The first month
A month ago I packed my life into my car and drove from Auckland to Wellington, leaving behind three beloved flatmates, my hard-won knowledge of where to get a good croissant on any given day, and pretty much all my books. A fresh start. You’ll love Wellington! said all my friends who had spent time here. Everyone there is really hot. I haven’t decided whether they were right about the general level of hotness, but I think so far, maybe, I do love Wellington, or at least my life here right now.
I’ve moved here to do a Masters in creative writing. The uni campus last week was heaving with eighteen-year-olds in crop tops, which really made me feel my ever-increasing proximity to the grave, but I’m properly excited about this degree. Most of the time I sit alone in the library trying to write a book I don’t yet quite know the shape of. But twice a week, in a little house with a view of the sea, my cohort discusses the things we’ve written and read, trying to figure out whether and why they move us. I know this is frivolous work, but it’s also some of the most nourishing I’ve ever done; having the time and financial support to do it feels impossibly lucky.
Currently I live in a suburb called Kilbirnie with a clever and interesting couple and another flatmate who’s never around. Things I know about them: they wear almost exclusively black, smoke several cigarettes a day, make a good vegan lasagne, and refuse to use our dishwasher for Marxist reasons I don’t understand. I am not quite sure they want to be friends but their cat Zisse has decided to love me, which I appreciate even though I’m now alarmingly dependent on antihistamines.
Twice a week, I get up early and take the bus in the dark to the end of Lambton Quay, where I have a job as a dishwasher in a bakery. My tasks are mostly mundane — scrubbing parmesan off an ever-renewing tower of sheet pans; changing the oil in the fryers; slipping trays of pies into the oven — but watching the bakers fold butter blocks into croissant dough never gets less mesmerising. I hope one day they’ll let me help. I really miss my old job at a magazine, but it’s magic to earn money for something that doesn’t involve a screen or creep beyond the bounds of my paid hours.
I think I had forgotten that it’s hard to move cities. There are few things lonelier than watching the lives of people you love go on without you somewhere else. To combat the loneliness, I’ve spent much time mooning to Brahms on top of Mt Vic, browsing every bookshop in town despite my meagre budget, eating obscene amounts of ice cream, and pestering my one close friend here (an actual saint) for company. I meet J after work — she emerging from the Beehive in elegant office wear; me with bits of brioche dough stuck to my jeans — and we go out for frozen margaritas. On the weekend we do scenic coastal runs, J breezily keeping up the conversation well into the sixteenth kilometre (help) while I try not to audibly gasp. One Saturday, we meet another friend for coffee and discuss disastrous dates we’ve been on: in-need-of-a-shower Niko; Dan who wanted to hold hands immediately after meeting; Adam who said he just didn’t really like music. (E wins with her description of Ivan, who “fundamentally could not make un-intense eye contact”.) For the first three weeks of living here I’m sort of anxious and lonely all the time, but I’m trying to remember it’s lucky to have the chance to build another community. I do want to love new people as well as the old.
The city is strange and nice in so many ways — all the butterflies are different; there are hundreds of trail walks crisscrossing the suburbs; you don’t need a car. The coffee here is good. They are Really Not Kidding about the wind, but the views, I think, are better than at home.
Most importantly, I can walk to the beach in ten minutes from my flat. The water is much colder than I’m used to but I have a theory you always feel better after a swim, regardless of the weather. Over and over I prove it to myself, emerging from the water a little more sure.