The art of waiting

Take a moment to refer back to my list of goals, specifically the item known as “practice free-spiritedness.” If you’d like to, you can also take a moment to mentally assess, on a scale of 1 to 10, just how free spirited you believe me to be. If you’ve spent time with me in a time-sensitive situation (catching a plane, getting the last bus home, or showing up to a movie in time to see the previews) then you’re probably more likely to rate me at the low end, somewhere between “trying hard to play it cool but exhibiting some pretty questionable facial tics” and “your nail biting is getting fairly annoying for everyone around you.”

Week two in New Zealand: I have unexpectedly found myself in just such a time-sensitive situation. Tommy and I arrived in Christchurch a week ago, met up with our two lovely traveling companions, Devon and Ross (www.devonitelyrossome.com), whom I lured to us with the promise that we had a car. And I really thought that we did. My generous friend Juliette had already offered me her car for the duration of our stay in New Zealand. But I was about to be blindsided by one of those big scary words (like “mortgage” or “tire pressure”) whose meaning I have been so studiously avoiding learning for years: insurance. One of those grown-up Achilles’ heels.

For days we only know that Tommy and I still need to be added as drivers on the insurance policy and so the car isn’t ready for us. Then for a few more days, complete loss of communication. Radio silence. Devon and Ross have now paid for several nights at a hostel, and my guilt-o-meter is rising steadily. We start kicking around the idea of just buying a car to speed things along. We visit the backpacker’s car market, and it’s like leaving an animal shelter without a puppy: cars parked everywhere, their owners seemingly living out of them, waiting every day to swarm the few buyers who come in and to beg them to please buy their cars so they can make their flights home. I have a very un-free-spirited vision of us at the other end of our trip when we need to resell the car and we move in with these people, who might still be here for all I know, drinking 40s and heating soup on the radiators of their sad station wagons.

Then yesterday a moment of hope: we make contact with Juliette’s mom and things seem to be moving forward. But alas…the insurance company isn’t sure that they want to add two non-residents to the policy, sensing the potential for an international-scale hit-and-run. We have to look into finding a different insurance company, but in the meantime there’s nothing much that I can do. Just wait and see.

Based on the “free spirit” number you gave me at the beginning of this post, you might now have a pretty accurate idea of just how well I’ve been handling these developments. The answer is: “not entirely gracefully.” I’m surrounded by truly, beautifully easy-going people. Devon says that this is the way things are supposed to go this week. It’s meant to be. She’s some sort of a zen master. A river can flow through a straw, if only the straw points itself downriver. That kind of thing.

I say: another glass of wine, please.

“Que sera, sera” is a mentality that’s a lot easier to embrace when things are going your way. Or when there are steps you can take to herd things your way. But it turns out that free spiritedness under fire is going to be something I actually have to practice. Like exercising. Which for me means that the first couple of repetitions might be a wee bit painful - they might even involve some dramatic groaning/curling into fetal positions and whimpering.

So here’s the exercise for these next few days. Yoga, gardening, writing in cafes, reading Rumi, taking walks. I am missing my Routeburn track reservations, but I am loving life. Insurance is a river and I am a straw, baby. Yeah.

Thanks for waiting with me.