Sea-Side Art, Sydney

Red Tussock

Canterbury Art Museum, Christchurch

Bush Walk...

Plumiting Downward...

Boat Trip on Milford Sound.

I just spent some time showing pictures of my trip home to a lady who lives here in the apartment complex, and remembered that I promised some sharing.

This is one of the most amazing places I went, I have to say. I posted right after I visited there, raving about the place. It is indeed awesome. Mighty and powerful. Wow!

Lazy Sunday Afternoon...

It's not always easy to relax in this city. It is huge, and constantly on the move most of the time. Sunday mornings, before noon, are a pleasant exception. If you can get out before people are up for coffee, brunch, and/or shopping you are set. There is the ability to move around the city with the minimum of hassle. It's bliss.

The ability to foster and cultivate a routine that includes time to go about a few errands quietly and with some detachment is a gift I realize since my return from New Zealand is one I want for myself. The most wonderful part of being there is that it is so relaxed compared to life here.

Today was a first attempt in a while, which I believe - thus far - has been a success. I woke up at about 10:00 AM, finding myself sprawled across the full expanse of the bed. I lay for a few minutes relishing the spread of my body, and then rose with an anticipatory joy for the day ahead. I showered and elected not to shave. I also elected to forgo underarm deodorant, and to wear my most relaxed pair of jeans and a comfy pair of jandles. Then off I set out for the farmers market, shopping tote tucked under my arm.

The local farmers market takes place in a barriered section of Melrose place, off La Cienega. When I first started coming here some years back it was solely fruit, veggies, and flowers. It has now blossomed to include a very good bakery, a purveyor of olive oil, a great hummus and cheese guy, and then an assortment of moderately out-of-place stalls selling jewelery, up-market clothing and a host of "chotchkies" (read "crap").

I try to do my first loop and survey the stalls - where is the apple lady I like, and the young Asian girl with the round face who always smiles sweetly asking me how I'm doing this week. Scanning for the in-season fruit to take home for work/school lunches, etc. I'll make stops and get the things I know we need, before making a second loop to any treats.

Today I bought an emerald bunch of baby bok-choi, a bag of apples, a bag of red, yellow and green peppers, two plump pink grapefruit, and a bag of small rectangular ciabatta. Two plump knobs of ginger, a bulb of jicama, and a tub of cubed salty feta. They will all make for excellent lunches this week.

After making my rounds of the white-tented stalls I strolled back home making a particular effort to do so with curved relaxed shoulders, and a tall flexible erect spine, as the jandles flip-flopped their clip-clop on the pavement.

Once home I carefully unpacked the produce and with equal care placed them in the fridge, before preparing a pot of spicy warm lentils with an "oaky" sauce base I made with liberal amounts of whatever looked good in the kitchen. Some mango chutney, a dollop of red mole, garlic, coriander pods and leaves, cherry tomatoes, and a slow tentative simmer.

I also stole myself down to the pottery gallery to check out the sale, which featured pieces by both of my teachers - Carol and Carlos. I had some of my own pieces which I had left to be glazed before my trip home some two months ago, which I was able to pick up and bring home. I'm very pleased with them. I'll upload photos when I get myself to the drug store and download the chip. But the glazes are subtle like I hoped, and the finished pieces have kept in line with what i had imagined they would look like when finished. I am looking forward to returning to classes in January and taking on a new grade of clay. Yay!

Fred & Cova

This was probably taken around 1939-1940 - Fred was in the Army, and served in Egypt & Palestine. It is still tucked into the sleeve of what was his wallet in those days. If you scroll down, you'll see that Cova and my sister Lee bear a striking resemblance.

Back At It

Well, here I am, back at home in the United States. It has been just over a week, and I think I have pretty much settled back into the routine. I'm not sure if that it good of bad it just is. I have returned to work, and once I got past the initial shock at the size and speed of everything it is all just as it was. The sun rises, the sun sets (albeit a lot earlier than when I left).

The last few days of my time in New Zealand were a bit of a whirl. Home to New Plymouth after the wedding to Mum & Dad's place where I took life very slowly. Mum went back to work pretty much right away, but Dad had a few days off. We hung out. Actually I made a point of our having lunch together at some cafe on Devon Street one day, and then going out to Waitara to the cemetery to visit my grandparents, among others, the next day.

Many of the people I remember well as a child are now dead and lie there together under the short cut grass. Not far from My grandparents - Fred & Cova - are their infant daughter (my aunt) Sandra, Cova's mother Ethel, and the infamous Granny Jones (Ethel's mother), among others. I recognized many of the surrounding surnames - and some of the forenames - as being part of my extended whanau. These are the people I am from. These are who I have been birthed from. They existed to bring me forth.

I took pictures of headstones so that I would remember them, and be able to piece many of them to the photos I scanned at my uncle's place in Otaki of these people when they were alive.

On the way back to New Plymouth from the cemetery we passed the first house I remember my grandparents living in. "Richmond Street" looks nothing like it used to. It is empty and hollow with no sign of the love that once dwelt there. Gone are Cova's freesias which she tended along the front of the house with great pride, and gone too are the twisted grape vines in the back yard that Fred tended with equal diligence.

Yet, I saw it all so clearly, with a crispness of memory that brought small full tears to my eyes. It was a sad and tender moment to remember days past, and see the present at the same time. The pungent aroma of those flowers in their tall vases all over the house, and too the sweet, plump explosions of his grapes as we munched to our hearts content.

They were magical and love-filled days that I spent at their house as a boy during the school holidays. For that short time, as the engine idled at the curb, I was transported there again.

The route back to the highway took us by the Marae - our Marae - Owae. It is a beautiful place that I remember well. We stopped and I took a walk around taking more photos (which I'll post soon). As I drank it all in, I felt both Fred and Cova - and all my whakapapa - there with me.

It was a perfect place to pay tribute to where I am from, and who I am from, who I was, and who I have become.

Te Aroha,

He Whakapono,

Te Rangimarie,

Tatou, tatou e

Love, Truth and Peace - now and forever