By Lucy

Ok, I am officially over this.

I wouldn’t necessarily feel the same if I were staying for the whole year or two. Now that it’s less than 3 months since I leave, and knowing I’m probably gonna be broke until March, I’m tired of trying to do the budget gymnastics.

The first thing I did was ask Simo if I could come back right after my time here is done. I can still take the weekend to go up and around the west coast, after all. She said there is someone booked into my cabin right now and the later I could arrive, the better. I agreed to the 27th and started looking at plans. I could still do a bit of travelling with an extra week of time.

I looked at going to the North Island. The cheapest ferry (there’s 2) is 130 bucks with the bike (curiously, the 7:30AM crossing is cheaper than the 2:30AM crossing). Plus, there was a lot of chatter online that they recommend you bringing your own straps, as they have a limited supply of cheap, crappy straps and the Cook Strait has some pretty aggressive weather.

I looked at the train I wanted to take back after I sold the bike in Auckland. The Coastal Pacific, from Picton to Christchurch, is 219 NZD and runs every day. Unfortunately, the Northern Explorer, from Auckland to Wellington, is slightly more expensive and only goes south every Monday, Thursday and Saturday. Also, for January it was entirely booked, except for a couple Thursday bookings for the “Scenic plus” at 500$.

Crap crap crap. That would mean trying to sell the bike within 2 days and spending an extra 300 dollars. Or driving the bike back, which means costing the hotels and food on the way back and another 130 dollars for the ferry again.

Hindsight is 20/20. Maybe I don’t bother going to the North Island. I only really wanted to drive the North Island because Lynda put it in my head to drive around Mt Taranaki.

On a whim, I checked March. Wide open for bookings.

I suppose I could drive up to the North Island in March. Take the train back down for the conference in Invercargill. The bus between Christchurch and Invercargill is a 12 hour journey, but only 50 NZD. Less than 500 bucks to go from one end of the country to the other. Of course, flying would be faster and cheaper, but that’s not the point. Then fly back to Auckland for my flight back to Canada.

Or I could just take the train north from Invercargill instead of flying to Auckland. I would miss Taranaki and not really have any time to sightsee in Auckland, but it would be less backtracking. Plus if I sell the bike in Christchurch, I have time to search for the best price, and ship my bike gear back to Canada.

What to do with my extra week…

I was flaked on the couch watching House and opened Facebook. A post came up for a biker’s rally in Greymouth, running the weekend before I go back to the estate.

Huh. I mean, Greymouth is a 3 hour drive to the estate… I could spend the weekend at a motorcycle rally and head back, easily. I popped open the website for the hostel I had stayed at in Greymouth before. I forgot how cheap the rooms were there. It would be about 100 Canadian to stay for the weekend. Cheaper than here!

Ok, new plan. I spend the week cruising around the coast. I can go back to Twizel for a couple of nights and do the Mount Aoraki hike, then spend a couple of days at Haast/ Fox Glacier. After that, I think I’ll go up to Karamea and do some of the hikes there and eat some fresh seafood!

I deflated somewhat when I started look at accommodation prices. The problem with wanting to do the Aoraki hike from Twizel is that I’d still need to figure out what to do with my biking gear. There is a hostel in Mount Cook Village… some overpriced chain called Haka House. They want 100 a night for a shared room! Daylight robbery! Still, I would be walking distance to everything in the village, and I could bring my own food (yay.) and I’d be making up for it with how cheap Greymouth is.

The only cheap hostel I could find for the first leg of the coast was in Haast, unless I wanted to do Haka House again. But there should be enough tourists around that I could hitchhike around after I get there.

Hokitika I was conflicted about. There was a Soroptimist there and I had internally been planning to stay with her, but when I went back to check my email I realized she hadn’t actually extended the offer, it had just been based on every other Soroptimist offering me a place to stay. I sent her a tactful email asking if I could stay or if she could recommend a place to stay, and held off on booking anything. I could stay at the Greymouth hostel – it’s only a half-hour drive – but the real problem is that I want to see the glow worms, which only come out after dark, and I don’t want to drive the bike in the dark.

Then Karamea for 2 days. Karamea, like Milford Sound, I was on the fence about because it is a dead end – just another 3 hour drive back in the direction I came from to get out. But since I was just killing time until the rally and then back to the estate, why not? Book a hostel, spend a couple days relaxing in a sea-side town and hiking in the bush.

