

i wonder where my dreads and i will be in another three years?

[just so you know, this is a big deal.]

2011-12-12T19:00:00.002+13:00

sunset over the mouth of the whanganui river.

* * * *

Dear Judith and Peter,

I am writing to you as co-clerks of the Whanganui-Taranaki monthly meeting to request membership.

I have been an attender at the Whanganui local meeting since December 2010. Over the past year, I've attended meeting as often I can and have given ministry twice. I took part in a workshop at the Quaker Settlement in March, and in May I went to Yearly Meeting, both of which I enjoyed. I've also formed some links with the Palmerston North local meeting, which I attend when I visit family there.

I am not making this request lightly. After much prayer and reflection, I believe I am being called to make a commitment to Quakers. I have been searching for my spiritual home all my adult life and I feel that I have at last found it among Quakers. The hour of silence we share each Sunday is deeply satisfying to me and allows me to actively listen for the voice of God. I have gained a lot of insight from reading Quaker books - I particularly love the wisdom to be found in Quaker Faith & Practice. I agree whole-heartedly with the Quaker testimonies and am starting to incorporate them in to my daily life. I also enjoy the company of most Quakers I’ve met.

I would like to become a part of the meeting, and to contribute and take responsibility in what ever ways I can.

I'm willing to take what ever guidance you feel is appropriate for my next step, such as a meeting for clearness or a visit from Friends.

I look forward to hearing back from you.

Blessings,
Anne-Marie

* * * *

Hi Anne-Marie

Great to receive your letter.

The process is that we will take this to the next meeting for business, people will be appointed to visit you and then we will take it back to a subsequent meeting for business.

The purpose of the visit is not to assess your worthiness but to give you an opportunity to ask questions etc.

Regards

Judith

the practice of jealousy.

2011-12-05T19:00:00.037+13:00

my first attempt at an alisa burke-style flower painting
+ + + +

i've fallen in love with a painter i've discovered online, a san diego-based artist named alisa burke. i have an artsy crush on alisa and stalk her blog every day. when she posts new pages from her sketchbook i feel sick with jealousy, because if i had unlimited artistic talent and could paint what ever i want, alisa's tropical flowers, complex paisley patterns and sea shell studies - rendered in brilliant watercolours - are exactly what i'd paint.

alisa also happens to be stunningly gorgeous, has a handsome husband and a darling newborn daughter, and an enviable sense of style. plenty to be jealous about there [although i myself have a handsome boyfriend and i don't really want a baby] but it's alisa's art that makes me chew my nails.

she isn't even stingy about her sharing her talent! she runs an online watercolour painting course, and once the whole crazy christmas thing is over i'm going to sign up for it.

meanwhile, i've decided i can use my jealousy in a positive way - as a source of motivation. alisa is always emphasising the need to practise, practise, practise in order to improve your painting ... and that's what i'm doing. i try to paint a little every day, even if it's just a single collage paper. every time i do i learn a little more.

i've also been attempting to paint flowers in her style [see pictures above]. my paintings are nowhere near as good as hers but of course she's been painting for years while i've been painting for a couple of months. i keep reminding myself of that when ever i'm tempted to yell FAIL! at some thing i've painted.

i don't want to be a carbon copy of alisa burke, but i do hope that one day i can paint some thing i love as much as her paintings. better get practising ...

alisa's shop can be found here.
her blog can be found here.
and her incredible sketchbook can be found here.

the scent of paint.

2011-11-23T19:00:00.001+13:00

art journal pages
watercolour, ink

+ + + +

i pulled one of the little tubes out of the bag, unscrewed the lid, and watched cerulean blue ooze out the top. i took a deep breath and the smell of the paint reached my nose.

instantly, i was eight years old again, digging around in my drawer for the stack of paper dad had bought me from work and that yellow metal box of watercolour paints. i could see it as clearly as if it was sitting on the desk in front of me.

how had i forgotten this? that i used to paint a lot when i was a kid, just for the fun of it, just to revel in the glorious colours? it must have been at least 25 years, probably more, since i last painted with watercolours. it took the scent of paint to fire memories i didn't even know i had.

i came back to watercolours recently after several abortive attempts at using acrylic paints. i decided i wanted to move beyond collaging with decorative paper, and make my own designs. john gave me his stash of acrylics but i could not make friends with them. even when watered down the paint was too heavy, the colours too flat and garish for me. also, i can be clumsy, and i got that paint every where.

so john suggested i try watercolours, and now i am blissed out in love. i could sit and paint all day long.

i'm also crazy about texture these days. i love finding different ways to put paint on the paper; every thing is a potential paint brush to me. my current method is to slap on the paint with a traditional brush and smooth it all down with my foam brush [oh, how i love that foam brush!].

then comes the fun part - making textured patterns in my paint with what ever takes my fancy today. so far these are the things i've used to make texture, some successfully and some not-so-successfully:

*sponge
*rag
*steel wool
*fly swat
*scrubbing brush

*jar opener

*lemon peel
*lemon leaf

*flannel washcloth
*seed pod

*bubble wrap

*sand

*silver chain

*jars
*glue stick lids

*stamp pad lids
*my fingers

[any more suggestions welcomed!]

as you can imagine trips to the hardware store with john have taken on a whole new meaning. while he sighs over whiteware and power tools, i'm busy looking for things to make texture with. i've also started using crayons, vintage books and maps, chocolate wrappers, labels and stickers in my painting, and they're fun too.

guess what i spend most of my spare time doing these days?

art journal pages
watercolour, pearlescent watercolour, oil pastel, gouache

a beltane list.

2011-11-01T07:00:00.007+13:00

today is beltane.

all saints day.

season of greenness.

season of elderflower.

season of energy gathering, deep within my bones.

season of tomato and basil planting.

season of first ti kouka flowers.

season of puanga [rigel] appearing in the evening sky and rehua [antares] disappearing.

season of yay-summer-is-just-around-the-corner ...

happy beltane to you.

settling in.

2011-10-27T19:00:00.006+13:00

i'm settling in. i wish i could show you some photos of how i'm turning this blokey bachelor pad in to a cosy family home, but photos will have to wait until i have an internet connection.

i still have a huge pile of boxes in the spare room but i'm giving myself permission to take my time unpacking them. obviously, all the necessary things - clothes, books, art supplies - are unpacked. but the rest can be done when ever.

john is happy for me to do what i want to the place - within reason, of course. "i'd prefer you talk to me before you paint the lounge turquoise," he says. and i probably will.

i've installed a big bookcase that my parents gave us in a corner of the lounge and now john's chess books [with titles like "how to beat the sicilian opening, volume 3"] are happily coexisting with my quaker books. on top of it is john's gorgeous lava lamp which i found in a cupboard. i've also hung up my silver mirror ball and sona reckons we need to throw a disco party just to celebrate the mirror ball. my cookbooks have found a home on a shelf in the kitchen, as have my spice jars.

i've claimed the vestibule at the end of the hall as my art space. i'll have to show you this space some time because it has been transformed from the junk zone to the loveliest spot in the house. this is MY peaceful corner of the house. sona and john may visit me there [and they do] but every thing there is mine and they're certainly not allowed to play their loud music in the art space.

last weekend i had a serious attack of gardening. ripped out a whole bunch of weeds and planted a herb garden. my herbs have been waiting patiently in pots to one day be planted in the ground [i've had one rosemary plant in a pot for the past 15 years!]. the next day, i ripped out more weeds, a giant daisy and a hibiscus [very hard work, that hibiscus] and planted a vegetable garden. tomatoes, basil, carrots and potatoes went in the vegetable garden. again, i've never grown veggies in the ground so i wanted to start off small. it's mid-spring here in new zealand and i am really excited to see how my plants get on over the summer.

it's nearly the weekend and i'm looking forward to doing more settling in during my two days off.

a domestic adventure.

2011-10-14T09:00:00.002+13:00

i've been busy recently, hence the neglect of my poor little blog.

the major event that has happened is that this week i moved in to john and sona's little green house across the river. [i'm still in the process of moving, but i hope to be finished before sunday.]

this is a big deal for me. i'm 39 and i've never lived with a partner before [never mind a stepdaughter]. actually, i've never even discussed living with a partner before. but john and i started talking about living together when our relationship was about six weeks old ... and now it's finally happening.

i'm a little nervous about this change in our lives, but i'm excited too.

i'm looking forward to the three of us being a family, with all the joys and challenges that will bring.

i'm looking forward to not living out of a suitcase, as i have done for the past five years. i'm looking forward to - for the first time in my adult life - having some where to call home.

and now i'd like your help.

if you've commented here 100 times, or if you're a lurker, i'd love to know: what's your best piece of advice for happily co-habiting with a partner?

+ + + +

thanks so much to every one who left a comment. i loved all of your advice - so wise! - and have written every comment in my journal to read over and ponder. i am still settling in to the new house but it's going fairly smoothly so far. yesterday sona told me i make the house "feel like a home", which i think is the best compliment i've ever had!

unfortunately we've lost our very dodgy internet connection, but we'll be getting a proper, fast internet connection in about 10 days. hooray! right now my only access to the internet is at work, so i may not be blogging again until the new connection is set up.

getting my art groove on.

2011-09-30T12:00:00.038+13:00

making art with my nieces lauren and clare

+ + + +

i've read this post, about my afternoon creating art with lauren, several times over since i published it and thought about how it signals some thing of a change of direction in my blog, and in my life.

if you had told me just a few months ago that i would be making art with my youngest niece for a whole afternoon [and then happily do it again a few weeks later with lauren and her sister clare], and that i catch myself at work daydreaming about how i can find time to make cards tonight, and that i look forward to weekends so i can get my art groove on ... well, i wouldn't have believed you.

but it's true.

one of the stories that got stuck on a loop in my head from a very young age was that i am not artistic and not particularly creative and that any creativity i do have is solely related to words. i've written before about my perceived lack of creativity. i have never been good at drawing so i told myself art was not for me. or may be i was told that by some one else, i can't remember.

but i could stare at patterns and shapes till the cows come home, and i'm highly sensitive to colour. i never realised this about myself until i began to have some weird dreams earlier this year ... dreams that were not so much in colour as of colour. nothing happened in these dreams other than me standing some where dark watching giant sheets of colour - really intense colours - pass me slowly by.

after a couple of weeks of these dreams i thought my head would burst if i didn't do some thing colourful! so i bought black card, coloured card, some shape punches, and some glue, and i made a birthday card for my oldest niece, then one for my sister. they weren't great works of art, those two birthday cards, but they sparked some thing in me. ideas began pouring in to my head, and my notebook at work became decorated with hurried pencil sketches of cards i wanted to make.

i feel like my brain has shifted gears - and just how big a shift this is for me can be seen in my journal. i've kept journals since i was 12 and not a single page has ever been decorated. my journal has always been about neatly-inked words, and that's it. you can see a typical journal page from my moleskine here.

now, though, i'm breaking all the rules!

now i write in crayon, watercolour pencils, stamps, tape in typewritten pages or words from newspaper headlines or book. i write sideways on the page or upside down. i paint my pages and practise my fonts. i doodle, try out new mediums or ideas, stick in pictures or patterns that inspire me, and make collages of interesting colour combinations. my journal has morphed in to a free-form art journal - and i love it.

whether i have any actual artistic talent remains to be seen. i really hope i do, but at the moment it doesn't matter much to me. i'm all about the process, which makes me feel so good - even when i make mistakes, which happens all the time! it's not that important. i'm too busy having fun.

spring equinox.

2011-09-21T20:00:00.000+12:00

spring. how delightful that word is to my ears. spring is a bold but tricksy season; completely charming but lacking in any kind of subtlety ... much like a certain teenage girl i know.

september has been a cool, blowy month around here. i'd love to be wearing t-shirts and bare feet on a regular basis by now, but that hasn't happened so far. but there are flowers in every garden, the daylight hours are stretching out, the land is tender green, and our river is ebbing and flowing with giant tides.

this year's spring is particularly special to me as it holds some hopeful dreams of mine ... i'll write more on these soon.

for now i'll leave you with some images of what spring looks like around here. happy equinox to you, whether you are celebrating in spring or autumn!

a vase of nectarine blossoms on our dining table.

the neighbour's plum tree, view from our kitchen window.

the grape vine i pruned at midwinter is sprouting leaves!

the lemon tree is loaded with fruit.

nasturtium seeds that were picked and kept in a warm place over winter are now growing frantically. i'm looking forward to their bright bursts of colour on our front porch this summer.

happiness is ... alphabet stamps!

2011-09-18T21:00:00.001+12:00

i've become a creature i don't recognise.

the art making is at a frenzy; it's all i can think about! john regularly gets whining emails from me during the day saying, "i don't wanna work, i wanna go buy gold paint and play with my pretty paper." he makes sympathetic noises in reply. bless the boy, he's very indulgent of my new-found passion for art.

for a while now i've been making plain but colourful paper designs, like this:

poppy's flower garden

they were nice, and i enjoyed making them, but i had a vague feeling they wouldn't sustain my creativity for long. one day, on a whim, i bought a set of alphabet stamps and a black ink pad online.

irresistible!

the night they arrived i stamped every thing i could get my hands on, up to and including the trousers i was wearing [accidental] and my stepdaughter's face [not accidental]. john made the mistake of suggesting we could stamp our favourite quotes on the wall, and had to restrain me when he saw the feverish gleam in my eye.

the stamp pad has transformed my art. the possibilities are endless, especially as i now have my eye on a smaller alphabet stamp set, and i've discovered coloured ink pads. [they even come in gold! *swoon*]

and of course it makes perfect sense for a writer to add words to her art.

sassy girl [one], mixed media collage

one morning in spring, mixed media collage
[a birthday card for my nephew]

regrets.

2011-08-30T20:00:00.001+12:00

i don't believe in regret. there is no point regretting things ... what is done, is done, and can't be changed. it was meant to be, so let it go. that's my general philosophy on regret.

how ever, i have just entered the last year of my thirties and i've been reflecting back on my life thus far. i've discovered i have regrets - plenty of them.

i regret my twenties - yip, pretty much that entire decade of my life. how precious my twenties were, and how much i squandered them. that's what i regret.

by the age of 30 i had not had a healthy relationship or a decent job, saved any money, travelled, gained any qualifications, had children or adventures. i did have a lot of very bad relationships, frittered away any money that came my way, failed at my studies, indulged in a lot of self-destructive behaviour, and had all the emotional intelligence of an 18 year old.

the crowning glory of my twenties came when i was 29 and had an affair with a married man. that affair damaged a marriage irreparably and left me nursing a broken heart for years. i still feel some guilt over this and probably always will. how ever, i can tell you that man has just embarked on a very happy second marriage and he and i - after not speaking for six years - are now close friends.

this affair, at the very end of my twenties, was one of the defining moments of my adult life so far. when he left me i was shaken out of my lethargy ... i realised i had to START LIVING.

and the good news is that when i look back over my thirties, there's far less to regret and heaps more to be pleased about. i became a journalist. i travelled overseas three times. my financial situation could be better, but it's okay! i've had two healthy relationships [not at the same time!]. i became a stepmother. i stopped drinking alcohol and started exercising. i've discovered my spiritual path and my creativity. i'm so much more confident and chilled out i can barely recognise myself.

i wonder if my thirties would have been so good if my twenties hadn't been so bad? so may be there is no point in regretting those wasted years. may be they had their purpose.

any way, i hope this is a continuing trend. imagine how great my forties are going to be!

+ + + +

photo by anne-marie emerson
snow on the outskirts of whanganui

august 2011

what makes my heart sing.

2011-08-24T19:00:00.002+12:00

a new decorative stack from die cuts with a view.

other bits of coloured cardstock from my stash.
plain black card.
shape punches.

a craft knife.

a metal ruler.

a cutting mat.

a pot of glue.

a brush.

a dining table.

a heater.
rugby league on the television.

mint hot chocolate, made by john, in a mug.

sona chattering in my ear.

and the result? ... can be seen in the photo above.
[click on the photo for a closer look.]

this is what makes my heart sing these days.

+ + + +

"raspberry dream", mixed card collage on card
by anne-marie emerson, august 2011.

kekeno.

2011-08-11T20:00:00.001+12:00

the best thing about my job is the location. i sit at a desk by a window that looks straight out on to the whanganui river and i love to see the changing lights, the moving moods, the shifting tides of our river. there's so much fauna to be seen, too - mostly birds but some times fish. and more recently, an unusual and furry visitor in the form of a seal.

this wee fellow is a new zealand fur seal pup [arctocephalus fosteri], known to maori as kekeno. according to the department of conservation ranger i spoke to, the pup is about six months old and is in the process of being weaned. weaning seals are common at this time of year on the coastline as they attempt to establish some independence; but seals in rivers are less common.

"damn pesky shit of a seal," grumbled dan the ranger. "at this age they're like teenagers let out on their own - they just get in to trouble."

the seal's been hanging out in whanganui for a month and in that time dan has had to shepherd him off the main road to castlecliff, keep dogs away from him [why do dogs and seals naturally hate each other?], and disentangle a net from his head, which nearly earned dan a bite to the hand.

that may be so but the seal we see playing in the river is a charming, chilled little dude. even the most grumpy of our newsroom hacks is delighted by his antics. we see him slowly slipping past on the outgoing tide, rolling over and over in the water, diving under and popping his nose up, or lying on his back with a dead fish on his belly, keeping himself afloat by the flutter of his flippers.

i love all the people standing on the boardwalk - pointing, photographing or just standing to watch, smiles on their faces. meanwhile, the seal is just getting on with his day, unaware or unconcerned that he has a delighted audience just a few metres away.

[the photo above is how we often see our little kekeno, playing with his breakfast - in this case, a patiki, or flounder - before he eats it. it's not a great picture but he is really hard to photograph!]

an afternoon with lauren.

2011-08-03T17:00:00.017+12:00

lauren is my eight-year-old niece, my sister's youngest girl. last saturday i got to spend the whole afternoon with lauren at my parents' place in palmerston north. we did some reading and some crosswords for a while.

then lauren decided she wanted us to make some art. making art is lauren's favourite thing to do. when she and john first met he said to her, "i hear you want to be an artist when you grow up." she gave him a withering look in reply and said, "no, i want to be a famous artist."

lauren likes to dream big.

so we got out our art boxes, set ourselves up at mum and dad's breakfast bar and pretty much took over the dining room and most of the kitchen with our decorative papers, glue, scissors, rulers, brushes, and shape punches. "grandy" [my father] was lauren's able assistant with the scissors.

here is just a small selection of my decorative papers!

lauren and i both became very absorbed in what we were doing. we worked mostly in companionable silence but occasionally lauren would throw a question at me:

anne-marie, do you think it's good to be a complicated person?
anne-marie, why are the clouds white?
anne-marie, when you were at school were there boys who were mean to you?
anne-marie, why is john your boyfriend now instead of pete?

i believe that if a child is old enough to ask a question they deserve a proper answer, so these questions led to some interesting discussions. i had to admit myself stumped on the cloud question, though. we were going to look it up on the internet but we got sidetracked by our creative endeavours.

i love how fearless lauren is about her art. she never considers if it's good enough. she does it because it makes her happy. she has an idea for a picture and she doesn't hesitate to make it a reality.

it's a philosophy i'd like to apply a little more to my own life.

this was my abstract creation [the colours didn't photograph well] ...

.... and this was lauren's lovely picture, which will soon go up on my wall:

possibility.

2011-07-27T21:00:00.004+12:00

i won't be sorry to see the back of july. july is usually the harshest month of the year in this part of the world; but this particular july has been brutal - wind, rain, cold, frost, floods, thunderstorms, tornadoes and even snow.
i feel like i've spent most of the month struggling to keep warm, both physically and emotionally.

but soon we're heading into august, and that thought makes me happy. august is usually still very cold but occasionally you can catch a sniff of spring in the air. the first daffodils come out. the farmers start lambing. fat buds appear on trees every where. slowly the days begin to inch out. summer may be a loooong way off yet - but at least it feels like a possibility.

here are some images of my july. as you can see, the middle of winter isn't all doom and gloom!

birthday girls!

a midwinter feast with the family

my niece claire loves her roast turkey!

my gorgeous niece rose and i

john and sona play foozeball on a weekend away at foxton beach

the aftermath of a huge winter storm at foxton beach. yes, it was so windy i could barely keep my eyelids open!

sona and a friend making art at our kitchen table

the perfect girlfriend is a bitch.

