Please welcome our new regular writer for the 4th, Ben Rietema. Ben’s bio is forthcoming, but for now we’ll just say he’s adventuring around New Zealand. Read about more of his exploits at http://benrietema.wordpress.com/
Many thanks and a hearty farewell to our former holder of the 4th, Andrew Steiner.
I played quite the part of a Romantic, staring off into the gently rolling waters of the Pacific with nary but an overweight pack by my side and thinking lofty thoughts concerning various consistencies of peanut butter and whether cannellini or kidney beans are better. In Napier, where I was, beach space was plentiful and shoreline stretched in either direction, one to the city’s busy port and the other to more of the same—gently tumbling waves and perfect black skipping stones, which varied from pea to sand dollar size. Like I said—perfect thinking terrain.
Earlier in my revere, I had come to the conclusion that smooth rocks are in many ways superior to sand when it comes to beach material. As follows,
A) Flat rocks can be skipped.
B) Stones can be easily brushed off or even fall off of their own accord, unlike sand, which can be found for months behind your ear.
C) Stones are assumed to be uncomfortable and therefore dissuade people from lying out on them. In reality, however, playing the beached whale has never been more comfortable; walking barefoot on the other hand is not so enjoyable, but beaches are mainly for lying anyways.
I think my point then is nigh uncontestable.
The time available for a quiet sit and think about such things was plentiful, however, and despite the clouds, the temperature couldn’t be better… for the moment. I had learned earlier the treachery of these clouds and of Mother Weather on my way back from Pak N’ Save, the local cheap grocery store, where I had gone for a haul of linguini (because I’m just that classy) and tomato bean sauce.
As it seems I am in a perpetual vacillation between the state of being lost and of finding myself, I soon exited the found state and entered roaming-in-denial-but-soon-to-be-officially-lost state. It’s quite a feat to be lost in Napier, as the main part of the city can be walked in fifteen minutes at a leisurely stroll—and I believe there should be no other type of walking—but such a city expands at a rate proportional to hunger. And I was very hungry.
The rain had other plans for my dinnertime, and the misanthropic heavens soon began to weep as they always seem to do at inopportune times. Oh how the curse words flew from my mouth, smiting every target that appeared—backpacks, dry people, maps, and myself, whom I believe I called a “hopeless idiot” several times.
Eventually I did find my residence—one of the smallest rooms I’ve had in my travels with a bunk and a single bed shoved into a 15×10 space. It was empty when I left, but was occupied by two German guys methodically spreading the contents of their bag everywhere when I returned. It’s an odd experience to unpack a fifty-liter pack—like opening the maw of a snarling beast and watching it expel contents about the room—especially in such a small room, where it’s nigh impossible not to get in someone’s way.
Every stage of life has its set of questions; backpacking is no different. Where are you from? What are you doing here? How long have you been here? Where have you been? I swapped questions and talked for awhile before going to prepare my dinner.
Later, I was absentmindedly stirring my carbohydrate poverty (linguini) and gazing into the depths of slowly revolving noodles, lost in the translucent swirling. Then a voice startled me out of my reflections.
“Ah. Is the pasta?” My German hostel mate asked. “We also have been living on this.”
I laughed.
“You do the canned beans too, yeah?” I said.
“Whatever is cheap. Rice, pasta, beans…”
“Pak N’ Save seems to be where it’s at. They’ve got the cheapest stuff.”
“Yeah man. The prices at Countdown and the other one, what is it… Ah, New World. They are terrible.”
It was a strange moment and a seemingly average, albeit benign one, where two cultures were brought together over boiling water and linguini. Yet, who knows what twistings of fate, how many distinct, impulsive decisions had led us to that point—both far from home and family, standing, staring, sharing a moment of ephemeral time together?
All parts of the universe had collectively conspired to bring us together at that exact, specific instant—it makes you rethink things and the magnitude of such a simple moment. It could have just as easily not happened, but it did and that’s the thing. Of all possible permutations of where I could have been, I and my German hostel mate existed in the one.
The next day he and his traveling companion would leave—names forgotten (because who has time for names?), most likely never to be seen again. A hostel is a like that, a short resting place for rolling stones who for a time gather no moss, a walking tree who for a time sends down no roots. But for all that, they are incredibly unique, a chance for the crossing of individual trajectories and chance conversations about noodles.
So I would ponder over this as I reclined on the beach, watching waves incessantly roll over and splay themselves on the dun black and grey rocks, only to rejoin the great conversation of the sea. Sometimes the best times in travel are spent not doing much but that—pondering and listening to sound.
Ben Rietema (’14) lives in Wanaka, New Zealand at the moment. Besides staring at and running in mountains, he makes a wicked hospital corner and can clean a bathroom like Gandhi (if he were a housekeeper) at his job at a local lodge. He also enjoys saying “HOUSEKEEPING” in the highest pitch voice he can muster before entering a room to service it. benrietema.wordpress.com/
