Cuba Street

Chris at Reynalton, with permission

The noun sabbatical is defined as:

“any extended period of leave from one's customary work, especially for rest, to acquire new skills or training, for study or travel, etc.”

Unlike us, the weather since arriving in Wellington two months ago has NOT been on sabbatical! In fact, we’ve weathered a magnitude 5.1 earthquake and Cyclone Gabrielle. While Chris was disappointed not to even feel the earthquake (I considered us lucky), the cyclone devastated Auckland and Hawke’s Bay but did little damage here. Today is a brilliant, beautiful sunny day, perfect for hanging laundry out on the line to dry, which has become a favorite pastime of mine. I think it’s the privilege talking, but being #sabbaticalled does wonders for transforming the drudgery of everyday life. You get nice and relaxed from residing in one spot for months on end, with all the comforts of home, mixed with the excitement of constantly being a newcomer on adventure. Last night I went to a Women in Photography exhibit at an art gallery, which is the type of thing I always want to do in Chicago but never have time for, and hobnobbed with the art crowd. I fit right in, by dressing like I didn’t try too hard in my new Teva-style Hush Puppies knockoffs and discovered Mary Hutchinson’s Cuba Street photography, which is delightful!

Photo by Mary Hutchinson, from “Cuba People”

Traveling in India, in my twenties (back when Tevas really were in style) brought me face to face with my worst self. Traveling in New Zealand, in my forties, has brought me face to face with my best self (or maybe that’s just middle age!) Everyday is the same, in a good way: I wake up to coffee expertly brewed by Chris, send Louisa off to school (she and a friend can walk there by themselves!), tidy our modernist dream of a house…

65 Moana Road

…read about Simone de Beauvoir, plan what to cook for dinner (another luxury I don’t have time for in Chicago), write, go speed walking through the Botans (which has a rose varietal called Hot Pants), stop by my Third Place for a long black, pick up fresh groceries, do a few hours of work at my desk overlooking Wellington Harbour…

The view

…wind down with an episode of Bad Sisters, welcome Louisa back from school, cook a meal, eat family style and enjoy al fresco whenever possible, head to bed when the sun goes down. Repeat!

We’ve met enough foreigners in Wellington to make us feel right at home - I have made mom-friends from Canada, South Africa, Seattle, Germany, Korea, England, and Australia, to name a few. And the New Zealand national slogan should be: “Built for Families,” with a childcare center on every block, affordable afterschool care, and part time hours (especially as a parent) commonplace. If you ask a New Zealander they’ll tell you the support is not as sophisticated as what Europeans receive from their governments, but it’s still palpable, for me, compared to what we have in the US. One thing I’ve noticed and love, is that businesses hours are restricted, which means people have to take time out of the workday to do personal errands. The upside to this, of course, is that people don’t have to waste “free time” doing mundane life tasks, keeping free time really free.

In January, we took a trip through the South Island, visiting Kaikoura, Christchurch, Murchison, Nelson, and Reynalton. In Kaikoura the weather (you guessed it) was uncooperative so instead of whale watching we discovered real fruit ice cream, which is a thing here! For anyone keen to launch a new start-up in the US, I’d recommend importing a couple of these real fruit ice cream machines, which blend together ice cream and fresh or frozen fruit to create a “sensational real fruit ice cream with very little effort and high profitability.”

Christchurch has a Cardboard Cathedral built out of cardboard tubes, timber and steel from shipping containers (which sounds more impressive than it looks IRL:(

Christchurch’s Cardboard Cathedral

and in Murchison we went on the country’s longest Swingbridge over the Buller Gorge.

This is actually a different Swingbridge over the Falls River, but you get the picture [and checkout my hair!]

Nelson is the push-off point to explore the Able Tasman National park. We stayed two nights at Reynalton - the site of the legendary bathtub photo (those you who know my husband know he is a regal bath taker) - on the Motueka River and befriended our host Zoe and her two daughters, who invited Louisa to her first Kiwi sleepover and taught her how to do aerial silks.

Books I’ve read (and a podcast I’ve listened to) since my last post:

• Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, by Patrick Radden Keefe

• How to be You: Simone de Beauvoir and the Art of Authentic Living, by Skye Cleary

• Legacy of Speed, hosted by Malcom Gladwell

We’re expecting our first visitors in a weeks time; for those of you still reading this, take care, and come visit!

The Third Place

Able Tasman National Park

It’s been nearly six weeks since my family and I departed Chicago on sabbatical, our destination: Windy Welly. What I knew about Wellington, New Zealand before we left was this (i.e. not much): 1) Bret and Jemaine were from here (they actually met at Victoria University, which is just down the hill from our house) and 2) a good friend from colleges sister lives here, and loves it. Other than that, we were flying blind (I like to travel the way Marc Maron approaches watching movies, without doing too much research first).

