(part 1, part 2)

Living with Tokowah was my first reception of unconditional love. No matter how rough, selfish or shadowy my behaviour, there would be love – full and simple.

This time also saw the ignition of my professional interest in food. One day I foraged some dew-wet fennel, finely chopping it over sautéed apple slices. My doors of (taste) perception had been opened…

Tokowah left me alone in the valley for a month. I slept in and worked on a barn from the 1850s and continued my walking adventures. One day a Tui made a nest in the wall directly beside my pillow; I followed the changing sounds of her children and marvelled at her industry in collecting food: swoop, flit, return wet with a worm or bug, feed, go again… over and over…

 

On Christmas eve I headed to the ferry at Picton to join Tokowah’s tribe on the north island. I was an hour early and decided to explore a little. I shared a beer with an old fisherman who invited me back to his boat.

Now afloat, this man began to act in peculiar ways. He would forget what he was saying mid-sentence, and continually pressed me for information about my “heroin use”. I have never used, I would reply. A minute later he would ask again.

Ten minutes before my ferry was due to leave he said

“It’s a shame you have to go, otherwise we could have some methadone”

I checked in with myself and, quite bizarrely, felt that this was the best course of action. I had not ingested synthetic ‘drugs’ in several years, yet the message from inside was Yes…

A dark wooden box was retrieved from the cupboard. The fisherman explained that a normal dose was 5ml, but that he would give me 9ml. He set a glass on the table. I drank it.

Hmmm. 9ml is 2 teaspoons. That was a whole lot more. I looked at the green smear on the glass and asked the fisherman how much he gave me.

45ml, came the answer.

I said goodbye and boarded the ferry.

Within half an hour I was definitely not having a good time. Hoping for a soft, deep opioid cocoon I was in fact trapped inside an increasingly tranquilized body. I crawled to the bar and asked the girl there for a pen and paper. I wrote “I have taken 45ml of methadone” and stuffed the note in my pocket.

My next view is of fourteen people standing over me in a circle. I am lying on the carpet and my heart is not beating, then it starts beating, but whirring up and down, spluttering and jumping and whirring. I see there is a paramedic knelt over me and he is saying words, but what draws my attention is a Māori  man in the circle. The others are pale and have terror-stretched features; he gazes at me firmly, insistently.

Whether through telepathy or imagination, I start to hear him inside my head:

You’re not going anywhere

You are staying here

You are not escaping

I feel close to death and far from the body. Some part of me is looking for the last cord. I am transfixed by the stare of this man.

You are staying here

Stay here

Stay

The medic injects me with Nalaxone. I take a breath and my chest is all chills and my heart is beating like a squirrel’s and then they are carrying me out, one shoulder on the medic and one on the Māori (who was part of the boat crew). I am being asked questions but all I can feel is the intent of this man:

You are staying here

Stay in the body

Stay

I spent five days in intensive care, passing the time in meditation. As I entered deeper states my heart-rate would drop, triggering an alarm. Four times the staff rushed in, four times I assured them all was well. On the fifth time they disconnected the alarm.

One day, I had a visitor, which was strange because I told no-one where I was. Appearing at my side was the bargirl from the ferry: stay in my house while you recover, she said.

I removed the hospital gown and slid my jeans on. There, unfound in the pocket was a note:

I have taken 45ml of methadone

That night I went for a walk around 10pm and headed into the forest. It was very, very dark in there beneath the canopy. For an hour or two I moved slowly through the blackness, my feet listening intently to each centimetre of the ground’s arrival.
I came to a landscape of grass and whispering water. It was still intensely dark, but then – ah! – the moon began to rise. I watched for some time before becoming aware of a warm presence. From all around I picked out the sound of breath – cows! I stood in a field of sleeping cows, their deep, wet breath the most welcome sound.

I walked on. I heard human voices, far in the distance. The earth shaped their sounds into whooping echoes, shuddering wildly across the land. Suddenly, a howl flew from my throat! It spun over the grass and bounced like a pinball along the forest paddles. The voices became silent. Then, a shout struck out from the dark, reaching me like sonar. I flung one back, a noise that said I AM HERE!

Silence. I could hear the rustle of clouds overhead.

Another voice! Calling out in answer.

And another!

Sounds flung now from three directions, crazed beautiful animals howling from huge spaces. The trees were swept through with clear sharp waves. THIS IS WHAT I AM! THIS IS WHAT I AM! THIS IS WHAT I AM! 

Each of those men – whoever they are – said more than anyone had said to me in months and I thought

this is how I want to meet people.

In Part 4: The story of Andria and The Time I was Taken Out to Sea