Just The One Thing

Labo(u)r Day Weekend sort of sneaked up on me, I guess. I’ve been busy at work and I didn’t really know what day it was and I sort of thought that it might be nice if someone invited me to do something but it wasn’t until last Monday that I realized I could try to plan my own trip. I had a brief shining moment when I thought I could go down to Akaroa and watch some whales or swim with some dolphins or something but time (too much) and money (not enough) conspired to keep me home in Wellington. I felt a little dumb for not being either a) better at planning or b) more spontaneous, but there you have it.

I planned to do at least one touristy thing around town that I hadn’t done yet, and maybe a couple of others that I had. I thought I’d have a friend over to watch movies and maybe even clean the flat while A. was away visiting her family. I set up a lunch date and a brunch date and a visit to the Diwali festival to see some bellydance and all in all I ended up being pretty pleased with myself. I am definitely in the mood for a big fun fancy weekend one of these days, but I accepted that this was probably going to be merely pleasant.

And…merely pleasant it was! I caught a Friday night showing of Junebug,which was very sad but very good and managed to get a couple of things about American Christianity just absolutely, uncannily right. I was home by 8:30 though, which, I think you’ll agree, does not make for a very awesome Friday night. Saturday I had higher hopes and purposefully didn’t cancel my trip to the zoo just because it happened to be raining a little and just because I happened to be walking there, oh no. I marched around grimly for a while, cursing my decision to wear open-ish shoes and not to bring my rain jacket and determined to make the best of it, as the meerkats all darted underground to their warm furry meerkat nests and the chimps openly laughed at me shivering in the mist to watch them chill out in their heated-floor cave, which was looking really good to me at the time. I soldiered on for a couple more minutes, watching the squelching ostriches and huddled-up tigers, and gave up and went home for Indian takeaway and a silly girly movie with Miriam. It kept raining, which I didn’t care about at the time, being snuggled up under this funny fake-fur throw that I call the otter, but the rain was to be a continuing theme for the rest of the weekend, besoddening my lovely three-hour lunch at Fidel’s with Jill, drippifying my trek to the library and the Diwali festival, and moisturating my journey to Haitaitai to eat pancakes with Deirdre and Nahum. Last night the rain and the wind were so loud that they actually woke me from my muscle-relaxant-induced (my back hurts! I’m going to the physio this afternoon!) catatonia to wonder if the house was in the middle of its own private cyclone or something. Stupid rain. Stupid weekend.

I talked to Jill about this a little on Sunday, the letdown that occurs when all the excitement and planning of a big trip has given way to ordinary day-to-dayness. Jill’s been here, running the Maple Lodge (she was actually recognized by a former resident at Fidel’s) since November, so she knows. At first everything is very exciting and new because! You’re! On the other side of the world! There’s the worry and drama of having so much to do: getting a job and getting a place to live and finding out where to get a cute shirt to go out and having your first Hell Pizza and finding your favorite coffeeshop and finding friends and all the rest of it. Eventually, though, the excitement gives way to ordinariness and you realize that you may be on the other side of the world and you may have new friends and new places to go and a new cute shirt to wear, but you’re still you. You still have to build and maintain a life just the way you would at home, and you still have to go about the business of living when you’ve finally figured out which way to look when you cross the street.

It’s all very matter-of-fact at the moment, but of course next August I plan to leave Wellington travel all around New Zealand for about three months, and maybe the South Pacific too if I can figure out a way to do it, doing the backpacker thing again. Personally I find parts of backpacking slightly monotonous in their own way: the constantly rummaging around in your pack, the having to orient yourself to a new town every couple of nights, long bus rides, the constantly talking about where in America you’re from and have you been to Queenstown, it’s wicked man. But it’s thrilling, too, to be always on your way somewhere, to see lots of new things in a short amount of time, to meet lots of new people. It’s easier to explain what you’re doing to other people, easier to believe you’re having an adventure when you don’t have a commute or a local grocery store or any of the trappings of average life. I’m craving that a little, since I’ve come to the realization that I really do live here now. I think I should have gotten it together a little bit better this past long weekend to have a little taste of that newness and adventure this long weekend, instead of dutifully steaming vegetable for my lunch and falling asleep in the bathtub by mistake. I never did vacuum the carpet like I meant to.

Part of me wonders if I should stay in Wellington past Christmas, if I should move down to the South Island and try to get another job down there somewhere. Part of me thinks I should get over myself and start being a little more awesome right where I am and admit that next August, when I’ve packed up and moved on and am very concerned with bus timetables and tourist attractions, I’ll be weeping over my extremely pinkly flowered room here in Berhampore, and wishing I could meet friends for movies at the Paramount and that I could have the giant bowl of hot chocolate at Espressoholic and that I could go to the beach any time the rain would let me.

I want the blatant newness and adventure that were part of the reason I came here just about as much as I want the insidious comfort and routine that are parts of the reason I stay here. All, everything, all at once. I can’t figure out how to want just the one thing, or how to stop wanting, period.