A year is like a day: Remembering Christchurch.

A year ago I was in an “earthquake situation.”

I’m not sure what people can tell me.

Because I’m not sure what I can tell them.

Bless us all for trying.

Sitting still.

I made strange choices. Better choices, I guess.

So I missed it. Kind of.

But what did I have to do with it, anyway?

What difference does it make?

“Answers” add debris.

I don’t want someone to look out for me and no one else.

This week, I cried, and scanned the room for exit signs.

I can’t forget that dreadful roar, sometimes.

One night, I slid down the ice in the dark.

“Damned if I won’t go sledding!” I told a friend.

80 years isn’t much more than 28.

Yesterday, the anniversary, I was sincere, and unsure.

A little bit limited by words.

Everyone seems closer.

As they have always been.

earthquakes

So. Just to clear up the confusion:

I’m not in New Zealand anymore.

I caught a flight from Christchurch to Auckland the day after the earthquake. Then I flew home.

The floors seemed to tremble in Auckland, Sydney, LA, St. Louis and home. It’s stopped now.

The night of the quake, I stayed on the floor of a motel, like I said. I sat up all night with my passport in my pocket.

I found a place by an emergency exit.

I would say that’s fitting.

I think I fell asleep, but I woke up to the sound of a train hitting the walls.

(I was leaning against a wall at the time.)

Lots of aftershocks. That’s why I didn’t go exploring.

I get the feeling that natural disasters are very exciting to see, unless you’re too close and you actually see things.

At least it’s not me.

I stood in line to find a seat on the plane. A guy walked past me, carrying a box labeled “17 large body bags.”

I don’t really like talking about earthquakes.

the one in which i find myself in a natural disaster

“This is important,” an old woman whispered.

She handed her cell phone to the bus driver, and they stared at the screen.

I grabbed my backpack and stepped down.

Lunch. Peanut butter.

It was raining.

“Six point two,” I overheard.

Wait.

I told myself I was paranoid about travel delays, and kept walking.

But then I saw 30 people standing in a souvenir shop.

Silver ferns and kiwis.

They stared at a little television set.

No one was breathing.

I walked inside, and looked up.

I saw someone carrying a teenager, skinny legs draped over his rescuer’s elbows.

The kid was covered in dust, and unconscious. Or dead.

I felt sick, and warm.

I stared at the ground until my feet hit the gravel outside.

And I felt numb.

I called my parents:

“You might see some coverage,” I said.

(They hadn’t heard.)

But it had just happened.

I hopped on my bus. I had to get to the city so I could leave it.

The driver didn’t know.

(He didn’t know?)

He got a call a couple of hours later.

(Other drivers had pulled over. Blank stares at steering wheels and cell phones.)

“I can’t drop you off in center city,” the driver announced. “It’s closed off.”

Some people hopped off the bus in front of a supermarket on the outskirts of town. I stayed on.

We stopped at a broken traffic light. A man on the street took a photo.

I guess he’d never seen a tank in the road before.

The driver took us to the airport.

The airport was closed.

“Any idea what to do,” a British girl asked as the driver tossed our bags into the wet grass.

But the driver didn’t know.

I looked around for a place to camp out, although I didn’t have a tent.

Trees seemed like a bad idea.

I met a couple of women from the bus, and we walked into a hotel.

It’s better to be with other people at times like these.

“You’re welcome to any floor space you can find,” a hotel employee told us.

We stepped over tourists until we found an empty space in a hallway.

I left my luggage for a second, just to go exploring.

Lucky travelers curled up on couches, watching footage of tumbling walls, and shattering windows and buckling roads. And people screaming.

I don’t know why anyone wants to see a city destroyed.

We were in the city.

may i set the scene? i set my travel plans …

So. Lake Tekapo.

Saturday.

I sat in the I-Site and stopped crying.

(45 minutes?!)

The employee said she’d drive me if I couldn’t find a bus.

But I didn’t know where to go.

Well. Home, for one.

It’d been a while.

I had summer plans for Alaska, and I wanted to find a job teaching English in Eastern Europe for the fall.

I missed my dog in Missouri.

“Christchurch!” I said to myself. I’d spend a couple days there, then fly to Auckland and fly home.

But there was the matter of Milford.

These Sounds. More like fjords, they say.

Everyone talks about them.

I thought I’d take a bus to Te Anau, and make my way to Milford from there.

Te Anau is closer to Queenstown.

“Queenstown!” I decided.

I asked a guy about hostels, since I didn’t know the city.

He recommended one, and I called.

One bed left.

