ONE SLOW SUNDAY

Another evening of light drizzle after hours of clear blue skies, interrupted only by occasional patches of grey clouds, has worked its way yet again into the valleys of Palmerston North. The cadence of rainfall, sounding like applause after a performance, heightens in crescendo in tempo with the breath of the universe just outside the window. The still air brings the smell of rain into this elongated office in the geography building through the slight crack in the window pane.  

As I walked the short distance from my temporary flat to the office, the Tararua mountain range discernible at the distant outskirts of the valley in the blue, dusk light silently beckoned to me, daring me to ascend. Although the undulating peaks are a temptation, especially on this day after spending several hours reading indoors, the possible tramping excursion remained just that, a temptation and a thought, which I tucked away in the back of my mind as part of my list-of-things to do while in New Zealand. And certainly not on this quiet early evening, I’m afraid, as fears of receding into this uncertain abyss if the readings that demand to be completed became part of my academic worries. Unread pages of books and articles often call out to me during this academic life, like subconscious drones at the base of my mind. Before I can even begin typing out the tentative sentences that would in time dutifully unfold into the background chapter of Bukidnon Province, I had to complete those readings.

Moving around the city and campus, stepping into this errand or that workshop, is a bit like entering tiny vignettes that contain a beginning, a climax, and an ending, each story isolated from the other, as if I were playing out different, disjointed parts of my life. Each vignette differs in length of time and always concludes with a curtain call for another appearance. Other stories are but a few hours and require only a short appearance, while others are continuous. Some also give me the feeling of being controlled by another force belonging in another psychological realm that I can’t see or recognize, and so I work with the tug of the strings, but am not really certain if the footing is secure enough for me to continue balancing on it. These occasions render the unsettling sensation of standing on a scaffold, which holds no permanence or represents little security.

The occasional vignette will bring me face-to-face with such an overwhelming pleasantness that I feel grateful for it having migrated clandestinely into my uneventful days. One in particular was the needed resolution to an unplanned expense that it caused some anxiety because I feared the outcome of not being able to afford the care. The solution was accompanied by the kindness that upon discovery proved to bring together these fissures that required mending. The smell of jasmine in the evening air in the late, New England summer – the memory of this vignette parallels the other – the solution to which I refer, the one who comes every mid-week to campus or is worth the visit on Broadway Avenue. Even just once to relieve the underlying discomfort.

Monday evening will be one spent with Kelvin Cruikshank, a psychic who exists in harmony with the other side, alongside those who believe.