Since that left me with an odd day out, I booked Greymouth from January 23-27th. The rally technically starts on the 24th, but at noon, and getting back to town early would give me time to shop and pack lunches.

My headphones for my phone have gone missing. I left them on the table, with my laptop, after my jog on Saturday, but I can’t find them. I searched everywhere, under all the furniture, but they are gone. I suspect someone thought they belonged to them, but I struggle to think of who. Lightning jack connectors are self-limiting.

I put in an order for what I hope to be my last order of groceries, barring some odd bits here and there.

On Sunday, I report to the cafe at 9 for my carpentry work, but everything is a mess. The fryer wasn’t turned on properly, Luna is trying to train one of the teenage girls and can’t make drinks with her broken arm, and orders are piling up. When John comes in to rescue her, she leaves the cafe with tears in her eyes. I follow her to the bathroom and give her a hug while she cries into my shoulder.

When we go back to the cafe, John gives me a clipboard and a pen and tells me to go to the spa and take notes. Ok? All the tools are stored under the lodge, so I stop there to grab a measuring tape, which I will surely need. I walk up to the spa; other than a box of hooks sitting on a bench, obviously waiting to be mounted, there isn’t much that’s plain to the eye.

Finally John comes to join me. Other than the hooks, he also wants the fence next to the hot tub to be cut so it is below the level of the hot tub, providing an unobstructed view of the lake valley. And some flashing put on the top of the sauna.

We go back to the tools area. He has a surprising variety of tools, mostly dirty and in a bit of a state of disrepair. I surprise him by popping the battery out of the skillsaw and into the reciprocating saw, but skillsaws don’t really work vertically or in small spaces like the foot of space between the fence and the hot tub. An impact gun and a variety of screws and bits; the hooks he bought are actually coat and hat hooks, with screws for drywall and drywall plugs, not for hanging towels outside on timber beams. A level. A pencil for marking things. John is pleased and leaves me to it. For once I feel sort of confident.

The fence is first, the most straightforward bit; cut in a straight line. He’s made a string line for where he wants the cut, although I realize when I start cutting that it’s not ideal. I go back to the shed and find a chalk line and mark it properly.

Good thing I’m tiny. I can’t imagine a lot of other people fitting back here with any kind of saw. Towards the end I have to switch arms so I can squeeze myself into the limited space and still hold the saw level. And no, I can’t cut it from the other side; it’s a straight drop down.

The hooks give me more trouble. Obviously I want to level out the board holding the hooks, but he’s left all the joists exposed and the girts are not level. Or, possibly they are level and the level is broken. Duff tried to show me how to tell if a level is level, but I was annoyed about something and ignored him. Oops. Either way, my choice is to level the board and have it look obviously cock-eyed from the girts, or just make it match the girts. I decide to level it.

I’m hot and tired; the sun has been directly overhead the entire time and there’s isn’t a cloud in the sky or a breath of wind. I have to cut two of the boards, so I mark them and bring them down to the basement, then leave them there and go to the cafe for a chai.

John wants 2 hooks on the 2 sides and 8 across the back. When I’m done washing the sawdust out of my throat with the chai, I cut the boards and head back up. The hooks claim to be able to hold 15kgs, so the screws are probably fine. I have no real alternatives; John wants the screws to be black to match the hooks, but the only black hooks don’t sit flush. I found some silver ones I like better, and a bit of permanent marker would make them black easily. The cheap screws start stripping immediately – stupid drywall screws – so I pre-drill the holes before sinking them and use a couple of silver screws to replace the stripped ones.

The last bit is the flashing. I dunno who measured and cut the flashing – they put one piece on the roof already, although it isn’t attached in any way, just floating there – but they did it wrong, or at least not how we would do it. The guys showed me this way to cut it, and then you can bend the flashing and create a corner and a seal without cutting all the way through the flashing. This guy, neither piece is long enough to cover the corners… presumably intentionally, but I can’t fathom why. I find some screws that claim to pierce sheet metal, but I can’t drive them in. It’s been 4 hours since 9 and I’m hot and tired and the sun is blinding on the roof.

I pack all the stuff in and go back to the cafe. “What time did you want me to work ’til? It’s past 3 hours.” And I don’t want to be yelled at again.

“What have you got done?”

I explain it to him, minus me not knowing which screws to use on the roof.

“Well, self-direct.” He says with a smile.

