Chance encounters

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Now that we live in the city, I catch the bus to work. I was standing at the bus stop this afternoon when along came an upright, elderly man wearing a hat and raincoat. He stopped when he saw me, took off his hat and remarked on the black, threatening sky above us. I said I hoped he wasn’t too far from home given that the heavens were about to open. He said airily that he was still going to walk around the lake* and only then make his way home. He also mentioned it was his 85th birthday today. I was speechless and gave him a thumbs up as he went on his spritely way. What a good advertisement he is for the daily constitutional!

There were a young mum and dad on the bus, accompanied by their little daughter. They got off before I did and the little girl struggled to climb off the seat. “Don’t forget me, guys” she called to her parents as they prepared to alight. Of course they waited for her and she trotted down the aisle to the door. It is customary in New Zealand to thank the driver when you leave a bus. “Thanks, mate” said the dad in a blokey, friendly way. “Thanks, mate” said his daughter in her little piping voice. All the passengers on the bus chuckled.

Chance encounters like these make my day!

*the lake he referred to is Lake Rotoroa, seen here on the day balloons drifted across it.

Where I come from …

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11 January 2023

… the hills are conceived
in the late evening’s afterglow
and grow slowly through the night

and they are there
wet and shining in the wondrous mornings.

Part of a poem written by renowned New Zealand poet Brian Turner (Elemental, Central Otago Poems. Random House New Zealand. 2012).

We have just visited his beloved Central Otago. His words and the images of his artist friend Grahame Sydney came wonderfully alive. And best of all, we came across him in the small town of Oturehua, population 30 – 40, where he lives. We were in the general store, itself a wonder, when in he came to buy his Otago Daily Times. Later the same day when I wandered along the road, Brian was in his garden, into which he invited me for a chat. He told me he was tackling the weeds by way of taking a break from other things, by which I assumed he meant writing poetry. In our brief conversation, I managed to mention how much I admired his work and that I had enjoyed hearing him speak at writers’ festivals. This wasn’t idle flattery – he is a spare, evocative wordsmith and I have long wanted to experience Central Otago as a result of reading his work.

The landscape, rolling hills and higher peaks, some bearing a little snow even in the height of summer, plains patterned by sun-bleached tussock grass and turquoise viper’s bugloss, and valleys enlivened by the ripple of the burns, was a dream come true. Brian says “It’s not picturesque, it’s essential, almost grand and it aches like the rhythms of truth”. The stories of the 1860s gold rush, teeming towns and overflowing taverns seem far-fetched in this sparsely populated expanse. But the Blue Lake at St Bathans, the result of vigorous sluicing for gold, and the Vulcan Hotel, where tourists follow in gold miners’ footsteps, drinking a pint and downing a feed, are there as proof.

Once in a while
you may come across a place
where everything
is as close to perfection
as you will ever need.

Fragility

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30 September 2022

Readers of this blog will know that we live next door to a free-range chicken farm*. The chickens make uninhibited use of the garden around our house, which can be annoying, despite the occasional gift of eggs laid behind the garage. They scratch deep holes in the grass, they get into the vege garden given half a chance and when it rains, they shelter in our doorway, leaving noisome deposits all over the entrance. But in many ways, they are endearing with their beautiful plumage and their ditzy meanderings, and their fluffy, chirping chicks are adorable. We have had a mother hen and her brood in and out of our garden this spring. She started off with eight, which reduced to five in the first couple of days. These chicks have survived for a couple of weeks – every morning, we count the fluffy heads and are relieved when there are still five …

… till this morning when the mother hen and one of her chicks were flattened by a truck on the road directly outside our house. When I saw the feathers flying around and heard the remaining chicks, who will now not survive, cheeping frantically, I felt first sick and then sad. My thoughts since then have been overwhelmingly about the fragility, the uncertainty of life.

People who grow up on farms often say they are more realistic about life and death than others who are not confronted with it on a regular basis. After my sickening experience with the hen and her chick, I saw a herd of cows and their calves running into the paddock behind our house. They had just been let into this expanse of lush green grass and they all ran around joyfully for a while before putting their heads down to graze. Life on one side of the house and death on the road on the other.

If you have not experienced profound grief, it can be difficult to fully sympathise with someone who has. Though sad, it is normal to lose one’s grandparents and parents. However, those who lose their parents when they are children, or a long-lived and much-loved partner, or that worst of all losses, a child, suffer profound loss, which perhaps can only be fully understood by others who have experienced a similar loss. Queen Elizabeth memorably said that grief is the price we pay for love. It may be that, after losing someone we love deeply, we can eventually feel gratitude for having experienced the great love that engenders the overwhelming grief.

*Since writing this, we’ve moved from the farm into the city – perhaps fortuitous given the subject of this piece!

Just sometimes it feels worthwhile

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I work in a support role for a trust dedicated to research into breast cancer. A large part of my work involves entering patient data into a national breast cancer register. This is an important research and policy-making tool.

Massive advances have been made in the last 20 years thanks to research, in which the participation of breast cancer patients is a vital component, even if they do not benefit directly. Death rates from breast cancer have halved. If the cancer is detected through screening (i.e. the cancer is found earlier when it is smaller and much less invasive), there is a 98% chance that the patient will still be alive in five years. Other improvements include less drastic surgical procedures, better drug treatments and improved quality of life for people living with breast cancer.

These are the things to bear in mind when entering the data of a patient who does not have good outcomes. I have to take a break when I’ve entered one too many patients who have presented with metastatic breast cancer and can only be offered palliative treatment.

