I started my first leg of the journey in the Far North of New Zealand. I had planned to move to Melbourne, but I didn't feel quite ready to leave the country. In fact, I wasn't sure what to do at all. It was a case of 'anywhere but here.' For about six weekends in a row I left Auckland to party someplace else for several days. Not good for the Melbourne savings, I can tell you. After Paihia, Wellington, Matakana, Paihia, Whakapapa and Wellington again I sat at my home in Mt Roskill nursing an extremely bad hangover. My Mum mentioned that a distant Uncle had just decided to go fruitpicking. Boom. There was my Divine Inspiration.
You see, work had really gone above and beyond to tolerate my absences. To this day I don't know how I got away with it. Even more so, my friends and family had tolerated my stagnation in life and the moods that came with it. I had traveled four years ago, got caught up in a relationship for two years, finished my degree, pulled out of Postgrad and then suddenly found myself not on the path I wanted to be. The temporary change of environment was stamped with approval (and other people's approval was very important to me then) and off I went on a bus to Pukenui, via Kaitaia.
I never got hold of my Uncle Peter, but luckily avocado season was just beginning, and avocados are my second favourite fruit. The week before I left was fraught with intense sleep deprivation and low iron levels, making me even more manic than usual. I am still proud that for that last week at work, I forced myself up every morning. Things suddenly started to get better.
In the week beforehand I was also lucky enough to come accross a book called the Zahir, by Paulo Coehlo. As I read the true story of how the author faught to come to terms with his own Zahir, I thought deeply about my own. As he learned to trust the universe around him, I began to trust my own. Everywhere there were signs of someone looking out for me. The more I looked, the more answers were revealed. In a conversation with someone that week someone asked me who would look after me in the state I was in, so far from home. 'Me.' I replied.
Now I'm a firm believer in incremental progress, and revelations are rare. But suddenly at that moment I felt all the parts of me coming together. I wasn't speaking in doubt, it wasn't a tentative answer. I was sure. And nothing has really been the same since.
Pukenui was fantastic. I stayed at a Holiday Park next to a famous fishing wharf and waited for three blissful days for the avocados to ripen. That far North, the climate is subtropical. Although it was technically Winter, the sun made an appearance more often than it does in Auckland. It was much needed for my dismal mood. The holiday park was quiet and I found myself with a French guy four years younger than me, and another French girl with her Spanish/Italian boyfriend. Corentin and I, the French guy, soon found that we got along famously and went exploring immediately. We found: nests full of duck eggs, mandarins and macadamia.
The avocado orchard was run by a grumpy man who went by the name of Malcolm. I took an instant dislike to him - but he had his own demons (I found him outside a travel agent's in town looking in wistfully).
Regardless, Malcolm sure did get to me sometimes. I'm a city girl, you see. I had never had a go at manual labour. I devised my own method of picking avocados, much to his dismay. I then strained my wrist so much that I had to use my left hand to pick. In other words, I wasn't the fastest orchard worker. I believe his worst comment was: 'Why can't you just be normal?' All of his criticisms had more effect on me because I was the only one there with a full understanding of English, and he wouldn't dare speak down to the older couple working there, who were much slower than me.
It got better though as I bowed to his forceful will. I have never been very good at not being good at things. The orchard was lovely too. Rolling green hills, rides on the back of a tractor everyday and a sunny disposition that began to permeate my soul. My sleep patterns were fixed within a week, and I found myself getting up early each morning, voluntarily. It had been so long since I was able to do that.
I met a couple of permanent workers on the farm also. One of them, Ben, was particularly interesting. Sadly he was paying for a noble act from his past, and seemed to have received the raw side of the deal. This guy had a lot of mana. You could tell that he came from a family of fairly big prestige, even though they were mostly gang members. Let's just say the North has its own law and customs. He had assaulted a guy who had threatened his missus, like in the worst way possible. So he hunted him down and gave him a piece of his mind. This being shall we say, a euphemistic way of putting it. Six years later he was still paying the price, wearing a tracking bracelet and on home detention. He continued to refuse gang membership and crime, pay for his three children and partner's bills, while paying rent to his grandparents. One of his kids was adopted even - Ben rescued the girl from an abusive family. He really was a good guy, and really good at reading people. I knew he was attracted to me but he never hit on me like other guys in the area. I hope one day he finds a better deal in life.
Corentin occasionally went fishing at the wharf after work, and I joined him in conversing with the locals, watching the tide and ruminating blissfully. A thoughtful young man, lover of food and totally at one with the earth. The way he would manage to make his earth-stained, carefully folded jeans look graceful is still a puzzle to me. The best thing about Corentin is that he would shout at the ducks that began following me in very loud French, and chase them. But they would always return. They never forgot me feeding them on those first days.
Still thinking of my Zahir, I wrote letters to him that were never delivered. Corentin was kind enough to take on the 'straight man friend role' and give me his perspective on the matter. Only one small postcard was approved, much later in my stay in Pukenui. In hindsight, thank goodness for that. Nobody wants the ramblings of an unwanted lover coming back to haunt them, making them feel guilty. Hardly anyone can ever see those ramblings to the end. It was great having male company without the pressure of anything else. Our friendship grew quickly and he had the ability to make me laugh hysterically for minutes on end. We went for long walks, we borrowed the canoes and he helped me cook. Eventually he got too lazy to help me cook but I always tried to feed him to stem the dullness of cooking for myself.
The days were peaceful, the days were good. But the first week had barely finished before we started our first adventure...
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