2011-07-20T17:00:00.001+12:00

be who you are

and say what you feel

cos those who mind don't matter

and those who matter don't mind

this morning i was frustrated. before i went to work i spoke my frustration to john. i had only a few minutes before i had to leave but i got it out. there were a few tears, a hug, a bit of laughter and a kiss good-bye. no big deal.

but i went to work feeling guilty.

i had been at my desk about 20 minutes when john emailed me, saying, can we talk more tonight? i understand why you are frustrated and i'm sorry.

and still i felt guilty.

here's my problem. i'm hampered by what i call THE PERFECT GIRLFRIEND - a hideous creature who exists only in my own mind. [and yes, those capital letters are necessary!]

THE PERFECT GIRLFRIEND does not complain, is never angry, never speaks harshly, never asks for anything, is silent, willing, compliant, and physically immaculate. THE PERFECT GIRLFRIEND warns me that unless i am indeed perfect john won't love me, even though he has never expressed the desire for me to be any thing other than who i am.

perhaps you are familiar with THE PERFECT GIRLFRIEND [or a variation of her]?

i find it very hard to articulate my truth when i am in a relationship, thanks to THE PERFECT GIRLFRIEND. she tells me it's okay, you don't need to talk about this, you're fine, stop complaining, do you want him to hate you?

but what happens when i don't speak my truth? oh, that's not pretty. think sullenness, simmering resentment, followed by furious, frustrated anger ... and saying things i later regret. not speaking my truth has actually killed my love for some one. it's even made me physically ill.

THE PERFECT GIRLFRIEND is a bitch, and i want her gone from my life.

keep listening.

2011-07-05T19:00:00.001+12:00

as i've got older, i've become better at listening, i think. listening to god, listening to the silence, listening to myself, listening to my body, listening to my loved ones, listening to whoever happens to be talking to me.

i still talk too much, but i hope i am a better listener than i was.

recently, i've been listening to the part of me that's telling me you need to stop being a journalist. it's been around on and off for some time, this voice; probably a few years. but now it's become persistent, urgent.

it's not just that i don't enjoy my job - there are parts i do enjoy, and parts i loathe. no, what this voice seems to be telling me is that journalism is not good for me any more. and that's fine. i tend to agree.

the problem is, i don't know what my alternatives are.

+i have no idea what i want to do instead.
+i have few qualifications and not much useful work experience outside of journalism.

+i don't have the heart or the money for extensive re-training [a little would be okay].

+i'm settled in whanganui, and the job market isn't great here.

when i hear this whispering voice say, "you need to stop being a journalist", i ask, "what should i do instead?" ... and all i hear is silence. or at night i have dreams about random things, like being an art therapist. [an art therapist???]

so it's fair to say i feel stuck at the moment, listening for an answer that is taking a long time to arrive. of course, i do still have a job and for that i'm grateful. it means i don't have to rush in to a hasty decision. i'm spending a lot of my spare time right now researching my options.

i have a firm belief that if i keep listening, the answer will come ...

[i do wish it would hurry up, though.]

death is a mystery.

2011-06-27T21:42:00.001+12:00

winter sunrise

a former colleague of mine died this morning. the cancer got him. i didn't consider him a friend, but we got on well and had some good chats. every one in the newsroom was shocked this morning. we knew he was sick but not quite that sick.

after work i stood on the wharf and looked out over the darkness of the river, thinking about my departed colleague. it's such a strange thing, death. it's incomprehensible to me that this man was here one minute ... and then he wasn't. how does that happen?

i believe in the soul, so i believe that he has gone some where, i don't know where. i'm talking about the soul's house, the body, the physical presence of a person. this man will be remembered in our newsroom for his shock of dark hair, his giant laugh, and his lightening-speed tapping on his computer - so loud it could be heard at the other end of the room. he was larger than life. how can he no longer exist?

i saw some one die once. she was sitting in a chair in our lounge and i felt ... some thing. i looked up and immediately knew she had gone. i could see that her body was now just a shell, that she'd left it behind. i felt myself in the presence of a great mystery, and it was one of those moments i'll never forget.

in our culture we're so removed from death. we'd like to think it doesn't happen. but it does, all around us, every day. it's an essential part of living.

rest in peace, rc.

the story of a midwinter.

2011-06-22T19:00:00.070+12:00

it's midwinter ... season of short days, a low sun, scorpio riding high in the night sky, raw winds.

it's midwinter and last weekend i spent a couple of hours pruning the grapevine in john's back garden. this is the result:

i had no idea what i was doing, as i'd never before pruned a grape vine. this part of the vine had not been pruned for many years and it was a mighty, overgrown tangle which did not fruit this year. the fruit we got from the vine this year was from our neighbour's section of the vine; he does prune, so i looked at what he had done and hoped i was doing some thing similar.

worse case scenario is that we get no fruit again next year. best case scenario is that we get double the fruit next year. i'm thinking positively!

john and i decided to make an event out of midwinter, with a view to establishing a little household ritual to celebrate each season as it arrives. we had to do our midwinter celebration in the weekend, as we were both at work today and didn't have time. we invited sona to participate but she scornfully declined. i guess celebrating the seasons isn't so cool when you're almost 14.

we went to kowhai park, on the eastern bank of the whanganui river. we took our cameras and captured images of winter with them. here are a few of mine:

i love seeing sky through bare branches.

the bark of a giant totara tree.

this leaf caught our eye.

i'm sure john looks like he's up to no good in this photo. "i probably was," said he casually when i pointed this out to him. those are some glorious gingko trees in the background.

it may be midwinter but it has been a freakish autumn and early winter this year. it's cold, yes, but not the really biting cold that we expect for late june. some days i can go outside with out a coat on, and that is unusual.

at kowhai park there are already signs of spring:

the magnolias are in bud - some are even flowering, about three months early.

these daffodils [or possibly jonquils] are at least a month early.

we collected a few pretty leaves, berries and twigs and brought them home with us. we sat down in front of john's shrine, lit a candle, and placed these treasures in the singing bowl. silently we thought of our hopes and dreams for the next three months, and spent some time meditating.

our little midwinter ritual ended with me reading a poem about winter.

the afternoon was for me a very satisfying way of marking the season, and my connection to it. i hope we'll do it again, in september, to welcome spring.

flying free.

2011-06-15T19:00:00.001+12:00

it's finally happened: i can no longer fit my swim cap over my dreadlocks.

i knew this day was coming. for the past couple of months i've struggled to shove my dreads under the fabric cap before i swim. i'd come out of the pool with a headache from the too-tight cap and sore eyes from the too-tight goggles.

on saturday the cap ripped while i wrestled with it. i didn't have a spare cap or even a hair tie with me. how could i swim with my dreads loose? and then i remembered ... i surf with my dreads flying free - and i love it. why can't i do the same when i swim?

so i tried it, and i've decided i will never, ever wear a swim cap again. it's so much more comfortable with out it! i think i actually swim better with my dreads loose, floating around me in the water.

+ + + +

i've been dread now for two-and-a-half years this month. the dreads are finally growing a little. fattening out a lot. some of them are monsters. some of them are starting to blunt at the ends. they're really hard and rough, nothing soft and smooth and cuddly about these dreadies.

i'm starting to notice the weight of my dreads. it's odd for me, who spent more than a decade with my hair severely shorn, to have such heavy hair. i love the feeling of my dreads swishing across my shoulder, or spread out across the pillow, or the weight of them tilting my head back when they're piled in to one of my head wraps.

i do still hope for them to be long, really long. like, waist-length. whether they will ever get to that length remains to be seen. my hair has never grown beyond my shoulder blades, but that was a long time ago.

it's all part of the patience that being dread teaches you. you can't hurry dreadlocks [well, you can, but that's not my path]. they do what they want, when they want. and so the journey continues ...

+ + + +

john and i recently did a little photo shoot of my dreadlocks. he took three of the four photos above.
[i took the one of myself in the mirror.]
for perspective, here's a photo pohangina pete took of me two years ago when my dreads were just six months old.

a parcel from a mysterious friend.

2011-06-06T19:00:00.002+12:00

i'm starting to recognise the handwriting now. my name and work address written in funny upright capital letters on an envelope. the decoration of american stamps.

p first contacted me after the first christchurch earthquake, back in september. i wrote about that here. he explained he read my blog but had never commented. he included US$150 with his note and asked me to donate it to the earthquake appeal. after that there were more envelopes with nice little cards, gifts of chocolate and another donation of money after the second christchurch earthquake.

[i write "he" even though i actually don't know whether p is male or female. there is nothing identifying in any of his cards or notes, which are always signed with a simple p. i dislike writing "s/he" or "he/she", so "he" p is until i know other wise.]

recently a bigger parcel than usual landed on my desk, with the familiar handwriting on the front. it contained - oh joy! - three pens and two moleskines: one small unlined reporters notebook and one large lined reporters notebook.

what a thoughtful gift. p probably had no idea that i carry a small reporters notebook with me all the time to jot notes down in; while the large reporters notebook is my favoured notebook to use at work.

i can't communicate with p other than through this blog. hence this post ... my only way to say "thank you" for a parcel which was gratefully and delightedly received.

+ + + +

photo: my favourite rumi quote, written on the first page of my small notebook.

a family snapshot.

2011-05-20T14:00:00.001+12:00

don't you love this picture? i do, but i'm probably biased.

this photo shows a nice little domestic scene from my parents' kitchen. there's my youngest niece, nearly eight year old lauren, chopping carrots for a salad for lunch [she loves carrots], my mum looking for some thing in the cutlery drawer, my dad behind her unpacking the shopping, and lauren's nine year old sister claire looking like a cheeky angel as she plays up for my camera.

most of my family lives an hour away from me. i'm lucky to have them so close; still, i don't see as much of them as i'd like. when pete and i were together, i saw my family all the time.

but it means i really appreciate them when i do see them.

on the day this photo was taken, i had a particularly lovely morning. lauren and claire came to visit mum and dad, where i was staying for the weekend. dad and i took the girls over to the neighbours, who were away, so we could feed the guinea pigs and the hens. the girls love doing that. we also looked at the interesting toadstools in the neighbours' garden, we picked handfuls of feijoas and we found a tangelo tree - unusually for this time of year, full of ripe fruit [they must have hung there since last winter] so we ate our fill of tangelos. yummy! then we came home, ate lunch together and did some drawing.

it seems like yesterday that claire was born but she's going to be 10 this year! in the blink of an eye she'll be 20: my parents are in their mid-70s. each moment i spend with them - and with all my family - seems infinitely precious.

these days won't last forever, and i want to enjoy them while i can.

it's just autumn.

2011-05-16T14:00:00.003+12:00

i miss summer.

i miss the golden evenings, the bare feet, the heat, the sun on my skin, the surfing, the salads, the energy, the joy that summer always brings me.

bloody autumn, it does this to me nearly every year! no matter how prepared i think i am to meet it, or how much i focus on the beauty of the season [it is the most beautiful time of the year], or how many pairs of warm socks i buy or yummy casserole recipes i find or feijoas i eat, the melancholy of autumn always gets me.

do you feel it too?

for me it's as tangible as the crisp air of an autumn evening. it seeps into my skin and infects me with a funk that i can't lift myself out of. i feel morose and listless and unhappy [and uninspired to write on my blog].

truly, i have nothing to complain about ... i know that. life is grand.

it's just autumn.

+ + + +

here are some scenes from my autumn for you to enjoy:

1. a garden toadstool
2. my two youngest nieces feeding the neighbour's guinea pigs
3. football at peat park
4. fallen oak leaves and acorns
5. driftwood at castlecliff beach

the s word.

2011-04-05T18:00:00.002+12:00

she'd been testing my patience all evening.

being rude to her father, refusing to take responsibility for her actions, making a mess every where, and flouncing off to her room to play her music LOUD.

i picked up the tea towel as she began to half-heartedly run tepid water in to the sink. she paid more attention to the detailed story she was telling me about one of her classmates than to what she was doing with her hands.

i reminded her - twice - to pile all the dirty dishes to one side of the sink. the stories kept coming.

when she paused for breath i said to her, "you've been very mean to your father this evening. you're not being fair."

she pulled a face. "i know. i feel bad."

"i think he'd like it if you apologised."

later, i heard the murmur of their voices in the lounge and when i finished drying the dishes i found the two of them snuggled on the couch, giggling. it warms my heart to see them laugh together. the same cheeky sense of humour, the same shaped nose and mouth, the same independent and free-spirited attitude to life.

she took herself off to bed meekly, not arguing when he reminded her of the time. on her way to the bathroom she flung her arms around me and said in a mock-solemn voice, "by the power invested in me, i hereby declare you ... my stepmother."

it was the first time "the s word" had been mentioned by either of us.

i hugged her back. "you realise that gives me the right to be mean to you?"

she laughed. "bring it on, stepmother!"

such are the joys of 13 year old girls.

so here i am, the stepmother of one of them: sona, the beloved only child of my partner, john. sona moved to whanganui last month to live with john. the two of them are very close but they haven't shared a house - or even a city - since sona was a small child, so there's a lot of adjustment to be done on both sides. it's an adjustment for me too, even though i am the "non-residential" member of the household. it's an adjustment i'm happy to make.

i've never been a stepmother before. it's the closest to motherhood i will ever get and i'm not taking it lightly. already the balancing act has begun: what are a stepmother's responsibilities? just how much say do i have in sona's life? do i have the right to discipline her or not?

on the other hand, i'm surprised by how quickly i've come to love this girl - not merely for her father's sake, but for who she is, with all her ups and downs.

i feel challenged. i feel honoured.

glorious grapes.

2011-03-31T13:00:00.004+13:00

i need to learn non-attachment to grapes.

so this late summer and early autumn for me has been all about grapes: plump, black, bursting globes of sweetness that come from the giant vine in john's back garden.

john's house dates from the 1920s and i reckon the grapevine must be about as old. it's a great overgrown thing with a stem like a tree truck, and branches that appear to be aiming for world domination [or at least domination of john's garden and the gardens of about six of his neighbours].

for the past month or so i've eaten grapes with every meal, as snacks or, well, every time i go in to john's back garden. john will eat them if i give them to him but he doesn't have quite the same attachment to them as i do. so i can have as many of them as i want. [i can eat a lot of grapes.]

the problem is, i want all of them.

"take some for your flatmate / workmates / family / etc", says john, generous man that he is. and i nod my head and think, "are you kidding? that means less for me!" now i don't even want john to eat them - and they're his grapes.

once the grape season is finished, i don't know what i'll do.

oh yeah, then the feijoa season will be starting. phew!

i can't imagine a world without fruit.

riding on a wave of glass.

2011-03-24T19:00:00.016+13:00

"we're riding on a wave of glass / it's where we always wanted to be ..."
hirst and greene, "secret world"

i went for a surf in the weekend, on my bodyboard "pink bits" [as seen in the photo above]. it was probably my last surf for the season, as the southern hemisphere turns away from the sun. soon it will be just too cold to be in the water. boo hoo!

surfing has been one of my joys this summer, and john's mutual love of the sea has made that joy even sweeter. we'd often meet after work for a surf, and come home drenched, sandy, hungry and happy. some times we'd go late in the evening, around 8.30pm, and surf in the foaming golden waves until the sun disappeared in to the sea.

our local "break" is castlecliff beach - not the best surfing beach in whanganui, but that's okay. the great thing about bodyboarding is that you don't have to have awesome waves. i'm a bit of a scaredy-cat and prefer surfing the small waves any way.

john and i have quite different styles of surfing. he lies flat on his board; i ride leaning up on my elbows. he surfs mostly "out the back"; i like surfing the whitewater close to shore. he waits for the really good waves; i'll hop on any thing that looks rideable. he claims i'm better at catching waves than he is.

i love seeing john riding a wave. he always looks so happy and has a big grin on his face. i told him this and he said he enjoys watching me surf too. "do you realise that every time you catch a wave you whoop?" he asked me. i had no idea, until he pointed that out. but he's right; every time i take off i give a big WOO HOO!!

one day i got stuck in a rip. the waves looked good that afternoon but they were slow and had no power behind them, and we weren't getting rides at all. i decided to go out the back where the waves looked better ... and discovered i couldn't get back in. i've never been stuck in a rip before, but i remembered that you should never fight the rip and you shouldn't panic.

so i called out to john that i was in trouble and he came out to help. he dragged me sideways across the rip and then i felt the sea floor beneath my feet. that's when i knew i'd be okay.

it was beautiful out the back, though. there were thunderstorms further out to sea, making the water and sky look very dramatic. at one point a huge sea bird swooped right past me. i saw its yellow head and realised it was a takapu, or gannet, not commonly seen on the west coast. if i hadn't been stuck in that rip i wouldn't have seen the takapu.

but since then i've been a bit more wary and have stuck to surfing the whitewater.

hey ho. roll on next summer!

+ + + +

edit: p, i received your donation and have given it to the red cross earthquake appeal.
thank you again for your incredibly generous act.

+ + + +

photo by john: anne-marie surfing at ototoka beach, whanganui, february 2011

lunch makes me happy.

2011-03-16T21:02:00.002+13:00

i look down at my lunch on the donko table, just sitting there waiting for me to eat it, and i have to grab this quick photo.

today's lunch is:

+peanut butter sandwich, made with savoury bread hand-crafted by my super-talented baker flatmate, and organic peanut butter;

+tangy coleslaw, left-over from dinner, made by me with purple cabbage, carrots, capsicum and cherry tomatoes out the garden;

+two of the best chocolate chippie biscuits you'll ever taste - gluten-free and again made by my flatmate;

+a bunch of black grapes from the grapevine in john's back garden. i'll probably write more about this grapevine soon.

this lunch makes me happy, makes me realise how blessed i am.

summer salad.

2011-03-03T13:00:00.001+13:00

it's officially autumn here in new zealand. not that you'd really know it, although thankfully the nights are cooler now, making for better sleep. i am making the most of what is left of summer - surfing, walking on the beach, wearing sleeveless tops, and eating as much summer food as i can.

i could happily live on salad in summer, with delicious summer fruit for dessert. cherries, peaches, plums, watermelon, mmmm yummy!

here's a recipe for a chicken and watermelon salad that i discovered recently [pictured above], and made for my flatmate and i for dinner one night. it was delicious! this serves two but you can easily expand it to feed more.

salad ingredients:

1/2 smoked chicken, cut in to chunks

2 slices watermelon, flesh diced coarsely

2 spring onions - green part only, sliced

1 small red capsicum, diced

1/2 small cucumber, sliced

2 cups shredded lettuce or other salad greens

[i also added one small yellow courgette, sliced]

dressing ingredients:

1/2 olive oil

1/4 cup white wine vinegar

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp fresh ground black pepper

2 tsp prepared wholegrain mustard

1/3 cup parsley, finely chopped

3 T basil or mint, finely chopped

juice and zest of one orange

put all the dressing ingredients together in a jar and shake well. put in the fridge and leave for a few hours to allow the flavours to blend. if possible, leave over night. return the dressing to room temperature before serving.

assemble all the salad ingredients on two plates. shake the dressing well again and drizzle over the salad. you will not need all the dressing unless you are serving more than two people. the dressing keeps well in the fridge for several days.

ps. what do you think of my new blog design?

all of us.

