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?

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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.

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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.  

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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.

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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.