Longing

My dearest Magnolia. Your loveliness is undisputed but I simply cannot fathom your presence. It is not you whom I wish to find lying here before me. Just a short while ago the powerful Lady Winter promised me a calling in my house in the faraway American woods. Oh I hope she will understand why I could not wait long enough for her coming.

Please Forgive Me ...

my elongated silence. To be sure, the air here in New Zealand chatters irrepressibly with the voices of springtime and has barely noticed I do not speak.

Tomorrow I Must Leave

(Please note: this post was written some weeks ago but not published then as I could not bear to be here amongst my writings)

Summer in upstate New York with the great love of my life has been a scrumptious tactile time marked by brief thoughts of activism and far longer periods of boundless and irrepressible joy. Oh yes it was a tactile time, when ALL of one's senses could explore the depths and heights of love. A time when nature and culinary delights (and even my written words) have retreated into the shadows and given me full rein to concentrate on the light in her eyes and the touch of her breath on my skin in the early morning. For a brief time I have been free to marvel at the form and warmth of her hands and the strength of her shoulders in motion. Aloneness, my ever-present companion in New Zealand, knew it must step back and remain in the shadows for a while. But it was always there. That soft drumbeat of solitude. That place that we both knew from bitter experience that we must keep burning quietly in the far reaches of our individual souls. For early autumn has begun to string the coloured lanterns from the trees. Today Nature is preparing my farewell party. Tomorrow I must leave America.

Of Butterflies and Buses

At one level I do not see too much difference between waiting for one’s basic human rights to be granted and waiting for a bus. Both are made up of everyday moments which are no less precious for the fact that they must be lived in a state of limbo. Of course thankfully people are not required to wait for a bus for eight years (the length of time my American same-sex partner and I have been waiting for the right to live together in America as a bi-national couple) and if they were most of course would simply walk away from the bus stop and seek other means of transport to their destination. Or perhaps another destination.
There might be some however who, knowing only this bus could take them where they wanted to go, would defiantly stay the course and perhaps to begin with they would march in circles around the bus-stop waving banners that protested loudly their right to ride that particular bus to that particular place. Maybe some would stand upon the seat in the bus-stop and loudly address passers by , urging them to see the injustice they were facing.
In time these defiant ones, having stayed at the bus stop secure in the knowledge that one day their bus would come, might find that they were becoming very tired from walking in circles carrying flags and banners for years and that their voices were hoarse from crying out for their rights to a public who seemed barely to notice. Around that time they might begin to notice the intense colour of the blades of grass that pushed their way up from between cracks in the pavement. They may catch sight of the grace with which a butterfly alighted upon the bus-stop railing. They may notice that such seemingly irrelevant everyday moments were beginning to sustain and strengthen their resolve to hold on. The focus from that moment on might shift to ensuring that when their bus finally arrived (as they knew it would) they were not enraged, embittered or worn down by the struggle but so vital and beautiful of soul that they could truly relish and give thanks for, that long awaited ride!

The Great Love Of My Life & Me

Gay Pride New York City 2001

Freedom

Following September 11th 2001 I frequently heard the comment from prominent Americans "They (the perpetrators of this horror) want to hurt us because we are free!"

Freedom is relative of course and many in the world might rightly consider my American partner free. But when I turn to wave to her one last time at the airport as I reluctantly leave America and I see her tear-stained face nothing will convince me that she is free!

Love is All I Know in New York City

Below is an excerpt from my journal recorded in the days that followed 9-11-2001

"There is no place to hide from this pain. From here in New Zealand I watch televised images of New Yorkers pleading for news of lost loved ones. How is it possible to respond to such horror? I search desperately for something to hold firm to and find it there in a sea of tiny flickering candles resting in hands cupped in gentle repose. How else can any of us hope to repel this unseen enemy than with the greatest weapon of all. Love.

Love is all I know in New York city.

Just weeks before horror ripped through this vibrant city I flew home to New Zealand from New York. As I left this city of tall slender spires that beamed with a burnished pride before the morning sunlight the ache of separation forced on us as a same-sex couple by American immigration law weighted me down into my seat and enveloped my heart in a fog of grief. A year earlier I had met for the first time the handsome and eccentric New Yorker who was to change the shape of my future irrevocably. This woman swept me up into an unchoreographed dance that traversed the depths and heights of New York city, acquainting me intimately with a face of this metropolis that tourists never see. And with romance New York style!

We had snowball fights late at night as we stepped out to buy coffee icecream, our delighted laughter echoing through the streets and drawing knowing smiles of approval from onlookers. New Yorkers, it seemed to me, love a lover. We embraced freely on pavements rendered silent by a delicate flurry of snowflakes that melted as they settled on the warmth of our lips. She presented me proudly with a huge bouquet of fresh (if somewhat bedraggled!) flowers which she had found atop the piles of garbage that lined the city streets that night and proclaimed “Don’t say I never give you flowers!!!“ We ate black bean ice cream at 3am as we drove from Chinatown to the caverns of Wall Street and she proudly introduced me to her old stamping ground ... the area that now lies in smouldering ruins. We walked the pavements of this metropolis as if they were our playground. We made it ours as New York has, through the decades, implored all lovers to do.

