Dems: Opportunity As Gay Marriage Acceptance Grows
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Saturday, May 2, 2009
Friday, April 3, 2009
Letter mailed to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Dear President Obama
Re: A request for urgent action on Uniting American Families Act.
I am a New Zealander, writing to you from New Zealand. I have been in a same sex bi-national relationship with an American woman for nine years.
I understand that you are an incredibly busy man but I also believe you to be a man of, and for, the people and I know that civil rights are on your White House agenda. I therefore respectfully ask that you read the attached article, a personal account of the struggles my American partner and I have endured in our fight to be together. I wrote this for publication in a New Zealand gay and lesbian newspaper in the hope that it will put a human face on the American civil rights issue of same sex bi-national immigration. This article was not intended to be a rational account but rather a spontaneous outpouring of the heart . When one lives long term in this discriminatory situation it becomes very difficult to write a rational and coolly analytical treatise.
When I wrote the attached article (A) several weeks ago it was hard for me to conceive of this situation getting any worse for my America partner, Cas, and myself, but regrettably it has. Cas’s financial situation, already severely strained by the pressures of this bi-national relationship, has now taken another massive hit as a result of the recession. Tonight we have reluctantly faced the fact that we cannot afford to have me return to America from New Zealand in July of this year and that it may be a year before we see each other again (this on top of the 7 months we have already been apart) We dealt with this realisation in the same way that we have dealt with so many other distressing situations over the nine years we have been together as a couple - with devotion and love. Not knowing what else to do I read to her over the phone from ten thousand miles away until finally she fell asleep. I kept reading to her long after that point. Over the last nine years I have learnt that the sound of a loved one sleeping is very comforting, even from such a vast distance.
President Obama, I hardly have the words to describe to you the pain I felt when I hung up the phone and broke the precious bond of sound that connected us. The passing of the Uniting American families Act will ensure that the hardship we, and 35,000 other couples like us, have endured for so long will finally end. Please, I urge you to urgently lend your support to this piece of legislation. Now is not the time for Americans like Cas, who are already suffering due to the recession, to be forcibly kept apart from their loved ones. Other Americans, who are not in our situation, are not having recession hardship greatly compounded by a lack of civil rights.
Thank you for the attention you have given my letter. I trust you will make it out to New Zealand one day soon. You are very warmly regarded out here!
Sincerely
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(A)
Where a Civil Union Brings No Civil Rights
For much of the year I live here in Dunedin, New Zealand, and, whenever possible, share a home two hours out of New York with my American partner of nine years, Cas.
In August 2008 Cas and I drove from New York state into Bennington, Vermont where we entered into a civil union. Our intention was that this ceremony be a very civil affair. Celebration would follow at a later date when family and friends from both New Zealand and America could stand as witness. We signed official documents in the presence of one friend and Frankie & Johnny, the Bennington town clerk's two cats. As we prepared to leave the office someone offered us the services of the town clerk's wife, a Justice who had written vows for just such an event. She arrived within ten minutes, borrowed my reading glasses because she had forgotten her own, and proceeded to lead us through the recitation of vows that were romantic beyond words. All of us, with the possible exception of Frankie & Johnny, were reduced to tears.
Sadly this civil union gave neither of us any civil rights at a federal level and ten days later, my visa waiver due to expire, Cas drove me to JFK airport to begin the farewell process we have gone through so many times before. Whenever possible I travel to America on these 90 day visa waivers and whilst there will turn my head away rather than follow the path of departing planes across the sky. But as we head to JFK I know that now I must look upward. Now I must face the fact that I am once again about to fly away from the woman I love and from the huge, colourful and deeply comforting world I have there ~ from our 6 cats, our rustic house in the woods, from the property we own together on the banks of the Delaware river, from our simple comforting daily rituals and our wonderful friends, all of whom believe unflinchingly in our love. Now, as the sign directing us to “Qantas. Terminal Eight” looms over us the luxury of denial is no more.
Years ago we decided not to draw this exhausting and painful farewell process out. Now she swings up to the doors of the terminal where I leap out and hurriedly grab my bag. We hug, kiss and cry fleetingly and then I rush off, calling back to her as I enter the doors of the terminal “See you soon!”
