Moving On Again

Leaving your home feels much the same whether you have been there for years or months, and each time I leave knowing that many I will never see again, though I may want to, but that there will always be more people to meet to become close to and to leave. It is a circle that grows to include those that continue on in my mind, as their presence never fades completely. We touch each other and change one another and move through the world and time hoping to have a profound effect that will not be forgotten in the passage of life.

It is easiest when you are the one doing the leaving. Leading up to my departure from Tahunanui Beach my time was too consumed to allow room for feelings of sadness. I busied myself with parties and dinners. I had a whole room to shove back into a backpack and the prospect of great adventures to look forward to. There were routes to plan and places to contact. I was busy and excited and happy with short tinges of sadness when I had the moment to reflect on the people I now loved who would not travel on with me.

I left Tony and Marcus and Rob and Daniel. I left Lisa and Barry and Carolyn and Ben. I left those I just met and wished I could have spent more time with and those I have seen so much you would think I would be aching for a change, but I wasn’t and I feel their absence when I am still and the old sneaks up behind me.

Already there are more people to keep in contact with, a list of travelers and harvest interns to look up when I am in their corner of the world. It doesn’t matter where you go in New Zealand; at this time of year we are everywhere. Fresh out of the wineries and anxious to see as much as possible before our lives take us from here; there are car loads of us moving up and down both islands. There is a convergence in Queenstown and the scenery changes but the faces are again the same.

You spy gumboots with winery logos in the back of cars and a conversation strikes up. The twenty questions I use to ask fellow travelers have changed to include one more: “Which winery did you work for?” We share horror stories of tanks crushing in because someone forgot to vent the top, of accidental blends and stuck ferments. We brag and share accolades—proud of our hard work and the people we worked under. It does not matter where you go for harvest is done in New Zealand and the hard workers are looking to have a good time and will go anywhere to find it.