In Queenstown, I stood in line at the I-Site. I started to notice Milford Cruise brochures.

(Impossible to miss.)

Maybe I actually needed to go on the water.

I didn’t feel like buying a trip, so I just asked where I could find my hostel.

She almost rolled her eyes, she did.

“Next door,” she said.

The hostel owner recommended a cruise for Sunday.

He called and it was all sold out.

Oh.

See, I’d decided to fly home Thursday. That meant I had to get to Auckland by Wednesday.

But that didn’t leave me much time for travel delays.

Forget it, I thought. I’ll just skip the cruise.

I stared at my laptop screen. Short-notice flights.

Oh man.

Yeah. Forget Milford.

But I don’t know. I did a search on Google.

I found a cruise for $111NZ.

A bus from Queenstown to Te Anau was $40 each way.

(And Te Anau isn’t Milford.)

And the Milford bus stop isn’t the Sounds.

But the cruise was already full for Sunday.

If I took a cruise Monday, I’d have to sit in a bus for nine hours on Tuesday – Queenstown to Christchurch – and fly from Christchurch to Auckland on Wednesday afternoon.

I had booked a ticket from Auckland to St. Louis on Thursday morning.

Did I mention I was feeling poor?

I had already backtracked enough, and changed my mind a time or two. I didn’t want to pay any fees if I missed my plane.

I also wanted to drink water before I flew home. With layovers, what, 35 hours?

Yes. I count.

Plus, I wanted to see a friend in Auckland.

It made sense.

But I’d been trying to be spontaneous, or something, and not plan for everything.

I really wanted to visit Milford.

“Fine!” I told myself.

I booked the cruise for Monday, and hoped I wouldn’t be delayed traveling to Christchurch Tuesday, or Auckland Wednesday.

“Just this once,” I told myself, “I won’t worry.”

I got the last seat on the boat.

a “host” mistakes me for a 4-year-old throwing a tantrum in the checkout lane

I stopped in Lake Tekapo to work for a week.

A woman said hello. She and her husband owned a bed and breakfast. I found it on the Help Exchange website.

She smiled at me.

She had a cross made of wire hanging on her wall.

(But God knows what that can mean.)

Her husband made sheep out of coils of rusty wire.

He asked me to help.

He gave me a leather apron, and yellow flat-brimmed baseball cap.

I looked like Oil Can Boyd.

I spun wire into six loops, cut it, then tossed it into a dusty wheelbarrow.

Flowers.

He asked me to go faster once.

(Just once.)

But he sells these pieces.

Farmers give him wire.

I don’t get anything out of it.

I sped up.

I guess because I’m from the Midwest.

We talked about the American president.

(It’s okay to do that now.)

I worked with a German couple. They helped the woman run the B&B for a couple of weeks.

The B&B owner nursed an addiction to Facebook.

She fed us chicken and vegetables.

But she and her husband stared at the television behind me while we ate.

Oh.

(I like to think I’m interesting. Or maybe they are.)

Then they left for a day to watch their horse race in Christchurch.

They left us an egg dish in the laundry room.

They locked the rest of the house.

That woman was starting to get to me.

I thought she just took a while to warm up. That first smile. I guess it wasn’t real.

So one day I stared at the kitchen tiles below my toes.

She filled the doorway, and chatted with a guest.

“Excuse me,” I said. I had to get my toast in the other room, see.

Nothing changed.

The guest walked away.

The B&B owner dug her nails into my arm.

“The guests are first priority!” she hissed.

“I know that,” I said, and picked up my toast.

I sat down and ate half. Then I stood up.

“I have some issues with how I’m being treated,” I said. “You’re going to have to find yourself another Helpxer,” I said.

“See ya,” she told me.

“Good riddance,” I replied.

(I know.)

I walked outside.

And burst into tears.

dear abby: i think my helpx host is high

I thought about visiting Southland, just to see what it looked like.

“There’s nothing there,” a German guy insisted.

But a bus driver said it was like the end of the world.

(That did it.)

I caught a bus to Invercargill.

I found a hostel where I could work for a couple hours a day in exchange for accommodation.

The hostel owner wrote me in all caps.

(HE SAID YES.)

But it was short notice, so I was glad.

I hopped off a bus, then walked in the rain for 20 minutes.

I changed my clothes, then took a tour of the hostel.

It was just a house.

The owner, a guy in his 40s, pointed at a stuffed animal standing on a snowboard.

“Big Bird, Mary is from America,” the owner announced.

Big Bird wore a black cap.

A cap with a green pot leaf.

