A Bright Light

This trip has been a bit of an emotional roller-coaster for me so far for many reasons that I'll return to, but first I want to talk about Napier. I spent today walking all around the city of Napier. When I got here I couldn't stop smiling. Napier is called the Art Deco capital. It's an entire city almost entirely built in the art deco style. Honestly, I couldn't love it more. I was ecstatic. But as I walked around the city I noticed that it appears to be dying.

It's a beach town so maybe it's only dead for the winter. A number of businesses did have signs up saying that they were closed for the winter, but far more of them were just empty.  Every block has a minimum of two (and some up to five) empty store fronts, for sale or for lease. Many of them are mortgagee sales which I assume is like foreclosure. I'd like to think that come summertime all of those beautiful, art deco, empty buildings will have found new tenants and the town will be bustling and lively, but right now it makes me kind of sad.

Like I said, this trip has been kind of an emotional roller-coaster.

I spent my first day in Auckland mostly shopping and shopping on holiday is always bittersweet for me. One of my favorite things in life is buying gifts for people that I know they will love and then think of me with love every time they use/look at it. I had a good friend, one of my best friends, who had a huge collection of souvenir shot glasses. Every time I would travel I would buy her a shot glass and she would buy one for me every time she traveled (although I do not have a collection but for the ones she bought me). She died four years ago and now, every time I'm on holiday, every time I go into a souvenir shop I see the shot glasses and it makes me sad.

Anna was an amazing person and when she died it was truly like a light went out in my life. Not THE light because I am and always will be a generally happy and positive person, but a light went out. Anna suffered from severe anxiety and depression but despite that I think being generally happy and positive was a trait that we shared. She would have anxiety attacks, or go through bouts of depression, but at her core I think she was a happy and positive person. The things that could have killed her only made her stronger and the thing that did kill her turned out to be a river rafting accident. Of course, falling out of a boat on a river is most often not deadly but combined with abnormally warm winter weather, and abnormally wet and windy spring weather there were a lot of snags fairly close under the surface to get a foot caught on.

In truth there's really not a day that goes by still that I don't think of Anna and wonder what she'd be doing now if she had lived. Traveling just increases those thoughts. Another thing that increased them on this trip was the emotional Trjoan horse of a performance that Emmett Skilton gave the other night in Between Two Waves. Unlike the atom bombs of emotion he often dropped on The Almighty Johnsons that simply made me weep uncontrollably, this performance got in my head and continued to unleash the emotions days later.

The play had currents of anxiety and depression running through it. I mean, obviously there was also the climate change and flooding to bring back memories, but it's the anxiety and depression that I keep coming back to. The character of Daniel was a pessimist struggling with how to look forward to something. That seems natural for someone who's suffering from anxiety and depression. Ever since seeing the play I keep coming back to that and wondering how on earth my friend, who I know suffered with anxiety and depression as well, managed to be such a bright light. On top of anxiety and depression, Anna had been diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis about a year or so before she died so she was in pretty constant physical pain as well. How did she remain so positive and happy? It's easy for me, I have never had an anxiety attack, I've been sad but I've never been depressed. It can't have been easy for her.

For the most part this trip has been filled with pure happiness, and joy, and peace. I saw this amazing play that I've been looking forward to for months and it was even better than I'd imagined. I met Emmett Skilton who's talent is only eclipsed by what a kind, and funny, and truly stellar human being he is. I did the zorb which brought me peace and joy I can't even begin to describe. I visited the Shire.  I spent an entire day wandering aimlessly around a whole city of art deco. Oh, and it's lambing season which makes large swaths of this country extra adorable. I have nothing but love for all of the things I've experienced here. Yet occasionally I find myself crying as I drive through the endless pine forests and sheep pastures thinking of Anna, missing her light, wondering how she managed to keep it so bright, wishing she was here to share all of this with.