37. Down in the boondocks
"Can you handle living in a small town? There are only 300 people who live here." My potential employer had a slight accent, not the Kiwi accent that I had long since grown accustomed to, but something else. Danish, I was to find out."Oh, yeah," I say, waving her off breezily. "I grew up in a town of 2,000, I'm used to small town life." This is true, but of course I don't mention how much more isolated Tekapo is than Winterport. I think back to this conversation as I pull up, five weeks later, to my new home for the next six months. The closest towns are 30 minutes away on either side of the lonely highway that travels through the center of this place, towns that are as pathetically populated as Tekapo is. You know you're exiting civilization when the convenience store-sized supermarket the town over is "the" place to shop for groceries. This is a town where, once the post office employees know you, you need only have things addressed to your and the town's name, and the letter will still find you.
Still, Tekapo is beautiful; even the most jaded would be hard-pressed to say otherwise. Taking in that first sight of the unreal aquamarine color of its lake, it's hard not to feel awe rising up in you. And in the spring of November, the roadsides absolutely carpeted with invasive lupine blooms, it seems like every photo you take could be sold as a post card.
Then, too, are Tekapo's skies. A vast portrait unfurled over your head; vivid sunsets and sunrises every day, stars at night that shine in multitudes through the mountain-thin air. On Mount John, the mountain that isn't really a mountain, a small observatory can be seen, testament to the perfect conditions created here each night for astronomers.
All this vast natural beauty encircles a little town, barely more than a rest stop for tourists on their way to the famed Mount Cook. Residents' houses are off to one side of the town, away from all the tourist activities. A single-room schoolhouse sits on a hill, facing the downtown center. The downtown is literally no more than a miniature strip mall, if it can even be called that. Restaurants line this miniscule center, squeezed in between souvenir shops, a post office, and a teeny supermarket, all facing the glorious lake. Tourists get out, stretch their legs, buy some sandwiches and board their buses a short time later.
Despite the town's size and limited offerings though, there are a sprinkling of hostels and a couple of high class hotels. The view and peace of this area demands an overnight stay in order to be properly savored. But those who become enamored with Tekapo (and we all do) soon regret their decision to stay a week, or even more than couple of nights. The melancholy of the place, the quiet, the same handful of places to eat, the total lack of night time (or even day time) entertainment, begins to grate on its guests' nerves.
You stay and you go on the popular walk from downtown to the top of Mt. John's, admiring the view. You stay another night and go on the observatory tour. You stay and you wander the few back streets of Tekapo, soon realizing that the buildings and roads don't stretch far from the lonely highway that cuts through it. You stay and you go to a different restaurant for the night. Not because it is well known for its delicious food, but because it's something different to do. You find your list of things to do already exhausted, but you're here to stay for much longer.
Eventually, for those staying in Tekapo for a longer term, a balance is found. You go crazy at the lack of socialization available one day and bury yourself in t.v. and internet. Then the next day you feel honored to wake up and witness this place, one of only a few "townies" that looks at the tourists drinking their bottled water and boarding their buses with disdain, for not realizing what a treasure they are passing by.
The town feels timeless, unaffected by the many traveling through, refusing to yield to their demands for change and growth. Like the lake it sits beside, Tekapo is a gem.
http://aeruiyawer.blogspot.com/2010/08/week-3-tone-travel-essay-ice-cream-man.html#comment-form
ReplyDeleteI thought you might be interested in this travel piece and commentary on the writing I did for Advanced Creative Nonfiction, ENG 262.
As you can see in my travel piece, I tried to honestly sum up for students what I liked and did not like about my own piece.
Why don't you do the same, and, instead of me trying to tell you anything, you tell me something.
Ha! I actually could really, really relate to the comments you made on your piece! I had been sitting and staring at the computer screen for almost 3 hours, trying this or that prompt and feeling like everything I wrote about was coming out junk, when I finally forced myself to write this piece. I didn't care for it much; I always feel like I can sense when I've forced something.
ReplyDeleteI think the first part, speaking with my boss, seems disconnected, because there's no other dialogue in the piece. I struggled a bit with writing about the natural beauty of Tekapo; I didn't want it to get too flowery, but it really just is that beautiful. Maybe to compensate (and leave less of a flowery feel) I could balance it by more random, day-to-day details, such as the presence of the pine trees and tuft grasses, or the myriad of rabbit holes that riddle the town. The last section also sounds disconnected from the body of the piece, a different tone is going on. The first part is dialogue, the second description, and the third is kind of an internal dialogue. I think maybe balancing the piece so that the intro and ending match and including more day-to-day details would make this a better piece.
I still have a lot of catch up to do, but I would like to attempt a rewrite on this.
It's interesting to read the writer's self-critique--on the one hand, it's probably harsher than anything I could dream up, but, on the other, no one will ever know the writing from the inside out the way the writer does, and it doesn't sound from this that you reflexively and always beat up your own stuff. Sometimes you do give yourself a dite of praise, a par on the back, a 'well-done!'--right? (Because if you only see the dark and never the light, your take on writing would be somewhat suspect.)
ReplyDeleteMy only real comment is that three hours on one of these things is way too long--the improvement over an hour or so can only be marginal, and, who knows, there may be something to be said for writing in the first flush of dawn, putting it aside without reworking it excessively, and not letting the daytime sun ever fully shine on it.