“Soon” in our case is around 9 months and is defined by personal financial constraints and frustratingly obscure visa waiver laws which have made it impossible for us to find out exactly how long I must remain out of the country before I can legally return on another visa waiver. We err on the side of caution rather than risk my being denied entry at the border. I have been home here without her in Dunedin now since late August 2008 and “soon” is now half over. I will return to America in July 2009.
Cas and I met online in mid 2000. Our initial friendship blossomed into love unexpectedly on Christmas Day 2000 (I still clearly recall the exact moment when I realised I was in love with her) and we met at JFK in February 2001. Our love flourished that spring like the shimmering tulips that lined the avenues of Manhattan. The memories of those early days in New York city will never leave either of us. It could not have been more perfect.
Over time, however, our initial naiveté gave way to stark realism . We came to see that we were just one of approximately 35000 same sex bi-national couples (where one is an American) and that, in the eyes of the US Federal government , our love did not exist. That spring of 2001 we stood at the base of the mountain that loomed between us and equal rights and pleaded “Move!”. The mountain did not move.
But neither did we.
Initially we fought hard, each giving speeches in 2001 at the New York Gay and Lesbian Centre the night Congressman Nadler introduced his Permanent Partners Immigration Act (PPIA) to the New York LGBT community. (Attachment B) We were amazed back then how few even in our own community knew of the existence of this large body of same-sex bi-national couples who are torn apart over and over again by discriminatory US immigration law. Nadler’s bill would provide American LGBT citizens the right to sponsor their partners for immigration, holding them to the same standards of proof of relationship that heterosexual couples are held to. To date this bill has been presented a number of times but has not passed.
As time went on we came to realise that our absolute silence was wiser than a very public fight. We lived in fear of my being refused entry at the Los Angeles border and, like other bi-national couples, knew that our greatest challenge was not to change the laws (that was for others who did not stand to lose their loved one through a very visible civil rights battle) but rather to survive and to grow as a couple in the face of this challenging situation. We knew that one day that mountain would move and when it did we wanted to be there, standing tall, ready to forge on through!
Eight years on we have exchanged close to 20,000 emails while apart. To date Cas has not been able to fly out here to New Zealand because of her struggle with claustrophobia and so in order that we can be together I have spent 500 hours flying 250,000 miles at a cost of $50,000. We have taken literally thousands of photos documenting the joy we experience when together ~ always the heart stopping joy! This last three years alone we have talked on the phone whilst apart for 2000 hours. We have laughed and cried and faithfully documented that laughter and those tears. Our scrapbook is huge and growing with each new day and it bears testament to a life lived outside the square; a life that is, in spite of everything, rich and deeply satisfying . Back in 2001 it was decreed by others who did not know us that our love did not exist. We knew otherwise. We have survived.
We despair at the discrimination but we avoid falling into bitterness and hatred. Cas’s family, who hold fundamentalist Christian values, have opened their homes to me, and to Cas and I as a couple, and while we may disagree with their views we know from first hand experience that the love in their hearts is as real and as sincere as ours.
I did not find it easy to write this article as I knew it would cause despair to rise in us both again. For the most part we keep the negative emotions surrounding this situation at a safe distance and focus on the positive. But I felt I must write it because tomorrow Barack Obama is to be sworn in as President of The United States. This inauguration places at the helm of this deeply divided country the one man I believe is capable of bringing down the mountain that has stood between us and equal rights these last eight years ~ not tearing it down in anger but dismantling it rock by rock, in a climate of inclusivity and respect for all. Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s Chief of Staff, is one of approximately 120 co-sponsors of the PPIA (now called the Uniting American Families Act) and his appointment has been a source of great hope for us both.
Survival as a couple through all these years has depended on us taking one day at a time. It has depended on us savouring that one day as the precious gift that it is, whether we are together or ten thousand miles apart. And it has depended on our holding our position against all odds ~ firm in the belief that in the end it will be that mountain, and not our love, which yields!
(B)
Below are excerpts from the speech written by my American partner Cas and delivered by her at New York City Gay and Lesbian Center 2001, on the night that Congressman Nadler introduced his Permanent Partners Immigration Act (now Uniting American Families Act) to the New York LGBT community.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I am an American, born in this country, and my partner, Helen, is from New Zealand. We have been partners for over one and a half years and she is the love of my life.
