Fasten your buckle.
I.
“That’s it! La boucle est bouclée!”
Rachel — who just a moment ago was leaning back coolly in her green Ireland rugby jersey — is now sat bolt upright in her chair, her hand in the air, rallying support and enthusiasm for this re-discovered French idiom.
The buckle is fastened.
The circle is complete.
La boucle est bouclée!
It’s not the first time I’ve seen Rachel excited about this particular phrase (which sounds to me like “la boo-clay boo-clay”). A few months ago she stopped me in the bar at work to tell me, with her usual blend of swash-buckling coolness and couldn’t-be-fucked laughter, how she’d found the perfect translation for a French phrase a co-worker had been trying to explain to her.
Chest forward, shoulders back, eyes lit up, pony tail not quite settled from her swagger, she laid it out for me, like it was the most obvious and wonderful thing in the world. “It’s like the way we say ‘come full circle’ in English! La boucle est bouclée!”
That was then, back when I’d just returned to work at the Hermitage Hotel— and this is now, in the gentle aftermath of a send-off dinner my friends shared with me to say goodbye. Six days left to go. La boucle est bouclée.
II.
The first month was spent preparing — opening a New Zealand bank account, getting used to hostel life, receiving my tax identification number, buying a self-contained camper van for living on the road, and finding work (so my Working Holiday wouldn’t just turn into a holiday and an empty wallet).
Months two through five were spent working as a buffet attendant at a hotel in Aoraki Mt. Cook National Park. I lived in shared staff accommodation and made friends from all over the world (a few of whom I expect to keep for the rest of my life), went on regular walks in the mountains, and started and gave up writing a novel about a brother, a sister, and a deaf cat named Sebastopol.
Months six through nine were spent unemployed and roaming. Mostly I slept alone in Hard Boiled (the van), parking for free when I could and occasionally pulling into “holiday parks” where I paid for access to a kitchen, a shower, and laundry facilities. I went all over the South Island then ferried myself and Hard Boiled up to the North Island — and I then wandered all over that island too, top to bottom. My solitude was joyfully punctuated with periods of company: a week camper-vanning with Jerome, a buffet coworker; two weeks seeing sites with my goofy and endlessly enthusiastic parents; a week resting in an Airbnb on a farm outside Auckland with Ayaka, another buffet friend; and two weeks traveling and looking for work with my Italian friends, Dario and Daniela, of previous blog post fame. I wrote in my journal, talked to my older brother on the phone once or twice a week, watched TV and read books in Spanish, explored caves, learned (sort of) to surf and snorkel, swam with dolphins, waded into the ocean as often as I could, slept sooooo much, and called old friends on WhatsApp when I had free time. I was more alone and less lonely than I’ve ever been in my whole life.
The final three months were spent back at the same hotel in Mt. Cook, this time working both in the buffet and in the hotel’s nearly-fine dining restaurant. I got to see these mountains and these valleys through the winter. I lived in the same staff house I lived in before, though in a different room. I reunited with old friends and made new ones. I started writing a story with no real intentions at all — about a guy, his house and its prior occupants, and a deconstructed bicycle — and ended up with a thing nearly novel length and growing. I started learning basic scales on my guitar (a thing I never did despite my years playing) and improving my atrocious sense of rhythm. I found a tree I liked to sit in and read on sunny days.
I bought an airline ticket to Colombia. I sold Hard Boiled to a lovely couple in Wanaka and my guitar to a chef in the hotel kitchen.
I got prepared to say goodbye.
III.
Lots has changed.
Back then my hair was long, nearly down to my shoulders and usually pulled back in a pony tail. Now it’s just beginning to grow out over my ears.
Back then I was learning to sketch, dreaming of a portfolio I could submit as an application to an architecture program. Back then I was an urbanite, a person who loved cities and was sure someday he’d leave his mark in the city’s built environment.
Now I’ve abandoned sketching in favor of things I’ve done for a while (like writing, Spanish, and guitar). Now I’d be happy to never live in a city again. Now my career ambitions reach no higher than opening a local newspaper to see what people might be willing to pay me for.