But this week I entered the data of a patient whose experience made my heart lift. At 94, she presented with a self-detected lump, which turned out to be a breast cancer. The clinicians were reluctant to refer her for surgery immediately, given her age and other medical issues. One does not get to 94 without at least some complicating factors! However, after they’d done several further tests, they offered her an excision (much less drastic than a mastectomy). She made an excellent recovery and five years later, after annual check-ups and screening, is cancer-free and has been discharged from the breast care service. On leaving after her final follow-up, she left a donation for the trust at the reception desk. A good outcome indeed!

Sounds vs noise

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I did my favourite Raglan walk today – through the Bryant reserve, along the beach and then back to the bush track that takes me to the lookout, where I snapped the photos above. One of the delights of this walk is the sounds – the boom and crash of the waves, the cries of the gulls and the calls of the birds that frequent the bush, the sighing of the trees in the breeze – which is why I don’t emulate those who walk with headphones plugged into their ears. Most of the human activity is muted – the occasional shout of a child finding the water colder than they’d expected, people one passes on the track saying hi, the slap of a surfboard hitting a wave. But today, the high-pitched whine of several jet-skis could be heard even above the sound of the surf. They set out at speed from the Manu Bay jetty, accelerated along a stretch of coastline and then performed noisy U-turns before heading back the way they’d come. They repeated this several times, with no discernable purpose apart from going as fast as they could, making as much noise as they could. On my way back to the track I passed a couple sitting on a bench overlooking the beach far below. I have often sat there myself, enjoying the view and listening to the waves. But this couple were playing music from some sort of portable device – why is it always music with a repetitive beat and inane lyrics (she asks judgmentally)? And then there are always a few people who fail to remove their dog’s droppings, which is not noisy but noisome for others using the track. It was a relief to get to the lookout and enjoy the quiet of the bush all around, watching the silent surfers below and the silent paraglider above.

Hope …

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… springs eternal, or so they say. It has been difficult to be hopeful during a Covid-19 Delta lockdown and then another vile terrorist attack in New Zealand on Friday. It is tempting to say, along with die-hard pessimists, that things are bad and getting worse. But on my walk today, I saw this – a pohutukawa tree about to burst into flower – and suddenly I felt hopeful. In New Zealand the red pohutukawa flower is synonymous with summer, sea and sand. So along with the perhaps misguided optimists, I look forward to freedom from lockdown, summer and the season of goodwill to all.

Transcendence

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Here in New Zealand we’re in lockdown so I am home all day. I have work to do, which I often do accompanied by RNZ Concert on the radio. This morning the I heard Tchaikovsky’s Andante maestoso from The Nutcracker played by Simon Trpceski. It is an evocative piece that replayed in my head all day. When work was over for the day, I poured a glass of wine and looked up performances of the grand pas de deux online. Watching Misty Copeland and Sterling Baca dance to that uplifting and haunting music made me forget everything – the lockdown, the anxieties it causes, the strangeness of working from home for days on end, the worry about family and friends during a pandemic – and I was reminded of how the sublime blend of the music and dance has the power to transcend ordinary life. (I’ve ‘borrowed’ the image from the New York Times)

Another bend in the river

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I resigned from my job this week, having accepted another. Around the middle of March, I will move on yet again. While I am excited about the new opportunity (as a research assistant for a cancer research trust), there are always reservations about leaving what you know and have become used to. And as always, it’s those people you’ve got to know, like and respect who are the hardest to leave. I have few regrets about the work itself, which was routine and repetitive. The thought that I will be stepping off the treadmill of scheduling meetings, organising agendas and catering, taking notes while others drone on endlessly and then writing up coherent minutes is liberating. I am under no illusion that the administrative nature of the new position will be very different, though I hope the significance of the research being undertaken will make being a small part of the team feel worthwhile. I have not had a career and have worked either part-time or in what I call general-dogsbody roles, which could never have paid all the bills. But if you’re supporting others to achieve important gains, you feel some measure of job satisfaction. That is why I’ve always enjoyed the copy editing and proof reading that helps graduate students achieve their higher education goals and go on to what one hopes will be brilliant careers, which improve their lives and our society as a whole. Too idealistic? Perhaps, but one has to keep dreaming that what one finds around the next bend will be fulfilling.

Peace amidst the chaos

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Opito Bay (Coromandel, North Island, New Zealand)

Today in Washington DC, armed protestors stormed the Capitol and disrupted the normal business of their democratically elected Congress at the behest of the outgoing President.

There were 7,200 new coronavirus cases in Arizona.

1,041 people died from coronavirus in the UK.

Northern Ireland’s food supply chain was disrupted due to incorrect or absent Brexit-related documentation.

More than 50 pro-democracy figures, who have the best chance of winning legislative council seats in an upcoming election, were arrested in Hong Kong.

Te Waikoropupū Springs

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Near the town of Takaka in Golden Bay (South Island of New Zealand) are the Te Waikoropupū Springs. Though we’ve visited Golden Bay before, we hadn’t seen these spectacular pools. They are very close to optically clear water, with visibility to 63 metres, and are surrounded by native bush with prolific bird life. Alerted by his distinctive call, we saw a grey warbler flitting around in foliage right beside the walkway – this is the closest we’ve been to this tiny elusive bird and it was thrilling. It is easy to see why this place has been a taonga (treasure) for Māori since they arrived in the area over 700 years ago. It is also wāhi tapu (held in high cultural and spiritual regard) so there is no contact with the water at all – you just look, listen and marvel.