Re-living the pandemic from this side of the pond

Almost always the only ones at the beach

It took a while for me to figure out where to get my news here. Scrolling the homepage of the NYTimes or listening to daily news summaries from NPR told me nothing I really needed to know. That is, nothing about New Zealand’s ever-changing lockdown and COVID dramas.

When we arrived here in July, every Kiwi except staff of the managed quarantine program were living blissfully in a pre-2020 era of concerts and dinner parties and maskless grocery shopping. After yo-yoing through a year and a half of closures and distanced outdoor hangouts with friends in SF, we were excited to breeze into this pre-pandemic world. But of course, two days after clearing MIQ and arriving at our new home, Covid slipped into New Zealand. And this time they couldn’t stamp it out.

Since then, the headlines here are all pandemic-related. We tune the radio to RNZ’s news summaries multiple times a day. The number one piece of news is always how many reported new cases there are and where, followed closely by what percentage of the population have gotten vaccinated. At a distant third place are any other breaking news stories, like about people who’ve escapes quarantine, people who’ve been caught disobeying lockdown rules, or the latest rugby match score. We hang on the Covid and vaccine numbers day to day, knowing our social freedom hangs on them too.

New Zealand aims to have 90% of the eligible population vaccinated before opening schools or dining (even outdoors) or shops again. And each week the number of cases rises and the percentage of vaccinated folks slows. So here we are, living the pandemic all over again, seemingly from square one. School are closed and kids have been home for months now with no end in sight. Teachers are nervous to go back to school. Parents working from home are slowly going insane. Businesses are closing and people are losing their jobs. Sounds pretty familiar to me. Everyone is getting more and more frustrated, and even as case numbers climb people are increasingly tempted to break the rules and socialise.

I don’t blame them. I’m tempted too, ready to sit and enjoy our treats at the cafe rather than in the car, and plan playdates with anyone willing to get together. Vaccination is such a touchy topic here, and hesitation to get it so prolific, that you daren’t bring it up in conversation with anyone whose stance you don’t already know. I made that mistake once in small talk with an acquaintance and learned my lesson.

Isaac and I are, of course, vaccinated. We had no hesitation about it after living pandemic life for a year and a half – it was the way back to normalcy for us, our kids, and all of our friends. Unfortunately, we have moved to a place where we get to re-live what we went through in SF last year all over again. Sound maddening? It is.

Another beach all to ourselves.

Every couple of nights after the kids go to bed, we sip tea in the kitchen after doing the last of the dishes and hang our heads in loneliness and frustration. Loneliness because we haven’t been able to make friends with many people at all since moving here, and frustration because the country’s response to Covid seems to have learned little from all the mistakes and trial-and-error the rest of the world went through in 2020.

The social isolation brought on by the pandemic is just one of the woes. We just got word that timber and other supplies we need for our house project are not going to be available until after Christmas, due to Covid-related shipping and production issues. And our container of worldly belongings is still stuck in San Francisco, there simply aren’t any ships coming this way across the Pacific anymore. A few weeks ago I had to ask family and friends to stop mailing anything our way – postal service between NZ and the US is simply not possible right now, with so few planes and boats going back and forth. Kiwis are already stocking up Christmas gifts for fear there won’t be much on the shelves in December.

I knew moving overseas would be difficult, and prepared myself accordingly with pep talks and promises to FaceTime those we love back in the States. I was ready to put myself out there to meet new friends, find kids for our children to play with, and build new routines to replace the cafe visits and playground dates we loved back in SF. But all this has made it more difficult than I could have imagined. Those evenings with Isaac in the kitchen always end with us hugging, then me looking to the ceiling and begging the universe to please let this run its course as quickly as possible. I want to stay here, but not like this. We need more normalcy in our life after already putting in a year and a half of social isolation. We need people.

There was some good news on the radio this week. Auckland’s vaccination rate is the highest in the country. Being the closest city to our island, we follow their lockdown rules. People are hopeful by Christmas we’ll be able to leave the island and others will be able to come here. We might be able to sit down at the cafe to drink our flat whites rather than take them to go. Our kids might get to go to PlayCentre and frolic on the playground with peers. Our extended family who live in NZ might be able to visit us. Maybe. We’ll see. For now I’m drinking my tea, looking at the ceiling, and hoping.

