Orion diving towards the horizon.

I had staggered out of night shifts and into the greyest of weekends; sputtering out the end of it all in a haze of exhaustion and grief. Overlaying all this was a long silence on how and when I’d be able to go home: a heavy curtain that was lifted with an MIQ voucher released on Monday; and now, a border cracked open.

When I was a kid we used to visit my great Aunty, in her late 80s, who lived in an 1800s villa in Helensville. The hallway was wooden with a long carpet runner down the middle, the door at the end had glass inlays and was always shut- we would enter through the back, via a small kitchen painted cream and yellow. The hallway was always dark and lit with what daylight would cast through the door windows. I have no reason to have this image, but I imagine my lovely Aunty bell, opening the front door instead of the back, and light pouring in, and rambunctious kids bounding in through past her, maybe unsettling her steady stance. There’s a joyous danger in the border opening. Reconnection. Energy. But also chaos and a wobble for our vulnerable. 

Paddling has made the short days bearable- the other night it was clear enough for us to see the Orion constellation clearly; lined up with the canal as we would paddle one way; out of sight as we returned towards town, and then again there as we lapped and trained.

I know my orientation of Orion is wrong. What is supposed to be his sword hanging from his hip has always in my mind been his armpit as he holds out his arm to shoot an arrow. I can see why the ancients would value swords over armpits. But it gave the impression to me as we moved along the water, that Orion was leaning over, tumbling down into the river, disturbing the swans, getting caught in the limbs of the dark reaching oak. 

Winter actually isn’t too bad. 

About 50 days to go here.