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Still no photos of my completed tattoo!

But on Saturday (10/7), I had a lovely Italian dinner out at Bella Vita, a nice break form my steady diet of Indian cuisine. Fried calamari, pasta Bolognese, mango cheesecake. Yum.

Early Sunday morning (10/8), Mark and I headed up to Waitara to interview Rangi in his studio. We spoke while Mark filmed for about two hours.

When I got back to the Vrbo, Vicki (who changes the sheets and towels and cleans) was still there.  We had a lovely talk about our respective journeys, a moment of heart connection.

I stopped taking antibiotics and washing with chlorhexidine that morning. My body is happy to be off them, and my tattoo shows not one sign of infection. It is now mostly shedding tiny linear fragments of black scar tissue, like black confetti.

Monday (10/9) dawned clear and sunny and warm—a beautiful Spring day. First, I got to sleep in!

Then I headed off on the coastal walkway to downtown, with the vrbo’s garden burgeoning with bloom and Mt. Taranaki peeking out in all its glory.

Then on to St. Mary’s Church to film. I got great footage of Rangi’s toki headstone for the Maori warriors, of his lintel above the entrance to the Community Hall of Peace and Reconciliation, of the tombstones in the old church yard that reference deaths during the Land Wars in Taranaki.

I walked on to Pukekura Park, which was bursting with spring. And I had a lovely brunch on the terrace of the tea house—fried eggs, sausage, bacon, hash browns and toast. A lovely view of the lake, with a Mallard mom on the patio shamelessly using her five new chicks to beg for food.

I got a call from Robin Martin, a reporter with Radio New Zealand, their equivalent of NPR. He’s interested in doing a story on my tattoo journey, but feels the need to address the controversy of putting a puhoro on someone who isn’t Maori.

It’s too bad my healing journey from childhood sexual abuse, the powerful experience of having my story sewn into my skin, is caught up in this controversy.

I understand the controversy, the sensitivity, but honestly, compared to the story of receiving a puhoro as part of healing journey from early childhood sexual abuse, compared to the story of two strangers who wanted to go on that healing journey with me, who made that journey possible out of kindness and compassion, the controversy of putting a puhoro on a white body seems like a side-show.

On Tuesday (10/10), after a night of fitful sleep, I received a long e-mail from Rangi. He is a sophisticated thinker on cross-cultural issues, and he was very wary of the reporter Robin Martin trying to sir up controversy. So I declined to meet with Robin as planned at 10 AM.

I went out for a lovely walk along the coastal walkway and back to Pukekura Park, then home for a restful afternoon.

On Wednesday (10/11), I wrote a long e-mail to Rangi and Phil addressing the issues Rangi’d raised in his email as they related to the potential documentary we plan to make about my tattoo journey.

Then I had a lovely two-hour walk on the Te Henui trail. I was gobsmacked right away by some new graffiti on the flat cement columns for the 1907 railroad bridge over Te Henui Creek. A band of spunky, swimming tadpoles, or perhaps young fish. Each with its own impish expression. A beautiful composition that fit perfectly with its surroundings on the rectangle of grey paint that both covered previous graffiti and provided a clean canvass.

Later in the afternoon, on my way back home, I discovered the abutment on the other side of the trail held the rest of this piece public art that I hope will not be covered over.

On the next turn of the trail, I encountered a mated pair of mallards, the mom wrangling two new chicks.

I took side trails I hadn’t taken before and discovered new beauty. A planting of ancient, gnarly cherry trees with three-foot diameter lower trunks, all bursting in a riot of white blossoms. Pure magic.

Farther up the trail a whiko tree with pinnately-compound leaves, like our locust, and pendulous bright-yellow tubular blossoms.

And around the corner, a tall tree (Coral tree?) with bright red blossoms with a black bird sucking their nectar.

That evening Mark picked me up so I could have dinner with him and his wife Shari, with they son Finn and his wife Sam. Their house overlooks the upper reaches of Te Henui stream—so peaceful and beautiful. Mark and Shari rustled up a bbq of marinated chicken and sausage, of homemade bread, of salad from their garden, of small roast potatoes and yams. And a great frozen desert of cocoa powder, coconut oil, shredded coconut and roasted peanuts, sweetened with just of bit of maple syrup—no dairy, no sugar.

We had a lovely conversation about politics, and volcanoes. They were curious about my tattoo, which I was happy to show them, moving my underwear this way and that so they could see everything, except my junk. They were impressed.

I hope to get photos tomorrow to show all of you.