2011-02-28T19:00:00.055+13:00

the christchurch earthquake has affected people throughout the world, as i discovered in the weekend.

i was in the manawatu visiting my family and decided to do a shift on the christchurch earthquake missing persons phone line, which is being run out of the horizons regional council office in palmerston north.

along with 20 other people, i sat beside a phone for a few hours and took calls from family members, friends, acquaintances, workmates of people who may or may not have been in christchurch the day of the earthquake, and who could not be contacted since. each call required a form to be filled out - either the "missing person" form or, more pleasantly, the "found" form for those who had previously lodged a missing person report but had later tracked down their loved one.

it was busy busy busy. my shift covered late afternoon and evening. we took a lot of calls from throughout new zealand and australia - many, many calls from australians - but it went beyond that. on my shift alone we had people calling from bahrain, malaysia, china, israel, turkey, france, britain, russia and sweden. a government official calling from israel wanted to offer dna samples of those israeli citizens known to be in christchurch at the time of the earthquake. an australian woman was desperately worried about her sister who had been living in christchurch the last time they spoke to each other - 20 years ago. another woman had not been able to contact the married man she was having an affair with. a swedish man was concerned about his christchurch-based pen pal he'd been writing to for 30 years.

there were so many travellers who could have been in christchurch on february 22, but they were far from home, not great at keeping in touch, and their family doesn't know any thing for certain. may be he's lying under the rubble some where? or may be he's gone hiking in the mountains and that's why we can't contact him?

it was heart-breaking, fascinating work. it amazed me how the ripples of this earthquake have spread to every corner of the globe.

here in new zealand, every one is doing what they can to help christchurch. tomorrow john and some of his workmates are taking their turn on the missing persons line. every one is donating money or starting their own fundraiser. i have acquaintances who are part of the search and rescue team; others who are helping ensure christchurch residents have adequate food, water and shelter. yet others are taking traumatised residents in to their homes here in whanganui.

if you would like to help, you can donate to the red cross appeal here. every little bit helps.

"the day the earth roared".

2011-02-24T13:00:00.002+13:00

by vicki anderson of the press

With no warning the earth roared and shook us ferociously. Like my colleagues in the features department of Christchurch newspaper The Press, I dived under my desk.

I'm a music critic and as we shook and my mind's eye flashed images of my four children I was pelted with CDs including, ironically, an Underworld album.

The same thing happened to me on September 4, I was even hit by the exact same CD, but this was completely different and a much more visceral and potently deadly quake.

Halfway through the 6.3 quake I wanted to see if my colleagues were OK so stupidly stuck my head out from under my desk only to be hit by a piece of roof. I said "F**k!" at the top of my lungs and it was drowned out by the sound of our building falling down around us.

Across the room from under their desk someone was yelling "yahoo" like it was a fun ride.

I was certain we were all going to die. Things seemed to be happening slowly but quickly at the same time.

I had a fight over something stupid with my partner before I left for work.

Just a few short hours later all I hoped was that I would have the opportunity to see him and hold him again.

Running late, I had given my children a quick peck before leaving. I wondered if it would be my last memory of them.

After what seemed like forever the shaking stopped and my colleagues emerged and checked each other.

"Get out," screamed one, "stay where you are," said another.

Somehow I had the presence of shaken mind to dig out my handbag and cellphone from the rubble.

We walked down the back stairs which were OK, as we left I looked to my right. All I could see of the busy newsroom was the roof of the three-storied building. No people in sight. I had just walked through there
10 minutes prior.

A split second decision to answer an email instead of having a cigarette break probably saved my life.

Outside the inner CBD looked like a war zone. Outside on the street strangers were holding each other and crying and gazing bewildered at the gutted ghetto surrounding us.

The Press' incredible fashion editor, Kate Fraser, 70, and I linked arms. I tried to tell myself it was for her benefit but she was steadying me.

I saw colleagues crying, people covered in blood. We congregated in a spot left empty by the September 4 quake.

The editor, Andrew Holden, a strong and stoic man, kissed me on the cheek and as he did so I saw he had tears in his eyes.

His usually immaculate suit bore a smudge of dust on one shoulder. He wanted me to sit with his partner and their small baby while she breastfed, so I did so while simultaneously trying to txt my partner and
parents with no luck.

A male colleague who is always immaculately dressed and who speaks like a BBC newsreader had clearly been so frightened that he had wet himself. For some inexplicable reason it was this sight that made me realise the enormity of what we had experienced.

The naked desperation and fear we all felt was manifest on his pants.

Phone systems were overloaded so I couldn't reach my loved ones. It was the same for everyone, people compared phones, shared phones, chainsmoked, stood on rubble with heads at funny angles hoping for
reception.

Telecom - no, Vodafone - sometimes and 2 degrees most successful. Sometimes it would ring once and my hopes would shoot sky high before overloading would cut me off and my heart would start to beat like there were 1000 hummingbirds trapped in my chest.

In the 17-storey PriceWaterhouse Coopers building across from us people appeared to be trying to escape by throwing makeshift ropes out the windows and shimmying down them.

All the while enormous aftershocks hit us every five minutes. Each time they were accompanied by mournful screaming and sirens.

After standing together for an hour it suddenly dawned on me through a traumatised fog that the blue blankets on the street opposite us were covering bodies.

A gas leak in the street behind us meant a move to Hagley Park.

Standing on the corner of Gloucester and Colombo Streets and seeing the Cathedral crumpled like a toy was a heart in mouth moment.

Around me people hungrily snapped photographs mindless of the blanket-covered bodies. I felt physically sick at the sight of these voyeurs and vowed not to take a single picture myself.

A tourist wheeling a luggage bag said that she was in the Cathedral at 12.30. Her hotel has split in two, she doesn't know what to do and neither do we so we walk, dodging blood-covered bricks and weird liquefaction.

We walk en masse down the middle of the glass-strewn street, strangers united by fear accompanied by dust swirling, sirens wailing and military helicopters circling. I felt like I was on a movie set and that Bruce Willis would surely appear around the next corner.

With each aftershock strangers clung to each other, some prayed. Others, like me, blasphemed and swore at the ground.

I found myself hoping that international musicians Amanda Palmer and the Melvins were OK.

Thank goodness the council spent all that money on the Ellerslie Flower Show, for greeting us at Hagley Park is a giant marquee perfect for the frightened and displaced.

Hagley Golf Course looks like Rotorua with its liquefaction. A group of Japanese golfers were laughing, pointing and smoking around it.

On Riccarton Road we enter a darkened dairy. We buy essentials - chocolate, water and cigarettes - while the dairy owner argues with a passing structural engineer as to the soundness of the building, half of which is lying on the road.

In one street students have pulled their couches and TV into the middle of the street and are cracking open stubbies and sharing marijuana with their shaking neighbours.

At 9am my footwear choice of leopard print stilettos seemed fun, by 3pm I was in a stranger's house begging for jandals.

Between 1pm and 4.30pm I tried to call my partner nearly 500 times but couldn't get through.

Unbelievably the only txt I got was from someone in Auckland telling me the show by Michael Jackson impersonator Kenny Whizz had been cancelled because of the earthquake.

That txt made me cry.

Then, after three and a half hours of fear, a txt arrived from my partner Matt saying: "We OK xxx".

Turns out he had been driving with my three small children - twins Travis and Finn, 3, and Hollie, 2 - on the way to Lyttelton when the quake hit. Lurching across the road their car had ended up in a hole in the road.

The car's electrics failed so they were trapped inside until he crawled out a half-open window and a passing truckie helped get the car out and Matt was able to drive them all to his mum's house in Beckenham.

My immense relief turned to horror, however, when a text at 4.30pm from Matt revealed that my eldest daughter, Lily, 11, was not with them.

Having tried the South New Brighton school for some hours I texted neighbours and friends for clues as to her whereabouts.

With the bridge to South New Brighton out and no car I had no way of getting to her.

My best friend texted that her husband had tried to collect Lily with their son but the teacher wouldn't let her go with him.

She says Lily was shaking and hysterical with fear.

For the first time I howl like a baby. My work colleagues Dave and Christine Armstrong, their inner city apartment destroyed by the quake leaving them with just the clothes on their backs, hugged and reassured me.

Five minutes later I am whooping with joy when my friend and neighbour Pennie says she has Lily with her.

She is there now and my heart aches that I can't hold and comfort her through these terrifying aftershocks.

I managed to be reunited with my partner and small children around six and a half hours after the disaster struck.

My house is uninhabitable but I don't give a toss about the material crap it holds. My children are alive. They're alive!!

On Facebook my friends advise they are OK but there are many I can't contact and I am fearful for their lives.

The list of the missing on the Stuff website contains a number of people I know. I couldn't read all the way through that list, however, because I am struck numb by the base humanity and palpable fear the list silently offers alongside the names.

With the power cut off, my extended family - eight in a two-bedroom unit in the suburbs - were unaware of just how bad the city had been hit.

I couldn't tell them what I had seen and what I feared for my colleagues and fellow Cantabrians trapped in the rubble.

My heart hurt too much. When the power came on I watched their faces as they saw the carnage on the news and, one by one, they hugged me solemnly.

To just hear the numbers you would assume a 6.3 would be nothing compared to a 7.1 but as newly-schooled geologists, Canterbury residents know the difference proximity to the city and the shallowness of the quake can make is vast.

On the news stupid journalists asked people freed from death's clutches "how they were feeling" and seemed more interested in having an accurate body count than sensitively and respectfully telling the stories of those affected by what may well be New Zealand's darkest and most destructive minute.

The toll-counters say 69 people have died but I saw easily 30 bodies in the streets, and believe it is more likely that hundreds have been killed.
If you have lost a soul you loved and treasured, I send you my love for I know that turgid feeling in the pit of your stomach and how the pain burns.

Tears are rolling down my face as I write this.

This disaster seems unspeakably cruel coming as it does just when we felt slightly more secure and positive about our city's future.

When the earthquake hit I had just started writing something on Lyttelton for The Press' 150 Reasons to Love Canterbury series and now the historic and tight-knit small community of Lyttelton, my favourite place in Christchurch, is all but flattened according to friends there.

I feel traumatised and I haven't experienced a tenth of the pain of some in this city.

I can't sleep tonight, I am just too frightened. I have survived two major earthquakes in six months. Third time unlucky? I don't want to find out.

And while my children sleep I am on the couch writing this by the light of a miner's headlamp belonging to my sister-in-law. I'm wearing my mother-in-law's dressing gown and my leopard heels.

Every few minutes an aftershock hits and the adrenalin and fear rise in my throat, my heart races and the house rocks like a dingy adrift on a mysterious geological storm.

I don't know how we're going to be able to pick ourselves up from this. When it started to rain it seemed like the final straw. The sky is crying for Christchurch, a friend posted on Facebook.

Here we all cry, make pleas with unknown forces, and sit wide-eyed and fully clothed huddled in darkness waiting for the reassuring dawn when the turbulence somehow seems less menacing.

February 22, today, is my mother's birthday. Yesterday morning I had grand designs for her gift, now I would simply like to see her face.

And I don't know how I'm going to do it but I am going to get my daughter Lily to me.

Fumbling around for a book to read before writing this I found a copy of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, tripping over the corner of the couch it fell open to this quote: "With hue like that when some great painter dips his pencil in the gloom of earthquake and eclipse."

New Zealand, we need you to have our back on this one. We don't need insensitive journalism and voyeuristic pictures of our dead.

We do need decisive leadership - on the radio at 3pm Mayor Bob Parker's comment that he couldn't declare a state of emergency was met with jeers of derision from the affected. That said I don't want to give Bob a hard time, kudos to him for stepping up again. Maybe, though, it's too much for one man to be expected to lead us through another disaster like this?

New Zealand we need you to have our backs. Aside from practical support which we thank you for, we need you to understand how draining and anxiety-causing these aftershocks are. We need you to give us your strength, kindness and support to help us get through this anxiety-ridden time.

Wherever you live, whatever you do, hold your loved ones close, tell the people you care about what they mean to you, and please, no matter where you are in New Zealand, pack your survival kit - I used to watch those ads and think they didn't apply to me too.

Life is fragile. I stood on the edge of the abyss and peered into the darkness today.

People of New Zealand, let your love be our light now.

And, Lily, if you can read this I will cuddle away your fears today no matter what honey, mummy will come get you and keep you safe. Be brave my darling... I love you.

just another day in christchurch.

2011-02-22T21:00:00.003+13:00

until 12.51pm today, that is.

the garden city was lucky last time. the damage then was bricks and mortar, plus some badly frayed nerves.

but not this time. the magnitude 6.3 very shallow earthquake hit during the busy lunch hour. the magnitude may be smaller than the september earthquake but the damage is far greater. flattened buildings, continual after-shocks, 65 confirmed dead [so far], hundreds injured. and tonight, who knows how many people wait for rescue in the rubble.

this afternoon i walked up through the heavy afternoon to council for a meeting. how normal it all was in the heart of whanganui, although a few shops did have signs on their doors to let customers know "we have no eftpos due to the christchurch earthquake".

i tried to pray as i walked, but it's difficult to know what words to say.

please help the survivors, please let the trapped be rescued, please give the rescuers persistence, please comfort those who are in shock, please let loved ones be reunited ...

it's hard to make sense of such a tragedy.

ten things i believe without evidence.

2011-02-21T19:00:00.033+13:00

i found this meme floating around the blogosphere [can't remember where, now] and thought it would be fun to do myself. my first meme!

so, ten things i believe without hard evidence:

1. that god exists.

2. that i will become less dependent on my car and more dependent on my bicycle.

3. that i will find work that is enjoyable, creative, useful and financially viable.

4. that summer will never end.

5. that the wellington phoenix will win the a-league [not this year, alas] ...

6. ... and the black caps will win the cricket world cup.

7. that humans will be the saviours of planet earth.

8. that i will be free of debt ...

9. ...and free of PMT.

10. that michael laws will leave whanganui. permanently.

care to join in? i'd love to see your meme, either in the comments or on your own blog.

+ + + +

photo by anne-marie emerson:

derelict house, owhiro bay, wellington

september 2010

monday afternoon.

2011-02-10T19:00:00.053+13:00

monday was a scorcher. we both had the day off work. there was only one thing to do: go to the beach.

for some thing different we drove half an hour north of whanganui, to a beach that can only be reached at the end of a narrow gravel road, sandy farmland and forestry unfurling on either side of us.

we parked the car at the top of the cliff and walked down a dirt track in to a gully, where a stream bounced its way, in a series of waterfalls and pools, down to the beach, which was black and glistening in the february sunlight. to our left was the lazy green tasman sea; to our right the crumbling cliffs that we had just picked our way down. recent summer storms had deposited huge amounts of driftwood - from whole trees to pools of tiny twigs - on the sand.

the beach was ours. it was monday afternoon: no-one else walked these hot sands.

the tide receded, leaving rock pools and sand pools to explore. in a cleft between two rocks we found a colony of leptograpsus variegatus [purple shore crabs], so close that we could have touched them if we'd wanted. they watched us with their suspicious eyes, blowing sea water bubbles out their mouths.

when it became too hot we took off our clothes and ran straight in to the welcoming water.

+ + + +

photos by anne-marie emerson
1. standing beside a rock pool
2. a bleached tree trunk on the sands under the cliffs
3.leptograpsus variegatus [purple shore crab]in a rock cleft - click on the picture to see the detail
4.looking south-east along the coast, towards whanganui

a happy mess.

2011-01-26T19:00:00.064+13:00

here are a couple of recent photos of me, taken by john. the first was taken at the durie hill lookout, on the summer solstice. john and his daughter and i went there to look for the moon rising in eclipse. the second photo was taken a couple of weeks ago after we had been surfing at castlecliff beach.

i've posted these photos to show you how my dreadlocks are progressing now they've hit the two year mark.

i love the journey they have been through in the past year. they have become thicker, fatter, knottier and, i think, a little longer [they are taking their own sweet time about growing]. the very front of my hair has finally started knotting up. my dreads have been adorned with some beautiful new beads, gifts from pete, my parents and john.

i've had a bit of maintenance done on my dreads over the past year. they responded well to the second set of maintenance, which involved crocheting them into some semblance of order by a dreaded woman with nimble fingers. they were so tidy, and finally settled down in to their final configuration.

mind you, the tidiness didn't last long - no more than a month - before they reverted back to their usual bird's nest state.

may be i'll have some more maintenance done on them in the future, if i feel like it. but i don't think i will. that's what this dreadlock journey is about: embracing what ever life and my hair cares to throw at me.

my dreadlocks are, in short, a happy mess.

just like me.

a different way of looking at headstones.

2011-01-20T19:00:00.013+13:00

i always take a genuine interest in people i interview at work. people interest me, so i never have to fake it. but some people have such an intriguing story to tell, or are in themselves so fascinating, that my interest goes beyond the professional.

i met one such person recently - an elderly gentleman by the name of richard, who this week celebrates 60 years of making headstones.

richard is the third of five generations of headstone-makers in his family. he grew up with headstones all around him [so to speak]: his childhood home was next door to the family business and across the road from the cemetery. school was a way of marking time until he was able to take up an apprenticeship in the business with his father and grandfather.

i didn't know a thing about headstones until i interviewed richard. i'd never given them a thought - but i learned quite a lot! richard said most people don't know much about headstones. so when they come to choose one for a loved family member, they don't know where to start.

"it's some thing most people only do once or twice in their lives, so it's not surprising," richard said. "i get a lot of satisfaction from helping people at a time when they really need help."

the photographer and i took richard across the road to the aramoho cemetery to photograph him for the story. with quiet pride he pointed out the family's stamp on many of the gravestones in the old part of the cemetery.

"my grandfather would have made this one," he said, as we stopped to admire a beautiful headstone from 1915. "he would have cut those letters himself with a hammer and chisel. of course it's all computerised these days."

i asked richard if he liked being in cemeteries.

"oh yes, i feel very much at home here. they're lovely places, don't you think?" this with a twinkle in his eye. "you should ask my wife about how i insist on visiting cemeteries when we go away on holiday!" he showed me the places reserved in the cemetery for himself and his wife, right next to the fountain. he likes being by water, he said.

our interview was well over by this time but we were so deep in conversation about headstones that we almost forgot about the patiently waiting photographer. while she photographed richard i wandered amongst the graves and for the first time really looked at them: the inscriptions, some of which were heart-breaking, but also at the workmanship. i could see why richard likes his work and why he's proud of it.

he's 75 years old now, and increasingly his friends and acquaintances are providing work for the family business. he doesn't find it easy to make headstones for people he knows. he doesn't know how much longer he'll be around but the thought of death doesn't seem to bother him.

"my life has been good," he said. "i think i'll be contented when it's time for me to take up permanent residence in the cemetery."

+ + + +

photo by anne-marie emerson:

sunset at heads road cemetery, whanganui

whanganui, december

2010-12-30T19:00:00.073+13:00

picking fresh strawberries, raspberries, plums, peas, courgettes, potatoes, beans, cauliflowers, broccoli and cabbages from the garden.

sleeping with the windows wide open and only a thin sheet covering me.

meeting john at the beach after work for a surf.

spending christmas eve with my family: my sister's delicious food and playing "bead spooning" with my dad, niece and nephew.

watching the ashes from australia, on telly. go england!

rain that comes like a mist up the river.

being bitten by mozzies in the hot evenings, cicadas droning on during the day.

watching the movie "avatar" with john and his daughter.

pohutukawa trees in full bloom.

hanging with my workmates on the riverbank at our company's christmas party.

not wearing shoes, except when absolutely necessary.

finding myself stuck in a rip and unable to get back to shore while surfing at castlecliff, as thunderstorms and torrential rain come and go around me.

the scent of roses, of rain on hot ground.

grooving to fat freddy's drop in lower hutt.

fruit smoothies for breakfast [banana, strawberry and mango is my favourite combination].

big stars in the sky: rigel, betelgeuse, sirius, procyon, canopus, jupiter, achenar.

fierce sunlight that can only be dealt with by good sunglasses and good sunscreen.

the dogs, full stretch and panting on the back porch.

a cold glass of juice on a hot afternoon.

finding time to read.

doing a walking meditation around tess and aladdin's riverside garden at nine o'clock on a sunday night. the smell of lemon trees, the feel of dirt on the soles of my feet, the sound of the quiet river.

seeing the full lunar eclipse.

