I have discovered nothing new on this Sabbatical, but everyday I either learn something I didn’t know or remember something I had forgotten.  We said goodbye to New Zealand on a bright, beautiful fall morning a couple of days ago, flew up to Auckland and then caught a three hour flight to Sydney.  I didn’t know we needed visas to enter Australia.  One hundred and fifty dollars later, I learned something new, and with the help of a kind and efficient Qantas employee (she was apologetic for having to charge us so much) we landed, electronic visa attached to our passports, in Sydney.  

Transition days are emotional for myriad reasons.  The bittersweet feeling of leaving something that has become sweetly familiar and loved; the excitement and anxiety of venturing into another unknown experience; the creeping sadness of knowing the sabbatical has reached its halfway point. I am not sure of the old cliché that sharing sadness with someone you love cuts the sadness in half.  In fact, as may resonate with many of you, sometimes sharing the emotion with someone you love actually amplifies its potency, especially if one of you (like me) tends to get a bit anxious about flying, due not to a fear of being in the air, but of missing the plane.

I am one of those people who prefer to be at the gate two hours early sipping a cup of coffee and reading the paper.  Melissa, on the other hand, loathes downtime.  For her, a perfectly timed arrival coincides with stepping onto the jetway seconds before the crew shuts the door.  We know this about each other; yet, we still negotiate when to leave for the airport.

The night before we left Nelson was no different. Melissa pushed hard for as much sleep as possible while I started my negotiations with a wake up call at first light for a 10:30 am flight.  We agreed we would ask the receptionist at the hotel when she thought we needed to leave and accept whatever she recommended.  As Lyle Lovett sang, “that’s when I knew I had made my first mistake.”

The receptionist asked again for the departure time of our flight: 10:30 am.  She looked at the ceiling, calculating in her head. “Hmm, it takes about 20 minutes to get to the airport.  You should be fine if you leave here at 9:30.” Do the math. Twenty minutes to the airport gets us on the curb, no boarding passes and the gauntlet of security looming between us and the flight with only forty minutes before the plane leaves – not when it boards, when it leaves.  I pleaded with my eyes for Melissa to intervene.  One look at her Cheshire Cat smile and I knew, she knew, she had won.  Suck it up, Cupcake.

At 9:25 am the next morning, having double checked that our cab was on its way, I paced the lobby while Melissa, doing the New York Timescrossword, assured me I had nothing to worry about.  The taxi arrived at 9:34.  Roller bags in hand, I started opening the trunk of his car before he fully braked.  Inside was a large crate of apples, at the sight of which, Melissa sweetly remarked on how lovely they were.  I resisted the urge to chuck them on the sidewalk.  It was T minus 36 minutes to launch.  @#$! the apples.  

As we pulled out of the parking lot, our driver, who could not have been more mellow if he was doing an ad for Uncle Ike’s Pot Shop, casually mentioned that his last customer had left the apples in the car, and he needed to make a stop to deliver them. Frantically, I checked our departure time hoping to find a few extra minutes.  In fact, I discovered to my horror that the actual departure time was 10:25 am.  Thirty-one minutes to lift off and we still had to deliver the @#$! apples.

We pulled up about 100 meters shy of the airport entrance, as close as the driver could get, at 10:00 am. The only good thing about this was it had taken 19 minutes instead of 20 to get to the airport, even with the apple stop.  I was a good 30 meters ahead of Melissa, backpack slung over one shoulder, roller bag wildly bumping over the sidewalk in what must have looked like a cross between a new Olympic sport of speed walking while weighted, or middle-aged male had too much coffee and needs a bathroom.  As I entered the airport, however, I curiously passed through the five stages of missed plane anxiety in a single moment, and landed, unexpectedly, at acceptance.  If we had to spend another night in Nelson, we could do that.  

There is no security for domestic flights in New Zealand.  No, that is not a typo.  There is no security.  What’s more, every single facet of the check-in procedure is automated.  I walked up to a sleek, free-standing kiosk, scanned our passports and stood amazed as it printed our boarding passes and the bar code tags for our luggage, which we attached.  A few meters away, we placed our luggage, one bag at a time, on a conveyer belt, used the bar code reader to scan the bar code and watched as the luggage disappeared down the belt.  The entire process from taxi stop to baggage tagged and loaded took less than five minutes.  We took a seat in a large area around 10:07 and waited precisely three minutes before they called our flight, when everyone boarded, everyone, at the same time, not the gemstones first, i.e. diamond and ruby classes, not Sky Priority, everyone. 

Melissa sat by the window reading, with me on her left staring blankly at the seat in front of me. As the plane pushed back, she patted my leg with a gentle, I told you so touch.

As you can see, I discovered many new things from this experience: automation can be a wonderful thing; a young person at a hotel reception desk knows what she’s talking about; even with an apple stop it takes about 20 minutes to get to the airport; Melissa is right more often than I think.  Perhaps I should have listed that learning outcome first.  

I also remembered something wonderful that I had forgotten.  With no security check before boarding the plane in Nelson, I remembered the delight at being able to leave for a flight less than an hour before departure.  It makes flying almost like boarding a bus or the light rail.  I’d forgotten how delightful that felt.

Still, that isn’t the most important thing I’d forgotten.  I’d forgotten what it was like to live in a community that chooses to trust one another instead of reorganizing itself around fear.  ISIS, Al Qaeda, and other radical groups may or may not be defeated.  It is impossible for those groups to win a war against the U.S. in any event. Still, I cannot help but think they have succeeded in destroying something precious and wonderful about our democracy.  I am not advocating for dismantling TSA, but it would be wonderful if we could find our way back to a society that plays to the good in people instead of managing to the lowest common denominator.  

I am painfully aware, as is everyone, that not more than a month ago, terrorists shattered the innocence of New Zealand with the attacks and murders at Christchurch.  In a victory for justice, the authorities have captured those responsible.  In my mind, however, the real victory was boarding that plane in Nelson with no security check.  I had forgotten that.  

Melissa and I have been abroad for over eighty days, not a long time, but with all that we have experienced, I am mentally removed from the American culture.  Without thinking, I order a long black with milk instead of an Americano.  I look right when I cross the road.  I no longer convert New Zealand prices into U.S. dollars.  I haven’t seen CNN, at least not the U.S. version, in over a month. I could not tell you who is still in and who is out of the NCAA tournament.  In fact, I had to think about it before I could bring up the phrase “March Madness.”  Carol, if you are reading, I hope you have been enjoying the games, especially if your Blue Devils have been winning.  

