Travel Notes from Aotearoa New Zealand
Thoughts from the Southern Hemisphere.
The shop is back from spring break // Do you need a permission slip this month?
Hello friends,
A little past 10pm at LAX, and I am wandering around waiting to board a long-haul flight. I’m tired, could very well just settle into a chair, but I’ll be sitting for the next 13 hours. Better use the legs now.
I walk around, stretch, and scope out what the other waiting passengers are doing to bide their time. Two women are chatting and laughing, which feels more promising than the couple both staring at their phones, like zombies in the night.
I peek over the shoulder of a man who looks to be in his 70s. He is writing in a notebook, the words are all in caps. The handwriting looks exactly like my father’s, who removed all lowercase letters early in his career as a surveyor so that his notes would be legible1.
MY TRIP TO NEW ZEALAND it says at the top of the page, followed by his trip dates. Simple, succinct. At the beginning of his journey, the pages are yet to be filled. I wonder what will end up on them.
It feels like a weird time to travel. Inappropriate even. We’re bombing another country. Human rights are being stripped away. The climate is in crisis. Gas prices are sky rocketing.
I can hear internal responses to my own personal criticisms. I got this ticket ages ago on miles! I’m going to spend time with family! I ponder for a second my own need to justify this choice. The world is on fire, you’re taking a trip? I guess I don’t really have a good answer, but it does make me want to ensure that I am paying attention, not squandering any part of the journey.
“The US is a hot topic right now isn’t it?” the Uber driver says to me as we make our way across Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. He looks into his rear view mirror to catch my eye in the backseat.
Whenever anyone asks where we’re from, I stay mostly quiet, let my sister-in-law do the explaining of how we’re all here and where we call home.
Four blue passports, three with a kangaroo and an emu, one with an eagle. As the bearer of the one with the eagle2, I feel a mix of shame, embarrassment, and responsibility. When my mouth opens and my American accent slips out, the urge inevitably to follow it with I am so sorry.
I studied abroad in France during the George W. Bush administration. I would argue that my French was largely improved thanks to the challenge of that political moment. Every single dinner party inevitably involved a long-winded discussion of politics, people, and landscape—vocabulary forged by finding the words to stand against what you don’t believe in, and the others to defend what you love.
The current moment feels so inexplicable, I’m struggling to find the words even in my own mother tongue. Where does one even begin?
In one store, after discussing campervans, art, and paddleboarding, a woman proudly shows me a FCK ICE button that she’s been gifted by an American she recently met, next to one that says Toitū te Tiriti. “Honor the treaty” in Te Reo Māori3.
I take note of how much Te Reo Māori I see in public places. On highway signs, in towns, on menus, in museums. In the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū there’s an exhibit He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil, an artistic exploration of history, land, and people. It includes Kā Whakatauraki: The Promises, an entire room dedicated to showcasing the history and reality of the millions and millions of acres “sold” to the Crown in exchange for what was described as “crumbs that fell from the white man’s table.”
The original deeds sit behind glass, faded pen strokes that outline how history has been dictated by an elite few in power.
I remind myself to spend more time trying to learn at least a few Lushootseed words when I return home. I recently learned that qəlub ʔə swatixʷtəd (pronounced here), is used for “trillium,” and translates to “eye of the earth.”4
I hope these favorite spring ephemerals will still be in bloom when I get home.
Travel is by nature a consumptive experience. You are taking things in. You are a visitor. You are there to see, smell, hear, taste, touch. Those experiences so often become a flattened checklist. The must sees and the must dos. An itinerary built around a checklist, in order to return and nod, yes yes, I saw that famous thing.
What does it mean to be in a place without trying to sculpt it into what you think it should be?
It’s a family trip, so everyone gets to identify at least one thing that they really want to do. Which is how I end up traipsing around Hobbiton in the pouring down rain, fulfilling 14-year-old nephew’s dreams. One of my favorite excursions ends up being one I never would have planned myself: a visit to the National Kiwi Hatchery. An animal lover, this is my sister-in-law’s pick.
Endemic to Aotearoa New Zealand, it’s estimated that there once were upwards of 12 million kiwi. Now, there are around 68,000 left, and without support, they could go extinct within two generations.
