The sky is quietly gigantic here.
It towers above you in regal humility, awaiting your upward glance and reverent submission.
It is vast, magnificently and terrifyingly so. It shepherds cotton clouds through azure fields, clouds that cling to each other in a celestial mating dance, a reversed mitosis writ large.
There emerges an unbroken line of white, encircling the earth below like a wagon train, beckoning pilgrims onward:
You are safe, it whispers.
You are protected.
It towers above you in regal humility, awaiting your upward glance and reverent submission.
It is vast, magnificently and terrifyingly so. It shepherds cotton clouds through azure fields, clouds that cling to each other in a celestial mating dance, a reversed mitosis writ large.
There emerges an unbroken line of white, encircling the earth below like a wagon train, beckoning pilgrims onward:
You are safe, it whispers.
You are protected.
I went with my host family to a wedding this weekend. It was fun! Very casual, very loving. I don't know the bride and groom well at all, but you could feel the warmth radiating from them and their family (my host mom's family, by the way). I love getting to experience things like weddings, school assemblies, family dinners and impromptu brunches in my time here. There is so much astounding beauty in New Zealand, but there is also beauty in the day to day living of life. I loved just sitting in the house while everyone got ready for the wedding-all the rushing about, the hairspray spurting and irons puffing; ties struggled with and abandoned, heels clicking across the kitchen, nerves and excitement and love coursing through the air. It's not as easy to photograph, but those moments are just as special as mountains and oceans and all the rest.
I also got to explore a new part of the Coromandel this weekend: Tairua, right across the bay from my host family's place in Pauanui. I took the ferry across for the afternoon (the only person on it each way), popped in intriguing corners, climbed trees and stairs and anything else I could find, and sat and tried to comprehend the magnitude of this place and all places and my tiny place in it all (hence the silly poetry above).
It was a perfect afternoon. I could sit and stare at these mountains forever, I really could. I don't even know how to convey how...intense they are; photographs just don't do it justice. Colors and shadows are so much sharper here. It's like stepping into an HD version of the world. The hills peek through one another in what seems like an optical illusion of infinite depth. And these aren't even the big draw mountains!
It was a perfect afternoon. I could sit and stare at these mountains forever, I really could. I don't even know how to convey how...intense they are; photographs just don't do it justice. Colors and shadows are so much sharper here. It's like stepping into an HD version of the world. The hills peek through one another in what seems like an optical illusion of infinite depth. And these aren't even the big draw mountains!
I sit beside the fire and think
of all that I have seen,
of meadow-flowers and butterflies
in summers that have been;
Of yellow leaves and gossamer
in autumns that there were
with morning mist and silver sun
and wind upon my hair.
I sit beside the fire and think
of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring
that I shall ever see.
For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring
there is a different green...
-J.R.R. Tolkien, Fellowship of the Ring
of all that I have seen,
of meadow-flowers and butterflies
in summers that have been;
Of yellow leaves and gossamer
in autumns that there were
with morning mist and silver sun
and wind upon my hair.
I sit beside the fire and think
of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring
that I shall ever see.
For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring
there is a different green...
-J.R.R. Tolkien, Fellowship of the Ring