Tukuhnikivatz

The End...For Now

It makes the most sense to end this travel journal where it began; under the shadow of Mt. Tukuhnikivatz about a year after boarding the plane with Kristie with a backpack and a blank canvas for the future.

It’s funny how Moab, a city ruled by transience, has become the most stable thing in my current life proceedings. While work this season inhabited a “fly by night” nature, at least it was a familiar job, familiar rivers, and for the most part familiar faces. I could be certain of an uncertain schedule and rely on the unreliability of plans. People came and went as always (I being one of them) and it is now upon my fourth “return” to Moab since July that I’ve finally decided it’s high time to act as a scribe to some of my desert thoughts.

I labeled this blog “Tukuhnikivatz” one, because the name “where the sun last sets” echoed a feeling of pursuing the sun across the Pacific towards a second summer and longer days. Two, its name comes from my favorite mountain on the La Sal range; a range that oversaw the beginnings of my idea for both this blog as well as the NZ journey. In retrospect, I think I liked the mountain so much because it reminded me of the familiar mountain landscape I grew up with when I faced an unfamiliar desert landscape upon arriving in Moab last summer.

Now, oddly enough, the desert has now become the familiar and returning to the red rocks of the canyon country was like coming home. I have a feeling that someday New Zealand will feel the same. A place, once so foreign, will seem like an old friend upon return.

Sitting with a coffee at Kristie’s ‘afternoon coffee shop’, I can look around and proclaim with confidence how much I love this desert, this river, these canyons, these people. But, upon leaving Queenstown didn’t I say the same about the mountains, the lakes, old Earnie, and the wild Queenstown crew? In Spokane didn’t I fall in love with all of the engineering classmates I suffered through mechanics of materials with? The coffee shops and quaint restaurants in the back alleys and nooks of Spokane? The sense of community alive on the Gonzaga campus and the continual pursuit of knowledge? And upon returning to Seattle didn’t I feel that deep love for the place where I made my first friends, learned the importance of family, and was taught the values that continue to serve as my moral compass?

The desert. The mountains. That first home away from home. The big city. Suburbia. Each so different, yet each I hold dear to my heart. Each is crucial to how I see the world and how I will continue to see the world. Each contains people I love so much, but would never dream of mixing in some dysfunctional open house where different lives collide.

These people, these places, these lives are not meant to be mixed. It’s hard enough to keep track of myself as I move from place to place, for I myself change with location. The hometown Krista isn’t the same as the rafting Krista, college Krista, or the New Zealand Krista. Yeah, basic morals, values, and interests stay the same, but I believe identity is linked with the land in such a way that you can never hope to remain a constant as you move around.

Nor do I have any desire to be a constant. People are meant to be dynamic forces constantly changing with time and place. It’s time to move on, see something different, try something new, continue learning, greet a few strangers, write some more stories. The question is, where to next?

When people ask me about New Zealand, the usual questions come out, “how did you like it, what was your favorite place, did you go to Hobbiton, are you going back, did you meet any guys?” I typically give the abridged version; a cookie cutter response that indicates how beautiful the country is, how great the experience was, that I learned a lot, met some great people, did not go to Hobbiton, would love to go back, and no, I didn’t return with a boyfriend.

To tell how I really felt would be both too time consuming and emotionally charged for the vast majority of social settings. The truth is, while over there I fell in love with people I’ve never met and places I’ve never seen. The thing about travel is, doing it for a week, a month, a year, isn’t a remedy that will cure some internal disorder that some may label “wanderlust.” I wouldn’t call wanderlust an illness, nor travel an addiction (although it does hold some similar qualities), for the term ‘addiction’ has a negative connotation I wouldn’t ascribe to travel. Instead I see it as preventative medicine, for I believe the act of travel makes you happier, healthier, and more whole as a person.

Even if you’re not out touring some foreign country, there is a lot to be gained by living every day as if you were traveling. In travel there’s a good balance between planning ahead while really observing and appreciating the present. Everything is fresh and new, time is limited, and there are constantly people reminding you how awesome every day is. I think when we get comfortable and complacent, we tend to dwell more on the past and future and sometimes forget how precious each day is. To live each day as if you were traveling through life would mean to acknowledge the present as a fleeting moment that requires avid attention and keen observation.

"the beauty of things must be that they end.” - Jack Kerouac

I hit the road and the runway, rolling out of Queenstown followed by New Zealand shortly thereafter. As I mentioned during the first Queenstown departure, goodbyes are never easy. When saying goodbye to people, you must come to terms with the fact that you may never see those individuals you took for granted the past few months. When bidding adieu to a place, it’s complex and heart wrenching in a different way.

I didn’t leave New Zealand thinking I’d never return. While it may not be the easy place to get to, New Zealand will always be around to return to and check off the long list of activities I never got around to doing. So it’s not necessarily the thought of never seeing those spectacular mountain ranges, dense forests, and herds of sheep roaming the hills that got me, but instead recognizing that the next time I return I won’t be the same. I’ll have a different relationship to the country, the land, the people. I’ll come with a different agenda and a different mindset. 

Worse still, I know that back in the States I won’t be the same person either. I’ll have lost the connection with the land and an identity as an American abroad that had been developed over the previous eight months. I’ll miss the person I was while I was in New Zealand, but will have to accept it’s occasional resurfacing in the bitter nostalgia of a memory.

"Do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast...a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it's still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breath deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quiet for awhile and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over your enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this ; you will outlive the bastards." 

“The human soul still has greater need of the ideal than of the real. It is by the real that we exist, it is by the ideal that we live.”

“What I like the most about photography is the moment you can’t anticipate: you must be constantly watching for it, ready to welcome the unexpected.”

“Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back everything is different...”

"At the end of the day your feet should be dirty, your hair messy, and your eyes sparkling."

”Be soft. Don’t let the world make you hard. Do not let the pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even if the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place.”

“If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present.”

“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.”

"To live is to change, to acquire the words of a story, and that is the only celebration we mortals really know. In perfect stillness, frankly, I've only found sorrow." 

"We are none of us good enough for the world we have and yet we dream of Heaven." 

“Misunderstanding is my cornerstone. It’s everyone’s come to think of it. Illusions mistaken for truth are the pavement under our feet. They are what we call civilization.” 

"Curiosity is insubordination in its purist form." 

"Nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. " 

The following photo selection is an attempt to display a few of my favorite moments mixed with a few thought provoking quotes from books and articles I found along the way. Gotta think about something when it gets dark at 5 pm and you’ve only have rice and lentils to entertain yourself :)

“Such journeys have convinced me that it is not always possible to restore one’s boundaries after they have been blurred and made permeable by a relationship: try as we might, we cannot reconstitute ourselves as the autonomous beings we previously imagined ourselves to be. Something of us is now outside, and something of the outside is now within us.”