Mid-October is one of few moments in the year when you can travel literally to the opposite side of the planet and find it feels the same. That point in a New Zealand spring and a British autumn is distinguishable only by the colouring, bright pinks, yellows and reds framed in green compared with shedding leaves in gold and brown. I think this added to the surrealism of being back home after 10 months of readjusting and reinventing overseas. As arduous as the journey felt (see previous blog post!) something in the human brain still struggles to understand that within about 2 days you can go such a vast distance.
We were greeted at the airport by Bernie’s Mum and before long were absorbed in a belated Hamlin family celebration of Bernie’s 30th. Surrounded by family in his home town in his grandparents’ home, Bernie immediately relaxed back into New Zealand life. My brother and sister both live in Auckland now, but it would be the next day before I saw them, and for me Auckland is a place to go for business and pleasure, not quite home. So I was in a strange state of feeling both more and less at home than in Glasgow. The familiarity of New Zealand, but the ‘away’ sensation of being in someone else’s house in a city where I’ve never spent more than a few days together.
Right from that day we arrived there were a few things that started to stand out to us as things we didn’t realise we’d missed but felt a kind euphoric relief to be amongst again. First and foremost the Kiwi accent. The joy of saying things and being understood first time round and never laughed at unexpectedly! Watching the news and not having to see or hear David Cameron! Looking around at houses that did not share a single wall with a neighbour! Knowing all the strange unspoken social codes and being assured of not constantly breaking them and causing silent but furious resentment! Driving! Money we recognised!
It’s amazing all the strange things that separate being at home and being somewhere else. Simple things like looking at a shop name and from that knowing if you can afford to walk in or not, understanding all the words on a menu or not having to explain your origins and even ancestry to everyone you meet because every time you open your mouth it marks you out as foreign. It’s funny because the novelty of NOT experiencing all these things are part of what make living overseas so exciting, but it is a bit like breathing fresh air to do without them again.
The next few days were a happy blur of catching up with friends and remembering what everything in our lives was like up until a year ago. We had a reunion with our old, faithful Toyota Corolla, Lady Jessicar, a loyal friend who’d seen us in every corner of New Zealand for nearly 10 years in Bernie’s case.
There was a joyful reunion too with Speights, the Dunedin-made beer and it was the most ridiculously nostalgic moment when the bar tender replied “Sweet as, mate” to our order.
But even better than the car or the beer (and yes, we mixed those two legally) were the reunions with the people we’d had to leave behind.
And then of course, there was the wedding, my sister’s long-awaited nuptials and the reason for our unexpected return to Aotearoa within the year. It hadn’t been a short relationship – Robyn (my sister) and Paula (her nearly-wife) had been together for 17 years, and my memories of them as a couple stretched back to my childhood, and in fact I can barely remember my sister from a time before there was Paula along with her. They’d been engaged for a while too, ever since the day, even the hour, about a year and a half ago, when marriage equality finally became reality in New Zealand. But the date had been set only around 6 months previously so there was plenty to keep everyone busy in the run up to the event! For instance, I was told, 3 days before the wedding, that the reading I’d be giving would actually be of my choosing. Now Paula is one of my literary heroes, as were several of the guests, and there’s already plenty of pressure with this kind of thing when your career is in poetry. And I had three days to come up with something perfect. Expletive deleted. I’ll let you in on what I actually did in a little bit.
Most memorable, perhaps, was when one of the brides-to-be forgot to pick up the dog from a groomers in one corner of the city, and so my mother-in-law, loving every minute of this, ended up driving the length of Auckland’s vast sprawl South to North with us to get the dog, then for several more miles in a totally different direction out to my sister’s place in the West with a very smooth-coated and fragrant Scooter the Spoodle relaxing happily on her leather seats, before heading back to the south.
One of the best parts of any relation’s wedding is the time you get to spend with family, and having not seen them for the best part of a year, this was amplified a hundred times. Thinking she’d be 11 or 12 before I saw her again, it was wonderful to spend an afternoon with my still-9-year-old niece Poppy (Robyn and Paula’s daughter), making particularly good use of her trampoline. Everyone’s always said that she’s a lot like me, and if I do say so myself, she’s pretty freakin’ awesome.
Not being part of a bridal party, I really appreciated being able to spend some preparation time the night before with my brother’s girlfriend, Forrest.
Followed by a long, perfect evening with my brother Keith, Forrest and Bernie complete with wine in the apartment block’s spa under the stars.
It was at the rehearsal that we were all together for the first time in a year. My Dad lives in Gisbourne, my Mum in Dunedin and my brother and sister in Auckland, so these moments are valuable, and often mean some other awesome thing is taking place, such as a wedding (For further information on the logistics of why it’s hard for us all to get together, check either a map or an Air New Zealand price list).
Even without a family reunion, I love wedding rehearsals. There’s the nervous energy and palpable excitement of a dress-rehearsal before the opening night of a play, but the director is occupied with making everyone happy, not giving last minute information regarding your failings. In this case the director was the minister, my Dad, Fraser. Seeing him was particularly exciting because whereas I can see and talk to everyone else in my family quite regularly via Skype, Dad hasn’t quite managed this technology yet, so it felt like longer since I’d seen him than the others. Also he’s a native Glaswegian, and although he left that city in 1950, there are certain things about him that have made more sense since I’ve lived there, and I’ve felt more connected to him in a way since our move. Needless to say we celebrated our reunion by loudly singing the Glasgow Street Songs of both our youths that are still sung in its pubs today.
