Can land hold you?

Can land hold you?

Do those clouds, full of light really soothe a mortal ache?

I wanted to dash into the sunset, fall wherever the light falls, crash like the waves, decay like the old wooden shop in Orepuki – my timbers going gray with rain. Crepuscular light seems most painterly – the land, already a canvas – the purples and pinks of azaelea leaves – impossible. The spun sun is a tangle of bracken grass growing on the fencetop and the stately stillness of evening in this vast house-turned-gallery on the edge of town with seats in formal gardens, left for contemplation. Yet I do not sit.

I’m a constant-motion machine, enlivening and tormenting the world.

And yet, there was autonomy enough, almost, for me, in the car, turning its nose on to the beach just past noon, the black-backed gulls rising on the wind, miraculous as a plane taking off. The two rutted tracks between beach grass leading to a choppy, muddy foreshore and a treacherous ocean.

There are little ‘batches’ of every era and state of repair: some eco-designed and open to the world, others small, stony, perched atop the hill and enclosed; one with windows in all directions, like a fly with compound eyes, as a concession to the coast location and the coast views.

The sweep of the road to the right as you go over the bridge at Riverton, takes you up a winding way with the toi-toi lined, silvery stretch of the Aparima, shallow at this tide, takes you into the aching distance. Macrocarpa hedges frame settled land as the Easterly rushes in with icy effect. The old skeleton of a tongue and groove kauri house fenced off to prevent encampment and to contain the cattle, gave me hope that someone had plans for its restoration. The front of the house had the river, the sides and back had a sweeping valley right through to the other coastline. Right now the meditative inhabitants chew their cud, eyeing me through the fence.