Episode 4: Riders on the Storm
Privyet, readers.
My multilingual openings gimmick is getting increasingly tenuous. I’ve done Russian this time because of Mila, a “Moscow fashion model” who gave me a kiss on a rooftop cocktail bar. I was astonished, took my eyes off her to brag to my new mate Cameron, and haven’t seen her since. Perhaps that was for the best. I dread to think who her dad is pals with.
I was waiting till noon on Saturday morning for Jim, the owner of the house I casually let myself into, to come and relieve me of his rather tragic dog who I had spent the last 16 hours exchanging long awkward glances with. Jim had been absent because he had gone to an Ed Sheeran concert. This I learned from his girlfriend, Victoria, and her son Cameron, with whom I later went out.
Jim has redeeming factors galore as a host; easy-going fella, plays backgammon with me when Cyclone Gabrielle knocks the power out, takes me to meet his golf chums in a ridiculously swanky pad, and has two daughters, 9 and 11. The younger, Alba, is perhaps the most affectionate creature I’ve ever come across, and has slightly melted my cold heart. On Sunday night, barely a few hours after meeting me, she made me a bed on the living room floor, insisted I watch Shrek, then latched herself around my neck and went to sleep.
Word(s) of the Week are Par, Birdie and Eagle. This is the golf lingo I endured whilst ingratiating myself with the CEO of Maersk’s NZ operation. Yep. Maersk. It’s a funny old life.
Victoria had a gloomy outlook to share regarding climate change. Not 36 hours later, as if to prove her point, Gabrielle has torn into Auckland with a vengeance. I am playing The Doors’ Riders on the Storm and listening to the wind batter the roofs and howl through the trees as I write. The damage is extensive, although barely a chipped mug by comparison to what is unfolding in Turkey. Worth remembering that mine are first world problems.
Although there are weeks and weeks ahead of me yet in NZ, this wild night feels like a good time to admit that my travels haven’t been exactly how I imagined. But no sooner has that first realisation occurred to me, a second, more potent one is right on its heels. Why did I ever think it WOULD be exactly as I had envisaged in my abstract, fact-free speculations? Does anyone believe their lives will go as forecast?
My 19th birthday is in a couple of weeks, meaning I have nearly completed a year of legal adulthood, and if there’s one observation I’ve made it’s that everyone is just winging it. Childhood is the term we give to the blissful ignorance of the illusion that adults know what they’re doing. My 18th year, and travelling especially, has firmly disabused me of that notion, because what’s the difference between an 18 year old and a 17 year old, really? A 19 year old and a 25 year old? 25 to 30, to 40, to 50? Each of us is just a patchwork collage of our mistakes, shortcomings and experiences, right?
My old man is full of advice, as most of you well know. He advised me to “find a scene” out in NZ, to not use my phone too much, and to always be respectful to women - and to everyone. He advised me to say yes wherever possible. He was, of course, right. But I was never going to be able to simply begin travelling in an edifying, cinematic fashion which would lend me life experience and worldly knowledge, as if any of the great lessons Dad tries to impart to me could be absorbed via words, or picked up by getting on a plane.
Dad acknowledges this, which is perhaps why his most salient piece of advice has always been “in order to have an adventure, you must first have a crisis!” I think I’m beginning to understand that more, but even this advice is flawed, because how can one identify a crisis without mentally romanticising it in the manner we have agreed never transpires? There is no shortcut to maturity. We’re all just kites in a hurricane. We’re riders on the storm.
I’m currently staying in a bloke called Richard’s plush caravan in Tauranga, on the doorstep of Mount Maunganui, where England begin their test series against New Zealand tomorrow. I have tickets to each of the 5 days and I apologise in advance for how strongly cricket will feature in the next episode. Important thing is, though, the cast of people it will open up is wide and colourful. As long as I don’t get cycloned to death, or worse, the test gets cancelled. I look forward to divulging all, because whatever happens… it’s good publicity. After all, I’m just a rider on the storm.
“Goodbye and see you next time!” (in Russian)