Then of course there was my Mum who I’d last seen in Scotland when she came to visit over the summer (Northern Hemisphere summer that is), my cousin Kerry, her husband Kiel, their gorgeous children, my excellent nephews and niece, Api, Noah and Kiki, all of whom were busy in the background and I’m sure had been for months making sure the wedding came together. I’d show you photos of this all going on that sunny day at the Oratia Farmer’s Market, but my sister has insisted, as a true theatre-professional, that the rehearsal stay veiled in secrecy behind the metaphorical stage curtain. So here’s a family portrait of Kerry and her family I stole from her facebook instead:
It’s true that when shopping for an outdoor wedding in Auckland in Spring, you can’t afford to be too optimistic about the weather. It’s an unpredictable time of year, often windy and featuring heavy rain showers, hot sun, hail storms and thunder all within about an hour on any given day. But Robyn and Paula had obviously pleased someone (Jim Hickey perhaps) because their wedding day was a perfectly still, sunny but not too hot, just right kind of day. I met up with my very patient Mum who had to fix a seam on my dress and put up with my pre-match anxious routine before all got underway and we could relax.
But underway it finally went and it was beautiful. As the above picture shows everyone was looking pretty fine and enjoying some sweet sunshine in their colourful wedding garb. Most colourful of all was the MC:
I hadn’t known what to picture from the description of ‘Oratia Farmers Market’ having never been there, but what I didn’t anticipate was how similar it was to my own wedding venue, the kind of semi-rural setting I can’t imagine an equivalent for in Britain. A wide open space speckled with a winery and the occasional cow and sheep, which worked in with their rustic, DIY themed wedding. In keeping with this, the brides and their ladies arrived on an excellent truck with a specific name I can’t remember and won’t risk the wrath of motor enthusiasts by attempting to guess:
The both looked resplendent in a white lace pant-suit for Paula and a knee-length dress for Robyn, each with a touch of spearmint. The look was completed by that look you only get on your wedding day, that makes even the most beautiful people look even more stunning.
I was pretty happy my reading was very near the beginning, it meant I could get it done then relax for the rest of the wedding. In the end I decided not to pick a poem or to write one, but to compose a found poem from the lines in musicals. My logic for this was that many of my memories of Robyn, especially the earliest ones, involve musicals, and that this, along with the example of her relationship with Paula, is how she’s always taught me about love. Here is the result:
Robyn and Paula’s wedding reading
It’s a little bit funny, this feeling inside,
here I go again, my my, how can I resist you?
how wonderful life is now you’re in the world
I’ve been changed, yes really changed. I seem like someone else.
In my life, she has burst like the music of angels, the light of the sun
wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles.
Suddenly the world seems such a perfect place, suddenly it moves with such a perfect grace, suddenly my life doesn’t seem such a waste, it all revolves around you.
And the fears that once controlled me, can’t get to me at all.
you really should know I’d be good for you, I’d be surprisingly good for you,
it gives you something to think about, something to drink about
For here you are, standing here, loving me, whether or not you should, so somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good,
you can’t stop an avalanche as it races down the hill, you can try to stop the seasons girl but you know you never will.
Too late for second guessing, too late to go back to sleep, it’s time to trust my instincts, close my eyes and leap,
I’ll do anything, for you dear anything, for you mean everything to me.
the truth is I never left you, all through my wild days, my mad existence.
seasons may change, winter to spring, but I love you until the end of time,
share each day with me, each night, each morning
any dream will do
somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue. And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.
it’s time to try defying gravity
together at last, together for ever, we’re tying a knot, they never can sever,
(we’re) girls in white dresses with (spearmint) satin sashes
a heart full of love, no fear, no regret
come what may
I will love you until my dying day
Poppy performed her song, Bruno Mars’ “Count on Me” absolutely perfectly:
…and both her Mums had written beautiful, tear-jerking and witty vows that went off without a hitch, apart from possibly the best ever Freudian slip which replaced the phrase “best mother” with “best lover”, producing this reaction:
Dad was in his element as minister of course, and the 130-strong crowd applauded like nothing else when the gorgeous brides walked down the aisle to the ‘How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria’ wedding tune from the Sound of Music.
The evening was long and joyous, full of wine, dancing and food provided by two food trucks, My favourite by far was the pizza guys, for their cooking skills, their jokes and their obvious enjoyment of the occasion:
The formalities of the night ended with a run of great speeches, all of them done by seasoned performers. Last of all was my Mum, who had to wait a lot longer than I did to get her bit done, but held up much better than I would have in terms of nerves and rounded off the night perfectly:
The speeches were followed by plenty of fun times on the dance floor, and I took the opportunity to party with my nieces, because it’s likely that the next time we see each other they might be a bit too grown up and cool for such antics, and they almost certainly won’t be the right size for us to dance like we’re accustomed to, unless I spend quite a bit more time in the gym before then. During the speeches we took a break in our dancing and both girls fell asleep on me for a time. Before she nodded off Poppy looked up at me and said, in true Paterson style, “Aunty Sarah, can you wake me up if they talk about me?”
My night ended singing all the way back to the centre of town with Forrest, Keith and Bernie, where Bernie and I slept on his parents’ boat. A pretty sweet end to a day I’d been looking forward to for years, that was even more beautiful that I’d imagined. It was certainly worth the journey!
Ka Kite Ano
Sarah
Otago Lane 