Go Places
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Landing Place
I thought you might like to read my complaints about my AirBnb, since this is my last night in it.
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Alone in the Time of Corona
There are doves everywhere, cooing their lovely dove-sounds. And other birds of unknown-to-me varieties, calling out to one another, letting the world know that yes, they exist, they are here, they are alive. My window this week faces a brick wall. I ask you, is that a metaphor? Someone nearby lets some light jazz drift out their open window. Everyone’s windows are open because it is 90 degrees here and there is no air conditioning. Someone else is singing, maybe it is singing or maybe he is simply talking. His inflections rise and fall. Sometimes he is saying a thing and sometimes he is asking a thing. I think I…
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Sick No Longer Means Sick. That’s Sick.
Seething with a virus, I stumbled on to a series of airplanes the other day that took me from northwest to southwest. I coughed and tried not to blow my nose with too much proximity to anyone else, but after a two hour drive, a parking shuttle, an amble through security (which really was an amble and was eerily quiet), and a wait at the gate my inner energy reserves had become depleted and it was Time To Die. Oh, figuratively. Whatever. So I brought my virus to my friends, who are cheerfully helping me either feed or quash the little buggers, I’m not sure which. I have been in…
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I Have Giant Spiders For Pets
I have lost my fear of spiders. No big deal. Just now I saw one there on the wood floor of my living room. His wingspan was at least six inches. No big deal. I just upended a glass jar over him, slid a folded utility bill under the jar (what else are those things good for, anyway?) while Mr. Spider danced over it, then took the whole thing to the front door and tossed him unceremoniously into the grass of my tiny front yard. No big deal. It’s a far cry from not-so-many years ago. When I was a kid and there was a spider in my room, usually…
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Skydiving
Yeah, so I jumped out of an airplane the other day. It’s well known than New Zealand is famous for bungy-jumping. When we got here there were countless airport brochures covered with alluring photos of smiling people about to hurl themselves to their doom. I thought about skydiving and it seemed sane by comparison—only a little daring like a walk on the foot-high barrier next to the path instead of on the path itself, rather than bungy-jumping daring of hurling yourself right off the cliff next to the path. I could do that. “Karen’s going to go skydiving,” Matthew remarked to his mom right after we got here. (He had…
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Spider Dance
The room where we’re staying here in New Zealand is teeming with life. That sounds so positive and lovely stated like that, “teeming with life,” doesn’t it? Like we’re in some fabulous wildlife sanctuary filled with tiny playful monkeys and exotic butterflies and mysterious yet-to-be-discovered species. Or that maybe we’re in a magical underwater world where each teaspoonful of this watery bedroom contains an entire ecosystem. Nope. We’re talking flies and spiders and tiny worms. Ew. One night I counted twelve spiders hanging from the ceiling corners. And why wouldn’t they be? There are at least 20 flies in the house at any one time; surely one must stumble into…
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Notes From Down Under
So, we’re in New Zealand. Once what I imagined as a rather exotic faraway place, one not all that high up on the List of Places I Might (Hopefully) Go One Day, now it’s mundane. Almost. Here are some things I have noticed: Pies. Every small shop/bakery/grocery stocks pies. Savory pies. With meat in them. Delicious, actually. Coffee. Kiwis are almost as serious about coffee as Portlanders are about theirs, though I am still not quite clear as to what either a “flat white” or “long black” is. I settled for a mochaccino because a) I always order a mocha when I order coffee out (about once every 3 months,…
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OMG People Are DYING!!
Not really. No, that’s not true. They are. I just don’t happen to know which ones. And besides, what is it they say? In one ear and out the other? No, that’s not quite right… One door opens and another one closes. Yeah. That’s it. So when you last left our hero, he was dangling precipitously over the precipice, holding on to a leafless branch. His grip was loosening. His breath was tightening. WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT? Letting go. And with the letting go, the realization that Everything Will Be Okay Somehow, and that letting go isn’t a failure of some sort, and that letting go isn’t a lack of…