What the hell does that mean? “I’d prefer to be done for today. I can finish the roof anytime, and the fence needs a spot of paint.”

“Ok.” He says, but looks disappointed.

It’s so hot and dry they put “no fires” signs at the campsite.

As the day winds on, I notice a pain in my left elbow. Tennis elbow, or as we sometimes call it, carpenter’s elbow. It hurts not to bend my arm, but to straighten it. Still, I can’t imagine I did much to it. I take a Tylenol and by the next morning it feels normal again.

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Another death I find it confusing to mourn. At my first Soroptimist meeting they were handing out monetary awards. One young woman who got one was using it to repay her student loans; she was working at the Indigenous friendship centre (she’s indigenous) and getting a law degree explicitly to work in advocacy. One of the other Soroptimists sent us her obituary. How she died is absent, but I can’t imagine it was for medical reasons.

I can’t say I knew her, I doubt she would remember my face or name, but I’m sad, knowing another indigenous woman has been lost to crime and violence. I was looking forward to working with her as I get more into volunteering. I was looking forward to seeing her name on law briefs and newspaper articles. I’m angry. Who, how, why?

When is it enough?

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I borrow Shirah’s headphones to go for a jog, since mine are missing. This program lasts 8 weeks. Before I go back to Canada, I’ll be able to run 5kms. That seems nice. When I get back, Shirah’s made some pan bread which is pretty yummy. Maybe I should get into that. I jokingly call it lembas, which no ones understands.

Later on, Shirah shows me her headphones are kinked now. I can’t think of anything I did to cause that, but me using them is the only thing that changed. The left one doesn’t work now. They look oddly melted.

I continue my House marathon in the evenings. The teenage girls are getting into it as well, quizzing me about episodes they missed and medical things they don’t understand, as well as how to cook. They annoy me by being so clueless (one of them keeps exclaiming “slay!” as an expression of approval), but I suppose the fact that they keep asking me questions is a good sign. I tease them about being rich kids from Auckland and they refer to themselves as JAFA’s; Just Another Effin’ Aucklander. That may be their roots, but it doesn’t need to be their whole story. They freely admit the South Island is better than the North and that Hobbiton is a waste of time and money.

Monday is my real day off. I want to borrow one of the E-bikes and bike up to where Lothlorien was filmed, a place called Paradise, and maybe further into Isengard, the Dart river flood plain. I also want to do the Diamond creek walk. No one can give me an answer on the bikes; John is busy in the kitchen, Toni left to drive Sam to the airport (and pick up my groceries), and Ti left in a kayak to attempt to camp again.

I find Shirah and Kam on the patio for the cafe. Kam is having a slow motion break-down; the cook coming today is actually a Michelin-starred chef who won several awards in the UK and wanted to do some backpacking in New Zealand to unwind. She seems to think he will have her tossed out of the kitchen as inadequate. She agrees to let me borrow her van again in between sobs.

Just as I’m about to head out, Toni shows up with my groceries and some groceries for the girls. I take them back up to the main house and put them away. Andiamo! Enough delays.

Another gloriously hot, sunny day. I want to soak up all the sun now that I’m counting down the days ’til I go back to a Canadian winter. It’s been cool and wet in Thunder Bay, most of the snow has melted. Now there’s been a polar vortex-induced blizzard and the southern states are freaking out, as usual.

The road out to Lothlorien is a dirt road, winding and narrow, like the road here. There’s no sign or parking lot for Lothlorien; in theory, it’s private land with no access, although there’s no fence or signs warning against trespassing. The forest is beautiful, with a wide path trailing away into the trees. Is there something deeper into the woods, or just curious tourists making a path to nowhere? I walk far enough in that I can’t see the car parked by the side of the road, take some pictures and head back. It’s not like they would have left any of the set behind here, anyway.

From here, I have a good angle on Mount Earnslaw as well. You can’t really see it from the lodge. It’s interesting that all the mountains west of here have white caps; is it the elevation? How close they are to the ocean? Or does the lake effect stop the mountains next to the lake from having snow all year around?

Diamond Creek is a nice walk, 45 minutes out and 45 minutes back. There isn’t much in the way of shade, but I’m covered in sunscreen and bug spray. It’s basically flat, although it is winding, following the creek up to a Lake Reid. You can fish for chinook salmon in the river. It’s wide, shallow and clear; I stop and look in several spots to see if I can see any nephrite along the bottom. I’d love to find my own, although I know I shouldn’t take it.

