It’s been a bit more than one year since I arrived in “the Naki” so on that basis I’ll share a few choice recollections. Each occurred within the first weeks of being here. In hindsight, change for change’s sake hasn’t been such a bad motto after all.

Recollection #1

Upon arriving in NZ I noticed that my senses were acute. Moving 12,000km from Texas without knowing a single person was refreshing and only a bit terrifying. It also meant an odd status had been attained. I had managed to ensure the closest thing to a fresh start as an adult human can achieve. Even though I was still left with myself, all else had been left behind. I tried my best to shed the skin and be reborn.

I spent much time just walking and lots of pondering. Nothing exactly transcendental but clarity of thought had never come easier and for such prolonged periods. This got me thinking… How much self-examination was necessary to really know yourself?  How much such scrutiny would be considered over the line and narcissistic?  What value is it if you didn’t share it with anybody?  Was I headed into an unseen funk by thinking too hard too much?  By analysing everything,  had I already left the realm of the mentally healthy?  So much preconception had been surrendered i felt my mind becoming untethered.

So, I checked myself. Deep continuous thought hadn’t always turned out that well for some of the intellectual intrepid so i interrupted it periodically with work stints, strange surf, cryptocurrency study, hikes, and of course the odd woodsy alpine mountain bike ride.

After due thought, I concluded that the newness and subsequent absolute lack of familiarity had began to scramble my brain… in a good way, i think.

 

One of the more noticeable developments was that the Doppelgänger effect became very noticeable. I would see or meet someone that was uncannily similar to a friend back home. It got a bit weird and I began to question why this was taking such profound and previously unseen proportions.  Was it a “real” thing?  Was it that I had reached some critical amount of time on the planet and met enough folks that facial morphology and demeanour was now just necessarily overlapping.

I mean, how many different ways can you arrange a pair of eyes, nose and mouth before you run out of variations on that theme? Likewise, posture, laugh, sartorial styles, etc are not infinite.

Or…was it something else?   i.e. me not them.  Maybe my brain was just doing what it does best, reformatting the input to fit into a format that i could process. Certainly we do this all the time but it happens so seamlessly that we never notice.

It was a bit like the cat in the hallway that Neo saw during a premonitory glimpse of the matrix. (If you didn’t see The Matrix, forget that part.) What i am alluding to is that by some defensive tool my mind was protecting me from the onslaught of novelty by manufacturing familiarity. Perhaps this is all Dopplegangers are?

The doppelgänger thing lasted a few months and tapered off after Jen and Kai arrived. Notably, almost all of the  dopplegangers were remote acquaintances and very old friends, some no longer living. Not once did I sense anyone resembling close friends or family members. Not sure what that means… Jim Bentley, if you are reading this, give us your best shot.

ONE OF MANY DOPPLEGANGERS.          YOUR NAME HERE….

Recollection #2

I’d been in NZ for 4 days when I had my first visitor. Best mate since 10th grade, Doug flew over on a whim and stayed with me for 5 days. I had been tactically emotionally hunkered down and it was good to see him. Yes, he snores impressively and literally can’t not talk to everybody but still it was really great to have him visit me.

Among other talents too numerous to itemise here, Doug is a member of an elite crew. He has climbed the highest point in all 50 U.S. states and 5 of the famous 7 summits. For the better part of the last twenty years he hasn’t been on a business trip or to a wedding without managing to fit in a climb to the regional high point. So special props to Doug for not even trying to wedge in a high point. As far as I was concerned he was just flying nearly to the South Pole to check on his peep. Everybody ought to have friends that do that kind of thing.

Flashback: During our heyday at Austin High School and thereafter we were a duo of some renown. Honestly if you don’t believe how awesome we were, just ask Doug… or any Austin area cheerleading squad, sports reporter, radio DJ, or Gaylord Humberger.  We were, kind of a big deal.  In our late teens and 20’s, I always felt like Doug and I created our own gravitational field.  Not known for his humility, Doug was a force of nature in a social sense.

Now, we are “old as” and very comfortably camped at the infamous Devon 299 Motel while exploring a bit of NZ together. Doug is quite possibly the most gregarious person I’ve ever known and he jumpstarted some of my dormant extroversion. Our synergy accelerated my love affair with my adoptive NZ parents, Simone and Dean. They run the Devon 299 and match Doug’s gregariousness in kind with amazing hospitality. They took great care to ensure my “health and safety”.