+ + + +

photos by anne-marie emerson

1. my strawberry patch

2.pohutukawa in full bloom

3.december sunset

4.john at durie hill, waiting for the moon to rise in eclipse [that's durie hill tower in the background]

the art of being alone

2010-12-13T19:00:00.093+13:00

"i don't know how you can spend all that time on your own," said my mother to me before i left for flounder bay. "it would drive me crazy. are you sure you'll be all right?"

[i should point out that when i went to south australia my mother worried i'd be eaten by crocodiles.]

i had a big stash of books, ink for my pen, a good weather forecast and plenty of food. i was about to spend a week in my favourite place. there are definitely no crocs in flounder bay. i knew i'd be all right.

but after i had arrived at flounder bay and settled in, i didn’t feel all right. an unexpected feeling of panic hit me. hadn’t i been looking forward to coming here for months? so why did i feel like running away? why did i have this overwhelming urge to talk to someone?

and then i realised: i wasn’t used to being on my own.

this was a novel discovery for me. i’ve always enjoyed my own company. back in the day, i’d come here for a week and be content to speak to no-one. i had been hanging out for that very thing. but here i was, feeling lonely.

for most of my adult life being single has been the norm for me. i was used to doing things by myself, like going on holiday. it never worried me. in my late thirties, things have changed and i’ve found myself far more “attached” than at any other time. it’s been about four years since i last came to flounder bay alone.

so i have lost the art of being alone – a highly under-rated art, i might add. when my last relationship finished i promised myself i would spend a lot more time alone. a noble promise, but one that was knocked sideways when i unexpectedly fell in love again.

once i realised why i was feeling so off-kilter, i was fine. i decided to reacquaint myself with myself, and that meant doing what ever i wanted for the rest of my time alone at flounder bay. so there was plenty of writing, yoga, long walks, eating and sleeping. but what i did most of was lie in the sun [smothered in sunscreen] on the little lawn in front of my cabin and read, while birds sang at me from the ngaio and ti kouka trees. it was a long, long time since i’d had such glorious and uninterrupted time to read.

and it was perfect.

after five days, john arrived to disturb my sunny solitude ... but that was a whole different kind of perfect.

+ + + +

[ps. can i just say, this new blogger thing is a piece of crap. take that, blogger.]

+ + + +

photos:

1. driftwood post on the beach, flounder bay

2. standing in the stream, flounder bay
3. lichen-covered rock, southern headland, flounder bay

photos by anne-marie emerson

things change.

2010-12-03T10:00:00.004+13:00

I have just returned from a holiday at Flounder Bay. This is one of my journal entries written while I was there:

I’ve noticed an unusual amount of activity down at Bill and Anne’s house while I’ve been here. [Bill and Anne own the farm and run the camp.] This morning I asked Anne what was going on. She told me they’re packing up and getting ready to leave! On Friday they hand over the camp to strangers.

I was shocked. Bill and Anne built the camp on their farm several decades ago, and have run it with their quiet, unhurried friendliness ever since. I cannot imagine the place without them. They are as much a part of Flounder Bay as the two headlands guarding the beach, or the slow aquamarine roll of the Pacific Ocean on the sand.

But I do understand their reasons. It’s hard for them to have a real holiday when they’re busy looking after everyone else’s holidays, and running a farm. They’re getting on in years and Bill has had some health scares recently. They’re not selling the camp, just leasing it; and they will still live and work on the farm. It would be very sad indeed if they had decided to sell up and leave completely – Bill’s family has been on this land for a century.

But it’s hard to think of some one else running this place. What changes might they make here? Not too many, I hope. People love this camp for what it is – comfy but not luxurious, in beautiful, natural surroundings, and affordable for the average Kiwi family or foreign backpacker.

There are too few places like Flounder Bay left in New Zealand. So much of our precious coastal land is being sold to fat cat developers. Yes, it’s even happened at Flounder Bay – just look at all the fancy houses going up in the village. Ugly! But some one is raking in the money. I’m sure that’s all the developers care about.

Bill and Anne are constantly being offered huge sums of money for their land, but they won’t sell. I hope that when they’re gone, their children and grandchildren will feel the same way.

got any news?

2010-11-07T19:00:00.001+13:00

one of the many pithy sayings of our chief reporter is, "anybody got any news?", or some times just, "got any news?"

it drives us reporters nuts. we hear it about 10 times a day.

what exactly does our esteemed chief think we're doing while we're all busy typing at our computers? doesn't it occur to him we might actually be writing news?

we abuse him regularly [and deservedly] for it, but he persists.

one morning last week we arrived at work and found this:

yes, that's right. our chief's favourite saying, written in half-metre-high paper letters on the newsroom wall.

who did it???

it's not typical behaviour of any one in the newsroom except, perhaps, me - but i know i didn't do it. no-one has claimed responsibility or even hinted at it. our newsroom staffing levels have been cut to the bone, and no-one has the time any more to indulge in such trivia.

the most obvious suspect is the chief himself, but he denies it. it seems unlikely, as he's on the go all day every day. the other possible culprits are our production editor or late reporter, who are both left alone in the newsroom for several hours after every one else has gone. they also deny it, but i think a collaboration between the two is likely.

who ever it was, the mysterious grafitti has remained. and unfortunately it hasn't stopped our chief from trotting out his favourite line 10 times a day:

"any body got any news?"

john boy

2010-10-28T19:00:00.001+13:00

when i became single again during the winter, i thought i would stay that way for a long time.

but god had other ideas.

this is my john boy.

a father, a buddhist, a chess geek, a teacher, a greenie, a sports fan, an art lover, a book worm, a new zealander with his roots in rarotonga.

our relationship began as a professional one. i interviewed him several times for the newspaper, and we became friends. we watched rugby league matches together and went to the beach together.

in the aftermath of the end of my relationship, i decided i could do worse than have a post-break-up fling with my handsome rarotongan friend, by way of a distraction. not at all the sort of thing i'd normally do ...

cue panic and alarm when i realised - oh no! - i had fallen for him.

fortunately, john had fallen for me, too. with out the panic and alarm.

so here we are.

he makes me laugh till my stomach hurts.
[actually, we make each other laugh. a lot.]

he has an apparently endless capacity for snuggling.
[well, i haven't discovered the end of it yet.]

he's the most spontaneous person i've ever met.
[he wakes up on stormy mornings and suggests we go to the beach.]

he's teaching me to play chess.
[i'm crap, but he's a great teacher.]

he even likes my dreads.

being with him makes me happy, and that's enough for me.

what i don't blog about.

2010-10-26T19:00:00.028+13:00

view from our back garden of an 83-year-old steam engine which recently visited whanganui from feilding.

+ + + +

i don't blog much about work ... because once i was nearly fired for writing on this blog about work.

i don't blog much about local politics ... because no-one outside of whanganui is interested.

i don't blog much about how i feel ... because i'm a new zealander and we don't articulate our emotions well [unless we're talking about rugby].

i don't blog much about my spiritual life ... see above.

i don't blog much about my family ... because - actually, i'm not sure why i don't write about my family. i love my family dearly.

i don't blog much about the darkness ... because i am still coming to terms with that side of myself.

+ + + +

i've been thinking about my blog recently; what i write about and what i don't write about.

it's easy for me to write about the world around me, the progress of my dreadlocks and my adventures because i don't have to emotionally engage with them. but i mostly stay away from personal subjects on my blog, or i skim over the surface of them. the thought of writing publicly about how i feel is a little bit scary for me.

i'm not sure i'm content with this any more because i want this blog to reflect who i truly am.

so maybe i'll start opening up a little more from now on.

maybe.

+ + + +

ps. thanks again p, for your lovely card. i wish you were able to reveal a little more about your identity, though!

an antidote to too much work and too much rain.

2010-10-18T13:00:00.001+13:00

an afternoon at south beach, whanganui, with zella the dog and john.

zella and john play the timeless game of fetch-the-stick.

strange patterns in the black, wind-scoured sand.

"you can take a photo of me, but don't expect me to pose."

view from the sand dunes. zella is finding something stinky to roll in.

sitting upwind of us so we get the full benefit of what ever it was she rolled in.

+ + + +

on saturday i forgot about work, about politics, about deadlines ... and instead enjoyed the simple pleasures of sunshine, good company, and the touch of the sea on my feet. i have yet to find an unhappiness that being by the sea doesn't relieve, at least a little.

sadhana.

2010-10-07T21:00:00.007+13:00

sitting in prayer

+ + + +

My period of intense work in preparation for the local government elections is almost over. Election day is the day after tomorrow, so by next weekend the coverage should be pretty well wrapped up. On Saturday, Whanganui will have a new mayor. What a strange and wondrous thought that is!

From a political journalist's point of view, it's been a great campaign. In typical Whanganui fashion there's been plenty of crazy and weird stuff happening. And I've discovered a whole new meaning to the phrase "frantically busy".

Back in the real world, a new moon begins tomorrow. And with that new moon begins my new yoga sadhana [daily devotion] - Marianne Elliott's online home yoga course, 30 Days Of Yoga.

I signed up the moment I heard Marianne was running her sadhana in October. This year I have been very neglectful of my yoga practice, and I can feel it. I am in need - physically, emotionally and mentally - of some seriously good yoga. There's a lot going on in my life right now, not least of which is long hours at work. My back feels like a solid wall of tension from my neck to my tailbone, and my whole body, mind and heart is in need of the TLC that only yoga can bring.

The way it works with 30 Days Of Yoga is that you choose from a range of practices designed by Marianne, from blood-pumping fire flow sequences to gentle restorative sequences. I decided I would not angst over this decision - I would let my intuition guide me to the right sequence.

When I came across a sequence titled "heart and earth flow" I knew immediately that was for me. I read the description and - guess what? The other name for this sequence is "yoga for writers":

"This practice is a beautiful balance between upper and lower body. I sometimes call this practice ‘Yoga for Writers’ because it addresses all the problems commonly found in the body of anyone who spends most of their day seated at a desk, working at a computer: tight neck, shoulders and upper back, tension in the lower back and tight hips and hamstrings. This is one of my personal favorites and I practice it often."

Wow! Marianne could have written that description specifically about me. I needed no further persuasion.

So, here's to a happy neck, shoulders, back, hips and hamstrings - not to mention a calmer mind and steadier heart. Yippee!

+ + + +

*Marianne has had 300 people sign up for this month's 30 Days Of Yoga and is not accepting any more registrations. However, if you are interested in a home yoga practice she runs these sadhanas several times a year so keep an eye on her 30 Days Of Yoga website.

anthony o'leary's dreadlock.

2010-09-28T20:00:00.003+13:00

anthony o'leary's nickname was "ropey", thanks to his huge mop of dreadlocks - 110 of them - that he had had professionally made three years ago and meticulously maintained ever since.

last night i was sent by my chief reporter to interview and photograph anthony, his wife, his parents, his parents-in-law and a few of his friends at a hair salon in victoria avenue. i found anthony anxiously pacing up and down, just wanting to "get it over and done with".

if i'd decided to get rid of such gorgeously perfect dreads, i'd be pretty anxious too.

anthony had made the brave decision to chop off his locks to raise money for blue september, a charity that supports men with prostate cancer. in just a few weeks he'd raised $1800, mostly in sponsorship and donations.

his wife and the hair stylist began to snip away and in five minutes the dreads were gone. anthony was given a thorough shampoo and a nice hair cut, then bubbly was poured and we all drank a toast to him and to blue september.

before i left anthony gave me one of his dreadlocks. i said, "if I accept that, you have to let me give you some money for it, to donate to blue september."

he said, "it's a deal." so i gave him $20.

anthony's father asked me what i intended to do with the dread. a sudden inspiration hit me from goodness knows where.

"i'm going to sew it to one of my dreads," i replied.

i went back to work and put the dread on my desk. every one else thought it was disgusting but i reckoned it was beautiful. it was a nice dread, very straight, with two small wooden beads, set about 3cm apart, near the bottom of the dread.

when i arrived home, i rubbed a bit of manuka oil and rosemary oil in to the dread, lit a candle and made a blessing. i chose a dreadlock above my left ear, secured anthony's dread to it with elastic bands, then got to work with a needle and black cotton.

it was only later, when i went back to the mirror to check my sewing skills, that i realised some thing strange.

you can't tell where my dread finishes and anthony's starts. our hair is identical in colour and texture. the dread even has caramel-coloured sun-bleaching at the end, like some of my dreads. except for the fact it is obviously much longer, you would think it was just another dread.

most people think it's yucky to be wearing some one else's hair, and that i'm stark raving for doing it. i like it, and i like it that this dreadlock has a special story. i like it that anthony o'leary's beautiful dreads, and the good deed he has done, will live on for as long as i have dreadlocks.

for p.

2010-09-14T20:00:00.002+12:00

standing under the magnolia tree

+ + + +

i don't know who you are. i don't know how old you are, or what you do for a living. i don't know whether you are male or female, black or white, jew or gentile.

i do know you read my blog. i also know you live in the united states. i only know that because the letter that landed on my desk from you today had united states' stamps on the envelope.

your letter read:

i have read your blog for a while and have enjoyed it. from your passion for cricket to your joy in spring's arrival to your enthusiasm for life. i know it's bad form to contact someone in real life. but i thought you'd know of a good / reputable charity to help with the earthquake recovery. we had so many scandals with the one in haiti. i wonder if you "sensed" the earthquake was coming even if it was so far away. thank you for your inspiration. p.

included with your letter were three $50 united states' notes.

p, i barely know what to say. "thank you" is a good start - thank you for your generosity, thank you for your kind words, thank you for trusting me to donate your money, thank you for caring about suffering people on the far side of the world.

this friday, whanganui is holding an appeal for the earthquake victims. i want you to know your money will be given to that appeal, along with NZ$100 of my own money, making a total of around NZ$300. the entire amount raised by whanganui people will be handed directly to the mayor of christchurch by one of our district councillors.

p, whoever and wherever you are - thank you.

[you might also get a mention in our newspaper some time!]

where i am, how i am.

2010-09-06T18:48:00.016+12:00

river stone, flounder bay, february 2010
+ + + +

i've had several emails and comments from people overseas asking if i'm okay after the big earthquake here in new zealand on saturday morning [new zealand time]. thanks for your concern. i'm pleased to say that i and every one i know is fine. i live a long way from the epicentre and i don't recall feeling the earthquake, although i did wake with a start at 4.35am so i must have felt it in my sleep.

apparently the christchurch earthquake was very similar to the haiti earthquake earlier this year - similar in size, focal depth, distance from the city, and even the same type of fault. the difference is that in christchurch there hasn't been a single death, which is quite remarkable. this is small comfort to all those residents who have been left homeless and traumatised and still experiencing strong aftershocks, of course. good thoughts and prayers would be welcome for these people.

meanwhile, this evening my flatmate and i have gathered together a few emergency supplies - just in case. it's been raining extremely hard all day and not far south of here roads are already closed and some towns are with out water and sewerage. our back garden has become a lake. we'll probably be fine but we're just being careful.

+ + + +

it's been a while since i've written here. it's just over a month until the local government elections and i am working harder than i've ever worked in my life! i'm enjoying it, but it's tiring, and i am looking forward to a holiday in november.

the other news is that pete and i have ended our three-year relationship. the end came suddenly for both of us but it was amicable, and we have agreed that we will still be friends.

it's been difficult but i am doing absolutely fine. i've been enjoying spending more time at home, hanging out with friends and family, going to the beach, practising yoga, and planning my first-ever summer vegetable garden.

for some reason i haven't wanted to write my blog since the break-up. i hope this post might end the drought but i can't guarantee i'm back just yet ...

space to breathe.

2010-07-27T19:00:00.012+12:00

my view from watchman's rock, flounder bay, february 2010

+ + + +

i need some space to breathe.

recently i turned 38. i woke up that morning feeling weighed down by a sense of being stuck. of stagnation. of having sleep-walked my way through the past year.

i woke up that morning not sure i recognised the face staring back at me from the mirror.

despite occasional bouts of depression, i am a woman with a passion for life. i've always lived joyfully and enjoyed the small details of life. some how, in the past year, i've lost that passion and joy.

my life seems to be a non-stop round of long hours at work and travelling back and forth between my two homes in whanganui and the manawatu. it feels like, if i blink i'll drop the ball.

i haven't done any yoga in three months [my lower back hates me for it]. swimming happens only in the weekends. a friend and i walked ted on the beach on my birthday, and that was the first time i'd been to the beach since february [february!]. i seldom read books any more. i don't blog nearly as much as i want to. i can't remember when i last danced.

and when i look in to my future, all i see is more of the same. what has happened to me?

so i have taken some space to breathe.

just a few weekends, alone, at home, to think. to do yoga, walk on the beach, read, play with the dogs. because i refuse to sleep-walk through life any more.

a blog reader recently emailed me to ask me, what would be your ideal job? for me, that question needs to be broadened to, what would be your ideal life?

right now, i don't know the answer.

ask me again in a couple of weeks.

33 dreadlocks.

2010-07-16T19:50:00.012+12:00

i counted them last week: there are 33 of them. the collection of ever-expanding, ever-knotting dreadlocks that now sweeps down across my shoulders.

they are a little over 18 months old. this means - from what i have read on online dreadhead communities - that they are half way to being grown-up dreadlocks.

i love them. i really do. i love them more all the time, as imperfect as they are.

i love how i look wearing dreads. i love my collection of head wraps, brightly-coloured and practical.

i love each dread with its strange little quirks. the supermodel which has always been perfectly formed and is decorated with two juicy red beads. The hemulen, so named and adorned with a polka-dot bead by my two youngest nieces. my largest dread - the borg - which has to be prevented from assimilating other dreads ["resistance is futile"]. cherry baby, whose cherry tree bead I bought in launceston, tasmania, to wear as a pendant.

pete calls my dreadlocks the cordyceps when they creep across the pillow in the morning to attack his face. he pretends to be afraid of them and i tell him he has to behave or they will release their spores and then he'll grow dreads too.

[yes, this is the sort of conversation you have when your boyfriend is an ex-scientist.]

sometimes i think longingly of that three-year mark, when my dreads will be mature. mostly, i enjoy the journey as it is, right now.

the object of my [stationery] desire.

2010-07-06T19:00:00.010+12:00

For years I’ve been hunting for the perfect diary.

I couldn’t function without my diary. I’m not talking about my notebook, which contains my personal writing; I mean my daily or weekly planner. The thing that I use to record the council meeting on Tuesday at 3pm or the day my period is due or my nephew’s birthday. My diary is an extension of my brain – my brain’s external hard drive, if you will. If there’s a chance something vital will fall out of my brain, it gets chucked in my diary.

My diary satisfies two sides of me: the part that likes to be organised, and the part that describes stationery in the same terms as food [that’s a yummy notebook, etc]. The problem is, I have a picture in my head of what the perfect diary looks like and I have never been able to find it.

Oh, I can describe my perfect diary to you. It has a week to a page, and facing it is a blank lined page for scribbling. Why is this the perfect format? Because I have a tendency to think in weeks rather than days; and because sometimes I want to note down something that doesn’t have to be assigned to a particular day, like buy Lizzy a birthday present. That’s where the scribbling page comes in. The perfect diary must also have a hard cover, not be spiral bound – but open flat.

I know: tough call. No wonder I could never find the perfect diary. So desperate was I for it that I made it myself, several years in a row. The picture above is my diary from 2006. I simply took a plain lined notebook and ruled lines in it to my specifications. I loved those diaries but they were time-consuming to make. Recently I’ve made do with the boring page-to-a-day diaries we’re given at work. They do the job, but they’re just not right.

Anyway, I am happy to report that I have finally found my perfect diary. And it is made by none other than ... Moleskine! Who else?! Oh yes. Follow this link to the Australian website where I ordered my one from. [I bought the large size.]

This is some serious stationery pornography. It’s an 18-month diary [1st July 2010 – 31st December 2011]. It fits my desires perfectly: hard cover, opens flat, week-to-a-page, with a lined page facing it. It comes with an address book that fits in the back! It has time zones, public holidays in about 20 countries, conversion tables, year planner, a ruler page - it has everything.