Lake Reid is pretty. There’s a picnic table next to the lake, where I reapply my sunscreen. There’s a bunch of black swans on the lake, dozing and grazing in the afternoon sun. The shore of the lake is scattered with iridescent black feathers; from the swans or the ducks? I pick one up and spin it around in my fingers, debating if it’s moral to take it with me. I decide Hanuman would tell me not to and place it back on the ground.

I do my run on the way back. I think I’m supposed to stagger it and do one every other day, but I’ve done them back to back cuz they’re easy and I’m not very good at pacing myself.

Well, that’s it for today. I head back to the house and make myself some butter chicken.

It occurs to me that I can’t remember the last time I actually watched the Lord of the Rings movies, but here I am sightseeing all these filming locations that really mean nothing without context. I should rewatch them, but all I can hear is my mother complaining the book was better. The girls come in and ask if we’re watching more House today.

“What if we watch Lord of the Rings and play “spot the filming location?” I ask.

“Sure!”

Maybe they can quiet my mother’s voice.

Turns out, the girls have actually never watched the movies and have the barest context for why people like them.

I remember people were super thrilled with the quality of the CGI at the time, but it’s cringey now. Borderline ‘my first film project’ quality, especially on a 4K TV. The cutting edge doesn’t age well. Some of the design choices are very early 2000’s as well.

At the same time, I find myself mouthing along with the movie and recognize a few of my common witticisms as corruptions of lines in the movie. When everything I remember is usually so crystal clear, it’s odd for something to be close to subconscious.

Both girls have constant questions about the lore and changes made from book to movie, and I am more than happy to uncork the well of useless knowledge from my brain.

I also find my opinions have changed on the characters. Legolas was my favorite and I still think Orlando Bloom is the most attractive actor in the movie (the girls agree with me), but I like Viggo Mortenson more now. I always disliked Aragorn for being too perfect, but I see more nuance to him now, although I still think his portrayal in the movies could use a bit more. Especially when compared to poor Boromir, who’s practically holding a neon sign saying “I will betray everyone” and doesn’t really get to prove why anyone would want him along in the first place. Plus, the wandering culture of the Rangers is something I definitely identify with now.

The scene with Arwen and Aragorn is so ham-handed we broke out into laughter. Subtly is for suckers, apparently! And yet, this was more than nerds could have hoped for at the time, wasn’t it? And I do appreciate the change of Arwen from the books to the movie, with her being the one to take down the Nazgul at the ford; it gives her more agency than just being Aragorn’s prize.

The parts with scenery we clearly recognize is so surreal. Most of the scenes of them on top of the mountains with a lake or river in the background are of them on top of the mountains overlooking Lake Wakatipu. I can look out the window and be like “there they were”. It does make some of the dialogue laughable when you know they basically just crossed the lake to get a different angle and haven’t actually gone anywhere! The CG for Isengard is also curious; obviously the tower itself was mostly CG, but the land at the base is as well. The Dart valley is a braided river, but they’ve created a CG forest/ mud plain where the river would be, although you can recognize the mountains behind it.

James comes into the living room at some point and we start quizzing him on locations. He wisely retreats as soon as he is able.

I learned that the river where Arwen fends off the Nazgul is just north of Queenstown, called Skipper’s Canyon, although the road is rough and hard to reach without an SUV. The section of the road between Glenorchy and Queenstown, after the bend, where the trees close over the road and it smells green and alive, is where some battles were filmed, like the climatic fight where Boromir is killed and Merry and Pippin were taken hostage. The Remarkables, across from Queenstown, is where the exterior shots for Moria were filmed. The river that stands in for the Anduin is on the road when I head back to Aoraki. 12 Mile Delta, Bob’s Cove… all names I recognize from signs I blew past.

Should I be as awestruck as I am? I message Graham just to gloat, because why go all the way to New Zealand if not to brag about it?

As I lay in bed, I think about one of the themes of Lord of the Rings: you can’t go home again. That Frodo was so mentally scarred by the journey that he had to go to Valinor because there was no rest for him in Middle-earth. How the elves are jealous of men because they can never go off to the long sleep. They get reborn in the Halls of Mandos, time after time. Half-asleep, I write:

One of the greatest gifts to man is his ability to hang up his boots at the end of a long day, and go to sleep. Such is how I view death. My early bedtimes are borne of jealousy, a desire for rest I can never satiate. True rest eludes me.