Melissa and I dropped Meg at the Airport a few days ago.  While she winged her way back to Hamilton via Seattle, we flew south from Auckland to Nelson, a small town tucked wonderfully between the ocean and Abel Tasman National Park in the south island.  As hard as it is to let go of Meg after two weeks of bungee-jumping-kayaking-hiking-adrenaline and laughter, I find myself all too willing to curl up in the cocoon of this intimate sabbatical with Melissa and tune out the world. Fortunately, Melissa feels the same way. 

One of the reasons for this feeling is the south island.  Without in any way slighting the beauty and charm of the north island (please read Melissa’s last two fabulous posts), arriving back on the south island feels like coming home, a warm familiar feeling that gently peels away layers of stress and worry.  As we rode in the taxi from the airport along the gold sand beaches glowing in the fading afternoon light, Melissa, face beaming, summed it up, “I am so glad we came back to the south island before leaving.”  How is it possible to be so at home with yourself in a place so far from home?

As much as I may give the impression of being more relaxed then a dead jellyfish, I admit to one, small anxiety.  How do I hang on to this happiness when I get home?  I mentioned this to Meg who reminded me that she felt exactly the same way when she came home from her semester at the Island School.  Her comment only reinforced my (selfish?) but honest desire not to return to the United States anytime soon.  When I mentioned this issue to Melissa, she kissed me and said she loved my idealism.  I’m not sure if that was a brush off, a compliment or both.

I am torn between the inner joy of being here, the self discovery of the goodness inside me that leaks out when I’m cut off from the noise, nonsense and nastiness of American politics, and the feeling that this is not reality, not sustainable, the fear that this wonderful, gracious moment in my life is a short-lived illusion.

Yesterday, we hiked seventeen miles on a perfectly maintained trail that meanders along the coastline rising steeply over headlands and dropping gracefully into one pristine, sublime beach after another.  As Melissa mentioned, this is a self-guided hike, meaning we have a map, a two page narrative generally describing our four days, and a small graph showing distances, expected hiking times and elevations.  To be honest, the first two days of the hike I didn’t bother to pull out the map or instructions.  When we headed north the first day, I kept the ocean on our right. When we hiked south the next day, I kept the ocean on our left.  How hard could it be?

• 

• 

• 

• 

Knowing we had a long way to go today, we rose early, a little before seven, the sun not yet up and the forest around our lodge still dark and colorless.  We had a warming breakfast of oatmeal (Kiwis call it porridge) and headed out as the sky began to lighten although the sun was not yet above the mountains.  The trail started flat heading through the rain forest before climbing steeply up and over the first headland.  As we emerged from the thick, dark canopy onto the cool windless beach, the sun peaked above the mountains turning everything beneath our feet honey gold and everything from the beach to the horizon dazzling blue.

The light in the morning on this untrodden beach feels like God’s tender kiss on her beloved creation. I hear the breeze whisper, “And God saw that it was good.”  I cannot express the power and poignancy of this moment when it feels as if all of time, from creation to extinction, is compressed into a single, fleeting second. Everything that matters is here, now, and there is no next moment.  As Karl Barth said, “here the mind stops.” Here one closes one’s eyes and stands still in reverent awe.

• 

• 

• 

• 

The morning was so glorious we walked the first half of the trail in silence, punctuated by the sharp, beautifully clear whistles and chirps of the birds, the distant thump of the surf and the occasional trickle of water running through the forest to join the ocean.  My skin tingled one moment with a cool draft of air and warmed the next in the dappled brilliant morning rays of the sun.  The world smelled clean, alive, and every now and then some sweet smell almost, but not quite like eucalyptus, floated past.  So enrapt in our surroundings, we reached the halfway point almost two hours early.  As if waking from a dream, we rested on the beach wanting the morning to last forever.

I realize I have waxed on and on about the unspoiled, natural beauty of New Zealand to the point that it may seem overly sentimental or melodramatic.  In my defense, no poet or writer can capture either the beauty of this place or its profoundly healing effect on the soul, or whatever you choose to call that part of you that is uniquely you.  Like Melissa said, no artist improves on nature, she merely imitates it.  

I have decided, to the extent such things can ever be definitively decided, that there is a God, but, like the beauty and power of this place, we have utterly failed in our attempts, collectively, to know and understand her.  She doesn’t care.  Like the majesty that unfolded before me for mile after divine mile on this walk, God simply is, waiting patiently for us to notice.  And here again, one stands still in reverent awe.

We finished the hike by crossing a tidal estuary (at low tide).  As Melissa has said, I may be good on the climbs, but I am a complete wimp walking barefoot over shells.  For thirty minutes, with Melissa laughing me onward, I tiptoed across the mud flat laser focused on my feet.  With time remaining before our water taxi arrived, we hiked a short trail out to a place called Cleopatra’s Pool, a cascade of tea-colored water pouring over boulders into a perfect swimming hole.  Bravely (although Melissa actually slipped and fell in), we took a plunge feeling within the span of a minute the piercing, heart-stopping cold followed by exhilarating freshness.  Back on the beach waiting for the water taxi, we napped like bloated sea lions in the warm sand.  

• 

• 

Today, our last day in New Zealand, we finished the Great Coastal Walk with a combination of hiking the first seven miles and then kayaking home.  The day dawned cold, clear and beautiful with barely a breeze across the ocean.  Once the sun rose, however, the air warmed to a perfect temperature for hiking and kayaking. I have no words left to describe the color of the water, the perfect blue of the sky, the contrasting green of the mountains sometimes rolling straight to the rocky water’s edge and sometimes stopping like a line of soldiers before a perfect crescent beach. Before getting in my kayak, I even saw a huge stingray glide by in the clear water, its wingspan a good three feet.

• 

• 

• 

I started this entry by saying how much I wanted to curl up in this sabbatical with Melissa and let the rest of the world fade away, but that is not an entirely truthful statement. I realized tonight over dinner with Melissa, that I care too much about the beauty I have seen and the joy I have felt not to reengage with the world, especially with the one thing that keeps this place from being perfect — all of you.

