Reminiscing Novembers

 Reminiscing Novembers                                                                                                                               - My sojourn in Napier, New Zealand

Innately, I think I possess an intimate affinity with New Zealand. It was like a tightly tethered bond, ineffable and inscrutable, that enticed me to send Jared, my son, there for high school three years ago.

Everything commenced with so many promising plans and anticipations, but probably when the expectation is overloaded with a myriad of dreams that carry too much weight, it's bound to crack and collapse prematurely. As importunate as I could be sometimes, in retrospect, when I surveil and reflect on all the mishaps and flopped plans,  remorse or exasperation is hardly my option, instead, they illuminate a ray of even more glaring light to penetrate the undeniable reality of life - it is perfectly fine not to be able to unveil every truth that we wish to know, it is perfectly fine too if certain dreams elude you, and stay out of your reach forever.  

These are the vicissitudes of life, like surfing on top of a wave, sometimes it crashes to the bottom and sometimes it elevates you to a new height.

But then I shall always remember those Novembers in the past two years when I allocated this part of my life to New Zealand, they crystalized the precious memories that still breathe inside me until today, and exactly after a year I left Napier, there is no better moment to reminisce those Novembers than now.

Being blessed by the generosity and magnanimity of Jared's homestay parents, I was welcomed like a long lost friend to tag along with Jared in a cozy, fully equipped apartment behind the main house. I usually rose early in the morning, some days we rose at the wee hour before dawn together, bracing the frigid coldness to get into the car and headed toward the Napier Aquatic Center for Jared to join the morning swimming training. It was not something both of us wholeheartedly enjoyed, but it was a routine earmarked on Jared's daily schedule, a commitment he had been engaging for years.

Sometimes when I saw him alighting the car and entering the heavy glass door of the aquatic center, I couldn't help but scramble to look for one solid reason for him to continue training, or to just quit and walk away from the soft silky chlorinated water.  

Until today, he still goes to swimming training, miraculously, in spite of all the unpromising prospects.

In the morning of most of the weekdays, after dropping Jared at school, I returned to an empty apartment. November spring in Napier had always been colder than what I could endure, a cup of hot steamy coffee wouldn't last much longer, and usually, before I could finish my simple breakfast, its warmth was long dissipated. Entirely alone, I did some readings or scribbled a few sentences of personal musings; when serendipitously there was any inspiration rush, I just wrote a few chapters of a novella or a few sentences of a poem.  Otherwise, I would just snugly coil up on the sofa in my jacket watching documentaries on my laptop, sliding doors tightly shut to shun away the unbearable chilly air, as spring in November was still deeply felt like winter. Occasionally, I just indulged myself with the luxury of idling time away by just motionlessly standing in front of the glass door, gazing at the drenched wet spongy sky, raindrops blossoming on the wooden deck pavement, the boisterous cacophony of the pelting rains meekly seeped into the room, it could hardly flutter the silence of my loneliness.

Unperturbed, I would just stand there for quite a while, unleashing thousand wild thoughts galloping across my mind, thinking about the loved ones back home a thousand miles away, and unknowingly, my morning just quietly passed by.

When I was there, preparing lunch inadvertently became a daily chore for me. I hardly cook back home, but again and again, I amazed myself with some intuitional cooking ability to produce home-cooked dishes enriched with oriental tastes to satisfy the insatiable cravings of Jared. After lunch in the afternoon, I would drop Jared at the aquatic center for another session of swimming training, then I  walked to the nearby supermarket to do some sundry shopping; whenever weather permitted, I strolled around the streets that sliced through the residential area, relishing the crisp air of spring and the scent of blooming flowers. 

When spring inched closer to mid-November,  the weather was splurged with more sunny days, the temperature rose and I began my numerous hikes, near and far, within and outskirts of Napier, the pure thrill from those hikes worthed another lengthy depiction in words.

When night fell, temperature drastically dropped in tandem even in spring. Jared and the other roommate usually would have dinner with the homestay parents and I had mine alone in the apartment. As night drifted further, the frigid coldness craftily penetrated through the wall and permeated the air in the apartment. Before the freezing air completed its invasion, I quickly washed up, changed into pajamas, and slipped beneath the thick comforter in bed, avariciously bathed myself with the warmth it ensnared during the daytime. Not much later, Jared got on the bed too, lying beside me. I usually squandered the early night away by watching a few episodes of TV series, Jared clung to his handphone, and we occasionally exchanged a few words, about school or something trivial; but most of the time, communication was very much absent, Jared is rather a reticent boy, he hardly opens up unless being pried, so we were just engrossed in our own activities until he hit the pillow first. I would stay awake slightly longer until a sense of soporific crept in, I switched off the dim table lamp and opaque darkness abruptly engulfed my vision.

That was how a typical day in Napier ended.

During the weekends, the pace of life turned lethargically slower, one of the days Jared was allowed to go out to hang around with his school mates; as for me, if the weather was amicably dry and sunny, I ventured out to have long hikes around Napier, it was my alone time where I sorted out the entangled problems. When I walked and trudged across the rolling meadows under whitewashed glistening sunlight in the balmy breeze, the unveiling of majestic landscapes right in front of my eyes purified my mind, my thought became more lucid and those were the moment many decisions were derived and sealed.

Including the one that changed the course of Jared's life just two weeks before we left Napier.

Two years ago, we left New Zealand when November approached its tail, last year was no different. The only difference was we left for good, the initial plan for Jared to return after two months was irrevocably scrapped. I kept mum about it until a day before our departure, I broke the news to Jared and his homestay parents, there was no easy way out, but the indications were crystal clear and he was not going back.

In life, difficult decisions have to be made, probably not only once but multiple times, and they instantly shove you to rub against all kind of detritus with pains and discomfort, you have to relinquish something you enjoy dearly, to part with people whom you already intimately connect, stop doing what you have been doing all the time, but as much as we abhor to do it, I devoutly believe a difficult decision like this one has always been a life-changing happening. 

And we left on one of the days in November, all stuff packed into a few pieces of luggage, some recycled, some dumped and the rest, with the permission, we just left behind for the homestay parents. But if I backtracked the premature plans roughly sketched for Jared, we are supposed to be traveling in South Island right now after he finished his last external paper. What was meant to be his grand finale holidays in New Zealand before parting with the country he would stay for four years, sadly, ended as a stillborn. 

Now we are all back home, Jared's academic endeavor takes a further breather with the pandemonium of COVID-19 outbreak, but we have been together ever since exactly after one full year of leaving New Zealand, looking back on that long, winding road Jared and I traversed in the past three years, it appeared to be a section so surreal and disconnected from my life. I can't gauge how Jared felt about the impact it triggered in his life but to me, it is monumental and at the same time, momentous, something seems to be irrelevant and at the same time unforgettable, but amidst all this paradoxical confusion and mixed emotion, there is one thing I am so deadly certain - still, no regret for every single decision made prior and after the entire saga that both of us went through.

Reminiscing those Novembers I spent in Napier, New Zealand, I eventually overcame that insurmountable reluctance to unload all the thoughts and feelings that tightly locked inside my heart, it is time for me to move on, to feel free and light again.

PS: List of people whom we are sincerely thankful to:

- Evan and Karen: Homestay's parents who treated me like one of their family members                          - Tim: Head of International Student Department at NBH (Napier Boys High) who always kept a close eye on Jared                                                                                                                                                  - Charmaine: Jared's swim mate's mum who assisted Jared in so many ways in term of swimming          - Phil: Jared's swimming coach who kept encouraging him to continue training                                        - Niklas: Jared's German roommate who had no qualms with me staying at the apartment for some months