When it rains

I had only ever visited New Zealand in late spring or summer, usually around Christmas when the beaches are warming up and the days are long. So before we moved, Isaac warned me about the winter weather. “It rains. A lot,” he said. Being from Oregon I promised him I had seen plenty of rain in my life. I love the rain. Especially after a decade living in thirsty California.

After plenty of warm winter sunshine our first week here, the rains finally arrived last week. The kids stared out the window, having never seen such a downpour, and the sound of it on our corrugate roof outmatched the sound machines I always turn on during their naps and bedtimes. It was the kind of weather where everything indoors feels damp.

We wanted to start up the wood stove first thing in the morning and stoke it all day. Unfortunately we hadn’t thought ahead when the first few days of rain arrived – we had no dry kindling, so starting it up was a challenge and filled the house with smoke. That meant we had to open the windows, which defeated the whole purpose of the thing. My in-laws advised us to stash sticks and kindling under the house for days like today. We’re learning all the tricks as we go.

The uppermost window of the old house we’re living looks down on the valley below, where a creek winds through pastures to meet the sea not too far away. We watched from this perch all day as the creek swelled and water filled the fields. Floods aren’t unusual here, but I’d never seen one like this during all my summer visits. We got the kids in their rain suits and boots and went down the steep hill to check it out, only to find the bottom of our driveway submerged in knee-deep water. The road was covered too. Thankfully I’d headed in to the little store here to pick up groceries the day before. There was no way we were getting anywhere until the rain stopped and the flood drained out to sea with the tide.

One of our family’s values is “adventure”, and I’ve personally always loved when things go a little astray like this. What an adventure! We splashed in the water and sent leaves flowing into the flood like little boats. Not too far down the road a newborn calf was huddled on a mound of dirt just inches above the waterline, its mother standing in the water beside it. We checked on it later in the day to make sure it was alright.

With two kids, we couldn’t afford to put off our laundry for too long, even with the rain. During a break in the weather I hung a load out on the lines. We forgot about it and went to bed. When the wind picked up in the night, shaking the windows and whistling in the chimney above us, I remembered – the laundry! In the morning it was soaking wet, of course. We squeezed it out and strung it up above the wood stove, which lent our clothes a nice smokey smell. It’s the same smell my clothes and sleeping bag used to have after a camping trip as a kid. I’d breathe it in nostalgically when we unpacked back home at the end of a trip. I have never wanted a camping trip to end, even as an adult. So when Isaac pointed out that, “living out here is like camping,” I smiled. It’s an adventure, that’s for sure.

Some days the rain has matched my mood this past week, with bouts of homesickness. I tucked our toddler into bed one night and snuggled his blankets – all of which we brought on the plane with us from home – up around his face. “This is just like your bed back home,” I said. He buried his face in them and replied, “they smell like home.” I quickly realised I can’t say that anymore – this is our home now, though I don’t quite feel that way yet. I still remember where every item was kept in our kitchen back in San Francisco; which shelf to reach for to make my tea in the morning. I can picture the inner contents of my dresser drawers and the arrangement of the pillows on my bed as if it’s all right in front of me. But none of that exists anymore. Someone else lives in our apartment, and all our clothes and cups and bedding are packed into boxes in a container waiting to be shipped to us from Oakland. We won’t get our things until Christmas, due to these Covid-related delays.

Thankfully the island is teaching me patience, with its life-halting rainstorms and all-around slowness. We’ve accepted that we won’t get any of our belongings from “home” for many months, and have adopted the contents of my in-laws’ old house as our own. I’ve accepted that the weather may cancel our plans at any moment, and that a flood might prevent us from going into town to get the mail or another packet of those cookies we just ran out of (something I wanted to do yesterday and couldn’t because of another driveway-blocking rainstorm).

And I’ve accepted that it might take some time to mourn the life I had back in San Francisco. Maybe a couple of months, maybe a year. I miss the playgrounds we knew like the back of our hands, and the cafe where we recognised all the baristas. I miss our bike rides, and people-watching. I miss my friends.

We traded it for adventure. At the end of my life, I know I won’t be sorry we did. The grass here is as green as I can imagine, and the daffodils are all coming up. The sky is broad and the stars are so bright. It’s all so different, so beautiful. But that doesn't remove the need I have for mourning what I gave up.

The rains stopped and the flood cleared just in time for our toddler’s third birthday. We made it to the post office, where a load of packages from family and things we had ordered for him awaited. All that was left in the fields were a few puddles. Nature is so resilient, after all. I’m hopeful that living so close to it will make me so too.

