by tashmcgill | Oct 8, 2018 | thedaily500
I spent seven years living in a small cottage at the back of a friend’s farmhouse. It had a corrugated iron roof and a lining of builders paper between that and the vaulted wooden ceiling. It might sound grand but I could walk from one side to the next in ten steps. While I have always loved the sound of rain, winters in that cottage were particularly brutal. Fog would rise up through the uninsulated floorboards in the mornings and some of the windows didn’t ever close. In that little haven at the end of the world, I breathed sound.
I would wake up to the song of tui birds in the olive and orange trees outside my windows, then slowly listen to the far-off hum of distant traffic building. Except on Saturdays. On Saturdays, I listened to the silence of grass blowing in the breeze and dew evaporating in early morning sun. I listened to the swoosh of cotton sheets cocooning me for one last luxurious swipe of the snooze button.
Sometimes if I was lucky enough, I would wake to the thunderous rhythm of rain pinging off the glass windowpanes, falling on the roof and sliding to the ground in fat, wet drops. I listened to the rain hitting the leaves of the trees and dripping into puddles.
When you live in a small house at the end of the road, at the edge of the city, at the bottom of the world – that kind of rain makes a little bubble that you don’t want to leave. I would wake up and make coffee, light the fire and then throw another blanket around my toes. In summer, it feels like relief when the rain brings the heat down from the sky and gives you a cool shower but in winter it’s just the opposite. Rain makes you feel cosy.
There is only one thing better than rain in the morning, with its easy to match, slow rhythm. It’s rain at the end of the day when you just make it from the car in the driveway to the doorway of your house. You push open the door and realise you can hear the crackle of the fireplace and the sound of Jakob Dylan on the stereo. In the same moment you smell the early embers of the fire, you also see an open bottle of red wine. Then there’s the unmistakeable sound another person makes when you share thirty square metres. Then the rain comes and they hand you a glass of wine they poured after hitting play on the stereo and lighting the fire; in the house they don’t live in but feel at home.
That is still my favourite sound in the world; the sound of home when the rain starts to fall outside and you have permission to stay and enjoy it for a while. I haven’t heard that song in a long time. I may not hear again for a long time. I don’t have a fireplace and I’m hard to pin down. But I haven’t lost my hearing. I haven’t stopped listening for it.
by tashmcgill | Oct 7, 2018 | thedaily500
I am a dream catcher.
If, while slipping through my fingers or sliding behind my eyeballs, an idea sparks electricity in my blood, my hand follows that neural pathway of light with arm outstretched until I grasp hold of it. Once I take hold of a dream, of an idea – it is only a matter of time before it becomes a reality.
Let me give you an example. The first dream I remember is that of flying. Not like a bird, but on wings of steel and jet fuel. I had flown with my sister to visit family friends in Christchurch before I turned ten years old. On that flight, I fell in love with flying. I remember spending Sunday afternoons visiting the airport to watch planes land with my dad, always fascinated by the way they achieved lift. By the time I was fifteen years old, I had watched Top Gun countless times and had spent weekend afternoons out at the airfield with my mother and stepfather, watching vintage planes take off and land. Sometimes we were lucky enough to be on board. And then, one afternoon I was lucky enough to sit in the cockpit and it was my hands on the controls for just long enough to feel like I was flying.
A dream became reality, once even taking off in a Harvard and seeing the sky wrapped around me through the glass canopy. I dreamed of flying and I flew.
I had other dreams alongside this one – I dreamed of recording studios and making music, being backstage and enjoying rolling jam sessions whenever the mood struck. And I dreamed of being a writer, making words into meaning and telling stories that mattered. I opened books to smell the fresh newsprint, not just to devour the words and imagined the day I would hold my own words in printed and bound form. I have been in print more times than I can count and I’m working on the first book that is entirely my own now. I dreamed of writing and I write.
Later, I dreamed of being a radio announcer and producer, being nationally broadcast up and down New Zealand. In my last year of high school, I was late for school every day while I cut radio teeth as a producer and assistant on the breakfast show of a new alternative rock format. By 22, I had been a Sunday night talkback producer, breakfast show, drive and night show host on a national network. I dreamed of what my voice could do, what it could mean for people – and I became a voice.