I turn it over in my mind in the morning. It’s true, I never feel well rested or at ease.

Tuesday is the day I booked in to get my Warrant of Fitness. Time to find out what kind of damage I have done to this bike.

It’s a warm, sunny morning. I put the seat back on the bike, in case it counts for some reason. The drive in to town is nice.

The motorcycle shop that I picked at random is across from Pak’N’Save, how fortuitous, I already know how to get there. There’s an AA, the government agency for renewing documents, conveniently next door. I expected some guffaws about my being a female or the bike being small and adorable, but no one bats an eye. I think most male bikers are either cool with female bikers or just cautious of being yelled at at this point, which gives them a point over regular car mechanics. I suppose any idiot can get a car license, but you need some degree of skill and physical fitness to drive a motorcycle, male or female.

I’m half an hour early, not that it matters. I ask them about an oil change; he says they can check the oil, which makes me roll my eyes. I know how to check oil, numbnuts, I’m just not sure how many kilometers I can get out of it because I’m not sure how motorcycle oil changes differ from car ones. The manual says to get one every 5’000kms, and it’s just past 15’000, but I’m willing to bet lil ol’ Bernie babied the bike and got one every 4’000 or more regularly. He asks when it was serviced last, but Bernie wouldn’t tell me. Probably the last WOF, a year ago, but what I needed to know what kilometers cuz that’s what matters for oil changes.

Onwards.

I walk down towards Five Mile mall. I stop at a chicken place and have a chicken burger slathered in sauce. I’ve been really good about not eating out or even buying junk food since I’ve been here, but I really wanted some.

Then I wander around a bit trying to find a place with creatine. I ran out yesterday, and Chemist Warehouse’s website is so broken as to be unusable. It rejected my card, so Bianca said I could use her Eftpos, but it won’t accept that either. I like creatine so much I decided I’d rather pay the extra to buy it from a store here than go without, but good luck finding any.

I duck into an electronic store and pay too much money for another pair of headphones. I have a feeling mine are gone for good.

Then I go into Pak’N’Save. Kam gets her Musashi supplements from here. It’s not straight creatine – it’s got caffeine and taurine and the usual crap – but it’s something. Once I’m back at the estate I’m sure I can arrange for Simo to pick some up for me from the Chemist Warehouse in Christchurch/ journey there myself.

When I walk back to the garage, my bike is done with a clean bill of health. Exciting! He recommends I clean and oil the chain, easily done. He says the oil is probably fine but could be changed soon. I leave town before they have any spots, but his buddy owns the Honda dealership in Greymouth. Do I want to do it in Greymouth or get the shop in Glentunnel to do it? I kind of look forward to stomping into the Glentunnel shop and primly informing them I went all the way to Dunedin and back on my little bike. I could also just not do it and sell the bike and let the next owner deal with it, but that seems rude.

I go next door to the AA and renew the registration. My whole paycheck gone in an hour. The AA is playing a song I recognize instantly, Canned Heat, from the iconic dance scene in Napoleon Dynamite. What a weird connection.

As I head back, I smell the change in the breeze. Rain. It was still when I left, but now I’m being assaulted by a wind fierce as anything I had to fight in Canterbury. I can’t see the other side of the lake through the dust.

I stop in Glenorchy to send my Christmas letters. The post office is also the gas station, and the same clerk who didn’t want to sell me gas also doesn’t want to take my mail. Eventually she agrees to.

There’s a few scattered droplets as I race down the gravel road at 50 clicks an hour. Necessity is the mother of driving too fast. Yet I don’t wipe out. The bike feels easier and easier to control the stronger I get.

I park the bike and run inside as I can see the rain bearing down on us. James laughs as I run past.

The girls are watching Lilo and Stitch and baking banana bread as I come in. As I take off my gear and collapse on the couch to catch my breath, Kam cuts three slices for the others and ignores me. The irony is lost on them, I suppose.

Wednesday we wake to a surprise. Trudeau stepped down, although fortuitously he’s held off on doing anything about it ’til March 24th. The world seems to turn on my schedule some days. I’m just glad I don’t have to figure out how to vote by mail.

My work schedule changed Wednesday, or I’m blind. I’m put on general whatever for 6 hours. The kitchen doesn’t need me; John is training the Michelin-star chef, Henry, a taciturn young man. Housekeeping also doesn’t need me. It’s the end of the holiday in New Zealand and the country is taking a breather before the next round of tourists.

