Expect the unexpected

Happy birthday to me.

Why not top off a lovely night at an Italian cafe, a glass of ruddy Chianti and a delectable chocolate cake slice from Fidel's with Grape Expectations? At ten dollars a pop, two liters won't put you out on the street! (That is what happens to Pip, isn't it? It has been awhile since I read this.)



Comes in a handy plastic bottle, an obvious leftover from the juice-packing plant. Here our model seems to be trying to skip the drinking and go straight to the headache. Slava!

On Makara Beach

Tom & Criggy picked us up and we drove, enchanted, to the end of the road over the mountains. Houses abruptly dropped away. Instead: swans, sheep, the adorable pukeko, some kind of funny duck with a black neck that probably wasn't a duck at all.

Tom lodged the car in a bed of gravel and we got out to face down the wind. If you leaned forward to about 20 degrees its invisible hand held you still. Rocks thrown in front of you ended up far, far behind you. Seagulls flew backwards. It was a very Star Trekkian scenario.

We managed to walk less than a kilometer away, but found a (sadly undocumented here) Portuguese Man o' War, spread out like a thick piece of blue rubber, cast upon one of the rocks.

By contrast the sunny day from the pleasant-facing side of our flat looks like a postcard:

Alas, I'm inside, hacking down a cold with tea, heater, spicy soups, and studying for the GRE this Saturday, and reading a record-number of books at once, which isn't something I normally do. The fevered inner monologue of Crime and Punishment; Adriana Cavarero's feminist take on narrative; a Norton (surprising) anthology of contemporary poetry (more surprise when I realize I like Kenneth Koch, and here I was thinking I hated him!); Oranges are not the only fruit. Last night I reread Diary of a Bad Year & finished the quickbook on literary theory--but those are in the service & interests of studying.

So perhaps not as stranded as I could be, and at least out of the wind.

A promising sign

When you see this sign there is no turning back.

We'd been driving for about three or four hours from Hokianga, where we'd spent two nights in a shipping container with stars, birds, and saltwater for company. (There were locals, but they were 10 ks away in city centre: a hotel, a Four Square, and a 'fush and chups' shop.) From Auckland to Hokianga it had been a good five or six hours. And then here is this sign. The Ancient Kauri Kingdom is a museum and tourist shop hearkening back to older days, where wares are crafted from wood recently removed from peat bogs where it's been wallowing for 40,000 odd years. 90 Mile Beach is a road as well as a beach, and people still use it when the tide is low to get around. The Buried Forest is the site of the aforementioned kauri trees, and the giant sand dunes are, well, giant sand dunes.

The most glorious destination, however, isn't even mentioned, although it sits at the very tip of the island. Perhaps the sign takes it for granted that you will go there. After all, there is only one road north from this point onwards.

Atoms

The sand had the consistency of clay, or or acrylic paint. I spread it on my legs and my face, insisting he do the same. The overcast sky made us forget that we were burning. Foolish, in swimsuits not wetsuits, using our bodies for boards, eyes stinging from the salt, we heedlessly fought every wave. Another edge of the world achieved with a holler. Then past the ridge of pohutakawa trees to quieter coves and higher outlooks. Past the outlooks inland, past farms and vineyards on the way back into Auckland. Past, past.

I flew out the next day. Was stopped by a snowstorm and a cold that made my body shiver for a week, quietly, uncomplaining, surprising me when I noticed it.

Rice talk

Despite the mediating vinegar, the ingredients for sushi had a nasty fight, resulting in the mysterious disappearance of some nori sheets and the departure of almost everyone from the kitchen. I had just finished a big plate of rice & peanut butter, as well as converted three skeptics to the idea, when the first wobbly roll appeared. Maki continued to enter at disparate times and with disparate fillings for the next few hours while the rest of the crew took charge of the remaining bottles of wine.

After midnight we pried the lone chef, dead on his feet but exhilarated in his bones, from the scene and made him rest on his laurels.

A new breath

for the blog, for the room. With a concentrated effort--my sister and a helpful neighbor--we scrapped together the aquarium in which I now reside.

Far from the red deserts. Now my feet take me through the city every day, a flatland for which I am grateful on my fixed-gear bicycle, a landscape so different as to evoke the feeling that it is me--my own consciousness--that's changed.

A capital reef,

or, At Capitol Reef. The rock formations massive; the sky ever larger.

Trailing up to the top of Chimney Rock in the midday sun, P cautioned me never to be the second person in line when passing a rattlesnake. Startled by footsteps, the snake composes itself in time to strike after the first person has passed.

Armed with this knowledge, I kept an eye peeled for snakes, but all we saw were sandy little lizards and great swooping birds among the stubborn shrubs, rubbery and tough to the touch, in line with the austerity of the desert.

The first of many climbs

began at the Rocky Mountains National Park in Colorado. Curving in round the tallest mountains, their austere statures softened by forest green, we spent the night nearly 9000 feet above ground. The next morning found us scaling a trail that led past this and two other ponds before losing itself to the everpresent snow. At one point I took advice from a one-armed woman on how to inch down a slope narrow and icy without slipping. For consolation I considered that no skeletons were visible, at least, from any vantage point, only the giants and the shadows they cast.

Friedrich at the falls

Shelburne, that is. On Route 2 west from Boston, we veered off course down to clusters of houses & flowers. We climbed on the sublime--ancient glaciers, perfect circles of rock, waterfalls above, eddies at our toes. All the diners were closed, so we went home.

To flower

The page in front of me was patient. The clock muttered to itself but left me alone. Finally the last word, tired of being teased, settled into place. In my hands the manuscript turned to lead. I stepped outside and the world burst into a million gentians.