I have stretched out my hand for a dozen smaller dreams in this life and had them come true. I dreamed of a life in America, of taking trains across the great continents, of meeting inspiring and wondrous people. Every single one has come to pass and so I keep dreaming and filling up the list with something new.
I’m not lucky and nor do I work too hard. It’s that when I dream, I’ve learned to recognise the ones that matter most and they get all my attention. I don’t focus on how they will come to pass, instead I lean into expectation of ‘this will be, somehow’ and enjoy the wondrous ways that life delivers dreams.
Sometimes that means waiting and hoping and living anyway. You can lean in to a dream and keep living anyway, you know. All my dreams these days are not the dreams of childhood but adulthood. I dream of meaning, of outcomes, of adventures. Still, there is one dream of childhood left, one possibility that hangs in the corners of my mind.
‘Darling.’
by tashmcgill | Oct 6, 2018 | thedaily500
There are three types of debris floating in the ocean; flotsam, jetsam and trash. I grew up in a place where if you saw trash on the beach, washed up by the tide – you picked it up. We prize our beaches and natural environments. We’re taught to care for the world we live in, the places we occupy and for what we leave behind.
I don’t understand what it takes in a person to throw trash on the side of the road or over the back of a boat. It seems like the most simple of basic behaviours to demonstrate conscientious choices, intentional decision making.
There are three types of debris when friendship goes wrong. Flotsam is anything that accidentally and unintentionally ends up overboard because of a shipwreck or emergency. It comes from the French word ‘floter’, which means ‘to float’. Anything that floats has buoyancy – it contains hope.
Jetsam is slightly different. The root of the word is found in the word ‘jettison’; when something is thrown deliberately overboard. In a crisis or moment of emergency, you make an intentional choice about what you throw away, what you are prepared to sacrifice in order to stay afloat. It’s a way of trying to create stability.
Trash is simply what you throw away without concern, trusting the tide to take it away from you and bearing no mind for where what’s no longer useful to you ends up or what impact that choice has on the environment around you.
Sometimes how you lose something matters – while flotsam and jetsam are both expected to float or to create buoyancy, trash is meant to disappear. If you throw something overboard intentionally, you divest yourself of any claim to it. Finders keepers, regardless of the value. But if you lose something by accident, if your friendship ends up shipwrecked through crisis or disaster – you’re entitled to make a claim on flotsam that belongs to you.
See, belonging is the hard part of friendship. At our best, like Kahlil Gibran says – our friend is our needs met but if you don’t care for the balance, it can all turn to shit. We decide what we are prepared to throw overboard or we encounter the grief of accidental loss. Typically however, the one who accidentally loses is rarely as wounded as the one is accidentally lost. We hope that we belong to each other but in the moments of crisis, we learn whether we are flotsam, jetsam or trash. We learn what we are capable of, when we’ll do anything to stay afloat ourselves, at any cost.
There is usually some truth or a distortion of truth that disrupts the necessary equanimity of friendship. It usually happens when someone is trying to usurp the balance of power, because they want to keep the distortion or avoid the truth. Friendship and love (one is dependent on the other) both require equanimity. Loss of it is your ship beginning to sink. When friendship goes wrong, it doesn’t matter whether you’re flotsam or jetsam – what matters is finding your float and getting your equanimity back.
by tashmcgill | Oct 5, 2018 | thedaily500
I’ve had plenty of good food in my life. I’m lucky enough to have wonderful chefs as friends, fellow foodie lovers and plenty of restaurants to visit in almost every city I’ve visited. I’ve eaten handmade dumplings with native herbs in New Caledonia, slow-cooked Merino lamb on the side of the mountain, wild venison I shot and butchered myself cooked into a lemon myrtle and chocolate venison pie. I’ve devoured Mark Southon’s pork and puha, along with anything he’s ever made – all delicious but nothing compares to the fresh made habanero mustard on smoked BBQ. Fraser Shenton’s treatment of seafood still inspires me after a single lunch in 2016. Matt Lambert’s degustation at The Musket Room in New York remains a highlight, particularly eating off the green egg in the backyard garden of the restaurant. And in November, I can’t wait to taste more of Sid Sahrawat’s magic now that he and Chand have taken over The French Café. Travel to a city in the world and I’ll give you my list of recommendations compiled from the travellers, cooks, food writers and food lovers I trust most.
