Goodbye Auckland

Things slowed down a lot when I stepped off the plane into Aotearoa. So much so that I forgot to write.

My time was divided between pining for the plenitude of cheap chinese food, staring at sheep, and watching water slosh around in that old sea.

Actually though I achieved one of my notable goals for the year; performing my music for a small audience. Four gigs. At the Humble Villager, a local politician smiled after taking a prompt selfie and left. At the Edmund Hillary retirement village the old folks were appreciative.

I was so bored that I decided to pick up some Continental philosophy. Things got a bit strange. I started to notice that my hands, the familiar appendages I knew so well, began to take on intentions of their own.

One day I looked down and my left index finger was performing furtive little scribbles into the leather grain of my Aeron. Quickly it realized that it was being watched and stopped. I pretended to look away before

“I’ve got you! You can’t hide!” Grabbing ahold of the finger with my right palm squeezing firmly as it tried to wriggle away

Scratched in the leather, certain strange symbols:

རང་ཉིད་ཕྱིར་མངོན་པ།

Now that I think back on it, the visions must have started with Blattner’s commentary on Being and Time.

SON OF MAN YOU CANNOT SAY

One day I lost it. My favorite vial of blood. It was always to be kept by my bedside to ward off bad humors, but I stirred amid the night to see that it was gone.

Now, don’t worry, the blood itself harmed no animal — it was secreted from the cultured heart of a Fridian Newt, the location of the stem cells having been revealed in a terma of Yeshé Tsogyel. Needless to say I was particularly fond of this blood vial, and was going to gift it to my daughter on her wedding day. When I have a daughter, and when she has a wedding, of course.

A HEAP OF BROKEN IMAGES

Naturally, I turned to my left index finger, paying close attention for any sign of guilt — a tremor perhaps, or a certain stiffness in the unfurling can reveal it all — But no, my finger was clean.

The window ledge where the vial had been carefully placed was also spotless. Except for one detail.

lingering in the air a smell, hardly there, really barely discernible, an ordinary person would have certainly missed it but now it was really unmistakable///

the scent of reptile

OF COURSE! Through the narrow crack in the wall I sometimes see

I begin drooling in anticipation….. You know what this means

All I have to do is let that which shows itself be seen from itself in the very way in which it shows itself from itself.

Three days and three nights in this labyrinth I have ranged with rambling talk

Next stop: New York City