More than three weeks in New Zealand with Mom and we’ve had the chance to see a few faces of the place. Underneath every stone there’s an additional one to be uncovered, and that’s how we’re led from here to there, everywhere. Anything we explore is an effort to explore ourselves - what an opportunity we’ve had here. More than before, I’m feeling all the journeys that have led to this extended, improvised, meandering, unexpected one with mi madre. To be able to feel like you’ve come home in some places after feeling wholly unwelcome in others, inviting the vicissitudes of adventure. The dark night of our arrival in Auckland, picked up by Noel, our first Couchsurfing host, a foreshadowing of what would soon come… being yelled at, called thieves for taking a slice of Frenchies’ pie and kombucha soda. How Mom found our angel Jannelle at a supermarket, we were given free dumplings, and an all-around Auckland tour the next day. How Mom was seated with Lori in torture the entire time at Dhamma Medini Vipassana Centre, thinking Lori was the one who tattled on her to the assistant teachers about talking to herself because she was “bored as.” Lori becoming another angel who hosted us and drove us to Coromandel Peninsula. Echoes of homelessness, shootings, rising costs, holiday crowds, unprecedented flooding, erosion, and deforestation. New Zealand, you have your growing contradictions but I can’t resist your perfection.