It is hard to convey how it feels, physically, to come back to the South Island from the North. It’s like falling in love…all over again. I have been giddy and honestly have known – like when I notice how blue the sky is – that I am, in that moment, the luckiest person on earth. While I wouldn’t have skipped the Tongariro Crossing, Coromandel Peninsula, or the Bay of Islands, as soon as we landed in Nelson, I knew I could live here. There’s something magical on the South Island, and everyone feels it. Nelson, NZ, is “The Good Place.” What do you imagine the weather will be like in heaven – always pleasant? Just warm enough? And the streets will be clean, not a shred of trash anywhere. Will there be cars? Maybe, but not too many, certainly none that are flashy, and while we’re at it, let’s replace traffic lights with traffic circles. Why should anyone have to wait? And if you take a taxi, maybe the driver decides that what the meter says is too much.  This happened in Nelson, where Don was told, “Just give me $25” for the $29 ride. Don was holding a $20 and a $5, but didn’t want to short the driver, so he replied, “can you give me change for $40?” Don got back $15 on $40.

• 

• 

Lest you think you’d have to sacrifice letting the good times roll for this dreamy, decent life, I will point out that Don and I were “entertained” late into the night by a wedding reception taking place just down the hall at the Trailways Inn. Backing up, we had eaten dinner at a hip restaurant, one “Urban Oyster:”marinated fish with crispy rice, braised lamb shoulder, spicy stuffed peppers, and cardamom ice cream with chocolate mousse and bits of toffee.

• 

The Abel Tasman Walk, northwest tip of the South Island: Just a few days ago, Don was able to book us on a second Great Walk, this one unguided, through Abel Tasman National Park. The story behind this park is intriguing. Ornithologist Perrine Moncrieff (who would go on to serve on the Park board from 1943-1973) lobbied the government to reserve the land. Existing homes were grandfathered in; some are now used as overnight huts for hikers; others are still privately owned. An occasion was needed, so they decided to celebrate the tricentennial of the 1642 landing of Abel Tasman, the Dutch sailing captain who beat a fast retreat back to Holland when his party was repelled on the beach by the Maori. In tribute, they named Wilhelmina, the queen of the Netherlands at the time, as Patron. Tasman did not get NZ for the Dutch, but he did have a sea (Tasman) and an island state (Tasmania) named after him.

• 

• 

There were a few famous settlers. In 1856, the first European landowner, William Gibbs, arrived in Totaranui Bay (Maori had lived there for 500 years already and were still in occupation). Gibbs created a “model” farm on over 7000 acres, planted a tree-lined avenue, and even opened two holiday cottages for rent to “holiday makers.” His dairy farm supplied milk to Nelson. Gibbs sold Totaranui to William Henry Pratt, whose son Bert brought his newly wed wife over in 1914, and built a home in the “very modern” California bungalow style. The property went through a couple of other hands, but was eventually purchased by the Crown in 1948. By that time the original Gibbs homestead (1878) had burned down, but Bert and Martha Pratt’s house was still standing and is now a private cottage. I can’t imagine the kind of people who would do this. Was there nowhere to put a dairy farm in England? This place is so remote. The first day I was here, I kept remembering “The Piano.” The scene where they drop off Holly Hunter’s piano and drag it across the sand could have been filmed here. The high winds and crashing waves on the beach, same. The trekking through the jungle palms, ferns, beeches, and huge rata trees – but minus the tattooed Maori warrior – same.

• 

• 

Abel Tasman is the smallest national park (at 92 sq. miles, 59,000 acres) but with a ton of coastline snaking in and out of bays (similar to Maine).  Squinting at the map, Don judged this 40-mile walk an “easy” one. Two days in, we have been reminded that lines close together mean elevation. But the hiking is grand. We climb steep, but short hills to walk the ridgeline between bays. Day 2, we kept our eye on time, because we knew from Wally (more on him below) that if we didn’t make it to a mile-long stretch of beach during low tide, we were SOL. Don the Intrepid has just now told me that after our “easy” day today (12k and 4 hours), we have an 8-hour day tomorrow (24k). At our national parks, “8 hours” usually means something considerably less; here, not so much. Update: Incredible Day! But yes, we just hiked 17 miles, with a dunk into “Cleopatra’s Pool” and even time for a nap in the sun on the beach while we waited for the Aqua Taxi.

• 

• 

You’ve just got to love the “common-sense” contract between us independent hikers and the guides who point us where we need to go. Day 1, we were dropped off on a deserted beach and told to go “that way.” For 13 miles, we walked “the path less travelled” at the northern end of the park, which is only accessed by aqua taxi or on foot. (If you sign up for this walk, make sure and do the 4-day; otherwise you will not see the northern part). In this world of lodge keepers, van drivers, and guides, everybody knows everybody else. “Wally” greeted us with big smiles and excitement to tell us all about the walk; all day long, we’d recall the tips he’d hastily given us while pointing at the map: “eat lunch at Mutton Point, don’t go down the steep steps to Separation Point, you’re going to think you’ve gotten to the top of Whangarara Point but keep climbing.” Wally handed us lunches made by “Deb” (we would open them to find thick slices of ham and cheese spread with mayo and seeded mustard between fresh bread), handed us off to “Jack” the aqua taxi driver who just knew he has the best job in the world, and insisted that we eat the 3-course dinner at “Steve’s.” I think: How can we come halfway around the world and feel like we’re already a part of this close-knit, happy community?

• 

• 

• 

• 

In my opinion, this walk is every bit as glorious as the Milford Trek, but for different reasons. Rather than bond with the group, we’ve made friends all along the way. Yesterday morning, our innkeeper Steve drove to pick up our overnight bags and six hours later, met us across the island literally two minutes after we had finished our hike. After he opened the hatch for our backpacks, he asked if I was thirsty, to which I replied: “Yes, but I’ve got some more water.” “Would you like a beer?” After a day of serendipity (which, of course, only means that the random parts fall into a happy pattern), I just knew that there’d be a bathrobe in the room full of antiques that Steve’s partner Pete decorated. Hmmm, no luck with the back of the bathroom door, try the wardrobe. Of course! They have created an oasis here, with flowers blooming and a hot tub to sit in. After our amazing dinner and sweet little breakfast at a table set with silver and those old-fashioned delicate linens, Steve handed us our bag lunches for the day, there were hugs all around, and we were off. There’s something about someone making your lunch for you, especially a sandwich, where the meat and cheese and fillings have been layered and apportioned just so. I almost expected to find a lunchbox note: “I hope you liked the red onions and bell peppers.”