Back then I spoke in Spanish only hesitantly and nervously, didn’t think I could make my way through a book written in Spanish, and struggled to understand native Spanish speakers who didn’t slow down for me.
Now I confidently strike up conversation in Spanish with anyone I meet from Latin America or Spain. Now I read books in Spanish — from novels to philosophy—and listen to podcasts and watch movies in Spanish without missing too much.
Back then I thought the good life included corner coffee shops and artisan bakeries, designer furnishings in a tasteful apartment, and an urban neighborhood with an excellent walk score.
Now my good life includes a few people I care about living close by, a handful of trees and rocks to climb, an absence of shops and restaurants that entice me to consume unnecessarily, and frequent walks along rivers or in the mountains.
Back then I was searching for a life I thought I could just choose, an idealized vision I could fashion whole-cloth out of the raw ideas floating around in my head—a future reality completely independent of my present one.
Now I believe my tomorrow will only be built, slowly and by a step-by-step process of trial and error, from the life I’ve got today.
Back then I hoped my year in New Zealand would leave me with a clear sense of where I’d like to go next, where I’d like to settle down and build a life—and of course it would be somewhere I’d never lived before, a place that would miraculously fit me like a glove.
Now here I am, the year about to come to an end, and I’m talking—excitedly, no less—about going home, about returning to the Verde Valley that raised me, about living either with my parents or with my older brother. About being a single 30-something living at home with no career prospects to speak of. About making space for my past to tell me what it’s got to say about my future.
IV.
And then again, there’s a lot that hasn’t changed.
Back then and now I’ve written, meditated, and read. Back then and now I’ve loved the nuances of language and the bigness of ideas. Back then and now I’ve refused to settle for a life peddled to me by ads, religion, politicians, or people afraid of change. Back then and now I’ve loved almost everyone I’ve really gotten to know.
Back then and now I’ve vacillated between an open-armed confidence in the world and myself and a narrowing, constricting anxiety that shuts out everything that’s not this whirring steel ball in my chest and my mind. Back then and now I’ve found it easier to come up with reasons to dislike myself than like myself. Back then and now I’ve eaten too much shitty food when I’m nervous, bored, or upset. Back then and now I’ve been as much in awe of life as I’ve been bored by it, as swelled up by its waves as crashed down by them. Back then and now my conviction that I need to feel okay has too often kept me from doing so.
Back then and now I’ve made decisions that are only possible because I’ve had a life stuffed to the brim with the best things the world has to offer, things I’ve never done a damn thing to earn or deserve — the support and love of family and friends who believe in and root for me; the privilege of a white upper-middle-class upbringing in a nation with no shortage of economic opportunities (along with the education, network, and earning power that all that entails); a brain that’s free enough of major chemical imbalances that I can still get out of bed every day and face the world with a degree of confidence; and, perhaps most importantly, the knowledge that there’s always a home (perhaps even more than one) for me to fall back on.
Back then and now.
La boucle est bouclée.
V.
I admit I have no idea how to write a final blog post about my time in New Zealand. In fact, the only reason I took on the challenge was to help a friend achieve immortality through my blog (you’re welcome, Rachel).
And since I have little interest in wallowing in the stress of trying to get it right (the same stress that led me to give up on this blog project nine months ago) and because I’ve got little else to say, I’m going to end with some haikus I wrote back in February. Why? No reason. Just want to share them.
1.
Her laughter, it’s like
The first bubbles to boil
Fast and sharp and round
2.
Algae beneath the
Waterfall — it constantly
Drinks in and pees out
3.
Bird’s flight up and down,
more than anything a wave
that never crashes
4.
Against black windows
moths flutter, make themselves hug
the light they can’t reach
5.
The grass can be big
So large it’s like a mountain
Except that it sways
Goodbye, New Zealand.
You can check out earlier posts from my first months in New Zealand by visiting https://medium.com/in-place.
Or be mildly entertained by clicking through some reflections on When I Was Mormon (if you’re amused by that sort of thing).
Thank you to all who’ve read!
-Brennan