At the hatchery, kiwi eggs are incubated and hatched, the birds raised until they are big enough to hold their own in the wild against the assorted threats: stoats, ferrets, weasels, cats, and dogs. Only 5% of kiwi birds hatched in the wild make it. In several places when we drive, I spot “kiwi live here” signs, politely requesting that dogs are kept on a leash.
As we’re heading into winter, the hatchery is at the end of its season, but they happened to have received a couple of surprise eggs recently. Transported from the forest to the hatchery in a chilly-bin (the New Zealand term for cooler, and which is really fun to say).
We just happen to be doing our tour when one of the tiny birds needs to be fed. Our group stands in a dark hallway outside of the incubation room. We get to look through the glass and see what’s happening inside, but we’ve been strictly told to not take any photos.
One of the hatchery workers weighs out a small amount of food—basically a special kiwi meatloaf—then sits with the bird in her lap and tries to encourage it to eat. The kiwi doesn’t seem to be interested, keeps trying to crawl out of her lap. She calls in another woman to help. They switch spots in the chair, the new woman gives it a go. They both look at each other and laugh, clearly they’ve done this before. With her hands freed, the first woman makes a few notes on the kiwi’s growth chart, holds it up to the glass so that we can see.
I stare through the glass and think about what it means to continually do one small thing with the conviction that it matters.
I drive on the left side of the road, shift the gear stick with my left hand. Not for the first time in my life, but I feel a solid sense of accomplishment nonetheless. I eat a red kiwi fruit. I learn about new-to-me artists and writers.
On a dark night, I see the Milky Way. Orion’s belt is upside down. I spot the Southern Cross too. Same earth, different sky, depending on where we find ourselves.
I am moved by how nice everyone is. How gentle everything feels. Minus the cyclone that leads to wild wind and rain and a constant buzz of emergency alerts on phones, of course. We don’t read any news while we’re there. I don’t check my email for two whole weeks. I don’t even get a data plan, so the only time anyone can reach me is when I get on wifi. It’s a much-needed break.
I keep my eye out for bookstores, and my pile grows. One about Māori astronomy, another with a magpie as narrator. At one bookshop, I overhear an Australian passing by on the street, “A bookstore? Well that’s a throwback, you don’t see many of those anymore!”
I roll my eyes and respond silently sir, are you even paying attention? I grab an extra book in the name of supporting the industry.
Every morning, I note how different the soundscape is—all kinds of different birds engaged in their daily chatter. I make note of the ones I see.
Cormorants during a boat ride, specifically the Pied shag/Kāruhiruhi who has a white belly. The New Zealand fantail/Pīwakawaka which reminds me a bit of a song sparrow because of its tiny round body and angle of its tail feathers. Plenty of Silvereye/Tauhou.
But the swamphen/Pūkeko is my favorite, sort of like a chicken with the attitude of a peacock.
I’ve dragged a sketchbook and art supplies all the way to the other side of the world and yet I don’t make a single mark on the page. I remind myself that sometimes you need a complete break.
I do scribble the occasional thing in my notebook. Snippets of what I want to remember.
Cheesymite: pastry, marmite, cheese, spring onion
A baked good we want to attempt back at home.
Sitting in that same café:
Playlist
—Veruca Salt
—Nirvana
—Hole
All the women are wearing black Levis.
In other words: it could be 1998 in the Pacific Northwest.
On our second to last night we’re in Ōtautahi Christchurch. We happen to be there when Everybody Eats is doing a popup dinner. The organization is devoted to addressing food waste, food insecurity, and social isolation, creating three-course meals from rescued ingredients, serving it at communal tables, only charging people whatever they can pay.
Tonight the pop up is at a wood-fired pizza restaurant, with the oven in the center of the room and a pile of chopped wood in the corner.
We’re seated next to a young family, a couple with their bright blonde toddler who is clearly at the peak of his frenetic, tired energy that’s still pretty fun but at any moment could tip over into breakdown. They’ve recently moved back here from Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, used to love going to the Everybody Eats restaurant there.
It feels good to strike up a conversation with strangers like this, although the second I open my mouth I know we’re going to skip over any small talk.
“Where are you visiting from?”
“The U.S. We live near Seattle.”
Pause
“How is it over there?”