Months later, when eventually we emerged from the chrysalis that is new love, we began to become aware of an immoveable wall that existed beween us; American immigration law. Together again briefly in summer we defiantly held aloft the flags of our dual nations as we marched 65 blocks through Manhattan in the Gay Pride march, beneath the bright yellow banner imprinted with the words "Stop deporting our partners!".

Today I sit here alone in New Zealand, the phone in my hand. Far away in New York city she sleeps with her phone next to her on the pillow. The only comfort I am free to offer her is to listen to the sounds of her sleeping. I am prevented from returning to her by that immoveable wall and like all New Yorkers she is now locked in a daily battle against fear. The threat of further terrorist attacks looms ever larger. But behind that battle which she shares with so many others is a battle which she fights alone. A battle for that most basic of human rights; the right to stand beside the one you love at a time of immense collective grief. I am reduced to watching CNN from ten thousand miles away, desperately hoping for even the briefest glimpse of her face amongst the crowds.

Neither of us knows when I will be able to return to her. The likelihood of America’s borders now becoming even more difficult to penetrate looms ever larger, even for those such as myself, who come bearing only love. Yet we are aware too that we have much to be thankful for. Ours is but one story and New York is today the city of thousands of stories of lovers cruelly torn apart. As a couple who abandoned themselves to the love story that is New York city we cry for that scarred cityscape where our own joyful laughter will forever linger. And we cry desperately for those couples whose separation will span not just months, as ours does, but fully into eternity. "

Katherine

“The mind I love must have wild places, a tangled orchard where dark damsons drop in the heavy grass, an overgrown little wood, the chance of a snake or two, a pool that nobody's fathomed the depth of, and paths threaded with flowers planted by the mind.”

Katherine Mansfield

Hors D'Oeuvres and Human Rights

Recently the great love of my life and I had the good fortune to be together to witness an historic event. We watched Melissa Etheridge and others in discussion on Logo with leading Democratic presidential candidates on the subject of LGBT rights in America, and in particular gay marriage. The painful and seemingly hopeless struggle to be together faced by same sex bi-national couples (such as ourselves) was mentioned at least once; the upshot of that unprecedented public acknowledgement of our long and lonely struggle brought about large salty tears which added a splash of seasoning to my thinly sliced sourdough bread topped with Vermont goat cheese, smoked salmon and dill. Not that salt was needed of course but what would an historic little banquet be, I ask you, without the odd tear or two in the hors d’oeuvres.
If I may meander in my thoughts at this point; the great love of my life and I are not asking America for the right to marry. We simply ask for the right to be together long enough to watch one season roll fully on through another. Long enough to attend to much needed repairs in our little house in the woods and, for that matter, in our hearts where they have become worn down by too long spent apart. Oh and how we would love to attain the right to watch each other grow old. Freely and without fear of being torn asunder.
Now where was I? Ah yes , my hors d’oeuvres and a relative newcomer to the kitchen of my soul; dill! While I love the liquorice-like hit offered up by the crunchy dill stems (here the large and much loved black aniseed balls of my childhood!) I am enamoured with the featherlike leaves; the ones that seem as suited to tickling one’s skin as they are to eating! The journey of this herb across my palate begins as a burst of clean green grass and thence follows splashes of anise that fall like summer rain, awakening and animating all in their presence. Oh how dill makes salmon dance and far be it for me to understand this glorious mystery! But it is fitting, in my opinion, for little hors d’oeuvres and all that embellish them to dance upon the palate at such an historic televised event. Should we not all join in the dill and salmon dance wherever and whenever human rights are championed?!

Swathes of Wild Lilies

winding pathways to my door.

I am here!

Oh the joy of rediscovery!

Wild raspberries just beyond my kitchen window. Swathes of wild lilies winding pathways to my door. The wildflower seeds I scattered three years ago in bloom here and there and though sparse and bedraggled providing the first glimpse I have ever had of the fruits of my past labour. It has always been my dream to create a woodland garden here for the great love of my life but this will not be achieved without considerable handwringing, not least because I am here in America so rarely! Long distance love is one thing but long distance gardening quite another!

