O my lord

I write this from the inter-islander ferry as we cross from the north to the south island. We've just left Wellington after three days of relaxing and comfortable city exploring while we were staying with a girl who graduated from Columbia that we found on couchsurfing. Ah what a small world we live in!

I feel its time for a run down of the fun and crazy, and impossibly exciting, advenuters we've been having so far in NZ.

Raglan was a blast with surfing and swimming, communal cooking and sleeping in a train caboose, no one wears shoes and no one seems to do much except have fun and be tan and enjoy the beauty of the sea. Enticing, i know, but we had to keep moving--adventures were ahead! so we dropped some friends (those seem to be instantaneous around here) off in Hamilton, went grocery shopping at a Cosco-like place where people still didn't wear shoes and went on our way south towards the Waitomo Caves.

Fast forward to Gen and me standing waist-deep in frigid water 65meters underground, floating on inner tubes down this river deep inside a cave, swimming around underground in full wetsuits and headlamps looking at glow worms above us and hoping eels weren't eating our bums. That was the caves. Followed by free bagels and hot soup and more bagels and more soup! and off we were again! This time heading for the tiny and unknown town of National Park.

Once there-- and really we're talking about maybe 4 stores in a row, that's the town-- we found a campsite along this pretty little stream with a handful of other campers like us.

Next morning we head off to the beginning of the Tongariro Alpine Crossing where we promtly met Eva (German) and Alistor (Canadian) who were planning to hike that day as well. We schemed up a great plan with these two: instead of paying $35 a head to take the bus at the of the treck back to our cars, we four decided to leave one car at either end and do a kind of carpooling. Save $$, make friends! We had a blast and ended up hiking the whole day with them! The two of them proved to be formidable hikers, tho their jeans and converse sneakers might have suggested otherwise initially. Gsm and I, of course, are dorked out in super hiking boots and rain gear (just in case!)....and of course they beat us up. Which made us feel only slightly silly.

The area we were hiking in is really barren and is full of old volcanoes and dried lava. It's really steep and a hard, but amazing hike that takes all day, 20km in all. Actually, and importantly, the mountain we hiked around is Mt Doom in the lord of the rings (LOTR ROTK, that's for you O). So we're hiking in Mordor basically is what I'm saying, but meanwhile we're high enough up that you can see way out to rolling hills and in the distance Lake Taupo and some epic mountains. Damn cool.

What's next..?? Oh we finished the hike and recamped and were about to eat our tiny stove-made dinner when we realized the car wouldn't start. The 'dent' part of 'rent-a-dent' was coming to full fruition. Only a little panicking and some Israeli girls driving us to cell service and I'm talking to THE friendliest man I have ever spoken to from AA. Which, so perfectly, here is the auto service company like AAA in the US. Anyway, we wait and this AA guy pulls up to our campsite in a full mechanic suit, asks me to show him the problem and....of course the car works. So he leaves and we feel embarressed and awkward but cool! Car still works.

Next morning we head to the start of our canoeing adventure. We arrive with zero minutes to even think about what we are about to do or what we might need while canoeing down thus river in the absolute middle of nowhere for three days. Throw our stuff into plastic barrels, throw ourselves into the boat and we're off! And on our own.

But of course there's always kiwis on this kind of adventure too. Families on vacation, couples sticking to themselves, and then also the group of 7 twenty-somethings who are celebrating a birthday excursion and have with them 4 coolers of food and beer, a BBQer, at least a fair amount of illegal substances, and lots of nudity. They were great-- invadors of other canoes, pirates wearing purple earmuffs, with an inflatable swan with sexy eyes tied to the back of one canoe, swimming along behind for all three days. They were generous with their beer and food, friendly and just fun to be around--- tho quite loud at night.

Anyway the canoe trip was awesome. We were so far in the wilderness, it was so remote and so quiet of man-made sounds, tho noisy noisy with forest sounds! Canoeing felt like an alternate universe where suddenly our purpose was only to make it to the next camp site, and all the planning and worrying about emails or phone calls or work issues later, just didn't exist for that time. Quite fantastic!

So that took us to 6 days without a real shower, smelling rather foul and generally pooped. we drove, first to where Gen will be working later in Martinborough, and then to Wellington, dropped off the car and packed in to Hannah's house ( from CS) with her 4 musician-sorts flatmates.

Wellington was really awesome-- it feels a lot like San Fram because it's right on the water with a bay and it's super windy and so nice and sunny, tons of waterfront walkways and loads of cafes and a really great beer garden. CSing with Hannah was just perfectly what makes couchsurfing so great. We got a floor to crash on, a kitchen and house to use and instant friends. In exchange we cooked everyone dinner two nights and by the end of our stay really felt that we'd crossed over from just using their floor to sleep on, to actually being good freinds with a fantastic group of kiwis! Sweet-as! (best expression. Used constantly here. As in: this view out the front of the ferry that I'm looking at right now, out to the mountains of the south island, is sweet-as!)