I have always taken great pride in claiming my heritage as a citizen of the United States, believing that all men are created equal, that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are our inherent rights as citizens, and that our government was based on and bound to protect such rights. However, recent events in my life have forced me to look at the facts. I find myself becoming disillusioned at the enormous gap between what is promised every American and what is in fact MY reality!
Helen has not been able to participate in the significant events of my life as most committed partners are. Prior to September 11th 2001 she reluctantly left the United States to return to New Zealand in order to comply with the terms of the visa waiver which granted her entry into this country. On the evening of 9.11 we were 10,000 miles apart. We each placed the phone beside us on our pillow and kept the line open for 6 hours as we tried to sleep. This gave us some comfort but was no substitute for being together at a time when we needed each other the most.
Under the terms of her visa waiver Helen is prevented from working in America and her work in New Zealand is difficult to retain due to the extended length of time she leaves her country to be with me whenever she can. We therefore rely for the most part on one income to support the extensive travel and expenses involved in our being together.
America champions family values and yet in order to be with my partner I am expected to leave my family to live in a country 10,000 miles away. If I take that course what will I say when people ask me why I left America? What can I say? That I left America because they told me who I can and cannot love?
No matter who we as a nation choose as our elected leaders our government was founded on the premise that all men are created equal. Therefore government policy should not be defined by personal opinion and dictated by fear. It should hold true to the principle that we all have a right to share a common destiny. It should be written to be inclusive rather than exclusive. Rather than aiming to establish ourselves as a world power should we not aim to be a world leader in the field of human rights?
Helen and my favorite times of day are many .. our morning coffee together on the deck, lakeside walks, long weekend drives and picnics in the country, arguments over toothpaste at night. What is so different about our love?
In a few weeks - the days will feel shorter and I will feel the agony of saying goodbye to the one whom I have loved the most - because my country has forsaken me.
Re: A request for urgent action on Uniting American Families Act.
I am a New Zealander, writing to you from New Zealand. I have been in a same sex bi-national relationship with an American woman for nine years.
I understand that you are an incredibly busy man but I also believe you to be a man of, and for, the people and I know that civil rights are on your White House agenda. I therefore respectfully ask that you read the attached article, a personal account of the struggles my American partner and I have endured in our fight to be together. I wrote this for publication in a New Zealand gay and lesbian newspaper in the hope that it will put a human face on the American civil rights issue of same sex bi-national immigration. This article was not intended to be a rational account but rather a spontaneous outpouring of the heart . When one lives long term in this discriminatory situation it becomes very difficult to write a rational and coolly analytical treatise.
When I wrote the attached article (A) several weeks ago it was hard for me to conceive of this situation getting any worse for my America partner, Cas, and myself, but regrettably it has. Cas’s financial situation, already severely strained by the pressures of this bi-national relationship, has now taken another massive hit as a result of the recession. Tonight we have reluctantly faced the fact that we cannot afford to have me return to America from New Zealand in July of this year and that it may be a year before we see each other again (this on top of the 7 months we have already been apart) We dealt with this realisation in the same way that we have dealt with so many other distressing situations over the nine years we have been together as a couple - with devotion and love. Not knowing what else to do I read to her over the phone from ten thousand miles away until finally she fell asleep. I kept reading to her long after that point. Over the last nine years I have learnt that the sound of a loved one sleeping is very comforting, even from such a vast distance.
President Obama, I hardly have the words to describe to you the pain I felt when I hung up the phone and broke the precious bond of sound that connected us. The passing of the Uniting American families Act will ensure that the hardship we, and 35,000 other couples like us, have endured for so long will finally end. Please, I urge you to urgently lend your support to this piece of legislation. Now is not the time for Americans like Cas, who are already suffering due to the recession, to be forcibly kept apart from their loved ones. Other Americans, who are not in our situation, are not having recession hardship greatly compounded by a lack of civil rights.
Thank you for the attention you have given my letter. I trust you will make it out to New Zealand one day soon. You are very warmly regarded out here!
Sincerely
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(A)
Where a Civil Union Brings No Civil Rights
For much of the year I live here in Dunedin, New Zealand, and, whenever possible, share a home two hours out of New York with my American partner of nine years, Cas.