They send me to put up a new sign. There’s a sign down by the driveway that displays the menu for the cafe, to lure in campers. The old one was clearly made of untreated wood and is rotting to bits, but the new one is some cheap, Ikea assemble-it-yourself thing, the instructions hilariously photocopied too many times. The problem is that it was obviously designed to be inside, not outside. Still, I disassemble the old one, pull the post out of the ground, and assemble the new one. The bit that takes the longest is the screws for the top part of the display; they’re cheap and don’t want to go in. I make a single attempt to drive them in with the impact and it strips immediately. Even with a regular Philips, I’m still struggling to convince them to go in without stripping. I get half of them all the way in and give up. The wind is going to send this whole unit flying before it tears the display off, anyway.

Time to finish the spa, I guess.

I sand down the cuts on the fence and paint them. Lauren is hanging up laundry and I call down to her, just faint enough to get her to take off her headphones and look around, until Eva comes out and points out to her that I am above her, tee hee.

Then I put the flashing on the roof. I cut the one corner the way I like it. Stupid other guy.

The last bit is to finish the fence, although it hardly seems worth it. It’s not like the gate is ever going to be locked or entrance denied to guests. It is kind of fun to figure out the angle on the skillsaw instead of just doing straight cuts. I send pictures to Hanuman and he says I did a good job.

The last thing it needs is the corrugated sheet metal, which I tell John bluntly I have no idea how to cut or attach. He says not to worry about it and go ask Ti for work. Ti asks me to weedwack the walkways. I’ve never used a weedwacker or lawnmower before and I don’t think I did a very good job, but it was just to kill an hour anyway. In another couple of days, someone else will do it again and it won’t matter.

I go for another run after work. Still can’t pace myself. Fitbit says I’m “at risk of undertraining” and I take that as a challenge. I like the new headphones, I actually think they sound better than my old ones. I shower, hop in the hot tub and then the cold plunge shower for a few cycles.

Shirah complains about the movies we watch being too depressing, so I put on Moana since it’s upbeat and topical. I haven’t watched it since I started learning to sail and I find some of it funny now. Like one point when Maui yells at Moana “tighten the halyard” before combat. The halyard is the rope that raises the main sail so I can’t imagine why it would be “loose”. He also tells her to grab the sheet, then tells her every rope she reaches for is wrong when most ropes on a boat are a sheet (I mean, the waka only has the one sail). I think someone just wanted to throw some boaty terms around.

I understand the navigation better now; when she holds her palm up to the sky, she’s finding south by the southern cross. It’s also funny when Maui is teaching her to tie a bowline one-handed, cuz Duff can do it and tried to teach me.

I’m jealous of Moana. She could sail off and find things yet undiscovered. Our world is all mapped out, no as-yet undiscovered continents to find, although I suppose there are still lots of little unclaimed islands.

Thursday I wake up and feel good. I got a rare 100 out of 100 on my readiness on my Fitbit, 8 hours of undisturbed sleep with none of my usual thrashing. I don’t feel tired or sore. The combination of creatine, jogging and hot tubs must be doing something.

Just 3 hours of housekeeping today. Ti doesn’t grab me for ecoscapes, she grabs the new girl. Makes sense, she needs to be trained and I’m on the way out. I feel an irrational pang of jealousy at being replaced for something I hated doing. One week left.

A guest left behind a half-finished bottle of wine. Mine! Not that anyone wants it. Another guest leaves behind some smutty book called “Send Nudes” and the other girls fight over it. Good smut is hard to find and the kind of girls who get on planes to cross the world are not the kind to care if they are judged.

After work, I nap – 9 hours of sleep total – and go for a jog. Nichola is gone for another overnight hike, so I have the cabin to myself again.

At 7, I put together some gulab jamun. It’s an Indian recipe that requires powdered milk, flour, and not much else, so it’s good for using up the powdered milk the guest left behind. It needs to be fried, and John says I can use the fryer as long as it’s hot, so I walk the dough balls down to the kitchen. The new chef, Henry, just turned the fryer off, perfect. Once they’re done, he pops one in his mouth and comments that he’d eat them just the way they are, even though they technically need to be glazed still. I make a simple syrup back at the house and soak them. They are more powdered milk than flour – 200 grams to 50 grams. Does that make them healthy or high protein? I wonder if you could make them keto by replacing the wheat flour with arrowroot flour.