But a good dish and a good meal are not the same. I’ve eaten baked beans on toast with melted cheddar on top and felt the joy of laughter, simplicity and friends. I’ve sat cross-legged for the Passover Seder and eaten the maror; the bitter herbs and overcooked lamb but smiled and taken my fill of the sincere prayers. There is an element of ritual in a good meal that you cannot find in food alone.
The sacred ritual of a good meal means a spacious table with cosy seating; a place people can be comfortable to sit and take their time over a meal. There are copious glasses – for water, wine and aperitifs. There is noise, perhaps the pre-requisite; either a table full of people or a room full of strangers or simply a noisy heart, but there must be noise. Scrape of knife on plate, clink of glass against glass, laughter and the dull swoosh of a napkin and crumbs falling to the floor. More laughter. Silence in between mouthfuls, followed by an intense volley of eye contact, smiles and chewing around the table; when food evokes another layer of pleasure on top of pleasure derived from the company. Finally, the ritual is complete when plates are surreptitiously swiped clean with fingers that meet lips and then stacked. The table cloth splashed with wine; that final special bottle opened from the cupboard.
Sometimes, you look up from the best meal you’ve ever had and realise the restaurant has closed around you and the chefs are sitting at the table with you. Sometimes you realise it’s 2am in the morning and your dinner guests are going to need to sleep in the guest room or scattered over the couch. Occasionally, after the best meal you’ve ever had, you clean up after breakfast and start preparing ribs for the slow cooker because someone else is coming for dinner.
There’s no such thing at the best meal, it’s just one that follows on from the next – it’s the always accessible magic of bringing together the elements of table, space, time, food, attention. The best meal I ever had and that I dine from frequently is the way my heart feeds on the intentionality of nourishment with people I care about.
by tashmcgill | Oct 4, 2018 | thedaily500
Current events? These are the words I’ve been wanting to speak for twenty years. 1995 – I remember. 1998 – I remember. 2003 – I remember. 2008 – I will never forget. 2017 – I remember. 2018 – I will tell everyone the truth, my anger will be righteous and bright like the dawn.
I’ve been angry this week and swallowed it a dozen times. An hour. I think you know that feeling. The coil of anxiety in your stomach, the fluttering heartbeat and the tightness rippling across your chest. The burning behind your eyeballs. It’s more than sadness or disappointment. It’s the palpitation of rage. It’s what rises up in us; when we feel deeply, when we are treated unjustly or face betrayal. When what we held to be true is proven to not be true.
I have swallowed that feeling again and again and rushed to my knees to find a way to forgive and move forward from my anger. Because I have been taught to fear what happens if I do not forgive and forget. Because I am a woman and anger is the forbidden emotion. Only the innocent are entitled to justifiable anger and since women have been guilty since the Garden of Eden, we are never considered innocent.
The myth of woman was that of sacred innocence, a vessel of purity until she ate the apple. Then she succumbed to her sensual power and since then, a woman is paradox. She is both the Madonna and the Madgalene. The virgin and the whore; but from that moment never innocent because she has a sensual power within her. A woman can bring a weak man to his knees and therefore a woman can never be innocent for she has the ability to seduce. And a man seduced is innocent; he was only deceived, only foolish, just a boy.
Women are not permitted to be innocent and angry, we are barely permitted to be angry at all. To be angry is to reassert our innocence, to reclaim justice. To be angry is to be powerful and to call someone else to account – something women have hardly ever been given permission to do.
I learned it as a child – ours is to accept what is and simply move on from what angers us. We are taught to find another way as if that is the higher path. Adults make rules and we follow them. But as a young adult in the church I learned not only do adults make rules for children to follow when it comes to self-expression, men make rules for women to follow when it comes to emotion, in particular when it comes to anger.
I learned as a young woman in church and business; the fastest way for any woman to be labelled emotional or lose her authority in a room is not to cry but to express anger or frustration. You can cry or tremble and your emotion will be chalked up to the softness and femininity. Don’t believe men who say they hate it when women cry. They prefer tears to anger every time. And so do women from other women. We don’t give each other permission to be properly angry either. We don’t know how because we’re scared of how powerful our own anger can be.