In August 2008 Cas and I drove from New York state into Bennington, Vermont where we entered into a civil union. Our intention was that this ceremony be a very civil affair. Celebration would follow at a later date when family and friends from both New Zealand and America could stand as witness. We signed official documents in the presence of one friend and Frankie & Johnny, the Bennington town clerk's two cats. As we prepared to leave the office someone offered us the services of the town clerk's wife, a Justice who had written vows for just such an event. She arrived within ten minutes, borrowed my reading glasses because she had forgotten her own, and proceeded to lead us through the recitation of vows that were romantic beyond words. All of us, with the possible exception of Frankie & Johnny, were reduced to tears.
Sadly this civil union gave neither of us any civil rights at a federal level and ten days later, my visa waiver due to expire, Cas drove me to JFK airport to begin the farewell process we have gone through so many times before. Whenever possible I travel to America on these 90 day visa waivers and whilst there will turn my head away rather than follow the path of departing planes across the sky. But as we head to JFK I know that now I must look upward. Now I must face the fact that I am once again about to fly away from the woman I love and from the huge, colourful and deeply comforting world I have there ~ from our 6 cats, our rustic house in the woods, from the property we own together on the banks of the Delaware river, from our simple comforting daily rituals and our wonderful friends, all of whom believe unflinchingly in our love. Now, as the sign directing us to “Qantas. Terminal Eight” looms over us the luxury of denial is no more.
Years ago we decided not to draw this exhausting and painful farewell process out. Now she swings up to the doors of the terminal where I leap out and hurriedly grab my bag. We hug, kiss and cry fleetingly and then I rush off, calling back to her as I enter the doors of the terminal “See you soon!”
“Soon” in our case is around 9 months and is defined by personal financial constraints and frustratingly obscure visa waiver laws which have made it impossible for us to find out exactly how long I must remain out of the country before I can legally return on another visa waiver. We err on the side of caution rather than risk my being denied entry at the border. I have been home here without her in Dunedin now since late August 2008 and “soon” is now half over. I will return to America in July 2009.
Cas and I met online in mid 2000. Our initial friendship blossomed into love unexpectedly on Christmas Day 2000 (I still clearly recall the exact moment when I realised I was in love with her) and we met at JFK in February 2001. Our love flourished that spring like the shimmering tulips that lined the avenues of Manhattan. The memories of those early days in New York city will never leave either of us. It could not have been more perfect.
Over time, however, our initial naiveté gave way to stark realism . We came to see that we were just one of approximately 35000 same sex bi-national couples (where one is an American) and that, in the eyes of the US Federal government , our love did not exist. That spring of 2001 we stood at the base of the mountain that loomed between us and equal rights and pleaded “Move!”. The mountain did not move.
But neither did we.
Initially we fought hard, each giving speeches in 2001 at the New York Gay and Lesbian Centre the night Congressman Nadler introduced his Permanent Partners Immigration Act (PPIA) to the New York LGBT community. (Attachment B) We were amazed back then how few even in our own community knew of the existence of this large body of same-sex bi-national couples who are torn apart over and over again by discriminatory US immigration law. Nadler’s bill would provide American LGBT citizens the right to sponsor their partners for immigration, holding them to the same standards of proof of relationship that heterosexual couples are held to. To date this bill has been presented a number of times but has not passed.
As time went on we came to realise that our absolute silence was wiser than a very public fight. We lived in fear of my being refused entry at the Los Angeles border and, like other bi-national couples, knew that our greatest challenge was not to change the laws (that was for others who did not stand to lose their loved one through a very visible civil rights battle) but rather to survive and to grow as a couple in the face of this challenging situation. We knew that one day that mountain would move and when it did we wanted to be there, standing tall, ready to forge on through!
Eight years on we have exchanged close to 20,000 emails while apart. To date Cas has not been able to fly out here to New Zealand because of her struggle with claustrophobia and so in order that we can be together I have spent 500 hours flying 250,000 miles at a cost of $50,000. We have taken literally thousands of photos documenting the joy we experience when together ~ always the heart stopping joy! This last three years alone we have talked on the phone whilst apart for 2000 hours. We have laughed and cried and faithfully documented that laughter and those tears. Our scrapbook is huge and growing with each new day and it bears testament to a life lived outside the square; a life that is, in spite of everything, rich and deeply satisfying . Back in 2001 it was decreed by others who did not know us that our love did not exist. We knew otherwise. We have survived.