It was funny, at first.

An overweight woman told me hello, then asked this owner to escort her to her car.

It was the middle of the afternoon.

When the owner returned alone, he announced that she was fat.

Um. Hi.

“I told her she needs to lose weight,” he told me.

“How did that go?” I asked.

“Not well,” he said.

But he used to be fat, and people judged him, he told me.

And anyway, he didn’t want to be with her anymore.

I nodded. I needed a nap.

A few days later he asked all of the guests to join him in the kitchen.

I suppose there were 10 of us.

He was making a cake, he said, to share.

He wore a plastic hard hat.

He took chocolate chip cookies out of a plastic package, and crumbled them into a plastic ice cream container.

He added milk, and warmed the mix in the microwave for 7 minutes.

He joked a lot.

I guess that’s what it was.

He worked on that cake for 45 minutes.

I think he was high.

(No, I mean, pretty much all week.)

I went to the library most days.

mountains in real life, not as metaphors

I stopped in Wanaka for a few days.

It’s in the mountains somewhere.

The town reminded me of Boulder. But I haven’t been there for quite some time.

There were so many mountains around that I felt obligated to climb one.

I found someone to walk with, and he found someone else.

We caught a lift in the back of someone’s Jeep to the track.

Mountains are nice as metaphors, as long as you’re admiring someone else’s courage.

Hiking is different.

Those guys walked too fast for me. I told them I wanted to take my time.

(Or catch my breath.)

After a few minutes, I had this idea that I should start running to get into shape for hiking.

(It’s like reading books about writing books.)

Anyway.

Three hours uphill. Switchbacks.

(I didn’t linger much, except to kneel down next to the baby hedgehog.)

I ran into one of the guys. I could tell he was worried because he offered me water.

(It was 80 degrees and sunny.)

I told him he should keep it for himself.

That was almost the wrong thing to say.

The way down was faster, but not by much.

I know I’m young, but my knees were killing me.

Someone asked if me if I was okay.

I wasn’t. But what was he going to do, carry me?

He walked on.

Some guy came back to walk the last part with me.

He said he was worried because I was too slow.

(I think it was lost in translation.)

Oh, but I made it.

In many ways it was worthwhile.

In many ways not.

Here’s the middle part.

Maybe you’ve heard of Mt. Aspiring?

It’s over there.

west coast

rivers

I’d heard about Punakaiki.

It’s a little town on the West Coast of the South Island.

It’s got rocks that look like pancakes.

(But they really don’t.)

Blast.

I’d heard good things.

But I’ve heard good things about everything.

I find it hard to choose.

I find it difficult to do nothing.

(That’s just me.)

The hikes were supposed to be nice.

(Okay. A little friend named Lonely Planet may have mentioned it.)

If only I could think for myself!

Still.

I was tired, but not tired enough to rest.

So I found this track by the hostel.

(My hostel was on the beach.)

But the track led me by the river, underneath ferns and limestone
bluffs.

I couldn’t believe how pleasant it was.

I walked for a few hours.

I carried my flip-flops partway.

Someone kayaked.

I forget how I miss running water.

All these beaches, see.

the one in which i meet a gay former Buddhist monk in a bar

On my last night in Golden Bay, I went to another bar with that same guy.

Oh, stop.

We sat outside by the fire.

We saw a woman we’d met earlier and waved hello.

A man approached us.

The woman followed.

Oh.

The guy didn’t seem to notice me as much.

(What?)

But I realized why.

We started talking.

I’d just read an article about American psychologists trying to turn gay men straight.

I know people.

It didn’t work.

But I’m from the Bible Belt.

I think that’s why he mentioned that he used to be a Buddhist monk.

I know it’s not the same thing.

Buddhists are going to hell.

But in any case, I mentioned conditions in Christianity.

I’m skeptical.

(Apparently that’s a problem.)

So we chatted about meditation.

And other things.

I said I don’t pray for people. I spend time with them.

But he didn’t judge.

(Unlike me.)

I must say:

Meditating for 8 hours a day does great things for the skin.

In any case.

He mentioned he had an outfit outside.

So we went outside.

He changed into a short dress, heels, and a blonde wig.

He asked me to hold his keys and credit card.

I did.

(Wouldn’t you?)

We went back to the bar and continued chatting.

Me and the former monk.

I’ve got a story about that.

(Maybe another time.)

I talked to the others, too.

(We had to raise our voices to be heard over the DJ playing reggae mixes.)

A guy asked the ex-monk in a dress to dance.

(Or something.)

We laughed about that for a while.