I have a special memory of walking through trees … getting lost, getting found, being entranced. I must have been about 14. I was staying with an “uncle” and “aunty” in a shack – possums on the roof, possums in the roof – at Waimarama, in Hawke’s Bay.
I have no idea why I was there … summer fun for Richard or something … and I remember being very alone in this dark hut, hunkered down in the middle of a large stand of storm-ravaged poplar trees.
One day, a young girl magically manifested at the edge of our yard, grandly announced that her name was Margot, and challenged me to follow her back into this mad tangle of grey and silver trunks.
January 24, 2020