We despair at the discrimination but we avoid falling into bitterness and hatred. Cas’s family, who hold fundamentalist Christian values, have opened their homes to me, and to Cas and I as a couple, and while we may disagree with their views we know from first hand experience that the love in their hearts is as real and as sincere as ours.
I did not find it easy to write this article as I knew it would cause despair to rise in us both again. For the most part we keep the negative emotions surrounding this situation at a safe distance and focus on the positive. But I felt I must write it because tomorrow Barack Obama is to be sworn in as President of The United States. This inauguration places at the helm of this deeply divided country the one man I believe is capable of bringing down the mountain that has stood between us and equal rights these last eight years ~ not tearing it down in anger but dismantling it rock by rock, in a climate of inclusivity and respect for all. Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s Chief of Staff, is one of approximately 120 co-sponsors of the PPIA (now called the Uniting American Families Act) and his appointment has been a source of great hope for us both.
Survival as a couple through all these years has depended on us taking one day at a time. It has depended on us savouring that one day as the precious gift that it is, whether we are together or ten thousand miles apart. And it has depended on our holding our position against all odds ~ firm in the belief that in the end it will be that mountain, and not our love, which yields!
(B)
Below are excerpts from the speech written by my American partner Cas and delivered by her at New York City Gay and Lesbian Center 2001, on the night that Congressman Nadler introduced his Permanent Partners Immigration Act (now Uniting American Families Act) to the New York LGBT community.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I am an American, born in this country, and my partner, Helen, is from New Zealand. We have been partners for over one and a half years and she is the love of my life.
I have always taken great pride in claiming my heritage as a citizen of the United States, believing that all men are created equal, that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are our inherent rights as citizens, and that our government was based on and bound to protect such rights. However, recent events in my life have forced me to look at the facts. I find myself becoming disillusioned at the enormous gap between what is promised every American and what is in fact MY reality!
Helen has not been able to participate in the significant events of my life as most committed partners are. Prior to September 11th 2001 she reluctantly left the United States to return to New Zealand in order to comply with the terms of the visa waiver which granted her entry into this country. On the evening of 9.11 we were 10,000 miles apart. We each placed the phone beside us on our pillow and kept the line open for 6 hours as we tried to sleep. This gave us some comfort but was no substitute for being together at a time when we needed each other the most.
Under the terms of her visa waiver Helen is prevented from working in America and her work in New Zealand is difficult to retain due to the extended length of time she leaves her country to be with me whenever she can. We therefore rely for the most part on one income to support the extensive travel and expenses involved in our being together.
America champions family values and yet in order to be with my partner I am expected to leave my family to live in a country 10,000 miles away. If I take that course what will I say when people ask me why I left America? What can I say? That I left America because they told me who I can and cannot love?
No matter who we as a nation choose as our elected leaders our government was founded on the premise that all men are created equal. Therefore government policy should not be defined by personal opinion and dictated by fear. It should hold true to the principle that we all have a right to share a common destiny. It should be written to be inclusive rather than exclusive. Rather than aiming to establish ourselves as a world power should we not aim to be a world leader in the field of human rights?
Helen and my favorite times of day are many .. our morning coffee together on the deck, lakeside walks, long weekend drives and picnics in the country, arguments over toothpaste at night. What is so different about our love?
In a few weeks - the days will feel shorter and I will feel the agony of saying goodbye to the one whom I have loved the most - because my country has forsaken me.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
And so , having rushed the reader through 2008 at breakneck speed, here I am in 2009, back once again to contemplating love from a distance. Yesterday I mailed a letter to President Obama from here in New Zealand, including with it a copy of an article which I wrote recently for publication in a local gay and lesbian newspaper. I expect to post both here on this blog at some stage soon.
Monday, March 30, 2009
When Cas wrote to me in New Zealand the morning following Obama's inauguration to tell me she had bought us both a copy of yesterday’s New York Times I felt duty bound to buy her a copy of our local Dunedin paper. The article quoted Prof Patman, a specialist in international relations at University of Otago politics department, as saying that Obama’s speech had ”offered a hopeful blend of the continuity of American values and the need for change to meet the challenges of a changing world.”On the morning of the inauguration I crawled out of bed at 4am to watch the event live on TV. I knew our friend Allen was somewhere there in that vast crowd and I too wanted to be there ~ in spirit if not in person ~ when history was made and when the man I told Cas back in 2004 would one day be president was sworn in. I could never have guessed how fast his star would rise! But I have known the depth of despair my American friends have felt throughout these last two disastrous Bush terms and so I should not have been surprised.