Our flight leaving Chicago was delayed by 48 hours, which was just enough to feel like purgatory, but when we finally took off, reverse psychology worked its magic - we were so happy to be ON the flight that it made the trip a breeze. Landing in Auckland, we had our first long black coffees, which (you may remember) I am very familiar with from having spent a year living in Australia, in a van down by the river with Maureen and Jonit, way back in 2000. The two most popular coffees in Australia and New Zealand are the long black and the flat white, and as soon Chris and I had our coffees in hand, I knew we had made the right decision coming here. And (even better) I could tell from the fashion the New Zealanders wore that I had packed correctly: bright, multicolored floral fabrics abounded.

Wellington has a population of 420,000 (it’s about the size of Minneapolis) and the city sits on the southwestern edge of New Zealand’s north island. It is a shipping port built around a bay just east of the Cook Straight.

It is also hilly, very hilly, like hillier than San Francisco. In Wellington it seems that views are prized above all else, in terms of location, and the higher up on the various hillsides you reside, the more real estate cache you possess. The house we were lucky enough to find on sabbaticalhomes.com (username: Midwestern Nice, isn’t that clever?) is on the crest of a Kelburn hill with an excellent view of Lambton Harbor and Matis/Somes Island just beyond.

Sunrise view from our balcony

Sunset view from our balcony, without any color correction!

From what Chris has explained about good fengshui, the house has it: huge windows placed strategically so you can see all the way through the house when standing outside the front door. The house is built of wood and all one level, six rooms stretching out horizontally in the shape of a half moon, with a deck in back facing Oriental Bay, for morning sun, and an enclosed courtyard in front for afternoon sun (and outdoor dining!) I feel like I’m living in a Frank Lloyd Wright house in France, except the climate is subtropical; we’re surrounded by palm trees, evergreens and beech trees, with ferns and flowers everywhere. It’s as lush as the jungle, except without many insects or any natural predators.

We don’t have a car, which is lucky for us since roads are extraordinarily narrow, traffic circles are used in place of stop signs (merge like a zip), and (of course) New Zealanders drive on the left-hand side of the road. There is a bus stop at the end of our driveway (literally) and we’re a 20 minute walk to Wellington’s Cable Car, a funicular that takes you directly downtown in minutes.

This is actually the Christchurch tram, but you get the picture. Plus, check out my pants [Italian linen]!

At the cable car sits the entrance to the Botans (Wellington Botanic Garden) through which I tramp for my daily speed walk. The Botans has a rose garden cafe, called Picnic, attached to the Begonia House, where we sat on one of our first mornings eating moist orange and almond cake served with a side of fresh clotted cream and feeling almost too lucky to be alive. The only downside being that cruise ships docked in Wellington bus passengers to what we’ve started to consider “our” cafe, how annoying! Nearby is a Victorian Perfumery called Fragrifert - independent perfumers actually exist here, which I find so lovely. Every small town you visit has its own perfumer; what better way to remember a place than to take home its smell, right?

The neighborhood we live in, called Kelburn, has a small commercial district oversized in sophistication. Let me walk you through the Village: there’s a St. Vinny’s Op Shop, a Four Square (which is very well stocked, independently owned franchise corner store), a crazy good German Bakery where I can actually find fresh baked loaves of Schwarzbrot, a florist, two Indian takeaways, a fish and chips shop, an independent women’s clothing boutique, a posh wine bar, a pub, an antique store, a salon, a liquor store, and not one but two independently owned cafes. And down the road is the vet, so…yes, this place has almost everything. The only thing missing is a fresh fruit vendor and a dispensary (ha ha:) Even the school that Louisa attends is just a two minute walk north of the Village (and a ten minute walk from home).

Which brings me to the Third Place, a concept Chris introduced to me from his days living in New York City. A third place is not home (the first place) and not work (the second place). It’s more like a hangout, a gathering space, except lacking political or socioeconomic boundaries. I’ve mainly noticed it’s a *cool place people of all ages frequent. Everyone is polite, and it’s usually a small business.

Kelburn Village, our third place

People living in the community invest in and support the third place by patronizing it everyday (they spend money there everyday, or they visit it everyday, or both). The third place is nurtured and protected in the same way couples are told to care for their marriage, as a third party. In a good marriage, I’ve been taught - there’s you, your partner, and the marriage relationship itself which, in order to thrive, should be cared for as a separate entity.

A couple of hallmarks of a good third place are things like: neutral setting, social leveler, playful conversations, regulars, low profile, and accessibility. Wellingtonians individually seem to value the third place because culturally it is encouraged as a source of enjoyment, and there is great social value in living in a place like that, we have found.

Before I sign off, here are the books I’ve read since arriving, all of which I’d recommend:

• Entangled Life: how fungi make our worlds, change our minds and shape our futures (thanks for the recommendation Laura!), by Merlin Sheldrake

• The Hired Man, by Aminata Forna

• Creativity, a short and cheerful guide, by John Cleese

• The Flame Throwers, by Rachel Kushner