Night Idyll

I live in Hataitai, in Wellington, in Aotearoa New Zealand, on the top of a hill that overlooks Evans bay. From my window I can usually see the airport on the other side of the bay, and Shelley Bay across the water, and the Remutakas behind everything. Tonight I only see streaks of rain and dots of lights, the porchlights of houses on a hill I cannot see and the repeating green light of an Airport I cannot make out, with the reflection of my kitchen sink hovering alongside it all. We are fully in winter, rain has fallen continuously these last few days, and I can tell the intensity of the weather by how little I can make out, how much is just fog and mist and cloud. Tonight is mostly mist and cloud.

The Wellington run of Rebellina just finished (my friend Lesa’s comedy show that I directed). Angelica and I also had a lot of stressful family admin that just resolved. I am feeling the adrenaline leave my body, without anything yet to replace it. I am exhausted and want to do nothing, but not yet used to having nothing to do, no event to attend or phone call to stress about. I am happy for this quiet night, where I am not quite sleepy yet, so I’ll just sit and smoke a pipe and watch the headlights of a car snake its way along Shelley bay.

I’m also about to do one of my favourite things, that solidifies that I am old, or older: I am going to listen to a kook podcast while I play a solitaire card game. I remember when I was younger, my brother worked a summer in Idaho as a park ranger, and my dad and I came to visit him for a week. My brother had a camp-appointed trailer, like a step up from an Airstream but not yet a double-wide, and at night there was not much to do except sit in the kitchen booth seats, listen to Coast to Coast or some audiobook we’d checked out for the ride, and play cards. It’s a distinct, happy memory for me, but I didn’t realize it would also become one of my favourite past times. Maybe the memory holds because, in the origami fold of time, future me knew the calm joy I’d get from radio and cards and wanted past me to hold on to it, like a note, for me to find at the right time.

High-faluting talk just to say I like playing solitaire at night. It is like prototypically boring. Platonically boring? The p-word that means the absolute core example of boring. I like the idle time that doesnt have a screen glow, that doesn’t have a point. It’s a way to spend an hour when I’m ready for bed on the surface (teeth brushed, house cleaned, sweats on), but my brain hasn’t quieted yet. I’ll put on some modern version of Coast to Coast radio, play Friedemann Friese’s Finished, and listen to a man talk about energy inventions the government (and big Grid) doesn’t want us to find, while I do something with my hands waiting for the chamomile to hit.

Before all that, though, I wanted to write here. Hello again, weblog!