I took it to work for the first time yesterday and was seriously blissed out at how gorgeous and functional it is. I think I might be in love. Yum.

winter light.

2010-06-29T19:00:00.005+12:00

The Winter Solstice has been and gone. Soon Earth will begin to turn back towards the sun.

As the days have shortened and cooled, I've felt myself unwilling - or unable - to sit down at my computer and write for this blog. It's all I can do to keep my motivation to write at work. This time of year always feels to me like low tide, as though Earth is spinning a little more sluggishly than usual [and me with it]. All I want to do right now is hunker down, stay in bed late, read, sleep, and eat soup.

I have felt this for many years and always thought it was just my imagination. That was until a few winters ago when I interviewed an astronomer who explained that at this time of year, Earth is indeed receiving less energy from the sun. "Sometimes in winter I feel like I'm receiving less energy from the sun, too," he laughed. I knew exactly what he meant.

But mid-winter is a beautiful time of year, too.

This year I’ve been captivated by winter light. As much as I love summer, southern summer light is harsh and merciless. In winter, however, it can be silvery, calm and clear. Or it can lie like liquid gold on the hills, bringing out every ridge and hollow. Pete tells me it’s bad light to photograph in, which is a shame; but I love it anyway.

Of course, some winter days it seems like the sun is struggling to get his weak head above the eastern horizon. Those are the days when the only sensible thing to do is to stay in bed with a good book and a hot cup of tea.

+ + + +

We give thanks for the blessing of winter:
Season to cherish the heart.
To make warmth and quiet for the heart.
To make soups and broths for the heart.
To cook for the heart and read for the heart.
To curl up softly and nestle with the heart.
To sleep deeply and gently at one with the heart.
To dream with the heart.
To spend time with the heart.
A long, long time of peace with the heart.
We give thanks for the blessing of winter:
Season to cherish the heart.
Amen.

-Michael Leunig, When I talk to you

+ + + +

The photo above was taken from my east window, just after sunrise.

in praise of the feijoa.

2010-06-03T18:00:00.003+12:00

[This post is for Leonie, who can't enjoy feijoas right now.]

Cut up and ready to eat - yum!

A bucketful of feijoas collected from underneath one of our trees

+ + + +

“Would you like some feijoas? We’ve got more than we know what to do with.”

“Thanks, but our tree is loaded this year. The kids have been eating nothing but feijoas, and I’ve been cooking with them, but we can’t get through them fast enough!”

Feijoa season is in full swing here in Aotearoa-New Zealand. I don’t know how many times I’ve overheard, or taken part in, variations of this conversation over the past month.

What is a feijoa? I hear some of you ask. If you are not from New Zealand, you might know it as the pineapple guava. I like this description of the feijoa from Wikipedia:

The fruit, maturing in autumn, is green, ellipsoid, and about the size of a chicken's egg. It has a sweet, aromatic, flavour. The flesh is juicy and is divided into a clear jelly-like seed pulp and a firmer, slightly gritty, opaque, flesh nearer the skin ... German botanist Otto Karl Berg named the fruit Feijoa after Joao da Silva Feijo, a Portuguese botanist born in Brazil ... Large quantities are grown in New Zealand, where the fruit is a popular garden tree and the fruit is commonly available in season.

My mouth waters just reading that description. I want to grab a teaspoon and scoop some of that sweet, aromatic flesh into my mouth right now!

We have two feijoa trees in our garden. This year, in early autumn, my flatmate told me there were no feijoas on the trees at all this year. He says that every year, forgetting that forming feijoas are remarkably well disguised among their leaves. It happens the same way every year: one day we noticed a few feijoas on the ground [feijoas are usually harvested off the ground, not the tree], then a few more. Then came the deluge.

And this year it really has been a deluge. The mild, dry days of this autumn have produced a bumper crop on both our trees - on everyone's trees.

I had a bad cold recently. I don’t know about you, but colds always suppress my appetite and I tend to live on a minimum of food, with plenty of water and hot-lemon-and-honey drinks. But this year I craved feijoas, ate very little other than feijoas, and they actually made me feel better. They are the perfect fruit for autumn and early winter, as they are high in Vitamin C.

There are all kinds of recipes for using feijoas - feijoa wine, feijoa cake, feijoa relish, feijoa jam, casseroles with feijoas in them, feijoa ice-cream. Almost anything you can think of can be made with feijoas! One of my favourites, however, is my flatmate's feijoa and apple crumble, made with feijoas from from our trees and apples from our Granny Smith tree. Feijoa and apple was the original fruit for this crumble but of course you can make it with any seasonal fruit. [Note: this is a recipe he made himself, so everything in it is approximate.]

STEVE'S FEIJOA AND APPLE CRUMBLE

Crumble:

50g butter

3/4 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup raw sugar

optional: 1tsp mixed spice

Fruit:

3 large apples, peeled and chopped

flesh of 12 large feijoas

1T raw sugar

For the topping: rub the butter into the dry ingredients, except the sugar. Once a crumbly mixture has formed, add the sugar and mix.

For the fruit: combine all ingredients in a bowl and soften in the microwave for a few minutes.

Turn the fruit in to a pie or baking dish. Top with the crumble mixture. Bake at 170 degrees C until brown on top [approximately 30 - 45 minutes].

Enjoy!

where i am is where i need to be.

2010-05-25T21:00:00.005+12:00

View from the newsroom window
in the aftermath of a late afternoon storm

+ + + +

"The life of the journalist is poor, nasty, brutish and short. So is his style."
- Stella Gibbons, misquoting Thomas Hobbes

For at least a couple of years now I've been planning to leave my job as a reporter on a regional daily newspaper. The pay is low, the hours are long, there's a lot of stress, and so often I feel bogged down in negativity and controversy. Also, I'm in a long-distance relationship and the assumption has always been that one day I would find another job, one that meant I was closer to my boyfriend and my family.

The only reason I haven't moved on yet is because I've been unable to find other work that suits me.

But in the past few months I've had a change of heart. I still plan to move closer to my loved ones one day. And all those things I dislike about my job still stand. But right now, I know that where I am is exactly where I need to be.

One part of my work as a reporter - the part that takes up most of my time - is that of covering all the happenings of the Wanganui District Council. That probably sounds boring to you; but for a political junkie like me, it's great!

The town I live in has a unique set of circumstances when it comes to local government. Whanganui is a large town whose internal politics would ordinarily attract no outside interest at all. Except that we have a mayor with a very high national profile, his own radio talkback show, a dislike of the media, and extremely outspoken and controversial opinions. This makes being the council reporter really entertaining, although it's not to everyone's taste.

New Zealand's local body elections are scheduled to be held in October. Already the signs are there that, in Whanganui at least, this will be a fiercely-fought and dirty election. And I will be in the midst of it all, notebook and pen in hand, trying to make sense of it all and writing my stories so I can keep the local community informed.

It will be hard and it will certainly disturb my equilibrium at times. But this feels like my mission: to cover the local elections as fairly, as widely, as informatively, as well - and yes, as entertainingly [is that even a word?] - as I can. Sure, I have my opinions on local politics: show me a journalist who doesn't have opinions. But a good journalist keeps her opinions to herself, as I always try to do when I'm writing a story.

So I have decided to stay here at least until the elections are over. Once they're done, and the dust has settled, that will be the time for me to consider my next career move.

Local body elections ... bring them on!

may.

2010-05-11T21:00:00.004+12:00

Here in Aotearoa-New Zealand, it's mid-autumn. Autumn is not my favourite season. True, it's a beautiful season but the end of summer depresses me.

I'm a hot weather girl. I like to be able to swim in the sea without a wetsuit. I like feeling the sun on my skin and I adore walking about in bare feet. The arrival of autumn means the end of all that for at least six months and I hate that thought.

Recently I realised I haven't been suffering from my usual bout of autumn blues. It's May: I should be miserable by now!! Certainly some of my life circumstances have given me reason to be cheerful. But I also think the weather has a lot to do with it. This southern autumn has been amazing: day after day of crisp - sometimes icy - mornings, warming to clear, calm, tender afternoons.

Yesterday was my day off, and Pete and I spent it quietly together. We ate lunch on the porch and after about half an hour we were driven inside by the heat! It's lovely to still be able to feel warmth in the sun and grass on the soles of my feet. But in the evening the temperature dropped. We rugged up and ate the yummy cassoulet that had been simmering all day in the crockpot. Warm day, cold night - it's the best of both worlds.

The above photos are just a few snapshots of how my autumnal world looks right now. What does the world look like at your place?

i can't go past raspberry boots.

2010-04-20T21:00:00.002+12:00

Especially when they cost just $18.
And they're second-hand but in new condition.
They're lined with sheepskin.
They fit me perfectly.
They go with almost every item of clothing I own.
They will keep me snuggly and warm for the cold winter months ahead.

These boots and I were made for each other!

bittersweet.

2010-04-13T20:30:00.000+12:00

Almost full moon rising over Durie Hill, Whanganui

Less than 24 hours after putting up my last post, I found my lost boy.

By the time I published that post, I had decided it was time to give up the search. I had tried Google and all the social networking sites. Nothing. I had come to a dead end. I realised I could be driving myself mental if I continued to worry about him.

But that night I had yet another dream about him. We were walking through the beautiful grounds at the university where we studied social anthropology together, and talking.

I took this dream as a sign I should give him one last attempt.

The next day I sent a short email to the law school he had attended, asking if it was possible to contact him. About an hour later I received a reply from - of all people! - the Dean of the law school, letting me know my email had been forwarded to him. As I sat there contemplating this message and wondering if I would ever hear from him, my phone rang.

And it was him.

We were both at work, in busy offices, so we couldn't talk for long. But it was enough to catch up on all the news. We discovered that although he and I now live three hours' drive apart, we have actually been geographically very close at times and never knew it. Like over Easter, when I was fretting most over him: he was visiting his mother that weekend, who lives 15km down the road from Pete's house.

Hearing his voice again was such a trip. It was like being in a time warp ... I was once again a shaven-headed 22-year-old kicking around the anthropology department with him, making plans to save the world and get drunk in the weekend. I was reminded of the girl I was then: passionate, defiant, rebellious, unfocused, insecure, damaged, a little crazy, intense - and convinced of my ability to change the world. Honestly, I don't wish to be 22 again. But there are parts of that girl I've lost and would like to find again.

Of course, I had to explain to him why I had been so anxious to get in touch with him. If any of my colleagues in the newsroom had overheard my explanation, they would have thought I was a crazy mad woman. But he and I have been here at least twice before, and he definitely did not think I was out of my mind.

"You know, you're really freaking me out," he said. "Can you remember what day it was you first dreamed about me?"

I thought back ... maybe Thursday night?

He sighed heavily. "This is too weird. Thursday was the day I was having tests to find out if the cancer has come back."

Oh, no. No no no no no. He has been free of cancer for 12 years but recently he's been having the symptoms he knows only too well: pain, weight loss, night sweats. He doesn't yet know the results, but he's worried.

And in two months' time he's about to become a dad for the first time. "Yet another reason to want to be around this earth for a while," he wrote to me tonight. Words that brought tears to my eyes.

I feel so helpless. And I feel, I guess, guilty that I've barged back in to his life with out warning and added another layer of tension to what must already be such a bittersweet time.

All I can do is pray ... and I'm doing a lot of that right now. If any one wants to join me, feel free.

lost boy.

2010-04-06T21:23:00.003+12:00

Why are you on my mind this week, lost boy?

It's been four years.

We both moved to Wellington in early 2006 - you to study law at Victoria and me to study journalism at Massey. Sometimes, after classes were finished for the day, I would walk down to the law school to have coffee with you. At the end of the year I left Wellington for work in Whanganui, you continued with your law studies, and we lost contact.

We had met many years before, when we were in our early 20s, in a social anthropology class at university. Our professor insisted we introduce ourselves to the class by stating our cultural identities. You and I were the only people in the class who claimed Orange Irish as part of our cultural identities. I looked at you, you looked at me and I thought, You're all right. The following weekend we bumped into each other at the pub and from that day forward we were inseparable.

You were my best mate. We studied together, drank together, danced together, went on road trips together, planned to change the world together, raised hell together, even shared each other's beds. My girl friends were convinced you and I would marry, although to this day we have never so much as kissed. We did have a strange, other-world connection that I still can't explain. When I hurt you felt it. When you walked into the crowded pub I knew you were there, even if I had my back to the door.

You were my dark-haired angel but sometimes you acted like a demon. You were always right and you wouldn't back down over the smallest thing. You always got your way; it was easier for people to give in to you than put up with one of your ear bashings.

I argued with you, though, loudly and long. Sometimes the arguments became physical fights. I threw things at you in a rage and you held me down with a steely grip until I capitulated. You told me I was the most badly-behaved woman you'd ever known. One night, when we were both very drunk, we had a wrestling fight and you were too rough with me. I ended up in hospital with a twisted spinal cord, unable to walk for days. You were distraught.

Eventually the fighting got too much for me and I severed our friendship. My life was easier, calmer, with out you around.

Strange then, to find myself, about a year later, unable to stop thinking of you. Having dreams of you, in which you pleaded for me to help you. We bumped into each other at the library a week later. One glance was enough to tell me you were very ill.

The cancer had returned. You'd already had your right shoulder removed and reconstructed, thanks to the aggressive osteosarcoma that had grown there. This time you lost a lung, endured chemotherapy again, wouldn't let me see you during the treatment. You were angry and bitter. You refused to talk about a prognosis.

And then you were gone. You checked out of hospital for the last time and took a plane for Europe.

You dropped out of my life for a decade. I never thought of you - until you appeared in a dream. Not long after this, a man who worked for me gave me a message from you. My heart ached when I saw you again. You seemed worn down by years of battling through life. You had stayed cancer-free but your father had died of the disease. You were out of work, directionless, your long-term girlfriend had left you.

But those big hazel eyes of yours still bored into me as you challenged me: "What the fuck are you on about, Emerson?" Some things hadn't changed.

A different kind of friendship developed between us. More friendly, less crazy-making, less physically dangerous! You had become softer round the edges - a little - and I was not so reactive. We were both in our 30s now and more mature. We had long, satisfying, intellectual conversations, which continued when we moved to Wellington. Why and how did we lose touch?

I have barely given you a thought for the past four years. Now here you are nagging at my mind and stalking through my dreams again and I want to know why. I have no way of getting in touch with you. I don't even know where you are.

What's wrong, lost boy?

white girl don't dreadlock?

2010-03-31T22:50:00.024+13:00

My dreads, aged 16 months
Note the caramel-coloured ends where they were bleached by the sun!

+ + + +

Today I annoyed a woman in a supermarket car park.

It was a foolish thing I did. She had parked in a car park for disabled people. She clearly wasn't disabled and she didn't have the $25 sticker in her car that allowed her to park in those parking spaces, right next to the supermarket door.

I asked her if she realised she was parked illegally and could be fined.

The woman - a big, rough-looking Maori - packed her groceries into her car and drove off, all the while issuing a non-stop stream of very loud, people-turning-to-look obscenities in my direction. She flipped her finger at me as she passed by.

"You're too white for dreads, don't pretend you're one of us, you white trash bitch," she screeched out her car window. [Just imagine there are lots of f-words in that sentence.]

I'm too white for dreads?

I do quite a lot of poking around online in dreadlock forums, dreadlock websites, dreadlock books, etc. [I have no dreadie friends - only one ex-dreadie friend and she lives in Wellington - so most of my dreadlock information and inspiration is found online.] I've noticed this sentiment among some sections of the online African-American community, and it puzzles me.

Why do some people of colour take issue with white people having dreads?

This woman must have thought I was ... I don't know. A Pakeha trying to pass herself off as Maori? A rasta? A fashion victim? Or perhaps she was just annoyed with me and that was the first thing she could think of to throw at me.

Since her invective was directed specifically at me, I want to examine what she said about me.

Am I trying to pass myself off as Maori / African-American / rasta? Hardly. I get the rasta comment often - a lot of people think all dreadheads are rastas - but no-one who knows about rastas would ever think I am one. I couldn't pass myself off as Maori or African-American if I tried. I look exactly like what I am: English and Irish with a Kiwi "eccent"! I've never wanted to be anything other than what I am.

Having dreadlocks makes me feel like more of myself. My hair has always been crazy messy and rough; I used to tame it by shaving it off. Now I'm making peace with the mess by allowing my hair to be the mess it wants to be. If I was all about the fashion I would have had my dreads "made" [crochet, backcomb, chemicals, wax] - they're a lot quicker and they're neat and tidy, unlike the bird's nest you see above.

Although my dreads did start as a sort of accident, I had thought about them and wanted them for a long time. The start of the dreads coincided with the start of my spiritual journey [about which I have written nothing on my blog] ... they are a symbol of my searching for God. Both are teaching me big time patience!

The most obvious question is: if I'm too white to have dreads how come my hair dreaded of its own accord? These dreads of mine aren't made; they're the real deal. They are 16 months [and counting] of no combing, no brushing, no conditioning, not even any waxing. When I left my hair to its own devices, it dreaded.

So dreadlocks happen to white people too. Get over it.

The tomato thief

2010-03-24T12:57:00.014+13:00

My flatmate's tomato plants yielded a fantastic crop this year. I've been enjoying popping cherry tomatoes in salads, slicing medium-sized tomatoes to have on sandwiches, and cooking up large tomatoes for sauce.

About a month ago - at the height of the season - the large tomatoes started disappearing. We kept finding them, half ripe and half eaten, scattered across the back lawn. My flatmate was annoyed and puzzled: what could be taking them? It couldn’t be birds. They only eat ripe tomatoes and they wouldn’t be able to pull large tomatoes off the vine.

Then one evening, my flatmate caught the tomato thief in the act!

Guilty!

We should have known. Ted, my flatmate’s scruffy, scrappy border terrier, with his unusual eating habits. Ted, who inhales a bowl of raw meat in 20 seconds flat, who chomps on capsicums and has sweet little love affairs with apple cores. Shoes, pegs, driftwood, flowers, stones, even corrugated iron – none of these are safe from Ted’s capacious jaws.

Ted is my constant “helper” in the kitchen when I’m cooking. When that fridge door opens, it takes him an average of seven seconds to move from snoring on the couch to full alert position in the kitchen. He has his favourite spot on the kitchen floor – the spot where I’m most likely to trip over him – where he waits to help me “taste test” whatever might be cooking for dinner. I’m so used to him being underfoot that I automatically step around him now.

I’ve discovered three foods Ted won’t eat: onions, mushrooms and celery. (He wants to like celery but I think the stringy texture is too much for him.) Obviously, we are careful about what we allow him to eat – we’d never offer him chocolate - or any other processed foods - and I encourage him to stay away from the oleander tree. He'd probably cheerfully eat both, given the chance.

Little Princess is nowhere near as gastronomically adventurous as Ted. She’s a strictly “meat and three vegetables” girl. Without the vegetables.

They say Americans and cricket don't mix

2010-03-10T21:35:00.009+13:00

Q: What's the definition of a genius?
A: Someone who can successfully explain cricket to an American.

Just call me a genius then, because not only was I able to successfully explain cricket to our American friend, Jesse, he actually enjoyed watching a full game of cricket [the one-day version - I'd never subject him to the five-day version].

Okay, maybe I can't take all the credit. For starters, it was a glorious late summer's day at McLean Park in Napier. And for another thing, the New Zealand cricket team turned on a nail-biter of a match against the old foe, Australia. It would be hard not to love cricket on such a day.

You probably hear the joke about Americans and cricket in any cricket-loving nation. It's true, the Americans I've met seem unable to understand cricket - but then, none of them have really wanted to learn about it. And plenty of non-Americans don't understand the game either! Cricket is, I admit, a bizarre and at times convoluted game with its own language that makes no sense to those not in the know: maiden, gully, wicket [which has three different meanings], stumps, silly mid-on, five-fer, over, Chinaman, googly, short third man ... these are just a few of the terms you'll hear regularly in a cricket match.

