Watching from afar

TE AO MĀORI | ISSUE TWELVE | NOSTALGIA

Written by Skye Lunson-Storey (they/them) | Whakatōhea, Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Tūwharetoa | @uku_rangi  | Arts, Culture, and Te Ao Māori Editor

I’ve watched you from afar for so long.

The changes and shifts, like tides controlled by te marama.

I look at her and ask “why does the place I once knew seem foreign to me?”

My heart feels heavy as I question the strong resistance within.

This was never my whenua, yet you raised me.

You protected my taina when the time came for my haerenga to explore new horizons.

Now I have returned and that little kōtiro is all grown up.

My tears grieve for time passed and memories we do not share.

I look to Ranginui as I did when I was younger,

Why does my heart feel heavy?

How could one place hold so much?

Clouds shroud the glimmer of the moana.

In silence I wait for them to pass.

I remember the CBD so vibrantly.

Little arcades full of life. 

Reminiscing on the toy shop where I collected stretchy lizards and reptiles with each visit.

As I grew older the urban sprawl took its toll.

People opting for shiny new shopping centres and malls.

The curse of retail cannibalism and downtown decay left behind a hollowed-out urban core.

It’s funny how as a tamaiti there are many things you don’t understand.

Like why all the main streets have Pākehā place names.

The numbered avenues put in place to identify their carved out grid system.

Our main road named after Lieutenant-General Duncan Cameron who sounded the death-knell of Māori independence.

People in school had the audacity to ask why Māori cared so much about the past.

But I guess it’s easy for them to forget when they don’t have the generational trauma that’s brought into the present.

The reflection of the moana stares at me.

I didn’t realise until I left how lucky I was to have this taonga at my fingertips.

The ‘big city’ was also surrounded by glistening waters but this moana carries the mamae of being drenched and contaminated. 

Being back, I gaze at the vast Pacific thinking of the great waka that journeyed here.

Tākitimu and Mātaatua.

The latter being my own.

A sense of comfort washes over me knowing that travelling east toward Whakatāne that same waka held my tīpuna.

I hold gratitude for this place that raised me.

Acting as a hub, close to my whānau.

The whenua travelling from Tauranga Moana to Taupō, Ōpōtiki, and the mighty Waikato still ingrained deep into my memory.

Although you are not my whenua, you gave me access to my own.

Being back I am confronted by the past.

Wanting to escape is not your fault, 

for you have shaped me and all the directions I have taken in life.

Again, I question; how can a place hold so much?

Clouds shroud the glimmer of the moana.

In silence I wait for them to pass.

With an echoing roar from Tangaroa, 

I let go. 

Allowing myself to see this place through fresh eyes.