1 Nov

Diving with Jojo

Free-diving, not SCUBA....

And then your eyes adjust. Only they never really do. They just accept that the blue-green murk is really all you can see. That you can't grasp how far below the bottom rests, and what lurks between it and you is obscured until it isn't. Until it emerges quickly and unexpectedly.

Nothing… and then appears a rock hiding pāua, a large, delectable marine gastropod mollusk. JoJo grabs his knife and sucks in enough air to deflate a small island then disappears into the oblivion of blue. He's probably only gone a few seconds, but it feels like hours; probably only diving a meter down, but it seems a fathomless depth. He returns with several snails and my pulse steadies.

Nothing… and then a tangle of seaweed lazily sways to the rhythm of the tide. A perpetual lurch, reel and roll that occurs whether or not I act as submerged spectator. In night's deep empty darkness, it performs for the nocturnal marine fauna, for itself, for no one. In the bright yellow rays that filter in where O meets its double hydrogen counterpart, it oscillates regardless of its audience. I cling to it for a moment. Shaking its tentacle hand as I bob and drift like a lost message in a bottle.

On the shore it pours rain. A thick drench that beats down on my wet suit. We sit, unaffected by its persistence, eating raw pāua from the shell. Its meat is thick and rubbery, tastes like the bellybutton lint of the sea if it had been wearing a cotton candy jersey for the last week. It's a moment of neither extreme significance nor ordinary occurrence. Two mates chillin' in the rain.

Halloween Festivities!

8 Nov

It's Friday morning. No one is up yet. It's cloudy and warm and the birds are chirping. I don't start work until 4pm. This is what I wake up to.

Later I'm sitting in the sun watching seagulls mate loudly outside the city library. They're coital intimacy drawn attention to by a series of caws and shrieks, the same sound they make when they're defending a fallen french fry.

9 Nov

I attend a Storytelling workshop led by Ali Jacs, winner of last year's NZ National Poetry Slam.

Later we all head to the NZ National Poetry Slam at Meow in Wellington.

Rappers, storytellers, poets, misfits with no music, no props, no egos. Exposed in the raw on stage to a community of supporters, admirers, fans and fellow performers.

An afternoon and evening of pure ear porn. I'm in awe and hope one day I have the talent and courage to participate in a poetry slam!

13 Nov

Volunteering at Zealandia

Environmental Education field trip with 8-10 year olds

Male Bellbird

Tui

Kākā

16 Nov

Isabella's University Graduation Fashion Show

17 Nov

More than I thought I did, I needed this. A day date with myself. Inspiration strikes and I'm on the next bus to the Island Bay Marine Education Centre. Overcast but bright, a slight breeze tickling my arm hairs, I enter nothing more than a shed projecting from a curve in the bay. Hang around people older than you long enough and you're bound to learn something. The earth has spun it's ring around the rosie at least double what it has in my lifetime, so Dave, volunteer inspirator, has double his pockets full of posies. A snail secretes calcium carbonate which hardens in the water and forms a shell which becomes larger as the animals grows thus creating the spiral form. Octopus have excellent vision. They can detect a wide range of colors, light, motion, textures, etc. which makes them expert hunters. Octopus & squid have highly complex brains and have been said to be as intelligent as dolphins. They have full control over each and every sucker cup and can change their color 50 times in one second. The only solid part of their body is their beak, so they can slip through the tiniest of crevices like booger through a baby's nose.

I am full. Of information, inspiration, enriching satisfaction. The interactions are fluid, my questions & responses natural and seamless. I am "planting my own garden, decorating my own soul." And the one, maybe the only thing I'm certain of is that I like to learn. About the world and the things in it. I know that's so broad. Okay, especially living things. How they're put together, how and why they do what they do. How they're connected to everything.

Thanks for the best date I could have imagined. I want to ask questions with hard answers. Or no answers. And discuss & discover something new.

Scenic drive to the Wainuiomata Coast

Later a massive home-cooked Samoan feast with Jojo & his family & friends

19 Nov

Volunteer w/ Experiencing Marine Reserves school group stream assessment w/ Liz & Alan

"Let's allow ourselves to be whatever it is that we are. And that'll be better." -Garden State

Pick your calling. No, don't just pick it, own it. I want them to listen to me, but they don't have to. I'd much rather they remember this as a good time. Much rather they come back and continue to explore. That's what's going to get them to care. To love getting their feet wet and muddy. To love holding little critters and taking a closer look and actually question what they are. To laugh and giggle and shout with joy and wonder. Finding that thing that brings you enough satisfaction, enough fulfillment at the end of the day to want to get up tomorrow and do it again. To want to improve, advance, never stop learning and trying. To make the system better, to treat the cause and not the symptoms, to make a real difference no matter the size. I'm finding that I already found it. But in the finding I am fully elated.

23 Nov

Cape Palliser road trip with Erin, Isabellla, Neil, Dan, Sina & Kas