Gray Day

Is there really such a thing as something we will want to do for the rest of our lives, or are we always in an ever evolving, forever changing state of affairs? Is it chaos or the evolution of all things?

The scenery leaving Napier is as disruptive and inconsistent as my current state. It is a fitting end, or perhaps it is a beginning. Past the golden pastures and grazing livestock, past the farmhouses and country cottages with white picket fences, past the seashore hiding a deadly undercurrent there lies a grove of great dead trees. Their bleached, skeletal remains could easily have been the inspiration for A Nightmare Before Christmas. Choked to death in the swampy water surrounding them now. A stagnant bog, algae thrives on its surface the harsh yellows and green of the primitive life forms standing out against the while trunks. The surface is covered by their presence, up until the very edge where the land suddenly rises sharply and it is again rolling grasslands. I imagine that this is what the world looked like right before the last dinosaurs died—life struggling to survive in an environment to harsh to sustain it. The water, dark and dank hides the remains of many but contributes to life as well. It is circular, taking and giving until it too will one day dry up and disappear. Something else will move in and take its place and the circle will be complete and able to continue around again.

I pass the swamp in less than 30 seconds, but it has made an impression on me. Without the swamp the land looks stable, in a state of production. Every few kilometers a new town with a church or a school, with immaculate lawns, and well cared for homes. The grasses are greener in the towns and the dairy cattle look straight out of a commercial for California cheese. Tress of all shapes and sizes, planted years ago, now provide ample shades for the front porches and sidewalks. And then the town is behind me and it is once again rolling ranch land with towering mountain ranges on either side. I am boxed in by them, but have no desire to try and cross them. That time will come.

It hasn’t yet ceased to amaze me how much New Zealand looks like California. I wonder if I will ever grow old of the constant showing of familiarity, but for now I am grateful for it. Grateful as I would be to suddenly see an old friend or hear my name called out in a crowd. I had made friends in Napier, friends that I will probably see before anyone from back home. I am starting to belong and in doing so I feel myself being pulled further and further away from my life before and I know that I can never go home; the scenery will have changed, and the people, but most of all I will have changed beyond any going back. At least that is the hope.

For almost four hours there is nothing new to look at. Each town is as the one before, each house resembles all the others and the pastures contain the same animals, be they cattle, sheep for elk. But it has come time to cross the mountains and drive into Wellington. It is then that the scenery abruptly changes. No more are there golden grasses and cornfields, gone are the slowly curving roads and flat drives, now we climb, with sharp cutbacks bordered by breathtaking drops and sheer cliffs that tower above. Part of the range that keeps the east coast so dry this area is lush from all of the moisture it has garnered for itself. The giant king ferns have returned. A flash of metallic on green and I know I have passed the silver fern. The foliage is dense the mountainside dark green.

The gray sky grows closer the higher I climb and soon the car is motoring through a cloud. All visibility beyond the edge of the road is lost and a viewing station at the top of the mountain is deserted. New Zealand’s rainforests are in the South Island, but if I didn’t know any better I’d say this was it. A world apart the car carries me onward.

February 3, 2007