Hard Boiled—To Be Ready—The Dream—Like Four Shoes in the Rain — Waves
I.
According to Urban Dictionary, hard boiled can be used to describe “a person that is seemingly unphased by anything.”
What about a van?
II.
To be ready
-Campsite(s) in mind
-Filled up water
-Bed made, stuff stored
-Food & ice
-Water bottles? Filter?
-First aid kit (it’d be nice)
-Figured out charging
[entry from notebook dated October 30, 2018]
III.
If you were to chart how I’ve felt about my campervan purchase since I sealed the deal, it’d look roughly like this:
Okay, don’t place too much stock in the relative values or when it was high or low. The point is, it’s just been a roller coaster:
Oh my god, is that burning oil I smell?!
Look at me driving on the left side of the road! And in a massive, manual transmission beast of a van, no less!
Geez, this thing really is huge. Not only is it a pain to park, but every bump feels like we’re going to break into a million pieces.
I think I’ll call it Hard Boiled! Yeah, I like that :)
Wait, it’s going to cost me how much just to diagnose the starter issue?
Hey now, Hard Boiled doesn’t look so bad when it’s all cleaned up!
Self-contained camping is a hassle and a half. Remind me why I invested so much to live like this?
I’ve finished dinner and washed up. Everything is put away and stored where it should be. I’m tucked away under this huge, warm duvet IN MY CAMPERVAN. Nobody’s parked anywhere near me. When I turn out the lights, it’s pitch black. And what sort of plan or obligation do I have tomorrow? Not a thing, my friends, not one thing.
And on and on it goes, back and forth, up to this very moment as I sit here typing away, from within trusty Hard Boiled, my cup of coffee close at hand and the sound of ocean surf and chirping birds floating through the open window. Pretty idyllic, huh? Yeah, well, you weren’t here for the doing dishes sans running water. Or the native bird that wouldn’t stop snooping around Hard Boiled’s open doors as I tried to scramble eggs. Or the astronomical bill I run up every time I have to fill up with petrol. Or the smell when I opened Hard Boiled this morning after returning from a visit to the john: a mix of last night’s dinner and unbathed human.
Yep, the dream is real.
IV.
Christchurch was raining pretty hard. I’d picked up a few things for my campervan and was walking back to the hostel. Because the wind was whipping rain back in my face, I had my head down and my hood up.
So there I was walking, head down, watching the rain slash diagonally across my sidewalk view. And then BOOM—other feet rush into my field of vision. They’re barely off to the side, heading the opposite direction. I must have just barely missed colliding with the owner of these similarly scurrying feet.
My first thought: they must be shaking their head right now at this guy barreling down the road without even looking to see who or what is coming. They must have swerved so as not to hit me.
Followed by another thought: Maybe their head was down too. After all, it was really coming down out there. And maybe their only view of me was my only view of them: a set of feet hurrying along off to the side. Which means we could only chalk it up to chance we didn’t run into each other full on in an explosion of rain droplets, confusion, and freshly purchased camping gear.
Sort of like two ships in the night and all we’re left with is each other’s feet.
V.
I was sitting in my camp chair on the beach, watching the ocean. It was evening and I was caught up in the inevitability of each wave. There was the swell, pulling up all this water, molecules upon molecules acting in concert. What possibly could draw them all in like that? Was each feeling the tug of the moon? Or were some just getting nudged by their neighbor and figuring, what the hell, why not?
Whatever the case, there they all were, indistinguishable from one another in the swelling wave. And watching it, I felt myself in anticipation. It would break, no doubt about that. But when? Was it now? Or now? Or…
And it breaks.
Again and again this happens. I keep watching. It can’t be stopped.
And though I can’t time it precisely, my lack of foreknowledge changes nothing about it breaking at its given moment.
It’s like what that backpacker from Argentina told me the other day as we sat around the hostel, discussing our travels. He was 30, like me, and also like me he’d quit his home job on a whim to come out here. Unlike me, he was already wrapping up his journeys by campervan. When I expressed my concerns that maybe I’d bought the wrong van, he just smiled. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, the smile steady. “However it happened, your van was meant to be with you.”
I laugh a short laugh and wonder.
In Place explores what it’s like to be in this place, Aotearoa New Zealand — and what it means to be in place more generally, what it means to belong. For more posts, visit https://medium.com/in-place.
