By Elliot
We just landed in Auckland this morning. With a 14-hour overnight flight and some jet lag, we are both exhausted. Ruth is “resting her eyeballs for a little bit” (her words, not mine) as we sit at a picnic bench on the quay. We want to check in to our hotel, but our flight landed before 6am, and check in is normally not until 3pm, so we have some time to fill.
The day before our flight to Auckland was Moving Day. We gave up our lease and put all our stuff in storage. I believe that we are technically homeless now.
It took half a day for us to move everything out of our little laneway house and into storage. Half a day for our home to turn into an empty house, devoid of the all memories we made there (such as the many hours we spent on the couch knitting).
Whenever there is a last of something, I always yearn to capture the essence of the moment. The last day of my job. The last day we lived in Israel. The last morning I woke up in my bed in my laneway house. But no matter how much I try to bring awareness to those moments, the truth is that they fade from memory so fast. Things that seem significant at the time quickly become unimportant in hindsight.
Before we left Vancouver we discussed our trip with many people, and one thing I understood from our conversations is that New Zealand is shrouded in mystery. People in Canada have friends and cousins that live in New Zealand, but know very little beyond that in terms of their whereabouts. When we were making changes to our car insurance, the lady helping us told us an aunt of hers lives in New Zealand. Where, I asked. She didn’t know: but she moved from the Philippines with her wife. Someone else told us they have a cousin in New Zealand. Where, I asked. Again, they didn’t know, but they knew that their cousin was into disc golf.
In short, all I currently know about New Zealand is that there is a Filipina woman living here with her wife, and at least one person who likes disc golf. I’m looking forward to learning more about the country and its people.