Here One Moment and...

Early morning cruising.  Bright horizons and burning rubber on the way to the Mecca.  Marky and me.  Castle Hill day trips now, in the summertime prelude to the holiday season.  Everyone else gone.  Everyone else gone but The Hill is there and waiting.

I need to write about he last few days.  I need to write about the last few days, and I have.  But how personal should this writing be?  My personal diary is one thing.  My personal diary with the heart embroidered on the cover and the little golden key that I wear around my neck.  This is one thing.  But a blog is something Oh! so different. 

And now that I have learned how to post pictures, I will surely change the format of the entire blog in the aftermath of the New Year.  But for now I will say this:

Caroline and Eva roll through late on Wednesday.  Late on Wednesday while we are wrinkled from the afternoon trip to Jellie Park and sitting with bloated stomachs in the living room.  In the living room, and empty bowls litter the carpet, the devilled sausages having been demolished.

Then Eva and Caroline roll through.  They fresh from Milford Sound and the Fijorlands and only in Christchurch to pick up Caroline’s sister.  Caroline’s sister Brittany who is due to touch down in the Land of the Long White Cloud the following evening, in transit for some 40 hours.

Caroline and Eva full of stories from life on the road.  Chitchat Chitchat, and afterward, when Eva confiscates the computer for some much coveted time with that dear departed friend: the newly resurrected internet, Caroline and I walk.

Both of us in jeans, both of us in hoodies, she in sandals, and I am barefoot.  Hoods loose and gaping, dark halos vertical: stare into and out of the void.  We walk arm-in-arm like the members of some secret society.  A secret society, yes secret, but anything but solemn.  There is always the bright white flash within the holes of the hoods, the smiles, the teeth, the always talking.

And how do I write about Caroline. 

It’s been two and a half years.

From Thiland.  From California.  From Road Trip.  From Plane Ride.

It’s been two and a half years.

We globe trotting travelers on separate trajectories.

Two and a half years, yes, two and a half years.

And what has changed?

We walk and talk and blend into the streets of Christchurch like we blend into the streets of Chapel Hill.  And really there is no blending at all, and there never has been.  But instead the sharp contrast of curry powder spilt into the unassuming bowl of vanilla ice cream.

And how do I write about Caroline.

She and Eva stay at Simon and Anna’s that first night and I take Chester to the airport and then run errands with them the flowing day and they pick up Brittany that night and then the following day, after a trip to Castle Hill, Mark and myself buy dented Ready-To-Drink cans of Bourbon and Coke out of a bargain bin at the liquor store and drive downtown and drink with Mark’s girlfriend and her sister at their swank downtown apartment and, after catching a buzz, we all go out to a bar called Goodbye Blue Monday and meet Caroline and Eva and Brittany and all of us drink together until it is time to go.

Pretty lights.  The neon that always seems liquid and ready to melt into the streets.  Pretty lights and he noises of consumption from alleyways and from the windows of brick buildings.  The collective noise all around us in the street like an audible fog.  Let it lift lead-heavy feet from the side walk.  And walk.  Away.  Walk away.

Goodnight.

The girls head toward Abel Tasmin and Golden Bay the following day.  Toward that paradise perched at the northern tip of the Southern Island.  And though I originally had aspirations to go with them, I will instead stay put.  I will climb and read and write.  I will wear-in my hiking boots.  And I will wait until the holiday season kicks into full force.  I will wait until the 24th, until the eve of Christ's miraculous birth, before Carolla cruising to Kaikora to re-unite with the sisters Holcomb and Eva Bland for an American Christmas.  Eighty-five Hundred miles from the Old North State but reppin’ the Cackalack abroad, and reppin' harder than Petey Pablo ever thought possible.

"Come on and raise up"