A small victory comes from completing the North Island. Craig and I were happy to do it as a bit of a run. 12k from our hostel to the southern shore in the early morning. Fitting for the two of us and a beautiful thing to do in the salted morning-sea air. You get that feeling that everything is so vivid, you almost feel like you’re not really perceiving it. As though you are watching a film of yourself. You’re lighter and your senses are heightened.
It was a beautiful run. Up and over some of Wellington’s great city parks, with tall pine trees and sea views in all directions. Then the end of the track comes down to a rocky shore, jagged and ominous. Like a different sea than we’ve seen here so far. It felt mystic and so alive.
Which was fitting, as it came with a phone call that changed my heart quite a lot. Just a few steps in that morning came the news I’d been anticipating. The truth I was trying to get used to this whole hike. Lu, my beloved aunt, had passed.
As I was running this last bit of trail, I didn’t know how to feel. It wasn’t shocking. It wasn’t hurtful either. At least, not at the time. I just tried to run with it. To think little and breathe deeply and to feel what’s around me. In hopes that it was a way to dedicate my senses among the living to the dead. Particularly the newly dead. All I knew to do, was to be.
When we got to the southern shore. We sat and celebrated our journey, or at least I acknowledged it, and sat for a moment at the marker. I jumped into the sea. I thought about how much Lu always commented on my strange love for cold water. Then, more than ever, I wanted to feel the sensations of being alive. I hoped I could share it with her.
In this gorgeous place, I felt comforted. There’s sadness, but it’s nestled in such beauty, I find myself taking it all in. Everything is part of it.
I felt grief when the sun set that night. For the day to be ending that had started with her in this world. Yet I felt grateful and deep and touched. I had a cup of coffee, which is strange for me at night, but I had to feel it’s warmth in my hand, and it’s steam on my face, and to see it sitting on the table next to a hand of cards that Craig and I were playing in her honor.
It’s going to happen in pieces. A matter of learning what’s gone the next time I go to reach for it. On a shallow note, I look at the surface of the sea and I wonder what I’m supposed to be feeling. On a deeper note, I know my heart understands things that my brain can’t.
And so, I walk.