Jesse seemed genuinely keen to learn about cricket and when I suggested he came to a match with Pete & I, he said yes straight away. So the three of us have had numerous cricket conversations over the past month, just to give him a little flavour of what the game is about. Fortunately Jesse is a baseball fan which did give him some point of reference, although the two games are very different.

As Australia appeared to grind the New Zealand batsmen into the McLean Park dust [yet again], Jesse fired intelligent questions at us and I attempted to straighten out his cricketing vocabulary:

"Why aren't the batsmen running?"
"Why did that over have seven pitches in it?" ["It's 'deliveries', Jesse, not pitches."]
"How many men out are you allowed before the team is out?"
"Why is the catcher standing so far from the wickets?" ["You mean 'wicketkeeper', not catcher."]
"What's the maximum number of runs you can score off one delivery?"
And so on ...

Towards the end of the match, when New Zealand's lower order batsmen Scott Styris and Shane Bond began to rally, the atmosphere around the ground became electric. Suddenly, New Zealand needed only 18 runs off 20 deliveries - completely possible, as long as neither batsmen made a mistake. What had seemed certain defeat now seemed a likely win! The crowd got to its collective feet, roaring, clapping, cheering, encouraging the batsmen on. Behind us a loud chant started up against the unpopular [in New Zealand, anyway!] Australian captain, Ricky Ponting.

After the match had been won for New Zealand - a massive six from Scott Styris with four balls to spare - and the adrenaline had dissolved, I asked Jesse whether he now understood cricket any better.

He thought for a moment and said, "Now that I've participated in a 'Ponting's a wanker' chant, I think I know all I need to know about cricket.''

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Edit: Comments are now being moderated. Tonight I received 145 spam comments on my blog. Hopefully this is just a temporary measure, and I apologise for any inconvenience.

Eating apple shortcake with friends

2010-02-26T09:06:00.011+13:00

Cape Palliser lighthouse and its 252 steps ....

A curious local

At the Kawa Kawa rocks

+ + + +

There cannot be a better combination than sunshine and good friends. Add in a work-free weekend, delicious food, and a beachside location - and you have my idea of perfection.

Pete and I were away again this weekend past, this time to the south Wairarapa coast, for the marriage celebration of two good friends of ours. About 20 friends gathered at Te Kopi, a Department of Conservation lodge, right next to the magnificent Putangirua Pinnacles. The lodge only sleeps six people and by the time we arrived in the late afternoon the lawns surrounding the lodge were already peppered with tents, the barbecue was being prepared, some people were playing volleyball on the beach and others chilled out in the shade of a karaka tree.

It was that kind of weekend...

Sunset on the beach, watching the sun sink behind the high mountains of the South Island.

A visit to the beautiful lighthouse at Cape Palliser – and yes, we walked up every one of the 252 steps!

Getting up close and personal at the Kawa Kawa rocks with New Zealand fur seals, whose antics were endlessly entertaining.

Early morning Yoga on the beach with Melanie.

And an early morning swim with about 10 of the group.

The food for the Saturday night shared meal was delicious. My contribution to the meal was apple shortcake, made from a recipe my sister-in-law gave me. Not a crumb was left – so I guess it was a success!

This is a really easy, versatile recipe. You can have the shortcake cold, like a cake, or hot, with cream or ice cream. You can experiment with different fruit, too.

APPLE SHORTCAKE

Shortcake ingredients:

230g butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

3 cups self-raising flour, sifted

Filling ingredients:

7 apples, peeled, cored and chopped

3/4 cup sugar

2/3 cup water

grated rind from one lemon

Put the filling ingredients in a saucepan and cook gentle for about 10 minutes. Apples should be soft but still hold their shape.

For the shortcake: Beat the eggs into a bowl. In a saucepan, melt the butter and sugar together. Mix the eggs in with the butter mixture and add to the flour. Mix thoroughly.

Press just over half the shortcake mixture into a lightly greased tin. Place the apples on top using a slotted spoon. Put the rest of the shortcake mix on top in blobs. If you wish, sprinkle cinnamon or nutmeg on top.

Cook at 190 degrees C for about 30 minutes.

A fortnight in paradise

2010-02-16T18:36:00.022+13:00

The little cabin that was our home for two weeks

The view from our cabin's verandah

A thunderstorm bearing down on us from the north-east

Pete contemplating [or possibly photographing] from a rock at Driftwood Cove

Self-portrait, on the goat track between Flounder Bay and Earthquake Bay. It was very hot, and I was tired [you can probably tell]

A lone tarapunga [red-billed seagull] at Earthquake Bay

+ + + +

[From my journal, 12th February, 2010]

It's a baking hot afternoon and we are spending some time in the redwood forest; Pete's photographing and I'm sitting in my favourite spot beside the Kowhero stream, writing in my Moleskine and reading.

This is our last full day at Flounder Bay; we're leaving tomorrow morning. I am sad at the thought of leaving, but I'm also so grateful for having had these two precious weeks in paradise.

Pete told me last night over supper that I look healthier than usual, and I know it's true. I can see it and feel it myself. I look happy and relaxed and my skin is clear and lightly golden and my feet are perpetually bare and sandy. I've slept like a baby almost every night. I've worn not a scrap of make-up since I've been here. I even have more energy.

Our tiny cabin between the sea and the hills has become our home - it feels complete - and I'm sad to be saying good-bye to it. Our days here very quickly took on a rhythm of eating, sleeping, writing, doing Yoga, and of course much time spent on the beach.

Whenever I visit Flounder Bay, life becomes so uncomplicated. As a journalist, I am always being bombarded with information and having to make decisions. Here, I have no access to a phone, a television, a radio or the internet, and cellphone coverage is intermittent. I actually have no idea what's going on in the world and that makes me happy! At Flounder Bay, information is nothing more than the tide charts and the weather forecast. Decisions are nothing more than whether to spend an afternoon in the redwood forest or the beach, or whether to eat an apricot or a plum [usually, the answer is - both!].

If only I could bottle all this goodness and take it home with me!

Edit: if you'd like to see more from Flounder Bay and the surrounding area, Pete is currently posting his photos, one day at a time, on his photo blog.

Retreat

2010-01-29T22:03:00.008+13:00

Coastline south of Flounder Bay, photo by Pohangina Pete

RETREAT: [v] withdrawal into privacy or security; [n] a place of shelter or seclusion; [n] a period of seclusion for prayer and meditation
[Oxford Concise Dictionary]

I am going on a retreat.

The next two weeks will be spent at Flounder Beach: 45 minutes’ drive from the nearest shop, telephone, newspaper, internet connection. Cellphone coverage will be patchy. We will live in a one-roomed cabin, guarded by a tall cabbage tree. We will fall asleep and wake to the sound of the sea. We will watch takapu [gannets] speed along the coast and sit under the redwood trees when the afternoons are hot. We will eat fresh local fruit – cherries, peaches, grapes, apples, nectarines, plums.

It sounds like heaven to me.

This is obviously not a formal retreat like this one, which I’d like to go to next year. I’m making the retreat up for myself. This is what I intend to do while on retreat:

Read
Write
Yoga
Explore
Eat
Sleep
... And hopefully try out my new bodyboard, if the sea is cooperative.

See you in a fortnight.

Moleskine love

2010-01-25T19:08:00.015+13:00

Would you take a look at this beautiful notebook?

Some of you might recognise it as a Moleskine [pronounced MOL-ah-SKEEN-ah ... not “moleskin”!]. Moleskine notebooks are famous and much-loved throughout the world but they are not easy to track down in New Zealand, particularly outside of the main cities. I have wanted a Moleskine of my own for years. So I was thrilled to find this one in a bookshop last week while I was away.

What's so special about about Moleskine? It's simple: Moleskine is the perfect notebook.

My favourite Moleskine – the one I am now the proud owner of - is the hard cover ruled large classic notebook. I am using it as the latest volume of my journal, one page of which you can see above. It has every thing I love in a notebook: A5 size, lots of pages, a heavy duty black cover, elastic closure, a pocket on the inside back cover, cloth bookmark, and beautiful cream paper that’s smooth but has enough resistance to make writing with my fountain pen comfortable. The pages open flat and the line spacing is a perfect 6mm.

I’ve discovered a website I can order Moleskines online and you can bet I’ll be opening an account with them soon. The great thing about this is that I will no longer have to suffer from Notebook Separation Anxiety which is what happens every time I finish one notebook and have to start writing my journal in another. I become so attached to an individual notebook that I find it hard to put it aside immediately for another. Now, as long as Moleskines continue to be made, I’ll be able to keep using them – and it will be like using the same notebook all the time!

Pete has had to listen to me raving on about my gorgeous Moleskine all week, and now he’s been bitten by the Moleskine bug too. His preferred Moleskine is the soft cover ruled extra-large cahier notebook. What does he love about it? He says: “It's the actual quality of it, coupled with the fact there's nothing unnecessary included in it. It does what it's supposed to do, there’s nothing fancy about it, but you know it has quality - it will last. And the line spacing is perfect.”

Moleskine users tend to be devoted to their notebooks, whether they’re writers, artists, diarists, travellers or stationery junkies. There are even websites specifically for Moleskine love! My favourite, which my friend B [also a Moleskine devotee] introduced me to, is Moleskinerie. And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go spend some more quality time with my Moleskine and my fountain pen.

[If you use Moleskines, or are a stationery junkie in general, I'd love to know what your favourites are.]

Summer sunset

2010-01-14T21:27:00.006+13:00

This is the sunset that graced Whanganui's south-west sky this evening. Every evening this week the sky has been filled with these unusual cloud formations - light and delicate, as if the sky had had a covering of finest lace thrown over it.

Steve, Teddy Bear, Little Princess and I stood outside and watched the sky for about 20 minutes, fascinated, until the colours faded and night finally fell.

Click on the picture for a bigger view.

Cutting books

2010-01-13T22:09:00.005+13:00

The top shelves of my bookcase, post-cull.

I have never thrown out a book. I'm serious. In all my 37-and-a-half years on the planet I have never consciously relinquished ownership of a single book, although I might have lost one here or there.

Until this past weekend, that is. I threw out four full carloads of books – each carload filled up the backseat and the boot – probably well over a thousand in all. [When I say I “threw out” my books I don’t, of course, mean I “threw them in the bin”; I mean I “donated them to charity”. To throw a book in the bin would be immoral.]

One of my intentions for 2010 is to declutter my possessions. I do have hoarding tendencies although not to pathological levels. I just like to keep things – after all, you never know when you might need something. But all this STUFF is weighing me down, especially as most of it is not necessary to my well-being.

Decluttering started on Saturday with the most difficult task of all: my books. I had set aside a couple of hours for this project ... ha ha, I crack me up. I'll excuse myself by saying I had seriously underestimated how many books I had. A couple of hours might have cut it if I hadn't discovered all those boxes in the shed. After procrastinating for two hours I finally forced myself to get going at 11am and finished at 8.30pm, with a break of about an hour to cook and eat dinner. My goal? To be able to fit all the salvaged books – all my absolutely favourite books in the world - into my big blue bookcase.

There were some books that didn't even move from the shelf as I'd never consider ditching them. The Age Of Innocence by Edith Wharton, Down Under by Bill Bryson, and Bringing Yoga To Life by Donna Farhi, would fall into this category. Others went on the dump pile immediately. A third pile consisted of maybes and this was the biggest group and the hardest to deal with. So I made a rule: if I'll never read it again, it's gone.

There were a few exceptions to this rule, of course. I have a few old, rare or unusual books that I could never get rid of. I have a book about Akhnaton, Pharoah of Egypt, that I seldom open but it was published in 1910 and is exquisitely beautiful. I'm unlikely to read my few well-used Lonely Planet Guides for a while but they have memories for me. My guide to Adelaide and South Australia was a gift from my boyfriend and it was so useful it barely left my side while I was in South Australia. These are books I have no compunction about keeping.

Some books were a real pleasure to be rid of. Like the box of books that had belonged to a poisonous ex-boyfriend, circa 2006. This man had given me books regularly, telling me I "needed to be educated to think properly". Don't you love people like that? When the relationship ended I packaged the books up in a box, intending to return them to him, but realised I couldn't be bothered making the effort. He’s never asked for them back. So they've sat in their box in the shed for the past few years, no doubt still surrounded by their toxic energy. It felt good to dump them. I've kept just one, though - the only book he gave me that I really enjoyed [Why I Write, by George Orwell].

Now I have considerably fewer boxes in the shed, and only one bookcase in my bedroom. This means I have room for a little altar for my special things - and a lot more room for Yoga practice. My to-be-read pile has shrunk to 12 books from a teetering stack much taller than me!

It’s fantastic to have the first and most difficult project out the way. I feel light and free and, I don’t know, sort of decluttered in the head! I get a lot of pleasure from looking at my blue bookcase and seeing all my favourite books in it, like a gathering of my closest friends.

Yesterday I had a complete decluttering of my desk at work, which was wonderful, and soon I'll do the same for my desk at home. The next big project will be decluttering my CLOTHES - possibly nearly as time-consuming as my books. I probably won't be able to get to that job until the end of February.

I'm already looking forward to it.

Midsummer

2009-12-22T09:14:00.004+13:00

Today is Midsummer day here in Aotearoa-New Zealand. The sun is shining and the pohutukawa trees are in full bloom on the banks of the Whanganui River.

Whichever hemisphere you are in, I wish you a very happy solstice, Christmas and New Year.

Sun is shining, weather is sweet

Makes you wanna move your dancing feet

-Bob Marley

Re-entry shock

2009-12-18T20:45:00.010+13:00

The boys hanging out at our house

Right now I should be at a party with my boyfriend, in Palmerston North. But I’ve had to give my apologies and my boyfriend, bless him, was very understanding. I’m tired. I don’t feel well. I feel disoriented and disconnected from what should be my life.

I was very sad to leave Satitoa, but my first day back in New Zealand was wonderful. I was really happy to see my family and my boyfriend again. But the next day, when I went back to work, things weren’t so good. And they’ve deteriorated from there.

Having dinner with new friends in Apia

I’m so so so tired. I want to sleep for a week. I'm having crazy, vivid dreams.

I’m having trouble concentrating and remembering things.

I feel guilty – oh boy, do I feel guilty. Yes, I can walk away from Satitoa and its poverty and its devastation. I can have a proper bed to sleep in and a hot shower if I want. I don’t have to go back Satitoa ever again. But the people who live there don’t have that option. When will you come back to see us? they asked us when we left.

I do want to go back to Satitoa. There’s so much more that can be done to help that village.

I’m irritable. I find myself being judgmental of others.

Everything seems mundane. Especially work and all its petty politics. None of the “big” stories interest me or are relevant to me.

It’s like a reverse form of culture shock. But that’s ridiculous – it’s not like I lived in Samoa. I wasn’t there for long.

The whole team with the finished fale

So it was fantastic to meet with the rest of the team today to have a debrief, and discover I wasn’t alone in these feelings. All we did was sit around and talk about our experiences in Samoa and our experiences of re-entry back to New Zealand. There was much laughter and some tears. The younger among us seem to be finding it harder to come home, particularly those without children. Even our sweet Quin, who was always happy and singing while we were in Samoa, said he had been super cranky since he’d been back in New Zealand.

I hear people complaining about this and that and I think, you don’t know what you’re talking about, you haven’t lost everything you owned in a tsunami, he said. And 10 other heads around the table nodded. We know what you mean.

I wanted to give all of them a hug. I’d spent not a long time, but an intense time, with them. Most of them I’d never met before the trip, and none of them I knew well before we left for Samoa. But we bonded so well as a team that it has been a shock to be suddenly apart from them. One of the boys said he had woken last night and for a few minutes had been convinced his wife was actually the man who’d slept in the next bed to him while we were in Satitoa.

These feelings we are experiencing will fade in time. But, in a way, I don’t want them to. Because I do want to find some way of returning to Satitoa one day, to ensure our visit was no flash in the pan.

Samoan dream

2009-12-16T21:53:00.015+13:00

Walking through the plantations to Matalena's house

We stepped off the plane in Apia, Samoa, at three o’clock in the morning. Out beyond the airport buildings I could dimly see coconut palms waving in the breeze. Above the smell of jet fuel that same breeze brought the scent of damp vegetation. And it was hot! So hot I thought I must have been standing in the stream of the plane’s engines. That was until I walked across the tarmac and it was still just as hot ...

I am back in New Zealand after an unforgettable time in Samoa. We lived – one Samoan woman, nine Kiwi blokes, and me – in the village of Satitoa for 10 days. During that time we built a Samoan fale [traditional house] to use as a church and a preschool. We lived as part of the village: worked hard, went to church, swam in the sea, bought beer and meat from the [one and only] shop, socialised with the villagers. Some of us even attempted to speak Samoan.

Graham working on the fale

The church/preschool was built in just four and a half days. Deciding where it was to be located took much longer than that; the decision had to be made by the village, not us, and Samoans don’t believe in rushing these things. Some of the residents are determined to stay in the ruined village but most of them are now living behind the village in the plantations, which are out of the sea’s reach. In the end common sense prevailed and a site in the plantations was agreed upon. It was next to the minister’s fale, on a sloping lawn that caught the cool breeze and had distant views of the sea.

This was where I slept, between Allan and Graham

We lived in what had been Satitoa’s only motel until the tsunami went through it, across the road from the sea and the high chief’s house. By New Zealand standards it was roughing it; by Satitoa standards, post-tsunami, it was privileged. The building’s windows, doors and everything in it had been washed away by the tsunami, leaving just a concrete shell. The kitchen had no roof and only one solid wall. When it rained [often] we had a mad scramble to keep everything dry. We had electricity most of the time; running water occasionally.

All 11 of us slept on mats in one room next to the kitchen. There was absolutely no privacy at all and I had to get used to dressing in front of not only nine men but anyone who happened to be passing by the house. Nights were the craziest time. We often had violent storms. Local cats and dogs would wander in, attracted by the smell of food. One night we had an invasion of u’u, giant coconut crabs – one even got into Tim’s bed. Another night a water pipe burst. We had two world champion snorers, who always fell asleep before the rest of us!

Tim waiting for the rain to stop [again]

The locals welcomed us with overwhelming generosity. Most of them had lost everything they owned, but they still wanted to give. They worked alongside us on the building; they gave us gifts; and they fed us, although most of us found Samoan food hard to stomach as it’s very starchy. Vegetarians should probably not bother expecting to be fed in a Samoan village, unless they really like taro.

So I’m back, and I’m exhausted, but tomorrow I’m expected again in the newsroom. It all seems very unreal.

To be continued ...

Keith, Graham, Bruce and Quinten looking at the finished fale

Packing for Samoa

2009-12-01T21:04:00.012+13:00

The ever-increasing pile of gear I'm taking with me to Samoa

In four days’ time I leave for Samoa. Not for a holiday; I’m going to work. I’m part of a team that is helping a Samoan village rebuild after the deadly tsunami that hit the south coast on 30 September.

News of the tsunami devastated New Zealand. Samoans make up New Zealand’s fourth largest population and most towns and cities here have Samoan communities. Also, I think many people, like me, had a sense of “there but for the grace of God go I” – which is what I think when ever I hear overseas news of an earthquake or tsunami. New Zealand is vulnerable to so many natural disasters. It was Samoa in September; it could be us next.

After the tsunami the Whanganui District Council decided to “adopt” a Samoan village and raise money for that village. One of our district councillors took charge of this and whipped up $45,000 from the local community in short order. Whanganui’s population is about 40,000, so it was a damned fine effort. Then the council decided not to donate the money to a charity but to give it directly to the village in the form of practical help. After consultation with the local Samoan community the village of Satitoa was chosen. Fifteen of Satitoa’s residents were killed in the tsunami and the place has been all but destroyed.

The village elders and the leaders of Whanganui’s Samoan community asked the council to use some of the money to build a shelter for Satitoa's residents to use as a church. Churches are the focal points of any Samoan community. Individual households are receiving assistance from the government but churches are needed to bring the people together. The council then asked for volunteers to go to Samoa and within a week we had an 11-strong team.

