Gravel crunched under tyres as the car parked at the base of the rainforest. There were already a number of vehicles parked and hikers returning from their own adventure through the ranges. It was her first adventure out to the Waitakere's, Auckland's very own rainforest. She had arrived with a group of unlikely friends, introduced through a companion who had joined her on this journey of inner discovery.
The trees expanded around them, tui birds sang against the wind as they danced along with the breeze. As she took her first step into the wild, the city fell behind, the person she was became suspended in time as she lost herself to the trees.
The hike began over easy terrain, gravel and dirt moved under her feet, the conversation of nature and religion entwined themselves with the symphony of birds that nestled in the trees.
It was when they arrived at the black sand beach that she stopped. The vast expanse of landscape suddenly stretched in front of her and it was as though she had entered another world. She wandered away from her group, needing a moment alone with the place where she was. She wandered down to the water and saw her reflection, an image of herself that she hadn’t seen in such a long time. The person looking back at her was a stranger, someone who she didn’t know. But there was a glimmer of familiarity, a sense that there was something there to cling onto, but the world had changed on her and she had changed as well. A figure approached over her shoulder, his reflection blurred in the water. She tried to get a closer look thinking it could be him, it could be the person she was wanting to see, wanting to talk to, longing to hold onto again so that the world would fall into some sort of sense. But it wasn’t him, it never was, it was a friend from her group, they were ready to continue and she had to leave the place where she almost found something.
She didn’t know what she was trying to find out here, she guessed it was something that eluded her while she was in the city. The bustle of Queen Street, the never-ending ebb of the office life that always demanded her attention, it all fell away out here. As each step connected her with the earth, it was like she was connected to herself again. She found a renewed sense of herself here that she thought she had lost. She could feel him in the wind, hear his voice in the birds, she could connect to him in the essence of the world that she kept herself hidden from. She knew connecting to him would bring her untold pain, reconnecting with the emotions she had hidden herself from for so long would unleash something that she couldn’t control. Yet this world was so inviting, it was calming and it invited a sense of peace into her soul that she didn’t know was missing.
The light began to fade and the walk to the car park was through a shallow river. With wet feet and a happy heart she stepped back onto the concrete and slipped back into the car. She took a lookout to the Waitakere’s and knew that amongst the trees was her reconnection, was her lifeline to the person she needed to be, the person she had lost and she hoped it wasn’t too long before she could return. Till then the city called her name, and she answered it’s call, the way that she always would.
