ENCOUNTERS OF A VERNACULAR KIND: Derek Jones

Written by Derek Jones

A Sense of Itself by Derek Jones (Highly Commended:  2011 Cultural Icons & The Vernacular Lounge Non-fiction Writing Competition, ‘Encounters of a Vernacular Kind’)

The Depot is pleased to announce the winner, runner up and highly commended writer of the 2011 Cultural Icons & The Vernacular Lounge Non-fiction Writing Competition, ‘Encounters of a Vernacular Kind’, a narrative competition on the topic of New Zealand’s distinctive local culture through its everyday icons.

The competition was judged by Graham Beattie, Linda Blincko and Federico Monsalve.

The 1st Prize goes to Anna Harding with her entry A Mall to Remember.  Anna wins an eight to ten week writing course at The Creative Hub in Auckland.
The 2nd Prize goes to Philippa Werry with her entry Anyone Can Play.  Philippa wins a $500 book package from Random House New Zealand.

Highly Commended is Derek Jones with his entry A Sense of Itself.

The Cultural Icons project www.culturalicons.co.nz and The Vernacular Lounge are both initiatives of The Depot with the aim to identify, discuss and debate New Zealand’s continually emerging cultural identity and to celebrate those who have significantly contributed to it.

The winning entries are available to read online at www.morphmagazine.co.nz and will shortly be available as podcasts on www.jamradio.co.nz.

A Sense of Itself by Derek Jones

(i)

My grandfather died after Christmas dinner. It wasn’t dinner that killed him. Following the
satisfaction of festive days surrounded by family, death tapped Monty on the shoulder and
whispered that it gets no better than this; intimated that at 94 years old, with poor sight and
worsening cancer, next year’s Christmas would not hold the same pleasure.

On the eve of his death I was 13 years old. We sat together on the deck, looking out across
Pukapuka Road to Mahurangi Harbour, watching tui and keruru swoop among kauri and puriri.
Sea breezes twirled up the bushy gully, through the summer dryness of paddocks, bringing hints
and essences of the harbour at low tide. I slapped my browning arms to rid them of sandflies,
leaving strawberry specks where I was too slow.

Sometimes old people mourn for the past as they have no future. Not Monty though. “The future
is everybody’s journey and one to be embraced,” he said, “but progress should be beneficial.
If it is damaging then it cannot be called progress. Then it is named folly.” He inhaled deeply,
allowing salty air to transfer a sense of this place. Monty had a solid sense of himself, too, after
nearly a century of living here. “Boy, we need a vision. To spread the trappings of progress
to these thin and fragile tracts of land, is foolish. Build community around the strong existing
heart of a district, not at its delicate finger tips.” He was a messenger for Mahurangi.

As a 13 year old I gave the lesson a home, but it didn’t dwell for long. Tomorrow I had presents
to open, sparkling grape juice to drink and chocolate to eat. Who doesn’t wish they’d been
wiser as a teen, able to understand advice as it’s given? Monty knew there was worth in patience;
impressions left in the memory of youth are deciphered years after their first soft imprints.

(i)

Scorching and straining to burn hotter, the sun glows – a fat red man out of breath on top of
the freshly scaled, shimmering hill. Our old Saab races along, hugging the rural land’s curves.  Windows are down and the holiday chorus of two is in full voice. Lily and I are on our way
to visit Mahurangi, in honour of Monty, where the fluid ever-changing keeper of Time shakes
hands with lithe fingers of coastline.

Behind us, Slater, a small kauri clinker-style dinghy, bounces along on her trailer, catching the
windswept remains of our voices. Our trip has been anticipated with pleasure, like the last day
of term, when chairs and desks are stacked awaiting an unhurried cleaner’s mop to erase tales
accumulated by worn floorboards. Lily turns to me, one hand firmly on her wide-brimmed straw
sunhat. She tells me how, on floating over the brow of the hill we have ascended, it feels like she
has finally escaped the magnetic pull of the city; that as her stomach lurches momentarily over
the peak, she feels not queasy, but like laughing, and can’t make sense of why that should be.

We travel until the road peels to the left and disappears down a steep incline, through native
bush to the water’s edge at Opahi Bay. Here, there is a concrete ramp from which we launch
into liquid glass. Slater rolls off the trailer and appears as if she wants to scurry into the bay of
her own volition. Then the sea slows her, settles her, pushes against her half-hearted escape,
returning her bobbing and rocking, lightly admonished.

We climb in. I set the oars and begin rowing in the direction of Mahurangi River which meanders
into the distance around hazy headlands, towards Warkworth village. Water slaps Slater with
playful familiarity, smudging the dust on her sides like a pleasant aunt wiping ice cream from
a niece’s face. I pull in the oars, and we lie back against the ancient wooden cocoon. A rare
dotterel wheels overhead, spiralling towards the sun. His cries are louder the further from the
water’s surface he soars – perhaps pained in higher flight, wings scorched Icarus-like. Lower,
they are softer; swoops raise a mist by which he is coolly caressed. He seems to whisper:
Watch the harbour age at the pace of evolution from the ocean. Do not race to capture the views
with your digital clock time, your short and hurried lives feeling threatened by the permanence
of this place. Do not rush to build your monuments to somehow capture a piece of its immortality
for yourselves, scouring tattoos upon its breast. Resist from perching on these hills. Retreat
from the shores. Build lives further from this already burdened place. From a kind distance
visit; synthetic dwellings and waste and plastic lives so near is to do it harm. Within these
hills is a harbour with a sense of itself. Humble in its ebbing and flowing lapis cloak; by night
undressed in pearl, come morning by golden light is dressed. Lush emerald fingers beckon and
invite. These fingers are becoming swollen, soft and over-ripe with gaudy pseudo-jewels too
proud around their rings: perks and baubles of the office of one thousand men, who all would
see this harbour (in their eyes) half-formed when not fully swathed. And yet this half-formed
self will still be more, and will outlast, one million men to come. You are its guests.

The dotterel chirps wisely. I listen, understanding what Monty meant the night before he died;
a lesson echoed by the calls of this new messenger.

I row back to shore and slide Slater onto her trailer. We leave the harbour unspoiled and will
return as guests to its blue waters, green hills and infinite skies. The sun now is weak, a half
sucked strepsil opaque and wan. The picked scabs of building sites scar the spine of Mahurangi
West Road; low shadows from insipid sunlight make them appear newly lifted. Monty knew:
while there is beauty in growing old, there is no beauty in decay.