Why It Was A Charmed Summer

captain cook locked her in his cabin

and painted her and then the painting became the Pacific Mona Lisa and dwelt in british galleries for a hundred years or more and has finally been returned to new zealand and I SAW IT ON THE DAY IT WAS UNVEILED. i had randomly ventured into town for the 3 hours i had between flights at Wellington airport on the way home, from the bottom of the country to the top, and was at the halfway point, in the capital.
i had randomly wandered into Te Papa and been tipped off by a local that i should go up to see this unveiling, and i interrupted a waiata - and i nearly cried. it was such a huge historical convergence of the spirits
of the heritages of opposite poles of the earth...

ok perhaps i was just tired.

the dolphins

and i have always been, like, ridiculing the whole dolphin craze. I mean they're just animals. why this obsession? why the tshirts? why don't we get upset about stranded jellyfish? is it because dolphins are streamlined? do they seem to have smiley mouths? is it because we've never witnessed them hurting a human? (other than the occaisional one leaping onto boat decks and crushing the unfortunates).

but when the pod came up the river, which is rare enough, i rapidly filled my data card with videos and photos of them, then ran upriver to swim out and meet them. i found out how unfit i was in the middle of the channel. when people say 'swimming with dolphins' they mean swimming madly trying to intersect their path. it's hard enough to predict their path with your eyes at the level of the water surface anyway. and they go so fast...
at one point i was in the middle of the pod as it swam past me, then they were gone. the whole town was in the river with me, and i had a right old catch up with the old potter....
i was surprised by their hugeness, the only other time i had seen dolphins i think was on Easter Sunday ten years ago the day a family friend died. they were Hectors' dolphins i think, they were small and dark.

i wasn't expecting the awe of being so close to something so fast and powerful and elusive and silver and gleaming and alive....
then later in bed if i couldn't relacks, i could think of the dolphins and relive the moment and fall asleep.

in fact, my mother was alarmed at my sudden unnanounced vanishing from the family group to go chase the dolphins. she thought i had drowned. my brother had been searching for me...

home

to dwell in the family bach built by my great-grandfather nigh on sixty years ago and inhabited ever sints[minus some winters] by McBeaths,
and paint, surrounded by my grandmother's and aunt's paintings, including the rainbow mural all around the outside.
to just be there, with all of my family.

peace.

the night sky

on the way to bed one night, i deviated to go check on jupiter, whom i like to keep an eye on. it's comforting, like it is big and bright enough to keep me safe till it sets at midnight. as the closest thing to earth other than the moon, (and venus but she doesn't rise till 3am), it alleviates the emptiness of space somewhat. it makes it feel a little more companionable.

anyway, i was saying i was on my way to check jupiter when my sight was accosted by a dim red lamp in the sky and my immediate animal response was ITS JUPITER! COLLISION COURSE! RUN!!!!!
and then i thought it was a christmas ornament, hanging in the trees. i got out to beyond the trees, and found it was moonsized and recalled that there had been an eclipse last night that i had missed because it was cloudy, and perhaps the earth's shadow had been on the moon all last night and today and my point on the surface of the earth was coming around to view it again....

but no, i just had my dates wrong. which was a wonderful thing, not since ancient pre-astroscience times have people been caught unawares by eclipses and been thrown into doomsday terror. it was pretty cool.

also this summer, i observed venus emerge on the other side of the sun, and conceptualized for myself its traverse from the evening into the morning sky.
and discovered the wonder of watching planets rise. they positively glide upwards....

venus and the crescent mune^

ritual

i developed the habit of playing the guitar and singing to the sunset on the beach, occluded from the road, till long after sunset each night. once there was a dalmation there on the beach, with it's friend and family. it was the dogs first time ever in the water and i watched them get over their caution of this great shiny cold enveloping substance. and took a jillion photos and sent them to the newspaper.

famberly

all my siblings got together, from across the globe. there are five. one lives in scotland. she brought the one-year-old over, for her first nz experience. a beautiful child with sand on her feet and jellytip on her face, squinting at the bright sunlight, eyes that have only ever seen hazy british skies.
it was amazing having everyone together, it doesn't happen that often. we really bring out the brilliance in each other. my siblings really are culturally rich, and bright.
my little brother got married, which was just a fantastic few days. everyone loves weddings. everyone loves the love in the air. they asked me to play some impromptu chopin, after i'd had 2 1/2 champagnes.
actually, there was so much left of it, we were drinking champagne for weeks. there's probably still some in mum's secret stash...

santa claus

i am twenty-seven and santa claus suddenly remembered me!!! he gave a me an art calendar, and a humour address book, and chocolate, and joy.
late christmas eve became this unexpected riot of present-opening, records (proper ones on a record player), and relatives dancing and singing englebert humperdink into empty liquer bottles. my younger pajamad brother came stumbling down the hallway but declined the offer of opening his stocking early and went dazedly back to bed.

death

everyone seemed to be into legacies, and passing possessions on. i am a possessions person. i keep totems that remind me of people, usually with their permission [but that's another blog] and i have this collection of the most ridiculously insignificant memorabilia and every so often i drown in nostalgia.
so i have acquired a piano [with gold candleholders and embellishment] and an ancient writing desk [on which to pen great essays that channel my anscestors and send them on travels round the world]. it still has stationary in it that smells like weekends-with-my-grandparents and will stay there forEVER.
i am terrified of being in possession of china. i shall put it in a steel safe that is bolted to the floor and glue the china to the inside of the safe.

wortacolour

i rediscovered the medium of my grandmother. she excelled in this paint. i had never before mastered it. and it's SO PURE of technique. and so fast. cant go back to acrylic, its just frustrating now...

dog

I got bitten by a dog. it all happened so fast, i thought it was a scratch. it was only two tiny punctures from the eye teeth [also called canines haha] and i was in this daze fingering the dog saliva on my arm and now i have lost my aversion to dog saliva which was the only reason i was averse to dogs anyway. i would have only ever lived with a dog that had short hair and no salivary glands. now i'm cuddly over all of them...

piano lessons

i played for my grandfather several times, and they always ended in a lesson on chopin. i didn't know he played my idol, and now i have stolen several of his favourite songs and can play them in his place for the next 70 years.

i found a piano bar to play in, on the same nights i do in dunedin. one of the muso-gurus taught me about the 7th chord being the fourth chord component of modern rock, which has revolutionized my musical comprehension and my playing.

'lektric gitar

my younger brother came home with a 'lektric guitar. my peace had gone. but he was destined for this instrument, has been obsessed with it from toddlerhood, and we still mimic him playing air guitar and singing to himself from that era. he has picked it up amazingly fast, and will soon be rocking it out, then all he will need then is the sex and drugs.

he's been making 'your mother' jokes at me all summer. love him.

the peaclass

it was like a gift from heaven
it is yellow, and my stepbrother and brother pooled to buy it
from the roadside
and they can race it with the old blue one that my grandfather built decades ago
and the boys have been bonding hugely and sailing it for hours every day

do you see, are you marvelling with me, at this magnificently charmed summer?