We’re an interesting mix of people. Our most essential member is our interpreter, an elderly but lively Samoan woman named Tumema. Her motto is “don’t worry be happy”! One of our district councillors, Danny, is our matai, or chief. We also have a few council officers – Keith, our super organiser and “camp mother”; Tim, the water supply expert; and Allan, who has a military background and has worked in disaster relief in the tropics. Alan is our head builder and he brings with him another builder, Quentin. Alan’s brother Graham is going, he’s a policeman, and Bruce is a vet. Blake, the youngest member of the team, is a fireman. And then there’s me. Apparently – if you believe the men – I’m in charge of cooking, cleaning and ironing!!

What ever else I end up doing in Satitoa, I’ll be the team’s journalist and will feed stories back to the newspaper on a daily basis. I’ve spent quite a bit of time recently sorting out communication technology and have a Plan A and a Plan B all organised.

On Monday night a civic reception was held for us at the council chambers – a chance for the district councillors and local Samoan community to meet the reconstruction team. It was an emotional time, particularly meeting the local Samoan people whose brothers and sisters we are going to help. I’m excited but also a little nervous about the trip. Nervous because I don’t know how I will cope with the very basic conditions, the heat and of course the aftermath of the tsunami.

My fervent prayer is that our work will bless the people of Satitoa and Whanganui’s Samoan people, and that we are able to form some new ties between the communities of Satitoa and Whanganui.

I will try to update this blog while I’m in Satitoa but communication will be patchy and obviously my first priority will be getting my stories back to the newspaper. If I’m unable to blog you should be able to read my dispatches from Samoa here and here, from Monday or Tuesday, New Zealand time. Otherwise, I’ll be back in a couple of weeks.

Listening

2009-11-27T21:57:00.012+13:00

Anne-Marie in viparita karani on a cold winter morning. Photo by Pohangina Pete

It’s a while since I wrote here. Life has been good these past few weeks. I love this time of year: the cricket season has started; it’s still daylight when I come home from work; I can get around most days in short sleeves and bare feet. It’s not really summer yet – but almost.

For the sake of my RSI-affected arm I’ve been limiting what I do, and that has been surprisingly enjoyable. Most weekends now I don’t touch a computer or pick up a pen or hold knitting needles – but I’ve read some great books. Once a week I take time out for acupuncture and massage therapy on my arm. The acupuncture is a bizarre mind trip, but it’s doing my arm good. At work, no matter how busy I am, I have a 20-minute break for lunch. I’m still swimming a few times a week. And my morning Yoga practice has become more important to me than ever before.

One of the great values of Yoga, I believe, is that it helps you listen to your body. We Westerners have a strange relationship to our bodies: we obsess over how they look but otherwise ignore them. Our bodies are like our cars, or our hair-dryers, or our morning coffee. They’re necessary but we don’t feel any real connection to them.

Donna Farhi writes about this in her wonderful book, Bringing Yoga To Life:

“We may live a short distance from the body divorced from our feelings, sensations, intuitions, and instincts. The body may seem like a foreign land that we have heard about but personally never visited ... Even if we do pay attention to our bodies, this attention may be steeped in negativity. As one student admitted, ‘The only two parts of my body I like are my nose and my ankles.’”

Yoga, she writes, guides us to listen to what our body is telling us:

“When we practise the asanas, or Yoga postures, we begin to reunite ourselves once again with the contents of consciousness. Through rejoining the body, we learn to become internally literate once again.

“When we first enter a posture we are met by our ability or inability to take on this new form. We feel all the places where we hold tension. These areas of accumulated tension represent the repetition of our ideation process, that is, our thoughts, fears, tensions, and anxieties coalescing into distinct patterns of tension and form our unique individual posture or attitude to life. As we think, so we become.”

The OSH adviser and the acupuncturist have both told me the pain in my arm is caused by a combination of overuse – definitely no more knitting for me – and stress, and I believe they’re right. What I’ve noticed in these past few weeks is that whatever I’m feeling seems to express itself through my arm. If I’m having a stressful day at work, I’m brooding over something or haven’t done enough exercise, I get pain. When I’m feeling relaxed and happy, the pain eases.

It’s as though the pain is saying to me: Anne-Marie, you need to listen to your body, and I’m gonna keep coming back until you do.

Tonight I had to work late, and an unpleasant political situation I’m currently involved in has been swirling about me all week. As I drove home I could feel my hands tensing on the wheel. If it had not been for my Yoga, and my new-found skill of paying attention to my body, I probably wouldn’t have noticed.

It was dinner time when I got home. I put my dinner in the oven to heat up later, went into my room, and unrolled my Yoga mat. I lay in viparita karani – my favourite restorative asana – slowed my breathing right down and gently relaxed ... one inch of my body at a time.

Ahhhh ...

Tension

2009-11-04T21:45:00.003+13:00

The pain I've been experiencing in my right arm has this week gone beyond the I’m-going-to-ignore-you stage. Despite the painkillers, I barely slept last night as I tried to get comfortable through the various sensations I was feeling in my arm [and am still feeling as I write this]: tension in the shoulder blade; mild pain in the shoulder; intense pain in the elbow; tightness in the forearm; weakness in the wrist; and tingling in the palm of the hand.

Not good, huh?

At last night council's meeting I could hardly hold my pencil. Bit of a drama when I should have been taking notes for two hours. Today I spoke to my editor and he is arranging an urgent referral to our Occupation Safety and Health adviser for me. Several colleagues have helpfully diagnosed me with a variety of ailments, from displaced vertebra to carpal tunnel syndrome to impending heart attack to RSI-OOS. I'd like to think it was a displaced vertebra - a quick fix - but I think it’s a combination of RSI-OOS and dystonia [writer’s cramp]. I guess I'll know when I see the OSH adviser.

I had a bit of a cry about it this afternoon. What am I going to have to give up or limit? Yoga? Swimming? Work? Cooking? And then I got over it because it could be a lot worse. I’m looking at this as a wake-up call – my body is telling me I need to slow down. For years my body has been holding a lot of tension and I have ignored the warning signs: bad posture, severe dystonia, a dodgy elbow. I never take breaks at work. Some days I come home from work and the tension in my body is so tangible it’s like a physical injury. But still I don’t do anything about it.

Well, now is the time to do something before it gets much worse. Until the arm improves I have to prioritise things. I can’t write my journal every day, as I’m doing now, but I won’t give it up entirely. The knitting of the head wrap, which is coming along so well, will have to be postponed. As will this blog, unfortunately. I won’t give it up completely but I will probably have to take a break or blog less frequently. As for other things, like whether I need to stop swimming [nooooo!], whether physiotherapy or massage will help, and how to improve my posture, hopefully the OSH specialist can advise me on what to do.

But there is internal work to be done, too. I see this problem with my arm as an outward symptom of what is going on inwardly: a lack of care for myself and a lot of mental tension. I am a worrier. I chew on a problem [or a perceived problem] like Teddy with the golf ball he found in the back garden - wasting a lot of time and achieving absolutely nothing. I can fritter away hours worrying about some thing that might happen, or might not. It’s inevitable that such destructive energy will one day manifest itself outwardly.

So back I go to my Yoga mat and my meditation cushion, to breathe through the tension and do some restorative asanas [postures] to stretch out my sore arm and create a little calm in my life. Wish me luck.

Creating life

2009-10-27T08:36:00.005+13:00

I would love to be a creative person; to have an idea and watch it take shape beneath my hands.

I have often wished I was a brilliant sewer, knitter, artist, photographer, chef, or other crafty-type person. Alas, my natural talents don't seem to lie in that direction. My list of talents is pretty thin! I'm very good [okay, obsessive] at editing and proof-reading, good at organising and writing, and okay at swimming. I'm not very inspiring, am I?!

I was thinking about this last night on my way home from work. And I got to thinking: may be the way I live my life is the way I create. After all, creating is about passion, colour, adventure, joy - all the things I look for in my every day life.

May be I can't whip up a fabulous sartorial creation - but I can enjoy wearing the fabulous sartorial creations made by others. May be I can't cook a cordon bleu meal - but I can potter about in my boyfriend's kitchen and have a great time making a simple meal we both enjoy. May be I can't paint a beautiful picture - but I can articulate the designs in my head to a tattoo artist so he or she can make my skin a work of art.

All these things, in their own small way, are acts of creating.

Any way, I have decided to take the plunge and attempt to create some thing with my own two hands: I'm knitting myself a head wrap. I have no pattern, only an idea in my head ... so it's some thing of an experiment, and it might or might not work.

I'll let you know how I get on when I'm finished ... so check back in about 10 years' time!

350 trees

2009-10-24T20:51:00.010+13:00

Meet Tui, my new cabbage tree. His scientific name is Cordyline australis and his Maori name is ti kouka ... or, in Whanganui dialect, komata. He doesn’t look like much, sitting there in his little pot on my desk at work on Friday afternoon. But Tui has the power to change the world.

Tui came to be sitting on my desk - and now on my bench at home - because I was one of 350 Whanganui residents to be given a free native tree on the International Day of Climate Action, October 24. [Actually, it was celebrated a day early in Whanganui.]

Why 350 and why free trees?

The International Day of Climate Action 2009 is being promoted by the number 350. This is the amount of carbon dioxide, measured in parts per million [ppm], that leading climate scientists – including those from NASA and the United Nations – believe is the safe upper limit for Earth's atmosphere. The current level of carbon dioxide is 387ppm.

The 350 organiser for Whanganui, the fabulous John McDonald, told me he came up with the idea of giving away free trees because it seemed a practical way of raising people’s awareness of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. To put it in very simplistic terms, trees absorb carbon dioxide and give off oxygen ... so trees are pretty handy for us humans and the planet as a whole.

John also said he hoped people would take their tree home and plant it in their garden and enjoy it ... and whenever they looked at it they would remember where the tree came from and why they were given it. Maybe it would even encourage them to plant more trees.

To find a 350 event in your area, or for more information on the movement, go here [New Zealand] or here [global]. Or you can just go plant some trees.

Oh, and when Tui grows up he will hopefully do his bit for the planet and look like this several-hundred-year-old beauty at Flounder Bay:

Kindness

2009-10-20T21:13:00.004+13:00

Between writing about the car crashes and the mayoral antics and the debt crises and the general murder, mayhem and conflict that is the lot of a regional newspaper reporter, I take a phone call from an elderly couple in Springvale with a remarkable tale to tell.

A complete stranger paid for their groceries at the supermarket.

This couple weren't poor. They weren't buying just bread and milk. They had their week's worth of groceries in the trolley: just under $70. They had never before seen this woman, who they described as blonde and in her 20s. It wasn't a mistake - the woman told the check-out girl she would pay for the couple's groceries. And then she disappeared before the couple even knew what she’d done.

You can read the whole story here.

I can't stop thinking about this. Who is this woman? What motivated her to perform such a remarkable act of kindness? Is this something she does often or was it an impulsive gesture?

The mysterious angel seems to have touched a chord with the community as well. My workmates were talking about her this morning [some of them fairly cynically – but, alas, that’s reporters for you]. I have taken many calls from readers today, who just wanted to tell me they loved the story. Two separate callers told me it had inspired them so much they’d made a donation to the local city mission.

I bet that woman had no idea her simple gesture would have such a ripple effect – but that’s the way kindness often works.

Whoever she is, I’d like to thank her for brightening our city’s day.

Singing in the rain

2009-10-06T22:01:00.010+13:00

[From my journal, Sunday]

It seems spring has temporarily deserted New Zealand and winter is back in force. After a late night at a dinner party [much fun] Pete & I woke this morning to cold, bleak weather with the steady drumroll of rain continuing all day.

Last week had been very stressful for me at work and I had put in some long hours. So I decided to take today to do exactly what I wanted. Since I have my period and the weather is awful, exactly what I wanted happened to be sleeping and reading [I'm currently reading an excellent book on reducing carbon emissions]. Usually I couldn't spend a day so lazily with out feeling ill by the end of it - but I guess this was exactly what I needed because now I feel refreshed and relaxed.

Just before dinner I had a burst of energy and decided it was time for a walk. I don't think Pete was keen but he bravely bundled himself up in his wet weather gear and off we went. It was a bitter afternoon, more like July than October. The mountains had disappeared behind a blank face of cloud; it was almost certainly snowing up there. The ewes with their lambs now half-grown were huddled for shelter under the black locust trees. Even the birds seemed to be keeping out of the weather, although I did disturb a kereru from a tree lucerne. Occasionally we caught a glimpse of the river, swollen and discoloured.

I had been snugged up all day and this first scent of fresh, cold, wet air was like a heady drug. It was exhilarating to be out in such aggressive weather - as if we were defying it. Almost nothing and no-one else had ventured out, except for us crazy lunatics.

As bleak as it was, it was certainly not a winterscape that we trudged through. There was apple blossom every where, lambs every where, the twitter of nesting birds every where. And where ever I looked I saw the most exuberant shade of green: pure, vivid, tender green, from the grass in the front paddock to the tips of the Lombardy poplars.

Winter might have its wicked way with us for a few more days yet, but spring will return soon.

Never let a boy name your dreadlocks

2009-09-29T21:30:00.002+13:00

I've been growing natural-neglect dreadlocks now for nearly 10 months. Yes, only 10 months. I can barely remember what my hair was like before it started locking up in all this knotty goodness! I certainly can't imagine using a comb or a brush on it again; and thank goodness I don't have to.

I am getting to know each dread individually and let me tell you, some of them have personalities ... sounds weird, but it’s true. Some are shy about being dreads and are only knotted near the scalp. Some are perfect dreads: always tightly knotted and smooth. Others grow in zig-zag shapes, while others invent new contortions for themselves every time they get wet. A couple of sweet little dreads stand straight up from my scalp.

So of course they are starting to acquire names. Fat Girl, Tuatahi, Drama Queen, My Naughty Little Sister, the Wallaroo Dread, Cherry Baby, and Supermodel, are just some of the names I have for individual dreads.

There are good times and bad times with my dreads, although I haven't once wondered whether I'm doing the right thing. Over the month of September the dreads, as a collective, seemed to go through an epiphany. They actually look like dreads now ... as in, the general public recognises I’m a dreadhead. That makes me happy.

I am just starting to get used to wearing hair wraps - good for doing Yoga and for windy days - and I'm also enjoying playing with beads. I've had a couple of beads given to me, which I really like. [Gifts of beads gratefully accepted, dear blog readers.] The rule is: if some one gives me a bead they have the right to choose the dread to put it on, and if they wish they can name that dread. One of my workmates bought me a lovely bead from Melbourne. It has an "A" on it, for Anne-Marie. My workmate is Maori so she christened the dread Aotea - the name of the waka [canoe] that brought her iwi [tribe] to New Zealand.

Then there is the exquisite green bead Pete chose for me at St Bead's in Napier. I informed Pete of his naming rights. He thought for a minute then decided he'd call the dread Trev ... Trev The Dread, to be exact.

I mean, really.

+ + + +

Photos by Pohangina Pete. To see where my dreads began go here and to see my dreads at six months go here.

Thoughts on peace day

2009-09-21T21:38:00.012+12:00

Today is the United Nations’ international day of peace and non-violence. I thought a lot about peace today.

I thought about peace at Whanganui’s peace day celebrations at Pukenamu [Queens Park]. At noon the gathered crowd of several hundred observed a minute’s silence to pray for world peace, while all across the city church bells sounded. It was a colourful, warm-hearted celebration with lots of singing, drumming, hugging and different nationalities. People spoke about diversity and ending war. Whanganui’s Chinese community did a spectacular dragon dance and, at the end, we farewelled the hardy souls who left Pukenamu to walk 207km for peace, all the way to Wellington.

World peace is all very well; I would like to see that happen one day soon. But what about world peace right here in Aotearoa-New Zealand? I live in one of the most divided communities in New Zealand. What can I do, I wondered – what can all these people here today – do to foster peace in our troubled city? Is participating in this beautiful celebration enough?

Then I thought about my outburst at a loved one, that almost ruined our sweet weekend together. And about how this very morning I’d bitched to one colleague about another colleague who was irritating me. How can I play my part in bringing peace to my community if I can’t live peace in my daily life?

It’s easy, when I get to this point in my thinking, to start berating myself: I’m hopeless, I’m too hot-tempered, I’ll never change...

Then I read this post of Marianne’s and this line jumped out at me: “We look for maximum change while being kind to ourselves.” How wise that is. Recognising there is a need for change within myself and recognising that change does not happen overnight. This is the lesson I want to take with me into tomorrow. Because berating myself for not acting peacefully is not very, um, peaceful, is it?

Plenty rain, no Yoga

2009-09-19T15:14:00.004+12:00

It rained all night and all morning, and started clearing about 10.30am - half an hour before PEACE YOGA was due to start. We arrived at the riverbank in cloudy, breezy weather. A few people had gathered, and more arrived, but Sue had already decided it was too risky to practise Yoga on such a damp surface.

I was really disappointed.

But it wasn't entirely a lost cause. Sue is really keen for some "guerilla Yoga" over the warm summer months. On a fine day, arrange to meet at the beach or the river or the park after work, bring your mat, do Yoga, have fun. Sounds good to me.

Roll on summer!

Unfurling

2009-09-16T06:38:00.002+12:00

Apple blossom outside my bedroom window

I feel it inside of me well before the first outward signs appear.

It manifests as a faint restlessness, a vibration of anticipation, like the humming of rail tracks while the train is still distant. It manifests as a sudden and irresistible compulsion to reacquaint myself with my strappy tops and bright sundresses, even though the frost still lays on the grass.

Then one morning in early August I open my curtains to find a tui trying out his best squawks and chuckles and a mild north-west wind, smelling faintly of blossom, blowing through the garden. The next day I notice a burst of daffodils under the walnut trees in Kowhai Park, and Pete sends me a text message to tell me the first lamb was born today in the front paddock.

By the time I turn up at his house in the weekend the one has multiplied to six, and more seem to arrive every time we look. Our sleep is broken by ewes giving birth under the house, by ewes calling to their lambs and lambs calling to their mothers. In the balmy afternoons we sit on the verandah and laugh at the lambs chasing each other around and leaping into the air for no apparent reason.

Over the fallow winter months the paddock was the domain of friendly little piwakawaka and swooping swallows, with the occasional hawk gliding silently past. Now all the birds are back in force to reclaim the paddock, the cabbage trees, the manuka, the flax and the rabinia. The magpies have stopped harassing the hawks and have started harassing each other. [The hawks are poor sport any way; they take no notice]. Kereru chase each other round and perform crazy aerobatic stunts. Industrious blackbirds fly back and forth between the gravillia and the harakeke with beaks full of twigs. The pre-dawn silence is broken by a male thrush’s joyful song: “It’s spring and I’m gonna get laid!”

Here in our corner of Aotearoa the Earth is stirring. Each day the sun seems to come up a little earlier and set a little later. The energy bursting out of every flower and every tree seems to have affected me, too. I feel energetic, full of life and hopeful of a long, hot summer.

Yoga. Peace. River.

2009-09-12T20:09:00.005+12:00

I’m so excited. I am in the process of organising my first ever Yoga event, which happens next weekend. It started as a little seed of an idea and has come to fruition in the easy way that only happens to ideas that are destined to see the light of day.

Firstly, I read on Kara-Leah’s wonderful Yoga site, Prana Flow NZ, about the Global Mala taking place in Wellington on 20th September. On the very same day I was contacted by a woman I know and asked to write a story for the newspaper about Whanganui’s Peace Day programme, happening between the 19th and the 21st September.

These two events started my brain whizzing and making connections, and after a sleepless night I had PEACE YOGA all arranged. I emailed my two Yoga teachers, Sue and Emma, to tell them my idea and ask them if they would be willing to be involved. They were both immediately keen; unfortunately, Emma has to be out of New Zealand at that time. However, she had already been speaking to one of the organisers of the Peace March, Carla, about having a Yoga event to mark Peace Day. Emma gave me Carla’s contact details and suggested I get in touch with her.

