My friends Cass and Mavie just returned from an epic two week adventure in New Zealand.
Last night Cass cooked a delicious dinner and gave us a slideshow of their journey- it was mind blowing! They bought a 1972? cb350 twin (aaaaoooooowwwwww) with a sidecar!!!!!! (aaaaoooooowwwwwww) from a dear old man in the South island and camped all the way up to Auckland in the North island.
Hot springs/mountain passes/magical hikes/epic swim spots- you name it, they lived it! Cass even took a photo of a menu for me which read:
soup of the now
I love it! Cass is an amazing writer, when I was writing here and now/now and then, she gave me some valuable feedback and general encouragement, which I needed at the time. Cass had never read Play it as it lays I leant her my copy of Joan Didion's novel- I was really excited by the prospect of the novel going on a New Zealand adventure- pages well travelled!
The book came back a little weathered, Cass apologised but I was stoked, every mark and line reveals a story. I imagine that the black marks on the cover are tyre marks- maybe the book flew out of Cass's hands as Mavie hit a shrub leaving a riverside camp spot, perhaps the red dots are from the sidecar or the petrol tank (their motorbike was red) and that even the rain wanted a piece of Didion's novel as they hiked up a mountain.
I like the idea that a novel can experience a journey as the journeyer experiences the novel- the landscapes of the novel intertwine with the physical landscapes surrounding the reader and the landscapes within the readers own mind.
Brad Phillips- Collection of the Artist, Type C print, 2010
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