Simone is from South Africa and Dean is Kiwi through and through. They are my adopted family here in New Plymouth. On a beautiful summer day, December 25th, they kindly “sorted me out” with a huge turkey dinner plate served on the motel pool side patio beneath a Texas flag. Damn, they are good. Still, the only turkey i have seen in all of NZ.

Recollection #3

Thanksgiving Day is an American thing. But if you inquire, folks from all over the globe will kindly tell you that they don’t recognise a specific holiday to formally commemorate the eradication of native peoples. So, as you can see, the Americana PR machine is mostly aimed at the U.S. and not that effective abroad.

So, to best honour the concept of thankfulness, I headed south on the Surf Highway. The days get ridiculously long in the summer so i had time for a little “reccy” and whatever else. After a stop at the very cool Vertigo surf shop, I was armed with a “cuppa” from Jono and a 6’6” fish style surfboard in search of something called Weld Road. 

 

As I headed down a 1.5 lane wide strip towards the ocean i passed all manner of vegetation. Bamboo, huge grass fields, trees I’d never seen before, all kinds of tall pines.  The greenery was accompanied by plenty of sheep, cows, and horses.

The little road dumps out into a perfect dirt/grass park right in front of a pair of gorgeous river mouths. The local coast is a gradual incline sloping from the 2518 meter Mt Taranaki and ending at the ocean some 30 km away. There is lots of rain and snow on the mountain and it all has to go somewhere. The downhill conduits are many rivers spreading out in all directions from the nearly perfect cone shaped peak. Spectacular streams and rivers dumping into the sea are so numerous that folks don’t even know the names, if they are named at all.

I look out at the Weld surf line up and it appears to be a good set up for my first surf session in NZ. The waves were lined up in a long period ground swell with 5-6 surfers spread out near a big rock that juts out of the water right near the take off. I figured  this huge lava chunk sticking up was a good thing… a non-subtle reminder that i was no longer in Kansas and had better keep it on a swivel.

I put on my wetsuit and tried to act casual as paddled out amidst obscene beauty. As I arrived about 100 meters offshore I realised I was alone. The crew had gone in as I paddled out. After a moment of consternation i figured it simply was their time to go. Maybe the tide was getting too high? Maybe they had their fill of perfect head high peelers and needed to refuel? Or was it something more sinister? 

Cold water at the bottom of the world, rocky reefs that immediately drops off to REAL deep ocean, seals, penguins, etc… what could possibly go wrong? I ran through my mental checklist and deduced that this is exactly how it is supposed to go. Right now is where and when I decide whether or not this place is for me. Is all this newness just too scary? or do i pretend to have legitimate basis for concern that I am in the wrong place or wrong time and exit the water out of prudent caution?

Nope.

My personal form of rationalisation took over and I paddled further out to prove the point. Then i saw it. Big and only slightly intimidating. It was an approaching wave that I was in position to catch. I turn and dropped in with almost no paddling. I cruised it for close to 100 meters, weighting and unweighting. I kicked out and landed on my belly with a smile. Mission accomplished.

Then I really saw something that really unnerved me.  A large Maori guy paddling out, coming straight for me. Oh shit, I thought: I have trespassed into sacred territory and stiffly rode a wave such that my cover is blown. I am an interloper here and I know it… but now THEY know it and are coming to make me aware.  I rehearse submissive posture and practice my apology.  Back up plans come to mind and I am considering opportunities for the elusive leash lock of underwater jui-jitsu when tribal tattooed Maori man arrives. “Hiya, how you going?” He says.

I consider the stoic silent chin nod but opt for the stalling technique. So with hand to the ear I say “go again, I didn’t get that”.  That’s when he lets go with a rambling uttering of nasal twangs that I truly didn’t understand. I follow up with “yep, all good!”  Waves came and we both got good rides but i managed to paddle back out quicker and catch the last one in the set. He used this as a point of conversation and said something about being out of shape, to which i replied that he looked solid to me.

From that point on he just would not stop chatting. Waves, water, wind, board size, board colour, wetsuit thickness, snow on the mountain, green grass,… anything. Damn, he was friendly. We met up again in the car park. He offered me some of his snacks and made sure we knew names before we had a shake and he left.

Lesson: Maori are friendly folk.  A fitting Thanksgiving for me.