Christchurch: It’s happening

My ride + another gap filler space

“We live in cities you’ll never see on screen. Not very pretty but we sure know how to run things,” Ella Yelich-O’Connor, better known as Lorde, sings in the chorus of her song Team. Lorde is an Aucklander, not a Cantabrian, but her lyrics play in my head as I cruise through Christchurch. I’m hereRead more

On being almost thirty

haim

I turn 29 this week. Being in my twenties has been a perpetual excuse to make light of my delightful assortment of neuroses, anxieties and mistakes. It’s also been a decade of miniskirts, two-day hangovers, quiet nights cozied up with a good book, six-hour Game of Throne binges, $130 yoga pants, quitting jobs to travel,Read more

Being and doing on the Atiwhakatu River.

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Paul is collecting fallen twigs from beech trees, the dense dwellers of the Tarurua Range. He is building a morning fire in between a pile of rocks on one of the islets of the Atiwhakatu River we are lingering on.  It’s not a necessary fire. The sun is strong today and we are sheltered fromRead more

Do what you love with half of your heart, or as much as you can afford at the moment.

Fine, fine. Here is a more optimistic one.

Whelp, it’s a gorgeous Sunday in Wellington. I spent the morning down at Princess Bay throwing the rugby ball around with Paul and reading some hilarious yet insightful essays by David Foster Wallace on the beach. Ate a seafood pie for lunch, and let pastry and creamy chunks of crab and mussels drip down myRead more

Oh My God, I am an Expat.

After spending so much time in SE Asia, the word “expat” started to take on a fairly creepy meaning. If you’ve been to Vietnam (or any other Asian or developing country), you’ve seen them. White men. Somewhere between the ages of 50 to 65 years old. Big bellied. Almost always smokers and readily spotted atRead more