WĀ H I N E
Hostile climate BY M E LO DY T H O M AS
If you’re new to Wellington, the mild, warm weather which greets us at the start of September might lull you into a false state of hopefulness. Perhaps you put your stockings and polyprops away, or go out without a coat. Hell, you might even shave your legs. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you you’d have fallen for a classic annual Pōneke weather gag in failing to remember about Shitsville. Don’t be disappointed in yourself, we’ve all done it. Even those of us who’ve lived in Wellington forever are sometimes glamoured into trusting the seasonal calendar followed by the rest of the country, forgetting that the Wellington microclimate follows its own rules. The optimism with which we greet this time of year is actually a core feature of Shitsville: because the really deplorable weather is always preceded by a patch of big wide blue – “Spring 1” – which seems to exist solely to get our hopes up. It’s why the creator of Shitsville, Adam Shand, whose “Realistic Wellington Calendar” is locally famous online and has since adorned a charity t-shirt (with another tee currently in the making), says he wishes he’d called the season “Bait and Switch”, or “False Hope”. A friend of Shand’s calls it Sprinter, or “the battle between spring and winter”. Spring 1 arrives on our doorsteps about the time spring is supposed to arrive – unusual for any New Zealand season – and is the stuff of fairytales and Disney movies, bobbing daffodil faces, and bounding lambs in verdant green. The fine spell compels every one of the city’s inhabitants to lop off their jeans mid-
thigh and skip out their front doors, singing “lovely weather we’re having!” at passersby. Spring 1 lasts for about two glorious weeks, if we’re lucky, and then all hell breaks loose. It’s hard to describe the weather of Shitsville accurately, given that unpredictability is its whole thing. These are the days of heading off to work on a clear and calm morning and returning, sodden, in a thundering downpour. Of “unprecedented” hail storms and wind gusts shaking the house so violently you miss an actual earthquake (which happened last year). Shitsville’s guiding principle is havoc. It is the destroyer of umbrellas – it’s only a matter of time before it figures out how to inside-out one of those Blunt numbers. Shitsville hits out of nowhere – you might miss it completely if it weren’t for the baffled refrain sailing constantly on the wind between September and December: “YOU CALL THIS SPRING?!” But part of me actually likes Shitsville. Sure, a mild spring of blossoms and reliable sunshine would probably be better (certainly for those of us with mental health struggles), but the wild weather of Shitsville feels more fitting for what spring actually represents: the tearing apart of earth’s seams as new life thrusts itself into the air. It’s like childbirth – raw and animal and visceral. It shakes you and soaks you and lights the sky in a flash, and while it isn’t comfortable there’s no denying that in this very moment, you are alive. You are a part of this mad storm of life, connected to every living thing around you, and as the earth wakes and begins to shake off the dormant quiet of winter, you feel a pull in your body asking you to do the same. For Matariki, we took a moment to pause and reflect on where we’d been, where we found ourselves and where we wished to go. This, now, is the moment where intent becomes action. Take a look at what you are carrying. What is weighing you down? What could you choose to leave behind? Place them behind you. It’s time to move.
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