Enjoying the beach during a break in the rain

Slowing down

There’s a phenomenon on the island that locals call “Barrier Lethargy.” After a day or so of arriving here, newcomers are struck by an urge to slow way down, take long naps, or sit lazily around. I’ve experienced it myself in previous visits. The mind quiets and the body follows.

We all thought perhaps this was what we were feeling when, three days after arriving here we all hit a wall. Unfortunately it was a stomach flu that hit us – first our toddler, likely because he picked it up at a playground or the airport, and then the rest of us. As a family we have never been so sick together. One day I couldn’t get out of bed until 3pm. Our little one was up all night for two nights. We had started our time on the island with lots of momentum for projects and activity only to be stopped in our tracks by this. Perhaps it was the island (and our immune systems) telling us to take it easy. It’s so hard being sick far from a familiar home, not to mention being off the grid where everything requires a lot more work. In order to get enough hot water for baths and showers, we have to start up the wood stove (which heats the water system) around 3pm and keep it going until bedtime. My in-laws helped us through the flu by chopping our firewood and picking up medicines at the little pharmacy down the road, which is only open for a few hours three days a week.

In San Francisco we could just dial up the heat or languish in an instantly hot shower any time of day. We used to be able to order cozy takeout from hundreds of different restaurants at the click of a button if we were too tired to make dinner, or walk a block to a giant pharmacy to pick up whatever we desired. Out here if you want hot soup or Gatorade, you’d better have some in the pantry or be prepared to make it yourself.

Near the tail end of our family flu, I hit an emotional wall. Without my typical energy, and with sick and complaining kids, living out here just seemed too hard. “Do we really want to do this?” I wondered aloud to Isaac. He reminded me this has been the hardest month of our whole life as a family, and it will get easier. But yes, he acknowledged, it’s hard living out here.

The moon was full that night and I sat outside beneath it, listening to the lone sound of the wind rustling the trees all around. I felt incredibly homesick and alone. Our wifi has been inconsistent enough that we haven’t been able to call friends and family back in the states. And I was weighted down by the news as well, anguished by what I read about Afghanistan and the world.

After a good night of sleep, my excitement for our new life returned. I drove across the island to pick up a load of groceries for us at the little store here and soaked in the views of wild beaches and rugged mountains. New Zealand is in its second week of the highest level of lockdown for COVID, so the roads were quiet and the driving was unhurried. The twists and turns of the narrow road were their own kind of medicine, lulling me into the slow pace of this new life. The island also gives you permission to forget the woes of the world when you want to, and that’s exactly what I needed.

I began to realise all the little bits of extra work required to live here have their own reward; it literally takes longer to do everything here, and therefore forces you to move more slowly. We can’t fit as much into one day as we used to, which is a good thing. Every errand takes longer to run. We don’t have a dishwasher, so dishes take up a chunk of the day. Laundry without a dryer is slower too, since it requires hanging it out to dry (and remembering to bring it in if it’s going to rain!). Then there’s chopping firewood and loading the wood stove to heat our hot water tank and warm up the house. And the wifi is spotty and slow, partly because the whole island relies on the same single cell tower for all their wifi. We use it briefly in the morning when it works and then sign off for the rest of the day.

Accepting that we can’t be as “productive” or “busy” here is a freedom and a gift. Our kids love it, for one. I’ve never seen our toddler happier in his whole life. He wears his pyjamas all day and darts outside whenever he wants, always without shoes. We spend a lot less money; multiple days go by without opening our wallets. And my body loves it too. The knot of anxiety and stress I used to feel daily living in San Francisco just isn’t there anymore.

Perhaps that is what “Barrier Lethargy” really is – an acceptance that one simply can’t get as much done here. The days are simple and slow. There’re spaces for thoughts and daydreams. There’s room to breathe.

The pace will likely pick up a little when our lockdown ends. There’s a PlayCentre here where I want to take Jude twice a week and various other social and family events we want to start going to when they happen again. We’ve cleared land for our tiny house, and the end of lockdown means we can hire in a digger to speed up the project. We also get our Elon Musk satellite dish for Starlink wifi next week, which means we’ll have faster wifi here than we did in San Francisco. I can’t wait. Even if we live at a slower pace here, I’ll be quite happy to do so with lighting-fast internet access. :)

We cleared the site for our tiny house!