WELLY ANGEL

What would Deirdre do?

ADVICE FROM DEIRDRE TARRANT

LONG WAIT BY THE INBOX

I’ve sent greeting cards lately to various acquaintances, for a 50th wedding anniversary, an ex’s birthday and a “get well soon” situation. Each one required a trip to the card shop, selecting from dozens of options and writing a personal note. None of the recipients responded. I’m disappointed. What’s the protocol for responding to greeting cards?

Old school, Karori

Surely it is all in the giving? It is lovely to get cards and notes from people, but the etiquette surrounding them is fading indeed. It is great that you made the effort, but I don’t think there are protocols any longer to follow or expectations to be delivered on. The satisfaction may be all on your side.

JEALOUSY DOUBLED

My twin brother and I have become estranged. We have always been close and hung out together a lot. The difficulty has come about with his new partner who, in my assessment, struggles with our close relationship, and is isolating him from his family. The result is we are not seeing each other and I miss him in my life. I have suggested a few activities without the partner, and my brother has agreed, but then it causes him trouble at home. I think my brother ought to choose whomever he wants, but is it my job to worry about the consequences for him and keep away or just keep involving him in my life?

Caring and sharing, Titahi Bay

It seems you are really concerned. Try to keep your own relationship with your brother and to also include the partner at times. Support their partnership and your brother’s choice of a close friend too. Being siblings never changes. Be there, and be open and happy and fun to be with. There should be no need for choosing or compromising. Keep the involvement up with them both and don’t be a grouch! It is hard for your brother too.

WHO AM I?

My cousins want to find out more about their birth parents, but their adoptive mother, my aunt, is against it. Is it their right to push for it, or should they wait until she has gone?

Gang of cousins, Strathmore

Tricky. I feel that everyone needs to be on the same page – your cousins clearly are keen to discover, meet, and have time to consider and possibly build a relationship with their biological parents. Their parenting mother needs to be informed, consulted, and ideally comfortable. If she persists in saying no, maybe they should indicate that they are going to start the process but would like her to say when? Hard for her too but moving forward needs to happen with lots of assurances and support for her. Take time.

EXIT THROUGH THE OP SHOP

Is a handmade present superior to something bought new from a shop? And is it okay to find something in an op shop, for example, a substantial glass vase, and present it without saying it was an op shop find?

Savvy shopper, Lower Hutt

A gift is a gift and surely it is the spirit of giving and the thought that counts? Choose a gift that you think will be appreciated by the recipient – new, second-hand or homemade are all good! Whether you would like it yourself is always a litmus test.

If you’ve got a burning question for Deirdre, email angel@capitalmag.co.nz with Capital Angel in the subject line.

I just want to be alone

BY MELODY THOMAS

Last year, I was meandering through the bush when I stumbled upon a little lodge. Hanging next to the front door was a sign reading “Humans Resting: Do Not Disturb”, and next to it, a piece of paper detailing how to go about booking the lodge, if what you needed was to simply step away from the world for a bit. I called the landline, and soon after found myself hiking back into the bush, my backpack laden with food, my sleeping bag, writing and drawing tools, for four blissful nights all on my own. I’ve since been back again and again, and in moments when life is particularly intense, I find myself hungering for it, counting down the days until it’s just me, the bush, and that simple little lodge.

Not too long ago, I’d have baulked at the idea of spending days on my own. But all that changed with parenthood. It’s so relentless, isn’t it? This last fortnight, our little whānau has been racked by a seemingly-endless series of illnesses – a cold, a tummy bug, then another cold – and I feel worn to the bone by the needs of others. You know those days when you feel like a tree having its bark torn off in strips by hungry kākā beaks? When the word “Mum?” feels like lemon juice in a paper cut? Up at the lodge there is no Mum. The only needs that matter are my own, and for the most part what I need is rest: so I float about, picking kawakawa for tea, reading novels, and eating blue cheese on crackers for breakfast.

My routines are tied to the rhythms of the day: in the morning I walk the scrabbly ridgeline walkway, picking wild parsley for my lunch, and at sunset I go to the little seat overlooking the winding coastline, and watch – way down there – the busy little humans go about their busy little ways.

You might have seen that tweet from @daisandconfused: “The girl boss is dead, long live the girl moss (lying on the floor of the forest and being absorbed back into nature)”. Up at the lodge I am moss girl, or bush girl, relating far less to those busy humans than to the tūi and pīwakawaka that swoop and twirl, chasing tiny bugs in the last of the day’s light.

The feeling I get there, which I find myself chasing more and more, is peace. And while it can feel as if life doesn’t allow it to us, this city – marbled green, wrapped in blue – offers endless opportunities for it. According to local research, seeing blue spaces (like a lake or the ocean) is linked to better mental health. A walk in the bush can change your body within minutes: regulating blood pressure, slowing your heart rate, and lifting your mood.

So much of what we need is right here, waiting for us to stop and pay attention. And we know it. We feel it in our bones the moment we pause. It’s like Mary Oliver said, in one of her most famous poems, Wild Geese: “You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.… Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting – over and over announcing your place in the family of things.”

Message me @melodyrules if you, too, would like to disappear to the little lodge in the bush.