More of that New Zealand water is falling from the sky this morning, whipped sideways by a stiff wind from the northwest (I think!). The estuary is silver and jade, and across from my coffee perch, a double rainbow lands in the water and then vanishes. And so this quiet journey gets a little quieter - a good day for holing up to write, read, and figure out some bus and hostel bookings.
I took Tilda out yesterday - a desperate move, but knowing another storm was coming, felt like “now or never”. And it was sunny out. The surf mat is a special beast, requiring a subtlety I have yet to fully comprehend. It just doesn't quite respond the way I think it will, or should, to my weight shifts, fin dips, etc. Fun tho’, for sure - like riding a rollercoaster that’s gone off its tracks! The coming weeks in Manu Bay and Whale Bay should (?) off up a bit more shape to work with, waves with actual faces to skitter down. We shall see. PM Dinner of fish soup and greens at Orca. I have always disliked eating alone public, yet out of necessity, it seems I must. Another headlong charge into Discomfort. I was feeling a certain satisfaction, really; playing with the notion that each time one steps toward one’s fears, one gains freedom - the thing that has kept you from acting no longer controls you and thus you are free. All well and good, until my gaze began to drift and bounce over couple upon couple upon couple who filled the other tables, and suddenly all was not well in denmark, and my eyes began to leak and all I wanted was the check and out of there with godspeed. I thought of A, comfortable and warm in his life, in his companionship, in his home, and a knot formed around the (inaccurate but momentarily compelling) thought that I am here because of him. As if I had been exiled, forced to walk the gangplank of the good ship Security! There are surely a thousand ways to deal with the fracture of one’s marriage, of one’s entire life as one knows it - what is it in me that choses THIS path? To thrust and throw myself into the deepest of solitudes, far from all that I know and love, far from those who know and love me, far from comfort, belonging , and a sense of Place…? It seems crazy… & yet I know that this is how I’m supposed to play this one. I have been knocked flat and senseless by grief and loss this past year and a half (my husband, dreams, life, home, and brother) yet the deepest safety I think I have ever felt came when I lay in a darkened room amidst preparations for my brother’s wake, so pressed under the pile of every grief I’ve ever endured, and IT DID NOT KILL ME. And I became acutely aware of this simple fact, and from there sank into the strangest sense of peace and strength I think I shall ever feel… I will endure. I am enduring. Surrender. Prevail. As countless souls have done before me. So…the fish soup at Orca is excellent, should you ever find yourself in Raglan, and the view over the estuary at sunset, quite divine.
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December 2016
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