Unforgettable!
In February 2009 Cas and I entered our ninth year together. Photos are hugely important to us both because we spend so much time apart. To celebrate our anniversary I created these collages using various shots we have taken of each other whilst together during the last eight years. Much has changed, not the least of which is my hair length and the undeniable fact that we are both almost nine years older! But some things never change. As I hope my collage shows Cas has never lost the ability to make me smile!
2008 brought with it countless unforgettable moments ~ the most significant of all being, of course, the election of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States. This event brought with it a kernel of hope for Cas and I personally. During his campaign he wrote an open letter to the American gay community which you can read here:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/alexokrent/gGggJS
Hope has been the key theme in our lives since Cas and I met just 18 days into George W. Bush’s disastrous first term of office in 2001 and it will continue to be our theme throughout 2009. No matter what happens as far as gay rights are concerned under Obama’s tenure Cas and I will prevail. We don’t feel the need to make a New Year’s resolution around this issue because we have gone the distance over and over again and know that, beyond being together 24/7 , for us there is no other way.
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/alexokrent/gGggJS
Hope has been the key theme in our lives since Cas and I met just 18 days into George W. Bush’s disastrous first term of office in 2001 and it will continue to be our theme throughout 2009. No matter what happens as far as gay rights are concerned under Obama’s tenure Cas and I will prevail. We don’t feel the need to make a New Year’s resolution around this issue because we have gone the distance over and over again and know that, beyond being together 24/7 , for us there is no other way.
2008 brought with it elation on many levels
Our civil union in Vermont
for which we were granted not a single civil right at a federal level
for which we were granted not a single civil right at a federal level
Friday, January 11, 2008
Sixteen Weeks
Sixteen long long weeks. Let me see. Sixteen multiplied by seven equals one hundred and twelve. One hundred and twelve days since I last saw the great love of my life on the footpath outside the terminal at JFK airport. For the first few years of this relationship we used to wallow in our reluctant farewells; spinning them out to the last possible minute and savouring them like a delectable and addictive food we knew would later lead to heartburn. With a voice every bit as strong as her persona it was easy for her to follow me through security and into the corridors beyond with the words "I love you!" But then one day it came time to take control of these angst ridden airport scenes. Now we treat them as if I am heading off on a day trip. The great love of my life swings by the airport terminal doors in New York, offloads my bags from her car, envelops me within the safety of her arms for one brief and desperate moment, and then I turn my back and walk away. To begin my long lonely flight to the other side of the world.
Friday, January 4, 2008
To Live The Poetic Life
One of my blogging friends asked in a recent post "What does it mean to live the poetic life?" There will be as many answers to this question as there are poets but for my part it means rising early with a mind to capturing the tenderness of the morning dew. Just as I did this morning. (Photo By Helen)Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Thanks Be To This Man!
New Zealand is I believe the first country in the world to see the light of both the new day and of the New Year. For me the opening moment of 2008 here in New Zealand were spent in silence and solitude and marked by my personal prayers for peace. Eighteen hours later East Coast America rolled on into 2008. This second New Years celebration was for me a much more gregarious affair! Though I was not physically there my voice and my laughter still resonated through our American home, courtesy of Alexander Graham Bell and his miraculous invention! While I sat on my bed in New Zealand in a room bathed in late afternoon sunlight with all my windows wide open and a glass of cool New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc in hand my American love, our friend and our five cats piled under blankets as the temperature plunged and snow fell out there in my beloved woods just beyond the french doors. There can be no greater contrast, surely, than midsummer sun and snowflakes and no greater indicator of the vast distance that lies between us. Yet when midnight struck on the East Coast of America it was as if we were both together in the same room. Because of the telephone she felt so close it was as if I could reach out and touch her.
Monday, December 31, 2007
A Peaceful New Year My Friends!
Here in New Zealand 2008 is already 9 hours old. For me New Years Eve has been a deeply reflective time. I found myself wanting to reach into solitude and pray rather than join the revellers. Not just for the will to change personal habits and break patterns and stop eating so many Danish pastries! My prayers are for every person on this planet. That each one of us might find a measure of inner peace for it seems to me that world peace can only arise from hearts that are truly at peace. And then, what good is a world at peace if the planet that is home to every last one of us is tortured and scarred by our thoughtlessness? I pray that, above all, each of us will act in small and positive ways in our everyday lives to reverse the march of global warming. Bless you all.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
To This!