Then I sit at the table and drink the wine.

I’m getting nice and bronze. The Vagabond will be pleased. I’m also pleased, to be honest, even though I hate being tan. I like the idea of having visibly spent the winter in a warmer climate, gloating to everyone in the lunch room about 6 months in New Zealand.

I’m losing track of what’s blonde dye and what is my natural hair. My hair does develop blonde highlights when left to its own devices, although it’s been nigh on 7 years since I spent enough time in the summer sun for that to happen. I didn’t go out much for chemo, and then I was a factory worker, and then I dyed my hair bright red for years. I presume the large blonde chunk at the bottom is still the colour lift from the red, at least.

I realized, as I was writing the New Years post, that something has changed. I wrote He Who Shall Not Be Named’s name and it didn’t bother me.

Well, not that it would. He’s not literally Voldemort or Sauron or something. Or like the Vagabond, who’s name is such a rare, obscure Italian name I’m sure he’s the only one in Thunder Bay with it, which is another reason I can’t publish it. But for a long time, I wondered how I could heal my scars when forgetting is not something I can do. When I can always close my eyes and relive my feelings, vivid as the day they first occurred. He was such a large part of my internal mythos…

And yet, I realized something. I don’t care.

We would always say the opposite of love isn’t hate but apathy.

I’ve finally reached it.

Apathy.

Cuz I never had before. Even though we would spend years without talking, I always missed him, or hated him for leaving, or wondered where he was and what he was doing. Except he never moved and was never doing anything new. He was still living in the same place, still smoking pot, still couldn’t get his life together enough to even get his driver’s license.

It’ll be about 2 years since we last talked. I asked him out for Valentine’s, and he already had a new girlfriend.

That was sort of my early bond with Rich, was trying to heal and force myself to move on. Rich promised to help me learn how to.

Last I heard, he was trying to move to New Brunswick cuz he heard housing is cheap there. Which is proof of how he thinks he’s smarter than he is, cuz he’s not wrong, but there were 2 large caveats to that. Firstly, it’s cheaper cuz jobs are limited or non-existent, and secondly, he had decided he would take his son with him, ignoring that his ex was unlikely to be thrilled with him essentially kidnapping their kid.

Last year, when I was working at the post office, a package passed through my hands that had his name on it. It wasn’t an address I recognized, and it may have just been someone else with the same name, and yet I doubted it. I had a feeling in my gut that reality had crashed into him and he had just moved in with his new girlfriend and that was where they were living. That was fate’s way of telling me he hadn’t actually gone anywhere.

These are all just facts, blandly recited. I can barely remember the spark. It seems embarrassing, actually, to have cared for so long.

The funny thing is, I can imagine people saying how I just exchanged one bad boy for another, but the more I turn that idea over in my head the less I can find that’s similar between him and the Vagabond. Josh is more ‘thinker’, the Vagabond is more ‘artist’, if that makes sense.

I realize that I use the same language for both. Me and Josh used to think the same; whenever we played video games that required teamwork they were too easy, because we were always in sync. It’s the same with the Vagabond, except on the jobsite cuz he doesn’t play video games. But I’ve grown and changed.

Or not even that. I look at how both of them would address the same situation, and I find that I would chose the Vagabond’s solution more often than Josh’s, and that’s not a new change. It’s always been there. We’ve always been more different than I realized.

I subscribe to the looking-glass self; the idea that our self-image is formed out of how we think others perceive us, not necessarily who we really are or even whom others think we are. I look in the glass now, and I can’t even see the ghost of the girl I used to be. The roots of who I was, that he helped sow, are buried so deep I only know they’re there because of my memory. Not even roots, really. They’ve rotted into the soil. They aren’t the basis for the decisions that have made me who I am; they’re the basis for the basis. Too far back to trace.

The same with my work-outs, really. I can’t get my body back and I shouldn’t try. This is the new me; new life, new body.

I’m realizing the isolation and ephemeral nature of my trip here is allowing me discover who I am. Not in the usual way of such trips – new life experiences, learning how other people live – but through the fact that I cannot base my decisions on anyone else. I was lamenting that I haven’t made friends here, but if I made friends, I might adjust my plans for them instead of following what I want to do.

Now I’m writing my own story.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be. – Kurt Vonnegut