Starting out in CHRISTCHURCH, NZ
I awaken naked... under a heavy blanket
in the guestroom at Vera's place. Last night was shower night...
There's something refreshing about sleeping nude when your body is
clean and your mind isn't. I have no idea what time it is... there is
light outside, but as this is the longest day of the year it could be
5AM or 9PM...
Wristwatches, as obsolete as human
contact in 2017, I reach for my phone and press the turn-on button.
PLEASE CONNECT YOUR CHARGER... it says. The time 6:36AM. Why?
I'm suffering a kind of jet lag...not
from jets, though. Maybe I should call it social lag.
Things stop here at 10... 9... 8. Two nights ago Vera and I went out
to drink. We started looking for a place by the beach at around 8:30.
Our first stop... a nice little restaurant/bar with outdoor
seating... was closed... The waiter and waitresses were arranging the
furniture for the next days' breakfast crowd.
At 9, we found
another bar/restaurant... again with outside seating. (I love to eat
and drink outside. People are more open, natural when there're no
walls. You look up and see far... the sky. Often there are smokers,
naturally friendly people... and facing nearly universally approved
discrimination... joined together... with a greater solidarity than
any ethnic, religious, or gender group. Smokers are friendly, often
meditative, social in away that phone obsessed millennials cannot be.
I often wish I could be one of them, but a bad lung and an
over-active mucus system prevents it.
There are about ten
others in the outside area. They all sit at a single long table.
Their conversation is loud, but not unpleasantly so. Vera and I take
a table close... but not too close. A single strand of cigarette
smoke comes from someone at the other table.
Two or
three minutes after we sit down. One of the guests-- a woman wearing
a checked kercheif-- stands with that watch-looking gesture that
means... Time to get out of here.
I wonder if she really has a watch.
In two or three
minutes, the table is empty and Vera and I are the only ones left
drinking in the vast outdoor space. At 9:30 we leave.
So my jet lag comes
from changing from a night to a morning person. From one who starts
his night-crawls at 9:30... to one who ends them at that time. From
one who sees the sunrise as a signal for bedtime to one whose sleep
ends with the rising sun.
FLASH TO NOW: I sit
at the library... the Manchester Central Library... but it's not in
Manchest, it's in Christchurch. I've had adventures, but they've been
(mostly) solo adventures. Tiny things I've done or felt. And feeling
is the key.
My bad
lung is acting up and my continual cough keeps people at a distance.
My bowels are also acting up and that too keeps people at a distance.
A massive dose of monolaurin
has prevented a sore throat from following its usual 8 day progress
into snotfilled nostrils--> sneezes--> runny eyes-->
fever--> cough... and gone directly from the sore throat to the
cough.
I sit at a long
table with outlet extension cords placed every 2 yards or so. The
table is poorly located in front of large open windows that require
you to look directly into the sun... This being Christchurch... there
is rarely sun.
ASIDE:
There is a cliché in England that goes: If you don't like
the weather, wait five minutes and it'll be something else. Here
in Christchurch, it's more extreme. If you don't like the
SEASON, wait five minutes and it'll be a different one.
Mid-day, you go out in short sleeves. The natives walk around
barefoot (but I think they do that every season), in shorts,
t-shirts. Fall comes about 5PM... by 6:30 it's winter and those
in-the-know put on the downcoats they've brought with them to the
beach.
In the morning...
at least at 6:36 this particular morning, it's early spring.
Comfortable under the covers, but shriveling cool lying naked on the
bed. I try to get back to sleep... but my 67-year old bladder needs
emptying. Likewise my overactive bowels.
ASIDE: These days I
can rarely go more than 90 minutes without having to shit or piss...
usually both. I can postpone fecal exit by carefully controlled gas
leaks that confuse my body into thinking it has produced an
honest-to-god offal expulsion.... But before long the piper has to be
paid.
Some days, when I
have a specific adventure in mind... or when I'm planning on meeting
old friends, strangers, or those with whom I hope to exchange bodily
fluids... I take a morning Immodium with my daily vitamins and
monolaurin. Today is not one of those days.
So I
look out the window at the Rolling Thunder/Harley Davidson sale
shop... the Honda/Ducati shop... and the powertools
rental shop I can't see the name of. For the second time since I've
started writing this, I fill the urge to relieve the gas slowly
building in my bowels.
AND OF ASIDE: In
many places, people go to the mountains... or to “the country” to
feast on the peace and quiet of a non-urban landscape. As a city boy,
the peace and quiet of Christchurch was country-enough. I couldn't
imagine enjoying a trip to a place where the bars close even earlier.
So when Vera suggested a ride out to a farm, I was less then
enthusiastic... I was wrong.
The cityside does
not have Bison, Llamas, or older German couples living an organic
life... wearing Grateful Dead t-shirts. The countryside does... and
it was great. I didn't manage to get the Bison, but here are the
Llamas:
There are also
sheep, cows, and horses. More cows, than sheep... this was something
much different from the last time I was in New Zealand.
“Blame it on the
changing economy,” Vera told me. “There is a dairy company...
based in New Zealand... the largest in the world. And they give
subsidies to farmers who change from sheep to cows. So they change.
Herders become farmers. Cows... not native to New Zealand replace ...
the native sheep. It's very sad.”
“I'm usually a
fan of immigration,” I tell her. “but I see your point.”
ASIDE:
New Zealand is very sensitive to the issue of invasive
species. Sometimes, I think it's
a codeword for HUMAN immigrants. Everywhere you look you see veiled
references... you tell me if this (from the Wellington Museum) isn't
something right out of Donny Trump's instruction manual on
immigration:
FLASH AHEAD Today
is Xmas Eve day... I've left Christchurch and am now in Nelson... Not
named after the TV family, but after the British admiral who defeated
someone or other. I'm in a park... there are bright yellow and red
flowers. Birds are chirping...This morning... breakfast way the fuck
up in the middle of nowhere. The kid of the family... 8 years old,
I'd guess... first words at the table.
“Gee, I hope it
rains today.”
Not something you
usually hear at breakfast in a place by the ocean. But it hadn't
rained for 3 months. Yeah, that's past perfect there, buckarooS! I
did it!
--More coming
for my more controversial non-travel writing check out mykelsblog.blogspot.com
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