Departing...

Tuesday February 19, 2008

So I’m sitting here in a hostel. A shitty one. And it’s my last day to kill before heading to the airport tomorrow. And Crosby, had rightly called me out on being whiny about somehow, wanting a desk job when I was frolicking around a kick ass country. How did that happen? Well, I went back and looked at my whining. And ah, hah. You’d think I’d have learned by now. It had been overcast and rainy that week. So, all my excitement about coming home and rushing headlong to February 20th and my airplane, has culminated in my extremely cold feet this morning. Perhaps it was, in the words of my esteemed friend Audrey, “a moment of clarity”. Well, it probably was, because this feeling first hit last night when, yes I again went out to dinner by myself. And enjoyed a couple glasses of wine (first a nice Italian Pinot Grigio and for dessert a slightly cough syrupy Gerwurztraminer) and then, strolled around in the dark. I had returned to the hostel with the intention of going to bed. But, I was the only one out of my three roommates to be back and after checking the clock, decided 9:30pm was a tad early to turn it in, especially when I’d have three other people come in and think, what the hell is up with this dude?

So I put on a fleece to guard against the frustratingly cold summer night in Christchurch. And I strolled along the river bank (backslash, man-made canal, vomit.) and tossed lightly the idea of going to another bar for another glass of wine before simply letting it drop. I was tipsy enough after two and decided to just wander. Well I came upon the Cathedral square. A large well maintained cathedral (how old could it be?) in the center of the city and decided to climb up the pedestal of a large statue opposed to the large Church doors by about 100 meters. Standing just to the left of the large red doors was an older man with tall legs in dark slacks and a white shirt rolled up to the elbows. His small black vest hanging loosely open across his front. There, amidst (admittedly surprising) Monday night traffic through the square (the drunken Brits, the strolling Japanese and the chilled Kiwis briskly walking home from a late night at work), this old man was playing church hymnals on presumably a recorder. Not having played a recorder since the third grade with Mrs. Cole and never playing more than silly dittys, my opinion of the recorder was quite poor. But the sound of church hymnals on a cool night in front of a giant cathedral lit up dramatically with that nighttime lighting that brings out the best accents of ancient architecture, had an almost forlorn tone, the tiny recorder trying to fill up so much space. So I sat at the base of the statue and put my chin on my hands and listened to the old man play. After a hymn or two, just as I was getting into it, he dejectedly threw his recorder into his large case against the coins and pulled out a cigarette. Lighting up, he pulled out his mobile phone and began pacing back and forth across the large red doors, the stop and go of a one-sided conversation muffled and rebounded across the square to my ears. It made me wonder, was this man a banker, a shopkeeper, a retiree? Was this his wife calling, frustrated by his hobby of spending weekday nights playing church hymnals in front of the cathedral? A regular roundabout argument calling him home? Was this an old friend beckoning him to the pub? Whoever it was and for whatever reason they were calling, I was chilly and didn’t want linger for nothing. I decided to wait it out though. So I stayed put and let my attention wander elsewhere on the square. There were two men playing guitars on the far side of the square that I could just make out now against the silence of the recorder. Contemporary songs on an arguably contemporary instrument. It didn’t fit the mood for me, here in this square. And then, my focus was called to right in front of me. Where a tipsy Japanese businessman in gray suit had stopped perhaps 20 ft in front of me and pulled out his large camera. I lazily stared at him as he looked at me through his large lens. Annoyed I turned my head to the couple who had walked by the statue and taken perch on a nearby bench with a bottle of wine. She was in a short blue skirt, she must be freezing, I thought. The man had a heavy jacket on and dark pants. The lighting from the cathedral dimly illuminated them and perhaps the romanticism of the night warmed that woman’s legs. The businessman shifted 6 paces to the left of me and refocused his lens. This time at least, pointing the lens up at the large statue whose feet I was occupying. I thought about moving so he could have an unobstructed photo opportunity. But bugger it, I thought, I was here first, and it’s one in a million of this man’s photographs, plus, it’s not even that cool of a statue. Some old European so-and-so with the ruffled garb of dressing like a peacock. By now, the older man had put away his phone and flicked his cigarette at the church door step, not bothering to smother it out. Well, I thought, it’s not love of the Church that brings this man out to whistle hymns at a late hour on a Monday. But I was glad to have the recorder back. And I listened to two or three more hymns before deciding it was late enough to go to bed, and while I was quite enjoying the scene, I knew, if I lingered too long, it would all be ruined. So I got up and meandered diagonally across the square. Feeling in my pockets for any coins I could toss to the man. None. And as I reached the edge of the square, I could faintly hear a recorder rendition of Paul Simon’s Can you feel the love tonight, slow and melancholy. I laughed under my breath and thought. Perfect.

So I woke this morning, hoping to get a nice sunny last day to pass out in the large central botanical gardens (Christchurch’s nickname is the Garden City). The weather forecast was for a fine day, but alas, I’ve woken to overcast skies. God. Damn. It. So I’ve decided to write instead and perhaps fiddle around with some errands until the sky decides to cooperate. So like I said, I had a moment of clarity in which I saw the normalcy of ‘home’. And it freaked me out. (obviously, duh, right? Didn’t you know this was coming?) Why the hell would I want to plan and try to avoid things like this? So I’ve got cold feet and now I don’t want to leave AND I’m fine with that. It’s hard I think, to imagine what home is like. I’ve been away for so long (far longer than the calendar would show). So now, I’m not sure I’m ready. There’s nothing really left here for me, but I’m not sure I’m ready to go home. Sure, I am for some things, but the normalcy, I’m not sure I’m ready for that. What happens if I get bored? What happens if it’s all the same? But wasn’t this what I was craving not more than a week ago? So I know it will all be good. And it’s of course normal to have some apprehension before another large change like this. There, flagged, duly noted, check. I’m apprehensive about returning after really, living in another world for 7 months. Of course, I’ll miss New Zealand. I already miss the people I’ve met here. And I miss Ireland, correction, the people I met in Ireland. But what am I going to do? Stay in New Zealand forever? Milk it for all it’s worth? I mean, I did. So, let’s go home.