A wistful summer afternoon.
Butterflies, dolphins and memories surfacing in my cells that seem to desire anonymity today. Sometimes a tired body craves a summer adventure.
I catch movement out of the corner of my eye, was that a butterfly? I turn my head northwest, over the clump of dried grasses on the lawn and two monarch butterflies are tumbling together and then away from each other in opposite directions. Intimate. Fleeting.
The cup of tea is warm in my hands, the sea breeze cool on my bare shoulders and as I stand there with my feet on the concrete veranda looking out at the ocean through the pompoms of Pohutukawa flowers, I feel nostalgic. I’m not even sure what for, but there’s something from my past that’s drifting through my cells in this moment.
I wonder, is it something to do with a beach with sand and surf, Taupo Bay or Ohui? Is it this time of year and associations from years before floating through me, not even wanting me to attach to them? A desire to remain anonymous, unexcavated. Is there a strangeness in the ease between K and I, that means I feel a flutter of disconnect in this moment? Have we been around people too much and need more together time?
I notice my brain doing one of her familiar walks, veering towards Catastrophising Lane, and I draw her gently back. She loves to do that to distract me from what’s real in my body.
You’re in a liminal space. You’ve been living in other people’s houses and spaces since August this year, I think you’re both doing so well individually, and as a new team coming together. Go easy please.
Maybe it’s because earlier, just after lunch we stood with binoculars watching a sprawling school of what felt like an endless number of dolphins swimming across the bay, some a little more jumpy than others on their journey east. They were headed in the direction of Taupo Bay (although there are many bays before and after it), and I wonder if that is stirring the memory space within me. Taupo Bay was home for years. An ocean space that tethered me in a time my body didn’t feel like a safe place to be.
I told K about the summer they were in the Bay so often and I got to surf and swim with them. I can still remember the one day like it was yesterday, the sound of their calls when I put my head under and blew bubbles into my eyes so that I could see them through the water. Their fast moving forms circling around the space my body held close to shore.
That was nearly ten years ago now. Hard to imagine I’ve been back living in New Zealand for twelve and a half years. That’s a long time in one place for me…one country should I say. Definitely not one place, I’ve moved so many times now, especially in the last four years, I wonder what the count is if I sat and added up each place that was longer than three weeks? Is that a fair amount of time, or would I have to make it every place longer than five? What is the cut off when making these conclusions about history?
There’s something about summer that makes me wistful. It is filled with so many more memories of activities, being outside, people, adventures, and I want to go on an adventure, but I want to have all the energy in the world to do it. Today I feel so tired. Which isn’t very different to yesterday.
I’m not too panicked about the whole thing though (strangely), I think I trust it will pass. It’s a season. But I am wistfully thinking of the things I’d like to be doing. The things I’ve done in summers passed when I’ve had more energy. Like surfing (maybe the dolphins reminded me). Or when my body hasn’t known how to stop and slow down, regardless of the circumstances, and so I’ve gone and done and been.
I don’t think my body knows how to override and override, again and again anymore. Is that a good thing? Could be. Also, sometimes I wish I could flick a switch and joyously override for one full day (or two) without paying the price of deep exhaustion and whatever else comes with it for days after.
Maybe not being able to override is progress.
Perhaps moment by moment living, like those two butterflies, is a space I can drop into more deeply just for today. After all we’re on a threshold into another year, an adventure into the unknown, and somewhere in the future, a space to land for longer than a few weeks.
PS: I also notice the reframing in adventure that happens from macro to micro. A swim after I’ve written this, off the rocks in a warming ocean. The deep gratitude for my body’s ability to enjoy this luxury and how even a five minute walk can be an adventure if we make it so. If we notice the way the bees hover for nectar at the bright red stamens, the white peeling bark on the branches that brush our hands, or the way Millie finds joy in following her nose along the rocks. Something has passed that our human senses would never know of.
So yes, I crave what I used to call summer adventure. Big bold, full of energy, exhaustion from a body pushed to the limits. Yet adventure is right here for me, whenever I choose to dance with it. Present. Ever present.