As I was scootering to work the other day, I found my route blocked by a giant truck that was performing a multipoint turn to reverse direction on one of Wellington’s typically narrow streets.
When he’d finished this complex and stressful manoeuvre, and was heading back up the hill in the direction I’d come, he lifted his hand off the steering wheel, and gave me a small wave. I gave a brief nod of my head, and continued on my way. Basically our interaction was a nonverbal version of this conversation:
”Thanks for your patience and for not being a dick while I kept you waiting.”
”No worries, she’s cool, all good.”
Contrast this with a similar road related nonverbal interaction some years ago whilst on holidays in the Balkans. I was walking over a pedestrian crossing, and gave a small friendly wave to the cars who were waiting for me to cross. A man behind the steering wheel of one car dropped his jaw in disbelief, turned bright red, shook his fist at me, and then made to get out of the car before being restrained by his passenger putting a calming hand on his shoulder. Dismayed, I walked off as quickly as I could, and fled the scene. This would be my summary of the interaction as far as I understood it, possibly the conversation of the two men in the car.
”What the…Did you see that?! That bitch! Right, I’m going to sort her out…”
”No, wait a minute…look, she’s gone white and is scuttling off…probably just some dumb tourist…”
Of course, I can only imagine what went on between them, because to this day I have absolutely no idea what that was all about.
My Italian homework the other day was to describe my perfect city. The list I came up with was something like this (in basic Italian):
In New Zealand;
Not so small that you don’t have the amenities of a city – restaurants, shows, museums, galleries, hospitals, airports, etc, but not so big that it takes you forever to move around or to escape for a break;
Green spaces;
The sea!
Cycling infrastructure;
Hills (with apologies to the Christchurch fam) because wide open spaces give me agoraphobia.
I realised as I looked at these criteria that I already live in the perfect city: Wellington, my home! OK, it’s going through tough times at present, but I believe it will bounce back. True, the climate is far from ideal, but you can’t have everything. And at least we’ll be insulated from heat waves caused by climate change. Another big plus for me is of course the presence of my family. This is not to say I’ll never leave. Indeed, my offspring were mocking me only last night at my birthday dinner celebrations (currizza – delicious and highly recommended) because I’m heading off in a few weeks to Europe on my sabbatical. I hope I have a great time but I know I’ll miss home and I’ll be glad to be back when I do return.