• 

• 

Meg asked us an interesting question before she left, really a “c’mon, what’s it like being together day in and day out?” question that came out: “what do you guys talk about?” A bit defensively, I (at least) scrambled to come up with interesting things. But the truth is, Don and I are often quiet. On our walks, we laugh a lot (usually at each other or ourselves), but we cherish the silent stretches where we can feel the beauty and stillness take hold. I get to put my mind in a space where a thought can actually happen.

• 

An example: The extraordinary nature of this trek means that we are walking for hours on end, alone on a trail, with no sounds other than the waves crashing and the birds chattering. I especially love the trees and can’t get enough of their various postures and gestures. I look at them and see dancers waving their arms, old warriors sprouting bromeliads, homes for the Swiss family Robinson, and intimately entwined partners. On their bark and in their root systems is inscribed a record of time passing, of growth and branching out, of storms and erosion. When you spend time in a place like this, you realize that we humans cannot improve upon nature. We can bend it to our uses, but we simply cannot make it more beautiful. Isn’t this where art begins? Artists (simply, the inspired) either try to imitate nature or express the way that natural forms and shapes and processes make them feel. From art comes culture and eventually, machines that mimic organic structures or movement.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

So, a long-winded answer to Meg’s question. But there are other reasons why Don and I love just walking. A brief example may suffice to illustrate:

Three-quarters of the way through our hike yesterday, we get a text from Meg that she has arrived safely in Seattle and is back at home. The text reads: “Yah, I’m home, but Janice’s whole family is here. Ha ha. It’s okay though.“ Janice is the latest of Nick’s friends who has enjoyed the comforts of our home. If we’ve been away almost 3 months now, well then, that means that Janice (a college friend) has been at our house for almost 3 months now. The Janice part is not alarming, though it has been hard to nail down when Janice might be moving on with our living-at-home child Nick. As a parent of three twenty-somethings, we still fumble when it comes to text messages. Above, the “ha ha” from Meg could mean, I’m just kidding. Alternately, it could mean “ha ha,” I’m awkwardly laughing because I know that what I just said might send up some red flags. I kind of wish I could untype it, but I’m going to just steam right ahead. Spot on, Meg. So Don texts Meg back: “are you kidding? Or for real?” As I unravel the possible meanings of this exchange, I envision “Janice” being visited by her parents in Seattle. Two minutes later, I find out I am only partially right when we receive Meg’s next text: “For real. I think her brother’s looking at colleges.” So let me get this straight. Not only are both parents there, but there’s a younger sibling. Any more children that couldn’t be left at home? All of a sudden, I am jerked out of my NZ reverie, counting the bedrooms in my house, and hoping that Janice and her family will not be in “my” house when I get back just over three weeks from now. Nobody’s perfect, certainly not me. But Nick could have at least told us that 1500 18^th Ave East is now a lodge. Now you have a taste of how blessed it is to walk softly on God’s green earth a million (well, several thousand) miles “away.”

To follow up on my “epic” bungee jump (or so I was told, as my eyes were squeezed shut and except for the first fall, I clung to Don like a baby monkey), I am excited to report that I finally learned how to skip a rock, right on the beach in front of the Duke of Marlborough Inn (built in 1837). I won’t go into the mechanics of it, but it involves lightly holding a flat pebble between the thumb and 3rd finger and lettin’ ‘er rip. Don insisted on taking us to dinner at the Inn for my birthday, because I love all things historic. After an adoring stroll through the quaint village of Russell (the first capital of NZ), I cleverly put two-and-two together and realized that this is the place we’d heard referred to as “the hellhole of New Zealand.” Apparently, the Duke put the “harm” in charm for the “rascals and scoundrels” this grand edifice was erected to serve. You would think a man could respect his wife a little more.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

The highlight of our time in the Bay of Islands was a whole day spent sea kayaking in the clear, green waters. I channeled my friend Jane Jones as I gamely rowed into the wind and spray across an open bay, with a partner who had already expressed being a little bummed that “he” would have to do all the work. Once we made it out through the “squall” (guide Curtis’ word) to the desired desert island, we followed Curtis barefoot up a path to a summit that gave us a 360 degree view of the whole area. Splendid. While we took a dip in the ocean, Curtis sliced up red bell pepper, cucumber, tomato, lettuce and laid out turkey, cheese, and tortillas for a delicious lunch. The trip back was fantastic, as we were able to surf on top of the waves a good bit of the way. Curtis is a remarkable one-man operation. A 20-something guy who worked search-and-rescue on the British coast near Newcastle, he picked us up in an old van, conveyed us over winding roads to an alternate course that would allow us to row directly into the wind, and laughed with us all day. Although he is not a Kiwi, he fits the type of the person we run into most often here: reliable, courteous, fun, and honestly, just plain decent.

• 

• 

Back to Auckland and our last day on the North Island, we spent the afternoon with Meg in Cornwall Park, another of the enormous green spaces New Zealanders have seen fit to design and place in the middle of their towns. From the True North obelisk atop One Tree Hill, we viewed the volcanic “cone” hills, offshore islands and marshes that frame this grand city. As the wind moved in the trees, I had a sudden urge to be walking a lonely moor in England, preferably around the time Jane Eyre was written, the dramatic natural landscape removing the normal limits to my imagination.

The salve to having to say goodbye to Meg was the kindness of the people we encountered that day. Even with all the tourists tramping through, this whole country often feels like a small town. People are instantly personable and open to conversation no matter what job they’re doing – bellmen, flight attendant, bus driver. So, another “g’day” to the bus driver at the Auckland airport who sang along with Seger’s “I like that old time Rock n Roll” as he carried us to our terminal. Thanks to the woman at the café who gave us a chocolate chip cookie for free. Thanks to the van driver who patiently explained the downsides of the “shared” shuttle service we got stuck with because we had gone with a cheaper car rental company. Thank you to the kind people who waved us through (no security checks) in the domestic terminal.

Seventy-five days ago while Melissa and I frantically packed for this trip, Meg sauntered into our room smiling a two-glasses-of-champagne smile and diffused the tension with a wonderfully appropriate and playful comment.  Seven days ago Meg reappeared in our lives arriving in Auckland from Hamilton to spend her spring break with us.

A few days later, standing on the perfect crescent hot sands beach in the Coromandel Pennisula, in one of those “wait, where am I again” moments, Meg blurted out, apropos of nothing, “whoa, you and mom have not been out of each other’s sight for like 12 hours every day for the last seventy days!”  To which I replied, “More like 24 hours a day.”  To which Meg replied, more to herself than to me, “That’s crazy! How does that work?” 