And now?? Well we'll pick up a new car and head south along the eastern coast of the south island then over west to do lots of tramping around giant mountains and glaciers, then finally back north by march 22nd to start working at the winery!!

Will keep on keeping on...per usual. Love the no shoes culture here-- I fit right in, love how everyone really is totally friendly and relaxed, ready to help and so generous with what they have. Not to mention how stunningly gorgeous every inch of this country seems so far to be!

All my love from the sun that I'm sitting in as I write this,
SB

ALIVE and well (and pale) in new Zealand!

I just wrote a blog about what we've been doing and the program crashed on my ithingy. oh well. i am alive. in new zealand. here's the short version of what we've done so far,

-Flight with free wine!
-renting our car from 'rent a dent'. no joke that's what the company is called. !
-driving on the wrong side of the road. terrifying.
-arriving in raglan. A great surf town. adorable. no one appears to wear shoes.
-staying at solscape an eco-backpackers hostel on the top of this mountain-y hill overlooking the whole beach. it has little train cars that we stay in and a communal kitchen and lots of international travelers. my kind of place!!
-i was called 'translucent' for being so pale and not tan.
-SURFING LESSON this morning with Ken (no joke).


Ok!! Gotta run. The beach is calling to us. It's 75 today and so gorgeous.

Ps skype name is sophiebess4
Also I have a cell phone here and it's free to get calls so give a ring from skypebif you wanna!! number is 011 64 0211898619

!!!!!!!

Xo
S

I'm off again!!!!

Tomorrow I begin another adventure. Last time I went international we went native:








We'll see what happens in the land of kiwis and sheep.

I'll post as often as I'm able to while we travel all over the country. Then...let the wine-ing begin!!

-sb

home

coming home feels like coming to a sudden and screetching halt. my body in motion suddenly stationary.

how to make this time at home (nearly 3 months in itself) worthwhile and meaningful. not just a time to sit and waste time. how to use Boston, my family, this apartment, all of this, to my advantage, as another stage in my life and not simply a (long) resting stop between adventures. this is what I struggle with here.

a rather spectacular person wrote recently something staggeringly beautiful.

"I find myself floundering in a vat of my own confusion, that I can’t find the clairvoyance to make sense of anything, to pick anything out, to push through it, like honey, pushing into a wave. "

i thrive on adventure. even when it's rough and i struggle with it, i love it. in the comfort of home it is difficult to find adventure, to feel challenged, to push myself to do strange and cooky things

also, this child has something else to say.

"and I feel I should be ‘responsible'... Here’s my thing right now: I’m still at that phase/point in my life where I write things like “responsibility”, in quotes, and feel like maybe I should just fucking take the quotes off because it’s real. That’s where I am. That’s how things are changing. Fucking weird. Warped. Unreal. Real.

rather startlingly, you are right: it is time to run naked in the park without those markers--or rather, to remain 'responsible'----and look, there i did it again with the quotes----and leave our clothes on and keep it all perhaps a little quieter on the madness front? but that's not what i'm feeling these days. i'm feeling honey and waves and i'm right there with you: life's terrifying without the quotes and terrifying to think we ever need to live without them. but we do!

circles and cirlces andcirclesandcirlces of logic aroundwego. tadaa!

the last few weeks have been awesome here in oregon. after harvest was finished and we'd done pressing all the fermenters we had about a week where we didn't have much to do in the winery. So I went to help Gen out a bit at her winery in Mac, learned a bit about different methods from her three bosses, and went out to the woods to a little cabin and enjoyed the time to relax. but too much free time makes me start to feel aimless and luckily this past week things have been picking up once more. We started bottling the 2008 vintage of merlot, pinot noir, malbec and today we're doing tempranillo. basically we take the wine that's been aging in barrels for the last year or so and combine various barrel types into one big tank, then pump through the bottler which has 6 spouts with empty bottles on them. then cork them (or sometimes we screw cap...) then back onto the pallet to be labeled by...next year's interns.

we've also been having lots of fun just every day. this place feels like home these days, and it's awesome knowing what to expect each day, how i fit into this life, what I'm expected to do, all that. I feel really comfortable with Felix and Rebecca and Madeline and obviously Ryan too.

and of course, all good things must end. Today is my last day at Carlo & Julian. A few days ago we had a raging good party for a family friend who turned 30. It was a blast and quickly turned into a dancathon. (Mal, i missed having you there with me.) And last night was Gen's boss's birthday bash--also a great time--and tonight we're having a goodbye dinner for me just the fam and low key. Tomorrow I'll pack up and head to McMinnville to stay with Gen for a day or two, work at her winery and learn more lab work stuff, then we're headed to Portland and then, Mama Carolyn comes and we party party party.

After that, well. Gen heads out on the 16th and I'm going to be living in Portland for the next week, to fly back to Boston on the 22nd.

OH and exciting news. I have a job lined up in New Zealand for March and April harvest....sooo I guess I really am going to kiwiland! Let the adventures NEVER END!

woohoo.

