Layers Of Time And Incidence

Since I last wrote I have certified as an Advanced Open Water diver and been stung by fire coral in the process, spent a lot of time with my friends and my friends’ children, got some new bras for half-off, made that thing for a dinner party, texted Italy at least twice a day, chatted to headhunters in Wellington, broken my favourite rhinestone necklace that I got at a store called Bling on Lambton Quay, flown to New York, eaten at many yummy restaurants, seen no fewer than three cousins, caught up with an old friend in Manhattan, been forced to not catch up with some old friends in Manhattan, got what may be a lead for a job back in Wellington, had beans and rice for dinner again and tried to convince my mom’s cat to let me cuddle her. It’s pouring down rain outside right now on the island; I am going to have a last cup of tea and try to be in bed before 9:30. My mom and sister and I are all supposed to go out for one last dinner tomorrow night and I leave for California on Friday.

Last night on the way back to the city from Queens I looked out at the moon which was almost almost full and thought about the last time I saw a full moon–in Samoa, of course, on the beach in front of the fale, where the waves were so close and so loud the and vy actually interfered with my sleep. I’ve been back in the States a little under a month now, I guess, and everything has changed and nothing has changed and the days keep ticking by and I keep not having much of an idea of what’s going to happen next. I try to keep in touch with Wellingtonians as much as possible, to keep my hand in, to resist the inertia of being back here–no job, no schedule, not much to do except walk around and sweat and try not to make every sentence start with “Well, in New Zealand we…”

Last week I had a little conversation with Manya’s five year old son wherein I told him about when his mommy was a little girl with me, and I mentioned (much to his suprise) that even though we are grownups now I still sometimes think of her as that little girl; what I didn’t say is that being back in the States, being back in my childhood home and in the city where I have spent some not-insignificant amounts of time, I still keep switching back and forth between the various layers of time and incidence. The Key Girl’s children call me Auntie Chiara and I pretend to be a shark with them in the pool and I see, when I dive under the murky chlorinated water, ourselves in eighties little-girl one-pieces, pretending to be mermaids. I go up the elevator of my dad’s building and see myself at thirteen, wearing braces on my teeth and attempting to make his cappucino every day, me at nineteen trying to talk about women’s studies, me at twenty-seven just doing my duty. It’s effortless, it’s underneath, it’s like blinking: now, then, now then. It’s insidious. It is dangerous. I need to focus, I need to concentrate, I need to keep my feet firm on the ground.

I have June and July planned: more travel, more seeing people, more living out of a bag on various futons. August is not planned. I have not considered September. I hope I will be celebrating spring and not autumn in October–I hope I will be going to another round of
returning gatherings, finding a new flat, getting into going to an actual job again. I want to live in the present and be where I am–but of course you know the ending to that sentence, right? I am in so many places, so many presents, amongst so many time zones, that it’s proving difficult to know which to call my own.