When Meg arrived, Melissa took the shuttle bus from our hotel to the airport to get her while I had an unwanted, but needed date with the local dentist.  Two days earlier in Glenorchy, a filling fell out.  There are no dentists in Glenorchy, at least none that I wanted fooling around with my teeth.  However, by 11:00 am the Monday Meg arrived, I had a reconstructed tooth, Meg had grabbed a thirty minute power nap, and the three of us began our two weeks together.  

Side note: once again, I am stunned by how far behind the United States has fallen to other countries. I have commented on how the airports and Internet service in Southeast Asia makes me weep when I think of what we accept in the United States.  My experience at the dentist office in Auckland provoked a similar reaction.

The dentist, a late thirties, early forties man, using his lap top, took a three-dimensional image of my damaged tooth with high resolutions cameras and used that image to construct, on his lap top in real time, a perfect 3D filling, which he then “printed” using the 3D printer in his office.  Total time: one hour and fifteen minutes.  Total cost: $360.00.   

My new tooth and I reconnected with Meg and Melissa later that morning before driving to the Coromandel Peninsula.  Melissa has written about our delightful first days there and our upscale accommodations – nothing’s too good for “my little girl.”  Right.  After three weeks in a camper van, Melissa was ready for a little comfort.

From the Coromandel Peninsula, we drove to Tongariro National Park and checked into the Kiwi version of a roadside Motel Six.  I reasserted some budgeting authority over this enterprise.  Before you form any impression, let me say that I love these places, not in the same way I love a four-star guesthouse like the one in Coromandel, but in the way I love it when my whole family plays nicely with each other. These roadside motels – the only thing available in National Park – allow everyone to enjoy the natural beauty, and everyone, at least everyone on our trip, was decent and considerate of the paper-thin walls between rooms, the shared hot tub, and quiet hours.  

On our first full day in National Park, we hauled our tired behinds out of bed at six, grabbed some eggs, toast and coffee, boarded a shuttle bus and set off on the famed Alpine Crossing as the sun began to rise.  The hike is 19.4 kilometers up to a crossing through a volcanic crater and down the other side.  Total elevation gain is roughly 2500 feet.  For you Tolkien freaks, like me, this is the hike through Mordor.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

The climb starts gradually for the first hour and then drives up the mountain at a steep pitch before reaching the first “red” crater.  At the top, the hike flattens as we walked through moonscapes of volcanic rock. The clouds shifted and mixed around us like the steam issuing from the thermal vents.  From the second crater we descended through scree, digging our heels in to keep our footing.  Two neon green lakes magically appeared out of the fog.  From there, we walked downhill for a couple hours to the end of the trail, finishing in a wetland forest.  Josh, my Lord of the Rings companion, you were missed.  

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Back at the Motel Six, Meg and I, having tea and a PBJ, sat across from the side-by-side hot tubs.  A half dozen older Kiwi men, fresh off their mountain bikes, downed Coronas.  Four of them were planted in the hot tub looking as if they planned to stay a while. I struck up a conversation with them that lasted, on and off, the rest of the evening and into the next day. 

We really bonded later that evening at the pub watching a Rugby match.  They tried to explain the rules as we peppered them with questions.  A typical scene: something happens on the giant screen TV that elicits a simultaneous “Ooooh” from the Kiwis.  The three of us, realizing we just missed something important, start asking questions at the same time.  Two of the Kiwis try to explain, interrupting each other, until we all realize the futility of it, drink another beer and keep watching.  About thirty minutes later, Meg, the only one of us who seemed to grasp most of the rules, declared, “This makes me want to play rugby.”  Her thumb is not yet healed.  I’m hoping she sticks with Ultimate. 

On day two in National Park, we drove about an hour north to Taupo Lake, the largest lake in New Zealand. Taupo, along with Rotorua (about an hour north) is a tourist playground with the lake, mountain biking, hot springs, and about a hundred extreme, thrill seeker things to do from bungee jumping to luging on a wheeled sled down the side of a mountain.  We opted for a long hike that began at some hot springs, passed Huka Falls and ended at some amazing rapids that only come to life three times a day when the dam is opened.  We arrived at the dam in time to watch one of the releases.  In about five minutes, the gentle ripple of the stream below us was transformed into an impassable gauntlet of magnificent and deadly rapids. 

• 

• 

We returned from our hike the same way we started arriving at the hot springs about five hours after setting out.  We did not bring bathing suits, but, hey, what are quick-dry shorts made for anyway. Like a bunch of lemmings, we plopped ourselves in the shallow water where the thermal heated spring mixes with the cool flowing waters of the river.  We would probably still be there now except that we got hungry.  We ducked into an Italian restaurant, our quick-dry pants not quite quick enough to keep from soaking the restaurant seats. Whatever.  New Zealand is a casual place. 

The next day, we checked out of the hotel at National Park and began the four-hour drive back to Auckland. After ten minutes on the road, Meg happened to ask what day it was.  Melissa, the only one capable of remembering these things, said March 24.  A few seconds later, for reasons I cannot explain, I suddenly realized that I had booked our hotel in Auckland for March 25, not March 24.  I was off by one day.  This, unfortunately, is something else I tend to do, not unlike confusing the time of departure for the start of our trip.

As Meg said, “there are no mistakes, just happy accidents.”  We rerouted ourselves to Rotarua, checked in early to a motel, and found ourselves about an hour later standing on a 150-foot precipice with cords tied around our ankles.  Yes, we went bungee jumping.

When you are seated on a platform cantilevered over cliffs with nothing but emerald green waters 150 feet below you, the Kiwi bungee master asks if you would like to try and touch the water.  At that moment, I was concentrating more on keeping my sphincter muscle closed.  Meg, however, informed the bungee master that we (meaning Meg and me, we were jumping tandem) would like to touch the water.

Ankles secured, we waddled, arms wrapped around each other, to the edge, gave a smile to the camera, and on the count of three “leaned forward.”  Seriously, those were the instructions.  There is nothing but empty air for 150 feet, and on the count of three we were supposed to “lean forward.”  Halfway down, Meg yelled at me, through uncontrollable laughter, “touch the water, touch the water.” We missed by a foot, not that I noticed.  I had my chin tucked, another instruction, so rigidly into my chest that I did not see the water before we were rebounding upwards and dropping again.  I did not wet myself.  Meg could not stop hooting.  

