"Don't you get homesick?"

[randomness]

So, I miss people, clearly.

But what happens to me with places is much, much more harder.

---

It's 1:30AM. In Auckland. I'm hungry.

This is a terrible combination.

So I decide to go out. As I go out the door, though, I spot a Toronto flyer in the Accomodation rack. I grab it. I glance at it. I see the map, and the address: the corner of King and Spadina.

And the memory pops into my head: Running north from Union Station on a warm, damp summer night, after the subway's stopped, streets still patchily wet with puddles, buildings still brightly lit.

And I want to be there again. Now.

I'm in Auckland, which is fine, and I wanna stay, but for the seconds I'm looking at the flyer, my head fills with an August Toronto night.

Teleportation, temporal and spatial, is what my brain wants, right?

---

After getting back from the White Lady with a NZ$6 burger and the convenience store with a 600mL L&P (Lemon & Paeroa), the hostel video feed is playing a U2 video filmed in Berlin, and for that second I'm back, walking past the Reichstag on a crisp October afternoon, admiring the glass dome contrasted against the 19th century stone.

Yeah, this is much harder than missing people. Mostly, I can find the people you miss, if you try hard enough, and I didn't piss them off enough.

But those place-moments in memory live only in my head.

Comments

[rosminah.livejournal.com]

Hey, while you're in Auckland, I hope you're able to visit Waiheki (sp?) Island. It's just a short ferry/boat trip from there...maybe an hour. I stayed at a quiet little hostel at Oneroa beach, swam in the ocean, met some folks. I also stayed at a little organic garden/hostel on the island, the name escapes me at the moment, but it was listed first in the accommodation section in the NZ lonely planet (at least in my edition). VERY pleasant!

Re:

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Cool! Thanks for the pointer!

I'm flying to Christchurch to meet up with friends but I'm driving and ferrying back up from the South Island and flying back from Auckland, so I'll head across on the ferry to Waiheke Island (just grabbed the schedule) then.

L&P

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

My first thought when I tried it: "It's the great taste of lemon furniture polish...in a soft drink!"

Re: L&P

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Hey! I like it! Coke NZ should use that as their advertising slogan! ("World Famous in New Zealand" is a pretty good one, though.)

Hmmm. Wonder if that means I'd like Lemon Pledge? Best not try.

[ishaa.livejournal.com]

I was at my alma mater the other night, standing on the top level of a parking garage that had been a field when I was there, looking out over a dorm that had been a shed, with my arm around a friend who was there at the same time as me but whom I didn't meet until years later.

I'm still trying to get a job there, and I'm reasonably certain that it's for some of the right reasons.

Re:

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Oh man, yeah...I haven't even begun to address the weird feelings I have about New Haven.

I don't even know where auckland is...

[bloodstones.livejournal.com]

but I do know what you mean about missing a time and a place even more than people sometimes. I miss the auditorium at my high school sometimes because that's where I actually grew up. Of all the rooms I've ever lived in I remember the one from my last semester at vassar most vividly, I think because it was the first time I truly carved a space for myself out of the walls I was living in. It's amazing the way a place can have a pulse and a feeling that goes with it. I also miss food from different places too. A couple days ago I wanted a sub from Dominic's on Tremont Street, and a rasberry lime nantucket fizz (which apparently doesn't exist in the state of new jersey) from the 7-11 across the street more than anything else in the world.

Re: I don't even know where auckland is...

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

It's amazing the way a place can have a pulse and a feeling that goes with it.

Isn't it, though? I was thinking about it last night, as I fell asleep, and I realized how many of my memories are of late-night city streets. I was trying to find some common theme more profound than "Well, I like cities and I stay up late at night" when fatigue finally knocked me out.

I also miss food from different places too.

Oh, yeah. And that is really why I need teleportation. I get food cravings sometimes where the food I want isn't within six time zones. (Well, sometimes I'm totally surprised when it's actually available nearby, like with the sesame balls in Johannesburg Chinatown.)