Goodbye, Wellington

The man reached into the back of his truck and pulled out a dead Canadian goose. He’d been out duck hunting that morning, stopped by just after we finished lunch, and had shown us sublime, otherworldly pictures and videos on his laptop of his ice skating adventures on the South Island. I’d ridden the train to Richard and Emily’s house in Masterton that morning. Emily was a student in my Beginning Adult Acting class. Richard, her partner, had worked in the Hollywood film industry and was now writing a historic novel about the American writer Zane Grey. The man held the goose by its neck, the patterned feathers soft against in his hands. He asked Richard if he knew what to do with it. A stranger walked past with a white boxer dog on a leash and stared. Emily stepped forward, took the goose by the neck, and said, “I do.”

During my last weeks in Wellington, I finally started to feel connected. I finished teaching my two acting classes, made new friends with some of the students, and acted in a low-budget action flick, Contract Killers, in which I play detective-gone-bad Pete Callaghan. I rode the train out to Featherston and had dinner at Walter and Marci’s great new house, went out to see live music, and watched some terrific films at the World Cinema Showcase, my favorites being And Everything is Going Fine, Waste Land, Uncle Boonme Who Can Recall His Past Lives, and especially, Bill Cunningham New York, a documentary about the celebrated fashion photographer, who rides his bicycle all over the city, snapping candid shots for his weekly feature in The NY Times. At one point, Cunningham says, “If you look for beauty, you will find it.” Indeed. Life unspools like a movie being directed by all 12.5 billion of us, we’re creating this as we go, and it’s up to each of us to decide what we will focus on.

Once I knew I was leaving Wellington, I began seeing everything as if it might be the last time, cherishing conversations for the rare fleeting moments of communion they provided. Perhaps it’s the dry crumbs of British influence that make Kiwis more reticent than folks I’ve encountered in other, mostly warmer, parts of the world. Or maybe it was I who was slow to open, holding on too long to the pain and confusion I brought with me, only letting go and transforming during my last few months there. Though strangers on the street continued to avert their eyes when I wished them good morning, and though physical contact is at the opposite pole of say Cuba or Tanzania, people did began to invite me into their homes and into their lives.

And so it was with mixed feelings that I boarded a plane Tuesday morning, stopping briefly in Auckland, then settled in for the 11 hour journey to Singapore. I had turned over my apartment key on Monday, and spent the night with my friends Simin and Antony in their swell little house up in the Brooklyn hills. Saturday night, Simin, Antony, and the international postgrad group I’d met nearly one year ago, threw a goodbye dinner for me at Rebecca and Jared’s house in Petone. I love Petone, a little working class neighborhood by the sea, with its fishing pier, restaurant row, and small wooden cottages. My friends all pitched in and gave me a jadestone necklace as a parting gift. Just as it began to feel like home, I have left, trusting the bridges I’ve built will be strong enough to weather time and distance.

I am now at the Asian Ruby 3 Hotel in downtown Ho Chi Minh City, still called Saigon by most of the locals. The streets here are rivers of motorbikes, and it’s a thrill to try and wade through them. The bony claws of communism still hold tightly here. Facebook is illegal. Red flags sporting the Soviet hammer and sickle still fly above congested narrow side streets. But the people, as in Singapore, are extremely warm and helpful. In the patch of park across the street, parents push strollers, grandparents practice chi gong, and men standing in large circles play what seems to be a mix of badminton and hacky-sack, passing the birdie with graceful, ridiculous kicks. And though I’m on the fifth floor of a concrete landscape, roosters woke me this morning, hours before sunrise. I’d thought of taking a half-day guided tour to the Cu Chi Tunnels, 50 km outside of town, but I’ve been nursing a bad cold since I left Wellington, and have decided to rest instead. The deciding factor was when the young man at the hotel desk, describing the network of tunnels used during the war, exclaimed, “You go and shoot gun!”

I’m spending a brief two weeks in Southeast Asia before returning to the U.S., and landing in San Francisco June 15th. Though I’ve applied for a summer Fire Lookout job with the U.S. Forest Service, it’s looking like I’ll probably head back to Tampa on June 20th. Deakin University offered me a scholarship to transfer to Melbourne, Australia, and continue my PhD research, commencing in July. However, because I was feeling as though I needed a break to recalibrate, they have agreed to let me defer my start date until the first of their school year, March, 2012. I’ll be looking for work back in the U.S. If anyone knows of any writing, teaching, directing or acting opportunities, please let me know.

Singapore was like a sprawling Orlando, Florida, a monument to commerce, if Orlando went high rise and if its population was comprised of 8 million Asians. I stayed two nights in a glass tower, a converted office building as soulless as a stock option. During my one full day there, I took the spotless metro to Chinatown where I visited Hindu and Buddhist temples, and to Little India, where I was trapped by an afternoon monsoon in a florescent, multi-storied bazaar. It was there, at the second little shop where I could not find any chewing gum, when I remembered: Oh, right, Singapore! The country where chewing gum is illegal! They’ve also banned eating and drinking on the metro, which might explain some of its spotlessness.

The night before I left, I went out in search of orange juice. Passing the Singapore Futsing Association (!), I heard what sounded like a goose honking. The night was thick and liquid. The sound brought me to the edge of a soccer field. Across the field, men stood in a loose circle. Another goose honk, then a drum, and soon the sound of bagpipes filled the concrete valley, stopping people in their tracks. Just like that. Beauty, everywhere.