You would think a fifty-eight year old would have enough sense not to do something like that.  You would also think a fifty-eight year old who had done it once would check the box, give thanks that his body still functioned and that he had not soiled himself and move on.  You would be wrong.  Melissa wanted a go at it.  Read that sentence again slowly.

The second go round, sitting on the bench getting our feet secured, I informed the bungee master that, yes, indeed, I wanted to try and touch the water again.  In the face of that Kiwi accent there really was no other answer.  On three, we leaned forward, Melissa squeezed her eyes shut, and I stretched as hard as I could (chin-tucking be damned) for the water missing it by a quarter inch. On the rebound, Melissa, delirious that she had survived, grabbed me – against the instructions – sending us into a spiral as we bounced yo-yo style upside down over the river.

But wait, there is more. Did I mention that anyone who jumps gets a second jump on the same day for less than half the cost?  I had used up my second jump discount, but Meg had not. Mom and I raced on wobbly knees to the viewing platform while Meg, a dot on the launching platform, prepared for her solo attempt at touching the water.  Unknown to either Melissa or me, the same Kiwi bungee master who had missed on his calculations in our first two attempts, said to Meg, and I believe this is an exact quote, “do you want to just go for it?”  What do you think Meg said?

At the bottom of her second leap, looking like a bobber on a fishing line, Meg completely disappeared in the lake before popping champagne cork style out of the water.  She did not simply touch the water; she fully embraced it. Later, Meg told me the bungee master told her to duck her head before impact or she would – again direct quote – “blacken her eyes.”  Box checked. I can’t figure out how to upload videos to this blog, but please visit my Facebook page to see the videos of these epic jumps.

The only way this trip could be any better than it has been is to have people we love with us. Here’s my shout out to Roaring Meg, and of course to my newly discovered dare-devil wife.  After thirty years, some couples might choose to renew their vows with some friends, some wine, some good food.  We apparently prefer jumping off a tower together.  I’m down with that. 

I love the way the fog-bank clouds creep over the tops of the eastern mountains, but never descend as low as the river valley, like bear cubs sniffing out from a safe distance the pocket of people camping down here.  It’s dawn in Glenorchy, a little hamlet anchored at the end of lake Wakatipu and hugged on three sides by mountains.  The sun is not yet above the eastern ridge although the spiked peaks of the western ridge are lit up like matches.

Melissa and I camped here with Gertie our first night not 20 feet from where I type.  We loved this place so much, we wanted to end the trip here as well.  In one of those odd “male things,” backtracking feels wrong, but as we drove down the eastern shore of Lake Wakatipu yesterday stopping for a “short hike” that turned into an 11-mile trek, I was cured of any resentment or misgivings.  I could drive that stretch of narrow twisted road looking at that lake shimmering a shade of blue found no where else on earth, snatching glimpses of the mountain peaks, some glacier covered, a hundred times and never tire of it. Glenorchy might be one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, and it is certainly the most majestic. 

As evidence that I have reached a place of wonder unencumbered by thoughts or desires, I left my phone (and camera) in the camper van yesterday no longer needing or wanting to capture the experience digitally.  We had been here once already, camera out, seeking those perfect shots to share with all of you.  Perhaps selfishly I wanted the place to myself this time although I spent most of the hike thinking about how happy I would be to show all of you this place, like a kid at Christmas showing you the toys I got.

I have reached a point in my faith journey where I honestly (and at least sitting here right now) without fear admit that I have no idea what happens to us when we die – heaven, reincarnation, dust unto dust, recycled atoms?  I did not participate in any way in the cosmic or sacred event that landed me in my mother’s womb fifty-eight years ago.  I did nothing to earn the right to come into existence, temporary or not. Everything I have experienced, everyone I have loved, everything I have tasted, touched, seen, and heard has been a gift.  If this life, however brief or long or well lived or wasted, was given to me no strings attached, does it really matter what happens when it is over?  What audacity to look such a gift in the face and demand that it last forever. 

To love, to be grateful, to sit in a camper van in the cold morning air and watch the clouds lift off the tops of the mountains not knowing — truly not knowing — if I will ever return here is, it seems to me, the only way to thank and praise whatever creative force or happenstance put me in this spot to begin with. 

My entire living space right now is about six feet by six feet, the size of the rear of the camper van made up like a miniature queen bed.  Melissa is next to me, earphones plugged into one of her Netflix adventures. I give her grief for watching them, but if I could get Game of Thrones, I’d be bingeing with the best of them.

We’re inside at 4:00 pm because, for the first time, it is raining.  It’s been raining all day.  We drove from our campsite outside of Invercargill to Mossburn, a speck of a town about an hour from Queenstown.  We’re pretty much done with the need to get somewhere or to see something.  We could have stayed an extra day or two at the beach, but with the rain, I’m glad we moved on.  Our final stop will be where we began, a high-end camper van site in Glenorchy with coffee (yes!) and a parlor that feels like the lobby of a nice mountain lodge.  We plan to treat ourselves by hunkering down there for our final three nights with Gertie. 

We are, for the first time in weeks, at a site that, although quite nice, does not have any spectacular natural feature begging us to get out and explore.  We’re in a large flat pasture with some interesting animals sporting stylish hair cuts.  The view of the mountains around us would be spectacular but for the low hanging, Seattle-in-November clouds that have settled down on us like a thick blanket. The pitter-patter of raindrops on the camper van coupled with the cool temperatures makes me ache for a nap, which I am not energetically resisting.  

Maybe it is part of human nature to want to sum up sections of our lives, to put a name to a period of time as if the name could contain everything about that era.  It’s not unlike the way CNN has done a series of documentaries about the last five decades.  Why do we think in decades?  Did the free-love radical sixties really end on January 1, 1970, immediately trading in bell-bottoms and peace signs for leisure suits and disco? I find myself trying to put this sabbatical into neat categories as well – Southeast Asia, Yoga Camp, Milford Trek, and now the camper van era giving way to something else.  