The Drop, that wrestles in the Sea --
Forgets her own locality --
As I -- toward Thee --

She knows herself an incense small --
Yet small -- she sighs -- if All -- is All --
How larger -- be?

The Ocean -- smiles -- at her Conceit --
But she, forgetting Amphitrite --
Pleads -- "Me"?

-Emily Dickinson

lies.

the sun is out today, right now. so are the clouds. it's a cold and blustery fall day. the trees are all magnificent reds and oranges, yellows and browns. the leaves are falling to the ground more each day. the sun keeps poking out of the clouds. i am sitting at a coffee shop in Mac. i have no work to do today or tomorrow. crush is over, but Felix still wants us to stay around for a bit longer to do some bottling. a complicated situation in itself. i am feeling a bit abused for my willingness to work. i feel aimlessness coming on towards me lately. the "quicksand of inactivity" starting to pull and tug at me--which always gets me thinking and pondering and writing. and poems and coffee shops and running and more thinking.

*****

(as usual, musings here inspired by the one and only mallory)

society, no, the world, our culture? whoever "they" are--they lie about two crucial things in life. the two most crucial things in life actually. love and purpose. i think so at least.

as we grow up, the fairy tale of cinderella and prince charming recedes into just what it is--a fairy tale. maturity comes along and our dreams of Mr. or Mrs. Perfect sweeping us off our feet and love-like-the-movies stops seeming a plausible reality. it's because of a lot of specific and complex factors--but it comes down, doesn't it?, to general disappointment that some other person can't read our brainwaves perfectly (an impossible, yet strivable, feat, no?). it seems this let-down (if we want to call it that....or is it really just life? of course it's just life!) has become generally accepted. that is: love doesn't end at finding the perfect person, marriage is not a life-long honeymoon, it takes work and compromise and pain and growth and all good stuff that.

So, yes. we (our world, these people around us who live as we do) seem to have come to expect that love will forever be a challenging realm of our lives. that it cannot be perfected, only struggled through and thereby enjoyed. (and what a great way to flip a sad reality. that we grow from finding out what "love" means. I like that. so very much. because it's what makes love a realistic part of life--it's unexpected and strange and always changing.)

but, no one tells you about the other thing in life that will forever be elusive: purpose. our world is set up such that we spend the first 23 years of our lives in school. every day has structure, every season, every year we go to classes, have summer vacation, go to camps, learn to play instruments, study. in this world (and maybe here, I can say specifically in the US it's most extreme, or at least in that bubble called the northeast US) there is a path that is "right." it includes elementary school, where after school hours are filled with music lessons, soccer practice, ballet classes. Summers are camp and fun with friends. then we go to high school--and get a little more freedom--but still we study and we practice when we're told to. Then we go to college, and the "right" thing to do is take all the requirements, major smartly, get good grades, and get the great internship after junior year.

then we graduate.

and suddenly there's nothing "right" anymore. nothing is ever absolutely correct anymore. and no one warns us about this fact before it happens. no one says, "by the way, after you finish school, the world will never tell you again what you are supposed to be doing. it will be entirely your responsibility to figure out what is right for you to do." which is, of course great, because you become totally your own boss. but it's also terrifying because how do you know what you're supposed to be doing. how do you know if choice A is better than choice Y? it's all on your shoulders and it's scary.

no one tells you that, just like you'll never find a "perfect" (how gross) love, you'll also never be *sure* (as in 100% sure) of what "you're supposed to do with your life." i mean, supposedly, after you finished 18 years of schooling, you'd think i could have some idea of what i want to be my purpose, how i want to contribute, how i think i fit, into this vast complex world. but nope. i'm not lucky enough to have grown up drawing and know that i want to be an artist, or drawn to medicine so i'm a doctor, or arguing (well, that's arguable) so i'll become a lawyer. what about us floaters? we don't have a prescribed path. or at least I can't see what mine is.

so. yea. lies when we're little: that prince charming exists and that we'll find the perfect career that miraculously makes us extatic every day to go to work, or even, just that we'll know what and how we are meant to be a creative, special, or otherwise useful contributer to the world in some way that's larger than just little me.

******

talk a lot about what makes me happy. about people being my thing. about experiences. about places and traveling. and about this question of people vs. places. a place might be all one needs. but a great place can be boring and lonely if you aren't with people to enjoy it with you. same thing: a place might be terribly uninteresting, but if you're with the right person or people, it can be an incredible adventure. so that suggests it's about the people, not the place. therefore, a "right" path for the floaters in the world (the floaters that follow this logic that is, and not everyone does, obviously) would be dictated not by what you are doing specifically and not by where you are, but by who you are with.

but doesn't this put too much pressure on those people?probably. because i can write poems and sit in coffee shops with my Gens and my Mallorys for a long time, but i can't do that forever, with no other purpose....

and so, oh, how unexpected! it's a compromise between the two. just like everything else in life. find people who make you happy. find some THING that makes you happy. find a place that also makes you happy. and do that thing, live with those people, walk around that place. and then. well, then i supposed you'll be happy.