Sue, Carla and I had a couple of meetings to work out what we wanted to do, and from here every thing has happened so fast. Everyone I have approached – from the owner of the River Traders Market to the district council – has gone out of their way to be supportive. Wendy from the council, bless her heart, waived the council’s usual fee for using an open space.

So I guess you want to know what PEACE YOGA is all about.

At 11am on Saturday, 19th September, we will be holding an outdoor Yoga class next to the River Traders Market on Moutoa Quay. We’re practising on a grassy lawn under two big pohutukawa trees, on the banks of the Whanganui River. Entry to the class is by donation, with the proceeds going towards Whanganui’s Peace Hikoi to Wellington. The class will be taught by Sue and another yogi friend of hers and is suitable for both beginners and experienced yogis.

So if you happen to be in or near Whanganui next Saturday, come down to the river, do some Yoga, and support an excellent cause.

I’m really looking forward to this event. My favourite place to do Yoga is not in some beautifully-appointed studio but outside – beside a river, on a beach, in a park. I would love to find like-minded people to practise outdoor Yoga with. Sue is already talking about holding her summer Yoga classes out of doors on fine evenings. My hope is that this will start something new among Whanganui’s small but devoted Yoga community.

Complicit

2009-09-09T07:23:00.008+12:00

If you can't conceive of better lines and better times

Then let silence bury you

In the end you'll be condemned

Midnight Oil, "White Skin Black Heart"

Often I ask myself why I became a journalist. Of course I can well remember the reasons I wanted to get into the industry: I love to write; I'm interested in people; I want to make a difference in my small corner of the world.

This past week I've been asking myself these questions more than ever. Yes, I still love to write and I'm still interested in people. But am I making a positive difference to the people of this town? We have been through a very torrid time recently, and we have received far too much national - and even international - media attention of a negative kind. I have been writing fairly intensively on the issues that have brought the town this attention, but the requirement to be UNBIASED and OBJECTIVE means that I often cannot write about what is truly going on here.

Usually I am good at being professional and keeping my opinions to myself, but now I'm finding it increasingly uncomfortable to do so. I feel complicit - complicit in personal attacks, racial attacks, the undermining of civil liberties. This hideous need to be publicly unbiased is stressing me out. Because of my particular position at the newspaper I cannot even write a letter to the editor or write any details on this blog. To do so would undermine my credibility, threaten my job, and damage the newspaper. Yet how can I keep quiet?

I need to leave journalism. I feel cynicism creeping over me, like frost across the lawn. That is not who I truly am, nor who I want to become.

Tattoo the first

2009-08-16T20:11:00.007+12:00

Photo by Pohangina Pete

After discovering Boganette's blog recently and all the talk there about tattoos I decided it was time to reveal my ink on this blog. I’ve been crazy about tattoos for years and years – I think I was about eight when I decided I would get a tattoo. I waited until I was 20 to make it happen. Of course it seldom stops with one piece of ink; the first tattoo had barely healed before I was planning my second.

Currently I have six tattoos. I want to expand two of my tattoos and get at least one more, but we’ll see how things go.

The tattoo in the photo above was designed by myself and inked by Mitch from Dragon Tattoo in Hawke’s Bay in 1997. It was tidied up and re-coloured by Maree in Tangimoana in 2005.

I call it my whakapapa tattoo – “whakapapa” being the Maori word for genealogy or family tree. It represents who I am and where I come from, and has two layers of meaning. The green cross is for the Irish side of my family, and also represents my grandparents, great-grandparents and all the generations before me.

The red roses are for the English side and the current generation of my family. The two bottom roses are my parents, the side roses are my sister and I, and the top one is my brother.

The silver koru [spiral design] in the centre is for Aotearoa-New Zealand and also represents my nieces and nephew, and all the generations to come.

Of all my tattoos this is the one with the most meaning - certainly the others don't have the same layers of symbolism. Initially it was not a well-done tattoo, as the original tattooist simply took my drawing and inked it on to me. I had designed and drawn it myself - and believe me, I can't draw. It wasn't until I went to see Maree that the tattoo looked like I wanted it too. The colours have never been as vivid as I would like, possibly because my skin doesn't take colour well. The green and silver are fine, but the red roses have faded a lot. But it doesn't really matter; I've always loved this tattoo and what it means to me.

[Further tattoos will be revealed when [a] I get around to writing about them and [b] I get around to organising Pete to photograph them...]

Little red riding hood

2009-08-10T11:36:00.006+12:00

By popular demand, here is a photo of the magic coat, with me in it. Photo was taken by Pohangina Pete at Wairakei this past weekend.

The magic coat

2009-08-04T20:35:00.006+12:00

Today I bought a magic coat.

It’s late in the season to buy a winter coat – no doubt about it, spring is on the way – but I had this one made especially for me and it’s taken the dressmaker some time, as you’d expect.

I’ve been searching for a magic coat for a few years now, ever since my dearly-departed cat peed on my super-gorgeous and super-expensive pink coat. [Never got the smell out.] I knew exactly what I was looking for. Bright red, with a hood and just that particular shape. Couldn’t find it anywhere.

I found a few imposter coats, though. The one I bought last winter was just stunning – but also cheap and nasty. It started falling apart after one week. I asked a couple of local dressmakers if they could make one. Both told me it would take about three months to make and cost around $500. Ouch. May be not.

One day I stumbled across the website Etsy, one of those glorious places on the internet that doesn’t encourage thrift. And there I found my magic coat, all the way over in Los Angeles, at a cost of NZ$270.

Today the magic coat arrived in the mail, at work. I took it out and all the girls ooh-ed and ahh-ed and stroked the beautiful red wool. The top half is fitted then it flares out from the hips. It has big cuffs and a really big hood, which I love. It’s so beautifully made, too.

Of course I put it on and the girls ooh-ed and ahh-ed some more. It felt glorious to wear: snuggly-warm yet elegant. I wore it to go in to town at lunch-time. When I walked downstairs I met our handy man who smiled and said, Ooh, it’s Little Red Riding Hood looking very pretty today.

While I was in town four completely random strangers admired the coat. A gruff-sounding road worker told me it was nice to see girls looking so bright and cheerful. Other people smiled at me for no reason. This isn’t the sort of thing that happens every day to me.

I tell you, this coat is magic.

[I wanted to post a photo but I don't have one just yet ...]

Normal transmission will resume ... sometime

2009-08-01T09:16:00.003+12:00

Stuck.
Blank.
Empty.

All words that describe the state of my brain when I try to write a blog post these days.

I’ve been trying to write a post for a couple of weeks. It’s a good one; or it would be a good one if only I could get out of this blue patch. I’m humming along at work [I wrote the entire front page for today’s edition] and I’m having no trouble writing my journal. But the blog isn’t happening.

Writer’s block is not some thing I’m familiar with. I don’t like it. Occasionally I’ll get stuck on a story at work, but in the pressure cooker environment that is our newsroom, being stuck is no excuse and certainly no cause for sympathy. I’d like to see my chief reporter’s face if I told him I had writer’s block!

Ah well. I’ll keep writing when I can and what I can, and hope I come out the other side. Soon.

Earthquakes, inside and out

2009-07-16T21:18:00.003+12:00

The house felt the big earthquake and so did we, even though it was centred in far-flung and distant Fiordland. An arrow of rolling energy that made the walls creak, the plates rattle and the dogs whine.

Yet again, we breathe a sigh of relief and hope that the earthquake gods continue to smile on New Zealand. The largest earthquake in New Zealand for 80 years, shallow, onshore – and it struck in the most remote part of the country, causing minimal damage.

I don’t like earthquakes. Nasty, shaky, unpredictable things that make me too nervous to sleep. So I wasn’t surprised I slept badly last night. I emerged from a bad dream, wide awake, at quarter to four.

My feet were frozen, which was strange since I was wearing socks. Or should have been. I definitely put them on before I went to bed – it was too cold to sleep without them. So where had they gone? I switched the light on, searched my bed, searched my room. But the socks had vanished.

Finally I got up to go to the loo and there they were. Just outside my door, neatly folded in a little pile on the hall floor.

It’s well over a decade since I last sleep-walked. My adult sleep-walking has always involved creative housework: stacking my pillows in the bath, lining up my shoes on the couch, pulling all my clothes out of my drawers.

Sleep was well and truly gone for me at quarter to four this morning. So I’m ready to hit the hay again for a good night’s sleep, hopefully ... as long as those earthquakes stay away.

Hibernation

2009-07-10T10:20:00.004+12:00

This blog has been neglected in the past few weeks. I have plenty of ideas for posts but I’ve been spectacularly uninspired to write recently. I blame winter.

Here on the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand, it’s deep midwinter. That means rain, frost, hail, winds and occasionally a bit of snow. It means damp, poorly-insulated houses. It means socks and gloves are necessary for morning yoga. It means not enough sun. It means expensive power bills. It means southerly winds that seem to bite in to your bones, no matter how many layers you wear.

I think it’s a shame humans aren’t designed to hibernate. I’d be quite happy to go to sleep at the start of June and not wake up till the first of September!

If you are experiencing warm weather right now, perhaps you could write me a few summery words to warm me up?

Visit Pohangina Pete to read his poetic description of a miserable winter in New Zealand.

Dreadlocks, six months

2009-06-18T07:53:00.008+12:00

My mum: When are you going to comb your hair?
My chief reporter: You look like the dogs have been chewing on your hair.
My friend B: You dirty hippy.

Ah, the challenges of being a baby dreadhead! It’s been over six months since I last used a comb and brush and my hair is taking me on a wild ride. If you met me you probably wouldn’t immediately know I was a dreadhead – you’d probably think I’d just got out of bed. Yes, my hair is that messy.

There’s no doubt about it: growing natural-neglect dreadlocks takes patience. My hair is a long way from being fully locked up; I reckon it will be done in about a year or even longer. I could have done it the backcomb way and have a full head of nicely-maturing dreads by now. Instead I have hair that is about two-thirds dreaded and one-third straight: knotted, twisted, looped, plaited, and sticking out at all kinds of odd angles.

I want someone who knows about dreadlocks to have a good look at them and deal to them if necessary. I must mix in the wrong circles because I only know two women who have had dreadlocks – and both of them live a long way away, so they can’t help. I have been ripping the roots [not as bad as it sounds] myself when I can feel two dreads starting to loop together, but it really needs to be done by someone else who can see everything properly.

With all this fuss, you’re probably wondering why I’m persisting with dreads. Truth is, I haven’t once thought about combing them out. I love watching my hair change – it’s growing as well as dreading. I love the lack of maintenance: wash, separate, and palm-roll once a week. No more combing and styling, hooray! I love “decorating” my dreads with pretty beads. I love it when someone notices I have dreadlocks. I love thinking about the fully mature dreads I’ll have in a couple of years!

To see where the journey started, including a photo of my hair pre-dreads, go here.

And this is a recent photo of my dreads, taken by Pohangina Pete. The purple bead in the centre of my head is the first bead I bought for my hair, and it lives on the first dread that formed.

Psychedelic breath

2009-06-14T14:27:00.005+12:00

Last week I went to a yoga teacher who’s new in town. Her mother is one of my workmates and I’d met Emma several times; we’d hit it off immediately and she invited me to her class. On Wednesday I decided to give it a try.

Emma’s class was different from my usual yoga teacher’s. Sue was trained in the Iyengar school and her class is very physical – usually about 80 minutes of asanas and 10 minutes of relaxation. It also lacks any thing “spiritual”: in fact there’s nothing except for the “Namaste” at the end and a Sanskrit chant at the beginning [which I don’t join in since Sue won’t tell us the meaning of it]. But Sue is fun and I get a lot from her class, so I keep going.

Emma’s class was a lot more spiritual. She invited us at several points to offer a silent prayer or blessing if we wished. There was a lot more movement which I enjoyed. And there was less focus on asanas and more on relaxation and pranayama [breathing exercises].

Pranayama was very interesting for me, because I’ve never been to a yoga class that included pranayama. I’ve tried to do some myself at home, but that’s all. One of the pranayama exercises Emma taught us was nadi shodhana, known also as “alternate nostril breath” or “channel clearing breath”.

I have no idea how long our nadi shodhana lasted; it may have been hour for all I knew. At first I struggled. I really, desperately wanted to breathe through my mouth [so I did a couple of times]. But that passed and I found a rhythm to my breathing that was the one of the sweetest physical sensations I’ve ever experienced. My surroundings disappeared. Sounds disappeared. I disappeared. All that was left was my breath.

At last Emma brought us out of nadi shodhana and asked us to open our eyes. After class she asked me if something had happened to me at the end of nadi shodhana. Your eyes were like saucers, she said.

I opened my eyes to find myself in what I can only describe as a psychedelic world. I was still in the yoga studio but everything was very sharply defined and saturated with colour – bright, fluorescent, ecstatic colour. I blinked a few times and looked around me and the colours began to fade to their normal proportions. But the high remained with me for the rest of the evening.

Anybody else have similar experiences during yoga practice?

Bookshelf, May 2009

2009-06-03T22:04:00.023+12:00

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
My book group read this book for our May meeting. Based on Genesis chapter 34 of the Bible, it takes the story of Dinah - the sole daughter of Jacob, who is raped by an Egyptian nobleman - and creates a life for her outside the pages of the Bible. Since Dinah doesn't exist outside of that one chapter, Diamant was free to write what ever she wanted.

We began the session by reading Genesis 34, and several members of the group expressed concern that Diamant had taken a rape story and turned it into a love story. But I pointed out that in those days, when women virtually belonged to men, whether a woman had consented to sex was irrelevant; Dinah was considered to have been raped because her father and brothers had not given consent.

There are two ways to read The Red Tent. One: as a stand-alone novel with no reference to the Bible. Two: as a novel based on the biblical story. We have both Christian and Jewish women in our group, and they had issues with it from a biblical point of view. Diamant seemed determined to make every male character weak and pathetic, even well-known characters like Dinah's brother Joseph - he of Technicolour Dreamcoat fame - who obviously was a very charismatic man. What Diamant's point was in doing this we couldn't say.

We all agreed The Red Tent worked better when read simply as a novel with out the biblical connections. It did drag a little towards the end and could, I think, have been shorter. Not a novel to set the world on fire, but still enjoyable.

Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
My book group is reading this one for our June meeting, along with Colleen McCulloch’s new book about one of Lizzy Bennet’s sisters, The Independence Of Miss Mary Bennet. I don’t need an excuse to re-read Pride & Prejudice; I took it with me to Flounder Bay and read it there.

What can I say about this book that hasn’t already been said? Nothing really; so perhaps I'll just tell you why I like it so much.

It has one of the best opening lines in English literature: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." This really sets the tone for the whole book. I always think, when I read Pride & Prejudice, that Austen must have had a great time writing it.

It's amazingly readable for a book written in the early 19th century. It rollicks along like any modern-day chick-lit book ... only funnier, and more well-written.

It gives you a peek in to another world in another time. This is not some book about the early 19th century written 200 years later. This is the real thing. The customs, the etiquette, the familial ties - they're all so alien, yet so fascinating. Lydia is "ruined" and the Bennet family dishonoured by her running off with Wickham; Mr Darcy can't receive the Gardiners at Pemberley because they are socially beneath him, etc etc. How times have changed!

It has a really sexy hero ... although, between you 'n' me, I prefer Captain Wentworth from Persuasion. I don't care how chirpy Lizzy is, Mr Darcy would have been a bloody pain to live with. Captain Wentworth is luvly.

I love the glorious, subtle, intelligent humour of Pride & Prejudice. It's a book that suits a good mood, and cheers you up when you're feeling down. If you haven't read it yet, you should.

A Woman's Book Of Yoga by Machelle M Seibel and Hari Kaur Khalsa
My dear sister bought this for me for Christmas, from my Amazon wish list. It wasn't quite what I was expecting.

Khalsa is a practioner of Kundalini yoga; Seibel is a doctor. Khalsa writes about how Kundalini yoga practices can benefit women at any stages of life, from menstruation, to sexuality, to childbirth, to menopause. These practices involve asanas, mantras, chanting, mudras, etc. Interspersed is Seibel's medical opinions on how these practices benefit women.

Sounds okay, right? [If you're into yoga, that is.] But A Woman's Book Of Yoga really didn't work for me. Kundalini yoga is a well-respected branch of yoga, yet this came across as flakey New Age dribble and I found it hard to take it seriously.

Some examples:

+If you have a headache, splash cold water on your face and your headache will go away.

+Sex should start three days before you actually do the deed. Women need this amount of time to become properly aroused. When you actually getting around to, you know, getting nekkid, men need to do this, then this and this - like a bloody checklist or some thing! Whatever.

+Women need to know their "moon centres". As well as their chakras, their menstrual cycles and the moon cycle ...

+If you do this kriya when you and your partner are arguing, it will help you move past it. If you do this kriya you will increase your self-confidence. And so on ...

The medical bits seemed completely out of place and I'm not sure what the point of them was. After reading the first few I mostly skipped through them.

However, I did glean some good stuff out of this book. I found the chapter on menstruation very interesting; it contained some useful information. For instance, many women crave fat before their period [that's me!] - apparently this can often be relieved by eating almonds. That's one I'll definitely be trying. Khalsa points out asanas useful for relieving PMS, for relieving menstrual cramps, for regulating menstrual cycles, etc.

I definitely won't read this book all the way through again but I will probably go back to pick some of the good stuff out.

+ + + +
Currently reading:
Bringing Yoga To Life by Donna Farhi
Rebecca Of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin

The Cove of Giants

2009-05-26T22:13:00.003+12:00

By many people’s standards this beach would have no value. It’s not beautiful: it’s wild, inaccessible, dangerous. A chip of dull gold sand, an impenetrable tangle of driftwood and wild blackberry, and the sea endlessly battering. This is the Cove of Giants.

No houses could ever be built here. No roads could ever reach it. No helicopter could land, and no boat would get through the dark rocks that the waves shatter themselves on. The only access to the Cove of Giants is on foot via a precarious goat track from Flounder Bay to the north; or several hours from Tangoio to the south along an even more uncertain track. The only footprints on the sand are our own, and those of the birds.

The high cliffs block out all but the earliest winter sun. Some times these cliffs shed boulders the size of small houses on to the beach below. We know this because the sand is littered with them. I hope I’m never here during a big earthquake.

The Cove of Giants is such an insignificant place it doesn’t have an official name; you’ll never see it marked on any map. The Cove of Giants is just our name for it. If you ever went there, you’d know why we named it that. The boulders – the cliffs that soar to 100 metres high – the shipwreck of a massive pine tree lying on the sand, half in and half out of the water.

There are other giants here too.

At low tide we explore the rock pools [is there any thing more lovely and child-like than exploring rock pools? It’s a past-time of pure joy.]. I’m close to the shore and Pete is a long way out. I hear him yelling my name; he’s beckoning me over excitedly. I scoot over to his rock. He plunges his arm in to the water and pulls out the biggest starfish I’ve ever seen. Bigger than any starfish I could imagine.

Pete puts the star down on the rock so we can observe it. He’s bluish-grey on top and bright orange below, and has seven arms that move independently. He’s at least 50cm across.

We discover later our seven-armed friend is Astrostole scabra – isn’t that a gloriously resonant name? – the largest and "most voracious" star in New Zealand.

We sit and watch him, fascinated, for several minutes until he begins to show signs of distress at being out of water. Pete gently picks him up and drops him back in to the sea and goes off to explore some more. But I lie down on the rock and watch Astrostole scabra, drifting away on the incoming tide.

... I and my son
Went past the hundred-headed cabbage tree

At the end of the beach, barefooted, in danger of
Stones falling from the overhang, and came

On a bay too small to have a name
Where flax grew wild on the shoulder of the bluff

And a waterfall was weeping. A sheep leapt and stood
Bleating at us beyond a tangle of driftwood

And broken planks. Behind us floated in the broad noon
Sky that female ghost, the daylight moon ...

From Waipatiki Beach, by James K Baxter