Inevitably when you don't update a blog for a couple of years you could say something like "so much has changed" and that would likely be true. However, it feels a bit of an understatement this time. Compared to my life in November 2019 when I last wrote; nothing about my life that was normal then is normal now. In fact, almost anyone's normal back then wouldn't be familiar now, given the global pandemic of 2020, 2021, and as it continues with multiple groups and all of us individually grappling with the myriad of ways in which COVID-19 has impacted and changed us. We'll never be the same as 2019 - but then that is true of any year: the passing of time is a reality and no future moments for any of us are guaranteed. While that may sound morbid, it's also equally freeing. Forever is a quaint human illusion, after all, but don't we all need a few good illusions now and then?
In 2019, I didn't yet know what job I'd find after graduation. I didn't know I'd successfully make my first national conference seminar 10 days after faceplanting into an intersection and cracking my front teeth - but though I needed a crutch and had some minor healing face lacerations, it was well-received enough to help me get some funding to make it to an Infection and Immunity conference in Lorne, Australia. As 2020 dawned in NZ, we woke to a yellow sky from the Australian bushfires. The conference was in early February, and I wasn't sure if it would be cancelled or I'd be unable to fly in due to the fires. I made it there, and had a fantastically mind and network-broadening time.
A special session was convened on one of the first days regarding the novel coronavirus, which was at that early stage spreading within China and neighbouring countries, but had not yet made it to "pandemic" status. We heard from two of Australia's leading scientists in infectious diseases and vaccine development - via zoom because they and their research groups had been working nearly 24/7 since the announcement of the first sequence of the virus on January 12, 2020, almost exactly a month prior.
One of the research groups who worked on vaccine development had a research proposal underway where they would test their ability to rapidly generate a vaccine to an unknown disease "Disease X". The SARS-CoV2 virus that causes COVID-19 disease in humans became their disease X. Vaccine candidates were already in testing in early February, and efficacy and clinical trials meant a vaccine would be about a year away - which was borne out in reality.
I returned to Ōtepoti, and fast forward only about two months and, mid lockdown, I find myself employed as a scientist for a global biotech company that had recently moved its NZ research base to Dunedin. This isn't a blog to talk about work, but I had always dreamed in the final few especially challenging months in academia of working in industry; and while the pandemic meant I couldn't go further afield as I was itching to do, fate intervened and I found myself working in a position I'd hoped for right in my familiar neighbourhood.
So I got a job as a scientist, the first thing that's different about when I last wrote.
What else is different?
Well, almost everything. The past two and a half years have treated me to some pretty gnarly personal experiences and I'm very lucky to have come out the other side in one piece in many ways.
Arsonists burned down our wider whānau isolated and beloved "Hut", our safe place, the one place that remained a constant throughout my entire life and was built by my parents, aunties, uncles and their friends - the "hut crew", a labour of love and mutual bonding over 34 years. My dad called me one Tuesday night late September 2020, nearly in tears, to tell me the farmer across the river had seen the hut burning and that fire vehicles were on their way - but we both knew it'd probably be gone. It's not a quick trip, no matter your mode of transportation.
I didn't cry as much as I thought I would, even when my brothers went up the next day and sent pictures - it was gone. Everything. It wasn't until late December 2020, after Christmas in Wellington with the whānau I got to go up there for the first time. Wearing a dumb oversized pair of gumboots (at least 40 pairs worn by many of us at different points depending on foot size would've been burned in the fire), walking along the track I know like the back of my hand, thinking of the assholes carrying petrol cans or whatever fuel they used to start it walking along this same track like how dare they; stomping through the streams and realising one of these comically too large gumboots has a crack in the rubber near the sole; and finally getting to the point where the river track goes down, where when I was little and the walk felt much longer I'd usually just run the last bit because we were finally there, and you could see the corrugated iron cladding and those classic recycled windows. Mum and I, being both of our first times back there since the fire, cried and cried. To the point where you stopped noticing tears dripping out of your eyes. Picking out recognisable charred ceramic fragments of old dishes and mugs. Seeing the first aid kit scissors still whole but charred. The roofing iron, which had just been replaced about a year prior, an epic summer operation involving multiple favours and hard work of friends and family. A fire leaves nothing useful behind.
In early 2021, two people unexpectedly died: one a maverick scientist who was a critical part of my scientific training at various points; and one a dear friend who was a very talented pianist. Both mighty tōtara in their own ways. I miss them.
In May 2021, I finally managed to end a relationship that, in hindsight, was much longer than it ever should've been. I won't say much about that - except to say that what I have always known to be true is that love needs a foundation of honesty and respect; and I learned that emotional abuse such as manipulative behaviours and gaslighting are far more damaging than physical violence. If you are in New Zealand and need access to resources see shine.
So what's good then? I always save the good news for the end - I'm an eternal optimist at heart, so I'll always take the bad news first.
Escaping my awful relationship was like coming back to myself. Coming up for air from the bottom of the Waingawa river, when I'd swim as deep as I dared then look up and see the sunlight dancing and refracting on the surface. Building my muscles back, fibre by fibre; remembering my personality, my dreams, my goals I'd kept suppressed for a long time. Finding my voice again, and remembering how to talk without having to yell to be heard or be ready to hide or protect my neck. Finding people who would just listen whenever I needed it.
Remembering my family: my mum, my dad, A S and E. How well they know me. How they'd drop anything to help out if and when I truly need it. How lucky I am to have them and their unconditional love and support. It's times when you need that unconditional support unexpectedly that you are truly shown how blessed you are to have been born into the family you were.
Remembering my friends: I have a few friends who are more like family than friends, and I was lifted up, supported, and kept safe by many special people I'll forever be in debt to. They read messages for me, they listened, they all helped in the process of remembering and honouring myself and my own desires.
And I'm now 18 months out from that - and you know, single life is pretty great! I've got a wonderful flatmate A, just as an aside, it really does feel like Maitland St Meals has now properly come full circle and maybe I'll fiiiiinally get around to updating the old about page.. no promises though! I've been getting back into a few artistic pursuits - pinching a few pots again, painting and drawing a lot too.
I started playing in a new band called Hystera (love you!) It's so nice playing music for fun again rather than trying to play enough 2hr piano slots in a week to cover bills when I was unemployed. If you like feminist melodic noise, you can check us out here playing for the Spectacle: Disturbance Fringe art show earlier this year. Music from 13 min, but enjoy the art leading up to it because it is pretty, shall I say, spectacular.
Who knows - maybe I'll get the whim to write here again soon, maybe I'll be back in another three years... If you've read this far, especially in today's age of optimised, short form "content" - sincerely, thanks for reading.
Aroha mai, aroha atu
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Photos - all Kodak portra film, shot on my Dad's Ricoh KR-5 my grandfather gave him in the 1970's; that Dad subsequently gave me when I was about 15 to trial out the school dark room. "Its very dusty" said the slightly snooty photography teacher - she may've been right, but it's taught me to appreciate light through glass and the subsequent film effects.
1. A concrete bollard outside the NGV; Melbourne in Feb 2020
2. A special seat in Carey's bay - if you know, you know xo June 2021
3. One of my favourite pictures I've taken in film - Melbourne 2020
4. Recovered ceramic fragments from the Wairarapa fire - August 2021
5. Reflections in my beloved Maitland St kitchen - September 2021
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title from hymn to her - the pretenders
(one of my favourite songs ever since we sung it for primary school choir)