My Haukāinga in Photo Albums.
TE AO MĀORI | ISSUE TWELVE | NOSTALGIA
Written by Ivy Lyden-Hancy (she/her/ia) | @tekaraipiture | Contributing Writer
At my childhood home, 166, we had a tall drawer full to the brim with photo albums. I would go through them and get lost in the life lived by my whānau. I would see my māmā’s memories, my dad’s too, and my own memories long before I knew what they were. Nostalgia lived in me long before I knew what the word meant. I wrote poems about growing up in between marae, for poukai, hapori, tangihanga, all the things that call us home. I have many photos of my cousins at the marae, playing bullrush and spotlight. My māmā is a Facebook mum, so there are digital albums I can look back to, but it’s never as intimate as the real thing. This poem, Budget Beyblades, I wrote when remembering my childhood. I am stuck in nostalgia, as it’s my peace, the world before life got so noisy.
Budget Beyblades
Have you ever played budget Beyblades,
scraped the palette of Hokianga.
Digging holes in the pores of papa,
filling Sprite bottles with crabs.
Intertwine claws like the weaving of korowai.
We dig holes.
And we jumped into the harbour.
Swimming with the taniwha, we play budget Beyblades.
Chuck the crabs in the cold umu,
fight to the death.
Budget beyblades
My nans’ passed before they could tell me about their world.
My vocal cords, nails on a chalkboard.
Taumaha Maine Edwards and Moera Hancy, monarchs in my whānau.
They left behind their mokos,
so we,
stay hōhā,
stay fast,
never stop.
The Māori Jesus blessed me with a father who dances with dice.
The Māori Jesus came from Wellington Harbour and said: “My mum told me it’s just a lie that’s a little bit true.”
Gifted me a horse with 4 legs.
And a little bottle of knowledge.
So when I think about crab genocide on Hokianga Harbour.
I see my family dancing with ice.
And they say, "Why are you riding a waiata?"
Stop climbing Matariki.
But I don’t wanna let go of Ranganui,
coz I always feel high;
up the top of Taupiri
Where my tīpuna lives in our memories.
When I think back to it, all of us bloody Māori kids making crabs fight to the death should have been stopped. But it’s a memory that literally lives in my mind; jumping in the wharf goes hand in hand. Waterholes on the west side and up north, climbing Taupiri. Mum called me the “bullrush queen”, but that’s only because I loved having an excuse to tackle my cousins. I love living in photos; I got it from Mum. Having our whole life digitised gives me something to live in when I wanna get away from the world.
My haukāinga is found in my memories. I was born and raised in Papakura, with half my heart in Waikato and half in Hokianga. I think that the reason I call Titahi ki Tua my kāinga rua is that I can be around others who live with their heart at home. The other night, I had a dream about my dad. We were walking along a waterhole, a beach, water with hills and valleys. It looked like our marae at Hokianga. We saw an eel eating a shark. He said to me that the eel is a tohunga, our tipuna; it will outlive us. The eel swam off, and I woke up. In a way, I found that as a metaphor for my nans, for although they have passed, they live in my nostalgia.
I am blessed to have photos, hundreds of photo albums, both physical and digital. I get lost in the memories I can not remember. There is a photo of my cousin and me on my pāpā’s lap, grinning from ear to ear; it wasn’t until my 21st I learnt the origins of that photo. Apparently, I kept on telling my cousin that my pāpā was “MY pāpā”. My pāpā scooped both of us up and told me he is all of our guys’ (my cousins’) pāpā. I think about that a lot. And I feel the memories breathe in every flick through those photo albums.
Photos and photo albums are my peace. My escape from a world that demands that I perform. I follow my māmā’s legacy and take photos of everything, so when I lose my memories and my past gets foggy, I can look in my own photo albums and reminisce about the good, the bad, the peace, the war, and love.
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