I have, as I’ve said in a previous post, found myself very much in the moment on this trip, but right now, I find myself very much in the moment and still.  Rain and clouds do that to me.  The stillness gives me the space to realize all those subtle things I have experienced on this trip, the things that took a back seat to the overwhelming natural beauty of this place.  For sixty consecutive days, Melissa has not been more than a few hundred feet away from me.  To put it another way, for sixty consecutive days, Melissa and I have been within hand-holding distance every minute of every day with only a few short exceptions. I haven’t felt cramped.  I haven’t felt the need to get some space.  You’ll have to ask her if she feels the same way. I think these last sixty days have been as close to a literal interpretation of the biblical saying “one flesh” as I’ve ever experienced.  How can this be?

In her post, Mountains to Sea with Gertie, Melissa noted how being surrounded by natural beauty makes it easy to be happy.  It lifts us beyond our everyday selves to someplace higher, or more real and vivid, or maybe less confused.  As my friend Jim Rock commented, something about traveling, being a titch uncomfortable is mentally and emotionally freeing.  I could not agree more.  In Seattle, if my toilet backs up, I’m in a tizzie even though I have five other toilets that work.  In the middle of nowhere in New Zealand my only self contained toilet leaks and I fix it, and Melissa, knowing that I will fix it, enjoys a second cup of coffee, and I enjoy laughing about the fact that I am fixing a toilet while she enjoys a cup of coffee.

I am a better person on this trip than I have ever been in my life.  I feel like the person I always wanted to be.  I strike up nothing conversations with the first person I meet at the camper van site and end up feeling like I’ve known the person all my life. The feeling, it seems, is mutual. Melissa and I struck up just this kind of conversation with the seventy-year old Kiwi couple in the site next to us last night.  A little later, after dinner, the woman, Maureen, knocked on our camper van door to tell me she was worried about the mole on my cheek.  She wanted to make sure I had had it checked.  I’ve had it since birth.  Reassured, she turned in for the evening.

We’ve written paragraphs about the natural beauty of New Zealand for obvious reasons, but we have not written as much about these subtle, wonderful, kind interactions with perfect strangers.   They happen every night, in every camp.  It’s as if all the wonder and beauty I absorb during the day radiates out of me at night.  I’d like to find a way to bring this back with me.  Like Jim said, however, maybe it is more than being in a beautiful place.  Maybe it is also part of getting away.  It makes me wonder though, what am I getting away from, and why would I go back?  

If there is a downside to feeling this happy and alive, it is the few times I check in with the news and my heart breaks. The insanity is so real from this perspective, so crushingly painful.  It is like watching a speeding train with all my friends and family aboard roar ever faster towards a washed out bridge, and everyone on board that train, no matter how well intentioned, just keeps shoveling coal into the engine.

Being happy is being in love with Melissa, and with the world around me.  Being happy is knowing that I am worthy of love because I have found a part of myself that I love.  Being happy is being grateful for this specific moment in a camper van with the rain coming down without consideration or weight given to all that came before or all that might come after.    

Oyster Cove Restaurant, Bluff, NZ

Don, for our reader’s sake and for our sake, we have agreed to interview each other in this post, keeping our answers to a thoughtful minimum.  Here’s my first question for you: We’ve just left the Catlins after another spree of sunny days and cool nights. What three images will you take away with you?

Miles of crescent beaches, windswept and empty. Rolling green pastures that sweep up to the sky in one direction and fall into the ocean in the other direction. Gnarled, dense rain forests that grow down the hills to the edge of the beach.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Lis, you are the visual one, taking in everything around you.  Whether we were walking on the beach or driving in Gertie among the fields, my question has always been, what are you thinking?  What do you take away with you from this place?

Melissa: Images are where I start, and I asked you because I love the way you describe things. The only one I would add are all the mossy waterfalls tumbling water in hidden rock canyons. The one we walked to yesterday – where someone had made a path by laying down sections of fern tree trunks – was especially sweet. 

• 

• 

• 

It’s harder to say what I take away from the Catlins. It’d be something about where I feel the most happy between civilization and nature. Right now, I look forward to a warm bath, but I don’t want to give up our morning walks on deserted beaches.  

What most surprised you about the Catlins, Don?

Don:  Two things that go in the category of sheer, dumb luck: the beautiful weather and how alone we were virtually all the time.  We had no rain the entire trip.  The only people we interacted with were the ones camping with us. I’ve never been anywhere in the world with so much unspoiled, empty, natural spaces.  Do you realize we have driven over 1,000 kilometers without seeing a single billboard? We walked on dozens of beaches and half a dozen lakes and did not see a single mansion or private property sign.  I love the Kiwis for sharing this rich beauty with everyone. One last thing: some of the places we walked to were over privately owned pastures, but they were still open to the public.  

So, Lis, you said you are looking forward to a warm shower.  I’m with you on that one, although we’ve had warm showers, just not in particularly luxurious bathrooms.  Is there anything (two things?) you liked about the camper van?

Melissa: First of all, Don, I said warm “bath.” But I could respond to your “plenty of hot showers” comment. For one thing, last night, my shower had a 5-minute timer. Not only did the one less minute throw me off, I had also had no place to put my soap or shampoo or razor inside the stall. To re-up the shower, I had to lean out of it, insert another NZ dollar and explain to the women standing there waiting that I would be out “in a minute.” Not exactly relaxing, since the next two minutes found me balancing on one flip-flop while I pulled on one leg of my pants, and then the other.

Gertie, though, now there’s a lovefest. I love our morning ritual. You, usually, get up and plug in the hot water and get our French press ready. If we have Internet, it’s fun to make toast on the floor while I prop my legs’ on the drivers’ seat and read the headlines. You also have kindly given me that seat, which also has the only ledge to set a coffee cup on. To clarify for our readers, after the second night, we have not unmade our bed in order to get out the actual table in the campervan. 

What about you? What do you like about Gertie?

Don: Our first 24 hours in the  camper van was like the time we took a ballroom dancing lesson together.  We lasted about five minutes before the instructor gently separated us and suggested we might make better progress if we practiced with a more experienced dancer.  Having said that, after the first few days, I love that we have learned the camper van shuffle.  We have a great routine in a tiny space.  I always knew we were compatible, but I didn’t know we could be so compatible in such a small space.  In fact, one huge take away for me after the last several days is how much I like being alone with you. Today, for example, we did the breakfast fox trot, cleaned the dishes and took a fantastically beautiful six-mile walk on the beach before 11:15 am.  Could we do this for the rest of our lives, like you suggested? 

Melissa: Absolutely. We can make time for each other so long as we know that time together is just that. It doesn’t have to be “special” or even cost anything. I will breakfast and walk with you anywhere, urban or pastoral. Simpler is better. Right now, I’m looking forward to whatever sauté scramble we’re going to cook up for dinner. It will pair well with the cheap wine we have left in the fridge.   