Sometimes nothing else will soothe my soul but making fresh berry jam. And then of course this labour of love must be artfully partnered and mindfully consumed. Here is my very last baking for 2007; saffron infused scones. I adapted an old family recipe given me by my mother (and which has found its way via word of mouth the length and breadth of Dunedin!) by infusing the water called for in the recipe with saffron before preparing the dough. The scones blush with a pleasing saffron hue but on tasting I decided they needed something! Enter my freshly made strawberry jam and a blob of marscapone cheese. Ahh the delight! In my more poetic moments I am inclined to say that saffron is the flavour of eternity but on an average day I am more likely to explain that as the flavour of tobacco, hay bales and dark bitter tasting honey. This combination of ingredients is a playful and exhilarating farewell to 2007. Rather like lying back in a field of hay eating just picked strawberries dipped in a bucket of fresh cream you hauled there from the milking shed! Well yes perhaps it is a tad decadent but is this not New Years Eve!!!! (Well right now it is where I live)
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
The Measure of Distance
The true measure of how far apart my love and I are is to be found in the fact that for me out here in New Zealand Christmas Day is all but over. For her it has not even begun.
I am writing this post at 11pm on Christmas Day. Families and friends all over this country have come together and long since taken their leave from each other in various states of exhaustion. Wrapping paper lies in piles in every corner of the land, some folded neatly for reuse and some scrunched into balls and stuffed in rubbish bins. With luck the presents this wrapping concealed are continuing to evoke delight in the hearts of those they were intended for. The roast lamb and organic ham and fresh peas and new potatoes and luscious dark gravy that graced our Christmas table have now assumed the role of leftovers. There are of course the inevitable symptoms of over-indulgence and the discussions about dealing sensibly with yuletide debt have already begun in our media.
All this and the great love of my life has not yet awoken to begin her day of Christmas festivities!
Saturday, December 15, 2007
A Thousand Roses In A Storm
Even the presence of a single rose is vaguely disarming. But the presence of thousands of roses is like a drug that stills the ceaseless motion in my mind. Thoughts are no match for this thick honey sweet air that, by some peculiar chance, seems to hint at the nearness of my love. Now I am a thousand times disarmed! How does one preserve such a place as this? Yesterday the winds and rain were wild and so I walked far out of my way to pass through my rose garden, for fear of her safety. But I should not have worried for a thousand roses in a storm are every bit as beautiful as they are in times of peace. Perhaps more so. Now they spin and swirl wildly and droop to lie heavy upon the dark moist soil. Now the air is thicker still with the scent of love and the ground slippery underfoot with the silken paste of rosepetals and rainwater. Now, all about me here, there is character and resolve as well as delicate beauty!
Sunday, December 9, 2007
A Mockery Of Distance
Sometimes in the dawn I find you there with me, softly like the thin curtain of daylight that brushes against the sleeping body of the night. And in these times you and I make a mockery of distance. In these times there is no ocean , continent, international border or decree that can stand between us. For you have come to me. And I to you. And it is we alone who triumph.
Friday, December 7, 2007
My Two Worlds
Last weekend I flew to my parents home in the North Island of New Zealand and spent some time here on this secluded beach. The sandhills are strewn with masses of oddly formal little flowers that seem to have been carved from bars of soap. When the tide is just right and the moon looking kindly upon you one can wriggle one's toes in the wet sand at the water's edge and find shellfish we call pipis hiding just below the surface. These delicacies are delicious when cooked in a bucket of boiling water over a fire on the beach. (Though now and then one of these shellfish will take its revenge by filling your mouth unexpectedly with sand!) The island just offshore is a nature reserve where rare and endangered birds are offered protection and sanctuary. When I am in America I am constantly astonished at the variety of small animals which share our woodland home with us. In New Zealand, above all else, it is the bird song I notice. Here we have no squirrels or groundhogs or wild turkey or bears or chipmunks or skunks. No bambi on the deck just beyond my window and no otters or beavers in the lake across the road. During my childhood here in New Zealand I found these creatures only on the pages of my story books and for a time suspected they were merely a figment of Walt Disney's colourful imagination!
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