March 8, 2019

Moeraki, New Zealand: Day 13 with Gertie (Lady G), our wide-hipped Maui campervan.

When we feel happy from one day to the next, it’s a good idea to ask why, where is this ease coming from? Apart from the obvious – I love my partner-in-life, we’re on a glorious vacation together – I want to dig deeper. As of today, we’ve been out of our home, out of Seattle, for eight weeks. It’s taken time for coherent feelings to bubble up, but here goes. I resist change. I don’t think I have changed much over my life; I certainly feel tense in times of transition. But I am changing, most of all maybe, in understanding the difference between being motivated by what I want (in Christian parlance, “my heart’s desire,” as in “God’s desire for me”), and by something else, call it compulsion or fear. To be able to trust your heart’s desire has got to be one of the key accomplishments in life. It can be hard to figure out, but the heart does not lead you astray. What it does is get buried or muted in its role as the quiet younger sibling to the know-it-all Ego and rationalizing Mind. This unique period of time has allowed me to lie fallow for the first time in a long while. Right now, my heart’s desire is simple – slow down, move around, be curious, laugh and play with Don. How will that translate moving forward?

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All the things I learn and aspire to model from my friends and mentors – my parents and my children – sit with me in the here and now. If all of you knew just how many times I think of you and feel graced! Mike and Cindy, I am forever grateful that you forged this path and got us on it to New Zealand. As Don and I do the dance in our tiny campervan kitchen, I think of all the times Cindy pulled off a gourmet spread on the boat, while Mike did the work to get us on and off it. Truth be told, it never appealed to me – until now – to do what you did for so many summers with your children: live on a sailboat for a month. Now I get it. It is absolutely fulfilling to tread simply and live simply, away from the million and one things that take us on a rollercoaster of emotion every day. Debbie Jo and Jim, we wouldn’t be here had you not turned us on to multi-day trekking at Mont Blanc and the Dolomites. You gave us a pace and an outlook that we treasure and wouldn’t otherwise have.

So, in this cleaning of my personal slate, a couple of things have become clear. When you quit doing what you’re doing for 55-60 hours a week, together with the habits and routines that keep you functioning at that high level, you wonder what will replace it. I don’t know the answer to that; I know I do endless summer really well. But I am pleasantly surprised to learn that I don’t get bored – as in, restless in the moment, aware of some lack, not comfortable in my own skin. I relish our anonymity as we chug from one place to the next. I enjoy the conversations that develop with strangers as we are washing dishes or sitting in our chairs next to the van. We’ve also hit the jackpot with the weather. The vaunted New Zealand rain and wind have not shown their face; it’s just dumb luck, but Don and I have lived one pleasant day after another the entire time we’ve been in New Zealand, with the exception of the glorious rain and flooded streams we had on the second day of the Milford Trek. It’s pretty easy to feel good when you’re drinking each day at the fountain of Nature, taking time to listen to the wind in the trees, lie on the grass, and walk and talk, as we have done. The days we spend more time driving in the hot sun, wondering where we will forage for dinner food, and cleaning up the campervan are not as fun.

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A second factor we’ve benefitted from is the variety of scenery. We’ve moved among complex ecosystems like we’re shuffling a deck of cards. The day before yesterday, we rose in the morning in front of Lake Tekapo (the accent on the first syllable), drove an hour to the highest mountain in New Zealand, Mt. Cook (12,321 feet), and hiked the steep climb to the Red Tarns and bushwhacking above it, to a saddle that opened our view to the entire Southern Alps range. After descending to the beautiful visitors’ centre and reading about the hardy Victorian men (and women – Freda La Faur was the first, in her blouse and long skirt hiding what must have been huge quadriceps) who climbed these peaks, followed by Sir Edmund Hillary, who prepped here for his 1953 Everest climb, we drove 10 minutes to walk up to a viewpoint over an immense glacial lake and series of glaciers.

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That next day, we (I, anyway) reluctantly left the land of turquoise lakes and miles-long riverbed valleys, to drive east to the Pacific, where we are, once again, happily ensconced on the beach, at a funky little campground two miles away from the Moeraki Boulders, one hour north of the city of Dunedin. We knew we’d found the right place when the campers we interacted with the first evening were all Kiwis.

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It is so quiet and peaceful here. Don and I spent the morning walking down the beach, past the unique boulders, into the tiny town and harbor, even stumbling onto the delightful property where we will eat freshly caught seafood tonight, a well-known restaurant called “Fleur’s Place.” I love our campervan dinners – thanks to Don, griller supreme – but I can’t wait to go out! Post-dinner Note: Fleur is the Alice Waters (Chez Panisse) of New Zealand; now in her late 70s (my guess), she enjoys her fame yet has not lost her down-to-earth kindness. We spoke to her at our table. It was, by far, our best meal in NZ, recommended by Paul and Debbie Brainerd. Fresh, filleted fish: Blue Cod and Monk, with steamed vegetables and our chosen sauce (tartar and lemon, capers and lime), paired with a bottle of local Sauvignon Blanc, and topped off with apricot tart with vanilla ice cream and two French-sized bowls of decaf cappuccino. Parfait!

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Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers/Little we see in Nature that is ours. “Ode to Immortality“

I am not a cynical person, but the transactional nature of many of my relationships at home can get me off balance. Does that person like me because I am giving him/her some thing? Am I guilty of the same? Joy and true laughter come outside of the transaction and transcend the quid pro quo of our daily lives, the entertainment we pay for, the relief we feel at the end of a long day.

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Nature, both in its wonder and its sensual pleasures, is the beauty I seek and embrace. Wordsworth found the soul of beauty in his backyard, the lake district of England. I am painfully aware that my paean to nature is contradicted and complicated by the carbon footprint we left flying halfway around the world to get here. Our access is privileged and unequal. Yet I can record what we’ve found and hopefully, refer back to it as a reminder that nature and its rhythms can draw us out of ourselves and into better relationship with others. Peace and quiet go hand-in-hand with joy. Today, I watched a bunch of seals lazing, stretching on the rocks, and cavorting in the shallows. I have always heard that seals are playful, but I laughed out loud watching two juveniles roll over again and again in the water, wrapping themselves in kelp, lying on their backs, folding their front flippers, and turning upside down to wriggle their flippers like water ballet dancers.

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We’ve also been treated to a family with five small children here at the Moeraki campground (including 18-month-old twins). Last night, I watched the older sister pull her beaming pudgy brother around and around in a little wagon, and thought, how can she keep doing that? I must have asked her, because she said, “this is fun.” Her parents hadn’t asked her to do it; she was enjoying the moment as much as he was. Peace and security are sometimes needed to put us in the place where we can be creative, spontaneous, and loving.

I am in my element when I can lie on soft grass and stare up at the clouds or a tree overhead. I love to feel the grass beneath my feet, and yesterday, even Don blissed out walking barefoot along the shore. The freedom to “do nothing,” where nothing puts you in the present moment (with the Transcendentalists) – that is joy. To have a thought pop into your head – not put there by media, not a knee-jerk, habitual reaction to something or somebody that provokes you – that is joy. To have the time to follow that thought, that is heaven.