LIVING ON MY OWN
My campervan weeks passed in a dream of endless valleys, rushing ice rivers and various Germans. I read and thought a lot, drank cups of tea out of plastic cup with van perched atop vertiginous point after point. I skydove in Queenstown.
New Zealand has carved a touristic niche for itself in the arena of extreme sports and gymnastic pasttimes (not to mention Lord of the bloody Rings). Queenstown is a whole town built upon the obscene money travellers spend hurling themselves off cliffs tied to elastic, canyon swings, gliders, parachutes. Cross the bridge and be undershot by dozens of jetboats and rafts in a space of minutes. Hear screams from the surrounding sky. The town looks to a cliff up which scales a cable car. Naturally there is a bungy jump from the cable car.
I decided to spend much of my remaining cash on a skydive. I was driven out to the N-Zone skydive ranch. The van was full of Swede, with a pinch of Ozzie and English. We sat in the blinding sun as two ladles of Swede went up and came down.
Then it was us: myself, Mr. Xtreem Sportz Ozzie, and English girl. We donned our suits and were taught how to hang out of the plane door before jumping (make yourself into banana, open arms when tapped). We were introduced to the people who would strap themselves to us for the jump. I was thrilled to receive an enormous Serb by the name of Sasa. We all crammed into a tiny metal tube with wings. I sat between Sasa´s legs, according to ancient custom.
The plane flew up through mountains dusted with icing sugar. All around a vague cloud layer the sky was brilliant blue blinding. I felt fear for the first time, and grateful to be enveloped by titanic Serbian limbs. Sasa attached us together and I put on hat, gloves and goggles. The door opened and I was suddenly hanging out. Then it was chaos.
They say you never remember the first ten seconds. The brain can´t understand what is happening - and who can blame it? The world was everwhere, mountains flashing and jerking lake. Rolling and diving and my face making an elastic bid to return to the plane. Sasa tapped me several times before I realised what that meant and splayed my arms, hugging the mass of air below me. Exhileration, rush, narcotic! I screamed for a bit before deciding there was no point. Freefall was 50 seconds but passed in a triangular vortex. Then the cord went and we were yanked frozen still.
Nothing can replicate the silence and peace then. After the psychotic scream of air, we were stationary hanging in the sky. The bulging meniscus of the world curved up around in a wall-eyed oval. A plumline in a snowglobe. The harness was giving me a groinal heimlich manoeuvre but all I could do was gibber:
This is ins-ane. This iss ins-ane. Unh. It´s beauti...ful. Ins-ane.
The lake stretched blue, the mountains bobbed. Tiny white dots grazed in the field. Our shadow became apparent, drawing circles on the green. Everything grew larger. We lifted legs and swooped in, hit the ground running. Absurd and wonderful; epiphanic. I stuttered with adrenaline. Cut a sun-starched slice of that moment.
ABBA´S DEATH DAY AND SHANA TOVA
Before I left Wellington Miri thoughtfully gave me a yahtzeit memorial candle to commemorate my dad´s Hebrew death date. 2 lunar years on I sat on the beach near Nelson with a wide angle of sea and sky. I chatted to something resembling my father and looked at my life through his eyes. I sensed pride and vicarious enjoyment of my adventuring, with a definite underlay of career-related concern. I thought about his life and his aspirations, thoughts and feelings, all now residing purely in the memory of others. Vicarious is the word. I ate cheese and Thai red curry paste sandwiches; I´m sure he wouldn´t have objected to food at his own memorial service.
Rosh Hashana followed soon after and was saturated with memories of him and years of standing by him in Shul. He was always so happy to have Renato and me next to him in Shul. It was perhaps his high point of fatherhood, the time when he felt he had succeeded, when so often he thought he´d failed. It made me sad because I am not a Jew in his ideal. He was hardly Mr. Halacha but he tried, and crucially, believed it was right to do so. I can´t believe that, at least not now. He felt it so strongly, beating his chest during Avinu Malkeinu his passion was tangible. My Judaism will always be symbolised by the image of my father, I think it is often the way - God of my fathers. But I am pulled away from appeasing his memory by my confusion. This gives me a profound sense of guilt at this time of the year. I don´t want this to detract from using the memory of my father as a source of love and joy. Perhaps that takes time.
