Like a Longfin Eel

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....

  It’s been a rough couple of weeks; not so much energy to write. M’s funeral was last week and a privilege to go to. His son wrote a eulogy poem which is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard. After this I went up to wales, to be shown around by a sister of one of my Friends I met in Bangladesh. I didn’t know her sister at all at the start but she drove me around for three days, which was really kind of her. The valleys, Gower, Cardiff bay with its Tory-free government…  I got a proper welsh tour complete with obscure cocktails (the Trevor Nelson) and really personal insights (her parents remember Aberfan, her housemate is the first generation in his family not to work in the mines, and he described what it felt like to go down the mines and feel them breathing). https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/britains-best-small-venue-shortlist-newport-le-pub-23362?amp https://youtu.be/Eijc2tGe-zM Feeling tired. Feeling lucky. _______________________________ B’s poem for M - ...

New Years with R&M.  My aim when I booked my flights in October was New Years with R&M. Even then I don’t think I expected I’d actually be able to get here. I anticipated another lockdown. A winter mess. Borders shut and no way to Spain. There were covid passes (quick to expire and slow to replace) and covid tests  and transport issues to the airport that needed sorting over the patchy public holiday days. In the end, the sketchiest bit was the bus to Bristol airport from Exeter, delayed by an hour and a half. The bus stop had no shelter and I stood in the pouring rain with four strangers feeling like totoro. And now, suddenly, I’m sitting at Malaga airport. The sky is blue and the clouds are high and far away. There's a  heat wave  hitting the UK at the moment and its come here too.  ========== R&M have four kids. Their lockdown experience is the hardest of anyone I know. The kids did fine. R&M are incredible.  After a 4 month l...

I was chatting to one of the secretaries at work today about the Christmas break and she relayed how she had returned to Nazi Ireland, "you know, like your country, with the passes and the ID and the fuss at the borders." I was taken aback, I couldn't really tell how serious she was. But I let it slide because it was just so good to hear an Irish accent and chat about nothing and everything for a bit. I lost a good hour but it was very worth it. I never circled back to her thoughts about Nazi Ireland, I admit. I feel like I'm on the pointy end of the NZ restrictions at the moment and I didn't really want to find myself agreeing with her. Nazi comparisons are rarely accurate or helpful.  It's nearing midnight and I'm sitting up waiting to see where I land for  the lottery . Although there is a way to request special entry as a Doctor back into NZ and its quarantine system I'm waiting on paperwork to be eligible for that (that is a medium length and yet ...

^a photo from last night’s dragon boating   A lot has happened in the last two weeks. My housemate got covid (mild) and I evacuated to higher ground to mates who I know through Whangarei connections (of all things!). A lovely Devon/Scottish couple who eat off tartan crockery that was given to them at their wedding in abundance, and they use every day in the hopes that it increases the chance of them smashing. Except it’s fairly robust. And the tartan is growing on them. Both are doctors of other specialities and their work rants were refreshing. R would practise the cello and J would fall asleep on the couch like a big cat. I digress. Some mates of mine from Auckland returned to Devon in a hurry, to be with their dying father (/father in law). Visiting hours meant that his own wife could only visit an hour a day when he was in hospital. And she was his only permitted visitor. I would sneak onto the ward in plain sight (with my scrubs, with my name tag) and sit with him when I could...

I’m sitting on the edge of an old umbrella to keep from getting wet as I sit on the footpath next to a busy intersection. J has his fists stuffed into his jeans pockets as he stands in the wind. Occasionally, he shudders in a “super shiver”, unable to hold it in. He’s not wearing a jacket. He dances a little on the spot, and the silver rescue blanket he’s standing on lifts a bit. I’m on J’s phone, while trying to figure out the postcode of where we are on my phone, when there are no houses nearby. It’s a bit pointless, it becomes clear that no ambulance is likely to be available for a few hours yet. It’s already been an hour since we first called.  The man on the phone tells me to order a taxi. I try several companies. They too, are booked out for the next three hours. I don’t know anyone in town with a car. We are less than 2k from the hospital.  Mr. F stirs from under J’s jacket, trying to get up. “I’ll just walk to the hospital!” He mutters. He leans on his bad arm and yell...

Passport for getting through borders… and for eating cake. Some reflections on mandates and life now. ======= I’ve been tentatively starting a Facebook comment based conversation with my second cousin about the vaccine mandate in NZ. He’s housing a couple who have lost their job because: they won’t have the vaccine (my view) or the government is creating a divisive society that is forcing people into abject poverty (his view).   He’s a good man, always been kind, is housing and feeding them as they can no longer afford rent (my view) or is allowing and fostering a cluster of dangerous political views (another relatives view, and also mine a bit). Or both.  The UK has only just now announced that the vaccine will be compulsory for NHS workers ( https://www.politico.eu/article/covid-vaccination-mandatory-nhs-england/amp/ )… by next spring (March-ish 2022). It’s a very heavy handed soft handed measure, and consistent with all the other British public health policies that slam the...