And in my kitchen? Omaha steaks gifted to me by my love. I adore American beef. It tastes vastly different (and dare I say superior?!) to New Zealand beef. In New Zealand our cattle graze outdoors all year round on lush green pasture. But the grain-fed cattle seem to me to produce a beef that is far more complex and satisfying in flavour. When I first arrive I love the wild days and nights of rediscovery - ferreting through my cupboards for all that I left behind all those long long months ago. Dark brown Canadian Lake wild rice. Quaker Oats. Organic brown rice pasta. Popcorn grown by the Amish communities of upstate New York. I am told by Americans who eat in my home here that my cooking is "restaurant quality". Anyone in New Zealand who knows me will know that I simply cook in the style common to all my New Zealand friends. In New Zealand my cooking is seen as everyday and rather average.

Rush On By

People do rush about so! Perhaps the sensation of excessive speed is to be expected when one drives a car but even when I walk others rush past me on foot!! I am perplexed by all this hurrying. It doesnt seem to me that the world is a better place for it. Of course things will speed up even more for me soon when I arrive in New York! "Leisurely dining here in this city" I commented once to my American friends "is eating walking along the street rather than running!" When I fly back into New Zealand from America it seems as if someone has slowed the pace of the world down several notches. But even here there seems undue haste. Still, I tell myself, this works in my favour as I never have to jostle for position in my botanical gardens to watch a droplet of dew swell from the tip of a leaf and cut a path through the smokey autumn air as it falls to the silent earth. No. There at such events I am always alone.

Late One Night

It was my intention to tell the pictorial story here of how I steamed New Zealand greenlipped mussels in white wine and saffron. But regrettably I became caught up in the fervour of the moment and before I knew it one dozen mussels were all gone and there I was ~ alone and reeling from the succulent pleasure of it all!

Thank You

Photo By Helen
Today I said a long lingering farewell to my botanical gardens. Without this place I would hardly have been able to bear this prolonged period of exile from the great love of my life.

Flawless

To begin with just knowing you were there in my fruit bowl was pleasure enough. There was no need of touch. For days I wanted nothing more than your heady orange presence. There was always going to be that moment though when I would reach for you.

And so it was. Finally. And in the eating, you were so many things. But most of all, you were willing. It was as if you wanted to hasten your own emptiness. You melted easily onto my teaspoon. I remember you creamy yet like a finely grained custard with mellow tropical overtones. Less than sweet with a faint tropical fragrance. Your touch on my palate was so light as to feel almost a tease. I can barely tell where discovering you came to an end and being forever devoted to you began. It matters little. All you need know is that, as flawless persimmons go, you were my first.

Orange Coloured Memories

Autumn in New Zealand is always a whirlwind time for me. There are a flurry of celebrations and photo ops that I must attend in my botanical gardens. But now winter is upon us and in the ensuing silence it is only my memories that are orange. One such memory is of a single perfectly ripe persimmon which I consumed just a few weeks ago. I posted the evidence here on my blog. The glistening persimmon shell. That I did not comment on this at the time and that I barely had time to post the photo indicates what a whirlwind time that was. One breathless orange celebration after another. I try always to pen a note of appreciation after such events but this persimmon was overlooked somehow.

And persimmons, being the sort of fruit they are, do not care for being overlooked. And so I am busy right now. Writing my belated thank you note to that empty persimmon shell.

Frozen Fog

Winter is only just upon us here in New Zealand and already I have cabin fever. Not the kind that I have experienced during past winters in New York when I was snug inside my little cabin in the woods with the great love of my life. No. That's a different kind of fever. The kind I have today makes even cinnamon chasers grumpy! The guest list is long and growing longer. It began as frost and ice. Then came sleet, hail, snow flurries, snow, blizzards. And then a newcomer to my winter guest list here in New Zealand. Freezing fog. Freezing fog? To the uninitiated (as I was barely five minutes ago) this is a phenomenon seemingly associated with the nearness of bodies of water such as rivers or lakes. Well that may be but to me frozen fog sounds more like a summer desert I might lick from the back of a spoon whilst reclining in the adirondack chair I painted so carefully last year. The chair that sits waiting patiently for me on the deck of my cabin in the American woods. The chair that went through a whole winter without me and might even have a dragonfly or two sitting on it as I write this, and a hummingbird hovering overhead. Waiting. Waiting.

Condiments for the Lonely Heart

I seem to have developed a fetish for condiment making. I get like this when I have spent too long away from the great love of my life. I begin to make things. Edible things. In my fridge are jars of chutney. Lots and lots of jars of chutney. Date chutney. Spicy apple and walnut chutney. Pumpkin and smoked paprika chutney. Apricot and orange chutney. Each sets itself apart from the next by the company it keeps. My apricot chutney likes to share the platter with plump English sausages. The pumpkin chutney has designs on my popped open pita breads and some fresh rocket! The spicy apple and walnut chutney is content in the company of a good English cheddar and a New Zealand Chardonnay. And the date chutney? Well actually that is a great worry to me. My wayward child so to speak. One day I might know more about the company it prefers to keep. But for now I simply worry.

Persimmoned!

You take my breath away

Sunrise Thursday 31st May 2007.