Visiting

One of the great joys of living in New Zealand is when folks come to visit me here. It is a joy when folks visit me anywhere (I love having people stay), but here it’s a special joy, because everyone is so gobsmaked at the beauty that surrounds us every day. We had nearly four months of that with Carolyn and Jim, the constant conversations about “can you believe…” and going on about how kind the people are, how straightforward and simple the life, and always always always, how magnificently beautiful it is.

We dropped them off on Friday night at the airport with copious tears, moved in the wind and rain all day Saturday (noticing how much it felt like Jim and Carolyn’s house we were emptying and not our own—and noticing, by the way, what a really nice house it is). On Sunday, after breakfast with Melissa and hanging pictures at last on our formerly-bare walls, we drove to the airport again, this time joyfully to pick up my uncle Tom. We haven’t spent much time with Tom in the past. Family gatherings are loud and full, and I’ve only spent a day with him on my own at his house in Seattle. This was going to be a tiny time—Sunday afternoon to Tuesday morning on his way home from Australia—but was going to be longer than we had had before.

First, his introduction to the winter of New Zealand coming from the super-temperate Sydney. Off with the shorts, on with the jeans and another fleece, Aidan chattering delightedly to him all the while. Then it was off to climb a hill and take in the views. The horrible wind and rain that had been blown in to mourn Carolyn and Jim’s departure had scrubbed the sky clean and dumped snow on the mountains, so the top of the hill we climbed gave us long views out to big and copiously snow-covered peaks in the south island. Tom was the perfect audience: totally appropriately oohing and ahhing at each of Wellington’s folds, brushed with houses, tumbling into the sea. We laughed and talked about whatever came up and I searched for—and found—pieces of my dad in this, Dad’s youngest brother.

And he was like Dad in his delight and his exuberance. Climbing hills, picking our way over rocks and searching for starfish, winding lost on lovely roads that hug the coastline—all things were interesting and fun for Tom (or else he hides his frustration well). And while he didn’t feel good on Monday (some Aussie bug he brought over), he was totally cheerful in his misery and wandered his way miles through the park and had enough energy for kicking the ball around at Aidan’s soccer practice. Not well enough to go out to dinner on Monday night, he was fantastic company for the yummy dinner we threw together. He told stories of his childhood and mine, and I saw his family through a different set of eyes—neither the eldest son perspective of my father nor the adoring granddaughter perspective I bring to things. All in all, a seriously lovely time together—if unhappily brief.

He says with assurance that he’ll come back, and I am reassured. Because missing family and friends is the key sadness of life here, if we could find a way to bring them to us, to experience their reveling in delight in our lives, to cook for them and laugh with them, would things be perfect here? How about if the rest of you come on down and visit us and let us test the perfection hypothesis? I promise we’ll all have a good time in the discovery.

(pics today of a rainbow on Jim and Carolyn's last day, Tom at the top of the hill and then resting with a cup of tea at sunset)