the past month

i just believed in myself and made all my limitations my strengths
– wisdom from usha uthup

1. story

   we had my eldest brother donald and my sister-in-law anne staying last weekend. anne, a great one for storytelling, was telling us about going to visit one of my nieces. asked to come around tea time, donald & anne took that as an invitation to stay for a meal. they visited, played with the children and anne offered few times to help with meal prep. this offer of help was denied every time by my niece. they realised the invitation hadn’t been extended when my niece’s husband arrived home and she declared “she couldn’t possibly have them stay for tea.” i am not sure why she couldn’t possibly, and neither could they, but they hurriedly said their goodbyes and set off home.

2. connection

   i reached out to a friend via email recently – one i had made in the uk – to discover life has changed in many ways. i am glad of reconnecting and continuing our long-distance friendship via email and post. and another, connecting via this space to say hello, has made my day.

3. loss

   there’s a hooded jumper i had years ago that i wore and mended and wore some more until it was shabby. even now, i wish i had kept it, or found another to take its place

4. abundance

   we’ve had a lot of rain here in the past month – filling our water tanks and saturating our verdant oasis. it’s nice to see a little bit of sunshine every now and again and i’m eager for the long summer days when sunshine is in abundance

5. other worlds

   there’s a little house out on the west coast of auckland that we tried to buy many years ago. because we were living in the uk and self-employed at the time, we couldn’t provide the financials we needed to secure the mortgage. we took a drive out to that part of the world on the weekend and i was thinking about the life we might have had if we’d bought that house instead of the one we live in.

6. nature

   there’s a section of the south beach at piha that is difficult to reach when the tide is high. visiting saturday at low tide, i stood mesmerised by the foaming seas that made the kelp dance and sway like a hula skirt

7. minor secrets

   i have a new pair of headphones that tuck snugly into a little box to recharge. i have an incredible spatial ability when it comes to packing a car or a suitcase, but these headphones need to be placed in their box in a certain way and it befuddles me every time, taking me 10-15 seconds to figure out which way in they go. i’ve discovered that tossing them in from a height (well, if you can call 2-3cm a height) gets it right a lot of the time.

8. culture list

   read (and loved) city of girls
   watched simone giertz (i love her!!) turn her tesla into a pickup truck + inktalk’s usha uthup: skyfall in a sari (“holy chapatti she’s good”)
   seen vicky tamariki’s colourful works on paper poster series when walking through britomart to meet up with a friend

(inspired by the newly published moon lists workbook)