I don’t ever really know what to say. Terrible? I’m sorry? The system is broken? Billionaires are bad? Things are corrupt? Power is evil? Oh yeah and we don’t really have healthcare? Or the other things, the more positive ones. We have such a good community of people who believe in the power of humanity. Everyone is trying to do what they can. We read books and laugh and make art and cook each other meals and talk about what a collective future can look like. We are surrounded by people committed to continually doing one small thing with the conviction that it matters.
I don’t remember what words I cobble together, but whatever it is, it doesn’t end the conversation. We all just nod silently in agreement. The toddler walks to my side of the table and asks me to come with him. Ok! Maybe it’s weird to walk off with a stranger’s child, but the parents don’t seem alarmed. The toddler walks me over to a large, empty stainless steel fermentation tank with a hole in the side. He puts his head in and makes noises like a bird, reveling in the sound of the resulting echo. I muster up the hoot of an owl and do the same.
We walk back to the table. The family takes off, lest the breakdown happen before they exit the restaurant. They have a 20-minute drive to get home.
Luc and I finish our meal, decide what we want to pay and thank the woman at the register for a wonderful evening. We walk home through the city, streetlights reflecting off the shiny surfaces of new buildings constructed in the wake of the mass earthquake 15 years ago.
Proof of human’s capacity to rebuild after everything falls apart.
I cross time zones and the International Date Line and return back home to more light, warmer weather. Even in two weeks the garden has changed, the kale plants have basically turned into a forest. Everything is a vibrant green, the promise of spring. Dogwood flowers peek out of the forest canopy. I meet with a friend to brainstorm on a project. I await my book edits, steel myself for diving back in, doing the final push that pulls all the threads of an enormous project together.
I finish the book with the magpie as the narrator. It’s excellent. I have a call with long distance friends. I finish my book club book about migration. I pick some morels that have popped up on my parents’ property. I start reading a book about cults and doomsday thinking in America. I make plans with friends to go to an art event. I read a depressing article about AI. I do a sketch for a poster for our local farm tour. I walk outside in the morning and listen to the birdsong, back to the familiar soundscape.
I commit to continue doing small things with the conviction that they matter.
-Anna
ps: you didn’t think I was going to leave you without the titles of all those book references did you?
The Axeman’s Carnival by Catherine Chidgey (definitely want to read more of her work now)
Solito by Javier Zamora
Cults Like Us: Why Doomsday Thinking Drives America by Jane Borden.
And if you haven’t read Jacinda Ardern’s memoir, then that can be on your list as well. I read that earlier this year and it’s such a good read for anyone who needs a reminder that grace, kindness, and humility makes for powerful leadership.
Tacoma friends! I had the honor of having one of my papercuts used for the cover of the new book No Contact: Writers on Estrangement. Editor Jenny Bartoy is doing a fireside chat and book launch on Thursday May 7th at Grit City Books. Come join!
I fell in love with the work of artist Gretchen Albrecht while I was in New Zealand.
Jami Attenberg is hosting a writing workshop on May 9th.
We’re speaking fewer words than we used to—almost 30% over the last decade. Maybe a good reason to strike up a conversation this weekend?
Lindsay Stripling is doing another session of Yellow Brick Road. I took this course a couple of years ago and loved it and would absolutely recommend.
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I believe in fact checking, so I asked my dad if I remembered this correctly and he informed me that the habit was solidified after reading survey note taking manuals, specifically the Handbook of Survey Notekeeping by F. William Pafford. And this has absolutely nothing to do with anything in this whole newsletter, but we love a rabbit hole and I now am looking at my entire notebook with new eyes.
If you’ve never looked at it in detail, the eagle is gripping an olive branch in one talon and arrows in the other. They represent peace and war. According to the State Department, “The eagle always casts its gaze toward the olive branch signifying that our nation desires to pursue peace but stands ready to defend itself.” An eagle with a military industrial complex.
“Te reo Māori, the Māori language, is fighting back from the brink of extinction. Nearly lost to us through colonization, there has been a revitalization of our native tongue in the last fifty years, after a petition brought to parliament in 1972 led to te reo Māori being recognized as an official language of New Zealand in 1987.” More here.
So many plants to learn.
I loved reading this ❤️❤️
“I commit to continue doing small things with the conviction that they matter.”
They DO. And thank you for the reminder. It’s tempting to give in to despair. If all we can do are small things, then that’s enough.