Okay, to wrap this thing up, here’s a simple association game for you. Just write down whatever comes first to mind.

Sheep – Dingleberries

Penguins – Josh

Seals – Playful

New Zealand Fish – Best Dinner We Had

Oysters at Bluff, New Zealand – Nine bucks an oyster and a split beer.  Give me a brew pub anytime.

Guy in Bathrobe at Last Trailer Site – Gutsy call.

I don’t even want to know what comments this word association might solicit or, worse, what it means.  Let’s blow this tourist trap oyster bar at the edge of the world and seek comfort in Lady G and the Amble on Inn trailer park!

I am at a point on this trip beyond the point of forgetting what day of the week it is.  I have “detached” from my normal daily routines to the point that trying to recall my former, pre-sabbatical, daily routine feels like trying to remember what I had to eat for dinner last week.  Number one, I can’t remember; number two, it doesn’t matter.  Philosophically, I think I am at that point where I understand in a concrete way the rather abstract notion that to not make a choice is to make a choice.  If you are still following me, not having a daily routine has become my new daily routine. 

Yesterday, we walked several miles along the beach on football field expanses of hard-packed, brown sand, climbed stairs to rocky overlooks and padded through dense brush, all before noon.  The beach was 150 yards from our camper van site, a little hole in the wall “kiwi” park we liked so much we stayed an extra night.  On the 8 or so mile walk, we saw maybe six people and about the same number of seals.  We also saw the famous Moeraki boulders, giant rocks eroded in perfect spheres tossed on the beach like marbles left behind by giants.  They don’t exist anywhere else in the world.

• 

• 

• 

• 

Later that evening, we walked out to a lighthouse hoping to see the rare penguins return to their private beach after a day of fishing.  We were too early and had to leave to make our dinner reservation – the only one we have made on this trip – at Fleur’s Place.  See Melissa’s last post for more about Fleur. 

The next morning, Gertie, our camper van, safely transported us to Dunedin, a town of about 150,000 people where Melissa reconnected with a high school friend, Sandra, who kindly fixed us lunch.  Afterwards, we strolled through the botanical gardens, stopping at a café on the way back to Sandra’s house.  That night, parked in a less glamorous camper van site – the urban sites are worth avoiding if possible – I realized something odd.  Sandra’s house was the first house I had set foot in, in two months.

We’ve christened our camper van Gertie or Lady Gertrude because she may look like a Winnebago, but she’s made by Mercedes.  After almost two weeks, I have discovered most of her secrets, and, as such, have grown quite fond of this house on wheels.  I am not sure Melissa, who has not driven Gertie, fully appreciates the girth of our genteel lady.  Yesterday, on the way to Sandra’s, Melissa shouted, “No, you missed the turn; pull a Ueey.” Lady G does not pull Ueeys.  She also finds it challenging to pull into parking spaces at grocery stores, another fact that often escapes Melissa’s attention.  Even if I manage to get the big lady between the lines, the odds of her getting out without clipping something are not good.

In pondering the differences between this life and my life in Seattle, I have had a few simple, but profound epiphanies. 

Epiphany number one: I could not do this trip with any other person on the planet except Melissa.  We know each other that well.  It’s not all sunshine and roses, but most of the time it is, and the times when she is hangry or I am annoyed are shared, like a shared psychosis, only in a good way.  There is Melissa.  There is me, and there is us.  I like all three. 

Epiphany number two:  There are things in our environment that steal some of our happiness without us even noticing it.  Two nights ago we camped at Lake Tekapo, a certified dark sky reserve.  I got up at 1:00 am to go to the bathroom.  Yes, I could have gone in the camper van, but I am still recovering from the urine on the floor of the shower situation. Besides, it was a nice night.  The moment I opened the door of the van, I stood completely still craning my neck to look up.  The Milky Way galaxy extended like a vapor ribbon in an arc from horizon to dark horizon.  In the middle of this gauze of stars, the Southern Cross burned brilliantly.  Pinpricks of light sparkled in a half-dome of glittering glory.  Light pollution is not toxic, and I understand the necessity of streetlights in a city, but I pay a price.  

Today we drove from Dunedin on the beginning of what is called the Southern Scenic Route.  The coastline undulates between flat sandy beach to magnificently carved cliffs and caves.  We stopped to walk to tunnel beach, an area that looks like the California coast about 60 million years ago.  Rolling hills with sheep grazing suddenly slice off into precipices hundreds of feet high.  Pacific ocean rollers crash on the cliffs sending spumes rocketing skyward.  A huge jetty protrudes into the ocean.  Its top still rounded and green.  It’s smooth brown sides shaved and carved by the tides. So much of New Zealand feels like watching the earth in its adolescence.  Its adult features only just emerging from beneath its juvenile innocence.  

I thought that being on this sabbatical would help me learn to be still, to quiet my mind and be in the moment.  I thought I would achieve this by being more diligent and consistent in meditating each day. I have not meditated once on this journey, at least not the way I did in Seattle, sitting quietly with my eyes closed. Yet I have rarely felt more in the moment, more still, more connected to an essential goodness in all things.  I am sure being with the woman I love in a place that defines beauty has much to do with my state of mind.  We are both free of the anxieties of work.  But Seattle is a beautiful place and Melissa and I are together there as well as here, and while work adds anxiety, it also provides a sense of purpose and meaning.  Yet, somehow, this environment makes it so much easier to see goodness in all things. 

This afternoon we stopped in Brighton, a small coastal town with a huge beach, about twelve streets, a convenience store, a gas station and a café.  One of the owners seeing the two of us typing away on our computers couldn’t help but have a little fun with us.  Him: you know the Internet is ten dollars per hour.  Melissa and me simultaneously: seriously.  Him: nah.  Something about being in a place of happiness draws other people to you.  Later that same day, in another small town, we ducked into a grocery store to get food for dinner.  Melissa started a conversation with an older gentleman who not only selected the Cabernet for our dinner, but spoke so lovingly about a particular apple only grown in the south island that we bought several.  Before leaving, he opened a bag of candies he was purchasing so Melissa could try one. 

Epiphany number three: we have within us, every single one of us, the power to reflect the irresistible beauty of creation.  For me, the challenge is whether I have the courage to believe that even when this incredible sabbatical ends.