I went to a shul in Christchurch (ironically) containing approximately 15 people, most of whom were octagenarians. On the request of the Rabbi I attempted to blow the shofar on the bimah but all that emerged was a pathetic squeak. A 75 year old shoved me aside and trumpeted energetically. Despite all my best intentions, I failed to secure a lunch invitation.
BOOKS
Amused and elated by absurdity of The Master and Margarita. Been drinking Margaritas to enter the holy spirit.
Blown away by family interrelations in The Corrections.
Book of Fame by Lloyd Jones chronicles lyrically the rabidly successful tour of the UK by the 1905 New Zealand rugby team: the first All Blacks. I´m no rugby fan but they were legends. Poetic exploration of their knowledge of space and national selfhood.
JAEGER BOMBS
Simply take a glass of red bull and a shot glass filled with jaegermeister. Add the jaeger, glass n all, to the red bull. Neck immediately. Highly popular in NZ. Drives you mental. I was treated to several of these by an American firefighter called Mike who was about to go to Antartica and was spending up his US government money. Thank you Uncle Sam. A Tanzanian called Messenjah with his name on his jacket was also part of our troupe, along with a couple of Icelandic females. Messenjah had effusive theories about positive attitude, cf. Stand up for your Rights.
NZ CHIPS
come in binbag size portions. I used a litre of vinegar.
RIGGERS
of ale are 2 litre bottles that are obscenely cheap and refillable. God bless New Zealand.
SQUANDOR: THE LAST INDIAN LAWYER
On my last night in the van I slept by the sea with wild wind buffeting and a demonic spread of stars. I woke up to seals basking on the rocks.
Dempsey was high on life, or possibly something else. We played guitar and drank beer on the ferry to the North Island, and formed a little family with a gym teacher and sex shop attendant, a guy with lots of piercings, and a hoary old singer songwriter from Oz. There was also a heavily tattooed man who hitches up and down NZ on a permanent basis. Positive things that Dempsey repeatedly said:
This is all just a big advincha
Kids are so out there and on to it
It´s so amazing that you just walk into a pub and then walk out in a different place
Life is a great advincha
etc advincha advincha etc
I helped Lissa move by driving a fun bus belonging to Miri´s family. The tyre almost exploded shortly after we almost plummeted off a cliff. Plumes of black smoke rose from the tyre. Lissa limped around on a sprained ankle and fell over a few times.
For my last party night, we ate strips of meat at a Mongolian BBQ. Then I started buying tequilas. The bitterenders, ie. myself, Claire and Sam, bought party pills. Party pills are totally legal herbal highs that people of any age can buy in 24h shops in NZ, and they are extraordinarily good. We danced to Blondie and croony classics in a club called Indigo and babbled to everyone on the smoking balcony. Sam and I swayed for an hour. The barman foolishly served us absinthe. Of course we were there till the bitter end. We were effusively thanking the barman and the DJ for everything when I noticed that only the barman was clear, while the rest of the world was in soft focus. I explained this to him lengthily, drawing comparisons with the presentation of the Love Interest in early episodes of Star Trek. We emerged into the street and sat on a floating jetty watching the sun rise dazzling. The water pink-rippled magnificently. Wellington is a stunning place.
I was very sad to leave Lissa and all my new gorgeous friends. I had fallen in love with Wellington life but the date line beckoned. New Zealand was a lovely warm bath and I was becoming prunelike. I left Wellington at 6pm on Monday and arrived in Santiago at 1pm on the same day. What a head fuck.