I have watched vitriol explode in newspapers and social media and seen that women who express their anger are either crucified or humiliated.
And here’s why: anger is always a matter of truth, justice or pride. So anger is powerful. Anger demands you pay attention and answer the question of what is right, what is true and what is good. Even if we learn we were wrong, anger is part of our pathway to truth. It is brave and beautiful work to be angry, especially on your own behalf. It is brave and beautiful work to be angry with people you love. It is brave and beautiful work to be angry in a way that facilitates truth-telling, in our relationships, our work, our churches, our world. But still it remains; forbidden. Do this at the risk of being wrong, being humiliated, of losing what you care about.
Here’s what I’ve learned: I should have expressed more anger in my life. Instead, I turned my anger on myself. I spent an extraordinary amount of time being angry with myself for not being able to fix it, to be better, to find a way to forgive. But now I realise how beautiful and sacred anger can be. Previously my angry outbursts were futile because I was trying to be angry in a man’s world, designed to silence my anger. But when I am angry in my world, in this new world – there is plenty of space to be angry and to be compassionate. To be full of righteous fury and full of love. To forgive what can be forgiven and to call to account everything else.
In order to be angry, you have to tell the truth more often.
by tashmcgill | Oct 3, 2018 | thedaily500
When I arrive in a new city or return home from weeks away, people ask, ‘how were your travels?’, but that is never what they mean. They don’t want to know how you navigated from the train station to the airport in the falling snow or what it was like to sit underground during a tornado, forced to leave your worldly possessions behind on aircraft while being evacuated. When people ask how your travels were, they mean ‘tell me a story about where you went’. They never mean to ask about how you got there.
But if you like, I’ll tell you a travel story. I woke up in the morning and wrote a letter to an old lover; saying goodbye because there was nothing left to say. I had examined all the corners of it until there were no lessons left unlearned. So I wrote a letter in an email and said I was heading far away. I don’t remember if I sent it, but that wasn’t the point.
I pulled my suitcase from under the bed and considered the exact number of days I would be away, all the places I might go. I had travelled before, I knew the cadence of packing light and keeping an eye out for lessons and memories along the way. I was travelling from the last stalwarts of summer into the first creep of autumn. It’s easier to carry heartbreak in the winter, there’s an excuse for holding yourself together in scarfs and coats. But I remember thinking I didn’t need to pack vanity this time. There was nothing left to admire in myself. I travelled like a shell of a woman, waiting to be full again.
I can tell you now, that travelling is best done with a broken heart. You will encounter people in airports that cut in front of your line and take your seat, even dare to encroach on your armrest but you’ll find compassion when your heart is loosely tied together. That is the travel story I can tell you. Me, climbing onto a plane, stowing my suitcase overhead and my bag under the seat in front of me, brokenhearted with not much of a plan but making plenty of space for those around me.
On the first leg of my flight, there is an empty seat next to me and my grief fills it entirely. It is a relief to not carry the weight of it for just an hour or so. Before the second leg, I carry myself to the lounge and fuel up on coffee. Airport coffee has always made me sentimental. I like to think I can taste the aviation fuel in the coffee and it reminds me I am moving forward from this moment. I choose to forget what it felt like to travel towards someone with anticipation. I focus instead on what it is like to be moving, travelling, to be in motion. When the moment is painful, it helps. For the second hop, I stop listening to sad songs and pull my journal from my bag. I am a cliche but a necessary one as I write down the things I believe to be true. I am worthy, I am loved, I am already moving towards something new. Sitting in an airplane at 30,000ft gives perspective like no other to the smallness of life. That’s enough to begin my healing. I have four hours to go and nothing but horizon to look at.
Within a few hours, I’m landed on the other side of the country from where I started and more than 15,000 miles from my turangawaewae, my home place. But here in Boston, I sit at a hotel bar and someone asks me,’how were your travels? You’re a long way from home.” I answer in a steady voice, ‘they were healing. I found my way back to myself all the way here.”
He says, ‘Well, why don’t you tell me who you are?’
For a moment, I stopped travelling and landed for a while. I told him who I was and I pulled pieces of myself back together as I did.
