I’ve been trying and failing to get words down on paper lately. Even my opening line isn’t right. I’ve actually been writing a lot these days. I’ve got a new job where being a writer is now my title and primary duty. It’s right up there on my list of office/employed/8-5 dream jobs, and IRead more
“We live in cities you’ll never see on screen. Not very pretty but we sure know how to run things,” Ella Yelich-O’Connor, better known as Lorde, sings in the chorus of her song Team. Lorde is an Aucklander, not a Cantabrian, but her lyrics play in my head as I cruise through Christchurch. I’m hereRead more
I turn 29 this week. Being in my twenties has been a perpetual excuse to make light of my delightful assortment of neuroses, anxieties and mistakes. It’s also been a decade of miniskirts, two-day hangovers, quiet nights cozied up with a good book, six-hour Game of Throne binges, $130 yoga pants, quitting jobs to travel,Read more
It’s been one and half years since I wrote anything in this space. 18 months. 530-odd days. If this silence means anything at all, it would be mean one and half years of static and of feeling like there weren’t any tales worth telling here on Tiger Bomb Tales. The mountains I last wrote about are stillRead more
Paul is collecting fallen twigs from beech trees, the dense dwellers of the Tarurua Range. He is building a morning fire in between a pile of rocks on one of the islets of the Atiwhakatu River we are lingering on. It’s not a necessary fire. The sun is strong today and we are sheltered fromRead more
Hello, Mother Nature. I am getting to know you well here in these pieces of land hanging off the bottom of your swollen body. You’ve taught me it is possible for all of your beauty and, occasionally, all of your tragedy to fit into a country the size of your bellybutton. In America, you’ve birthed placesRead more
I wrote this piece for the “Tirohia Mai: Look at Us Now” exhibition featuring stories about the historical and modern women of Aotearoa New Zealand. The exhibition opens at the National Library next Monday 17 June. I am straddling life again. Living in the fringes of a country that exists on the edge of theRead more
The tangled tree in my front yard is alive. The winter is coming and the wind is blowing its southerly whispers, sending icy secrets into the world. But the tree will not listen. It’s not blooming anymore. I missed most of its bursts of coral flowers this year — busy sweating and wandering around theRead more
Whelp, it’s a gorgeous Sunday in Wellington. I spent the morning down at Princess Bay throwing the rugby ball around with Paul and reading some hilarious yet insightful essays by David Foster Wallace on the beach. Ate a seafood pie for lunch, and let pastry and creamy chunks of crab and mussels drip down myRead more
After spending so much time in SE Asia, the word “expat” started to take on a fairly creepy meaning. If you’ve been to Vietnam (or any other Asian or developing country), you’ve seen them. White men. Somewhere between the ages of 50 to 65 years old. Big bellied. Almost always smokers and readily spotted atRead more