Life, here

Last weekend was the best and worst of life in New Zealand. It began with waking to the sound of the sea and the dozens of shades of grey and silver that a cloudy morning holds. This merged effortlessly into a walk on the beach with Michael, Aidan, and Perry, and then flowed into a fantastic Sunday-morning breakfast with Alli, our glorious American WWOOFer. And then the realisation that this was not just a regular Sunday here, but the corresponding Saturday when I would, in another life, have driven the long hours up the New Jersey Turnpike to have the Garvey Family Christmas.

I called at the appropriate time and heard the roar of the party in the background. I could see every piece of it—the guests blowing in out of the cold, the hugs in the foyer, the laughing and talking that marks one of these parties. And I, for the third year in a row, was a disembodied voice on the phone, a person passed from uncle to uncle to aunt, forcing the talker to cower in a back bedroom or bathroom so that he or she could hear what I was saying on a grey summer morning on the other side of the world.

Then, shaking my head after the disorientation of this winter phone call with so many people I love on the other side of the world, I went into the grey summer afternoon to go for a walk with some friends. This is New Zealand, though, so our walk—just a few minutes from the beach house our friends J and L were borrowing—was up lush, viney woods, lacy with ferns and palm trees. Together with J and L and their three kids, Michael and Aidan and Alli and I (Naomi was away at camp) pushed our bodies up up up a hill. We marvelled at the colours of the green, at the layers of the leaves, at the gentle sound of rain hitting the canopy high above us. After the walk there was lovely dinner at a café and then a sunset walk on the beach north of here, with a whole different view of Kapiti. The boys sat down next to the water and played in the sand while the adults stood nearby and, well, played in the sand.

On the way home Alli quipped that if we really wanted to do well in the WWOOFer book, she needed a rainbow. We had popped into a grocery store on the way home and I glanced out the window at a sudden burst of sun on a cloudy day. I said, Your order has arrived, and out we went into the rain, to see the most amazingly bright rainbow lighting up the sky. We drove home, keeping the rainbow in sight over moderately ugly strip malls and magnificently beautiful hills. At home, we marvelled at the view of the sea, hills, and rainbow from our front porch.

And so that’s the life here. Magical and fantastic, and also on the other side of the world from everyone who shares our DNA. With every joy there is a corresponding sadness that I am so far away from those I love. People will ask, “So does your partner’s family live near by?” Nope. “So what family do you have here?” None. “None?!” People are amazed and horrified about that, and they talk about how they couldn’t do it, etc. And as they say how impressed they are, I think, “Hey, maybe this is the stupidest thing in the world!” And so it goes.

So here we sit, in the middle of summer holiday, wind blowing the sea into a frenzy, kids working each other into a frenzy. Naomi is home from 10 days at camp and reacclimating. I’m trying to get work done and play with my kids and not doing either very well. Sounds like holiday time. This weekend we’ll build a chicken coop (!) and play in the garden. I’ll try to finish a report. We’ll fly a kite in the park. We will enjoy one another and the lovely people who come and stay with us, and we will try to celebrate the life we have even as we mourn the life we don’t. That is perhaps the thing we are all called to do, every day.