Pic above is where I am writing this blog, in bed on a grey somewhat wet November morn, awaiting the urge to bake a chocolate mud cake for the final Scottish Dance fling of the year. Have bought all the ingredients so it's a simple matter of warming the oven and melting the chocolate - all done.
Have been devouring some very interesting kiwi 'Memoirs', and they are worth commenting on as they have taught me a lot about the culture and richness of the fabric of life here, albeit with a few holes therein. The one I've most recently finished is by choreographer and modern dance supremo Douglas Wright, and it is a great read. He is also an excellent writer and was shortlisted for this Memoir called 'Ghost-dance'.
Although he is ten years younger than me his life seems to have been the double of mine already - he started very young. In youth falling into heavy drug use he was looked after by a famous old queen in Auckland who eventually directed him to his great love of dance, and from there he never looked back. After winning an audition among two hundred dancers for the famed US modern dance company of Paul Taylor, he lead an incredible adventurous life touring the world before leaving Taylor and joining a talented compatriot Lloyd Newson in his innovative London company, DC8. From that, he returned to NZ and set up his own group but with ill health finally hung up his ballet slippers. It was the ogre of AIDS which stalked him but after many health episodes he is still there, somewhere hidden in the Auckland backwaters.
The book was written ten years ago so how he is now God only knows. What I found remarkable was his similar spiritual growth to mine, although we ended up differently. I could have written his New York experiences myself, but mine were a little earlier. His return in triumph to NZ was mixed blessing as after such an eclectic life OS there was little more to do, so he wrote this evocative memoir. One day it might be nice to meet him, if he's still around. His early abusive childhood may be typical of some of the backwoods culture that existed in NZ even in the sixties and seventies but his extraordinary talent won out and he became a veritable kiwi legend. Most of his friends have also passed away which is the sad case for many of us.
The other two memoirs I read were both by non-Kiwis and so give a different slant which is equally valid and fascinating. An American with the auspicious name of Aaron Allbright wrote a tome called A Land near Oz, only because he discovered NZ by default after being at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. But he became an ardent fan and soon moved holus-bolus, with male partner whom he officially married in legally advanced NZ. They subsequently both took Kiwi nationality, totally embracing their adopted country.
It has a rather sad postscript as they invested in their dream home called 'Paradise', on Doubtless Bay on the top of the North Island, but soon after settling in their paradise, leukaemia hit in for Aaron and to get cutting-edge treatment they had to sell and relocate home to California. Such is our health system here. However he left us with an illuminating commentary of an outsider's look at a country which in many many ways he could never comprehend. Interestingly it was through the Maori context which he experienced in buying his property up north that he felt in tune with the country. It is very amusingly and racily written with lots of bold-faced type. I wonder if he'll ever return, but I'm afraid his prognosis was severe, and terminal.
The other book by Scot Tom McRae called ominously, 'If I should die' also has a sad postscript as Tom died a week after its publication in Auckland. It is a fascinating historical read about the emergence of AIDS in NZ and the problems he encountered with stigma and prejudice. As a Scot with a wry sense of humour it is an easy read also but happily we have well and truly moved on from those dark days in the eighties when cadavres were still considered 'infectious'. Poor Tom's legacy was just this book but he deserved more as he was a ground breaker and brought the public face of AIDS into better repute.
So there's my reading for the past week and I can now smell my chocolate cake ready to be taken from the oven. A comforting smell on a still-cool and wet Wellington day.
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