The Sweet Stuff

9/25/10

Twizel.

We stayed in a motor camp last night -- my first ever. 

Uhh, we plugged this one thing into another thing, flipped a switch, and rearranged the furniture into two "beds." I took the one that rested on the kitchen table; Denise slept in the loft. She got some black + blues climbing up the ladder and painfully nestled into the 3" gap between the pillows and the roof. 

I had a dream about cake. After I ate the cake, someone shot me. With a gun. 

I'm grumpy and moody and all the things I don't want to be. The campervan is full of negative energy and it's dragging me down. Diesel fumes can't be helping. 

We spent the first few hours of the morning walking the rocks around Lake Pukaki. Everything is so big and so small. I watch different cloud systems shuffle around Mt Cook, the tallest mountain in New Zealand. The weather is perfect here but not so much there. 

We hop back into the van ... And Denise tells me to run up a barren hill on the other side of the highway. Dare. 

Ok. 

Open. Close. Look. Look. Look. Run. Run. Run. 

When I got to the top, I could see that the baby hill was hiding the mother hill. I ran up the mother hill and she winded me, reminding me that I am a guest in her home. At the top, I had a northern view of the lake and a southern view of an endless countryside not visible from the highway. I pulled off my hood, wanting to feel the clean, brisk air. Shit. Pulling off my hood also pulled out my earring, losing it to the hungry grey rocks. Forever. They were my favorite -- my mom gave them to me. 

The peak of the rocky hill turned abruptly into a forest. I sprinted across the rocks and entered the trees. I ran along a narrow path, weaving in and out of the filtered light. I don't know where I'm going and I don't care. I keep running, breaking branches, kicking up dirt, and avoiding the steep drop off. I can't stop; I don't stop. I eventually enter into a clearing and pause. The trail continues down through the valley. I take it in ... and run back. As I'm running through the forest, I scream. It happened without even thinking, as if I had to keep pace with the roar of the wind. The roar is very loud so I scream very loud. For too long I have wanted to stand at the top of a mountain and scream my heart out. This was my moment. There was no one. Nothing. Just me.