In a flash, 25 years have gone by

By Virginia Winder

Today, it’s 25 years since we lost Mum and Dad, Howard and Florence Winder, in an unexplainable car crash.

It was probably caused by the fatigue that comes with serious sleep apnoea, which Dad had.

The results of his sleep test were opened and read after they left New Plymouth with their dog Carly for a six-week camping holiday up north. It was too late.

Mum had an ulcer on her leg, so had it dressed at the medical centre that morning. In the weeks following their crash into a bank at Otorohanga (in a 50km zone), their doctor told my sister Felicity and I that if he had opened his mail earlier that day, he would have advised Dad not to drive. 

Timing is everything.

The doctor did organise for us to see an ear, nose and throat specialist, who explained about sleep apnoea and why it was likely Dad fell asleep at the wheel. That gave me some peace.

It was about 4pm on a hot Tuesday afternoon when Dad drove across the main road, through a fence and into a bank, without braking. Their car was packed with camping gear including half-a-dozen foldable tables.

Mum and Dad died at the scene, with people from nearby businesses beside them. We met a couple of these men later, thanked them and were able to hear about those final moments, learning our parents weren’t conscious, so weren’t in pain. That was comforting.

Mum was 68 and Dad was 67. They were the colourful, caring and comedic cornerstone of our lives and to lose them so suddenly felt like the core of my being, others may say soul, was shredded.

Carly survived the crash and went to live with my brother Mark and his wife Rose.

We guerilla-planted a golden totara at the spot of the crash, and it has soared. In 2019, we had a plaque made for the tree and had a family gathering to ceremoniously attach it to the trunk.

Thank you to the many people who say they stop at the tree to talk with Mum and Dad, or drive past looking, remembering and throwing hellos from car windows.

While it’s now a quarter of a century since Mum and Dad have been gone, and pain has been replaced by peace, on this day every year, I let myself feel it all.

That’s so those wonderful weirdos, our fun-loving, open-minded parents, are dearly and clearly remembered. Today comes with a soundtrack – Frank Sinatra and Barbra Streisand, of course.

 

 

Don't mention the 'R' word

By Virginia Winder

To steal a phrase and then bastardise it, “the reports of my retirement are greatly exaggerated”.

I found out in the past week that I’m supposedly retiring.

Using the syntax of Yoda: “A mystery to me, the rumour is.”

I’m not certain where that claim from, but I have no plans to retire. Ever.

When friends and family mention the “r” word, I always state my intention to keep writing and working.

There are plenty of people in my life who’ve always carried on.

Jim is always on the go

My journalism role model is Jim Tucker, who not only writes a regular column for the Taranaki Daily News, he’s also the author of books about people’s lives, including his own. Not only is he working on his memoir, he’s also published a book of his columns called Random Thoughts. The proceeds from sales went to Hospice Taranaki.

Jim is way more than a decade older than me and has no intention of putting down his pen – or stopping. He’s just been working on the Census. When I taught with him on the journalism course at the then-Taranaki Polytech, I nicknamed him Action Man. More than 20 years on he still embodies that name.

Rob in his home office

Then there’s photojournalist Rob Tucker, Jim’s younger brother, who could also wear that superhero tag, although he’s no sidekick or sequel.

When faced with a diagnosis of terminal cancer, Rob turned his focus on helping others.

Calling on his “brotherhood” of New Zealand photojournalists, Rob inspired a charity auction of more than 120 images, some iconic, to raise money for Hospice Taranaki. That auction, held on September 24, 2022, raised about $150,000 for the cash-strapped palliative care organisation.

Barbara and granddog Luna

Another star is my mother-in-law Barbara Smart, who was a long-time legal executive at Reeves Middleton Young (now Connect Legal Taranaki) until she retired in her late 70s. 

Last year, she worked on the local body elections. Each Friday morning, she helps prepare breakfast at a local school, and she also does volunteer work at Hospice Taranaki. 

There’s much more, including always being there for family, but what I’m saying, is Barbara has never stopped to let the dust gather.

Elizabeth on her deck

My greatest writing inspiration is Elizabeth Smither, now in her early 80s, who is still an enchanting witch of words.

From her caldron comes a spell-binding catalogue of work – six novels, six collections of short stories, one commonplace book, a collection of journal writings, and 19 poetry books, including My American Chair, released in 2022.

In 2018, her collection, Night Horse, won the Ockham NZ Book Award for Poetry. She was named Te Mata Estate poet laureate in 2001 and, in 2004, became a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit and an Honorary Doctor of Literature from Auckland University.

Elizabeth has no plans to retire.

Beside my desk, I’ve pinned motivating quotes from Elizabeth gleaned from our interviews.

Here’s one: “A writer always writes. You often don’t know what you think until you write it down. The act of writing opens the subconscious. It teaches you to link… It’s like a river. If you keep feeding it, it will start working inside you and bring up ideas.”

"Daisy" Lean 

I’ve also got quotes from two men, also dear to my heart.

“There is no end to what you can achieve if you don’t mind who gets the credit.” – David Lean, former NP Mayor and long-time TRC representative.

Lynn in his garden

“I think you just need to keep active and engaged in the community and do what you can do. I think you owe the community whatever talents you’ve got.” – Lynn Bublitz, educationalist, gardener and civic leader.

Lynn’s words are a touchstone for me because I love this community, including every person named in this blog post.

Irena on the garden
trail in Hawera

The untrue “retiring” rumour may stem from a story Live magazine editor Irena Brooks asked me to write on my 40 years of journalism. It's in the latest edition.

The story ends like this: 

Being humble is huge for me (it was a struggle to write this story) because one of my mantras is: “The day I think I’m more important than the people I interview, is the day I should get out of journalism.”

I guess I’m in it for the long haul. 

 

 

 

 

 

Forty years of telling your stories

By Virginia Winder

This picture of me was taken by a
Taranaki Daily News
photographer in the 1980s.

Even though my life is all about words – writing, listening, talking, reading – 2023 is a year of big numbers for me.

In January I turn 60, in March I will have been serving up Flower of the day for 10 years, and 2023 marks 40 years as a journalist.

Four decades of interviews and telling stories. What a ride – and if I was a character in one those sci-fi books where I could go back in time, I’d do it all over again.

I don’t know how many tales I’ve told, but it’s probably around 18,000. About 450 a year, which is roughly 8 a week. There were some years I did way more than that – about 20 stories a week and sometimes 30.

During the one year I spent in the US, I wrote just a couple. Other years, I wrote one or two each week, including penning a column for NZ News UK by hand, while sitting beside my newborn son’s cot the morning after having a caesarean.

I’ve also tapped out stories while in mental health care, having to keep my door open because my room, the walls dented by tortured souls, was as hot as South India in mid-summer.

Sitting, with my fingers flying over a keyboard writing someone’s story, is the place I feel most comfortable.

Back to the numbers. My figures could be way off, but still I know how incredibly lucky I’ve been to have a life filled with stories. And people, people, people.

Fortunately, I didn’t listen to the tutors from the Wellington Polytech journalism class, who rejected my application to do the course in 1981. I was 17 when I received a letter telling me I wasn’t a suitable candidate and should think about a different career.

I was furious. What the fuck did they or their stupid aptitude test (filled with maths questions) know about me?

Of course, we know I didn’t give up.

In fact, that rejection letter made me more bloody-minded determined to become the journalist I had dreamt of being since age 12 – that’s another story.

So, at the start of 1983, I began the six-month journalism course at ATI (now AUT), kicking off a career of sharing stories. 

This year, in this blog, I will tell many more tales. Some will continue the story of my life as a journalist and others will be fresh interviews and features about people I admire. I want to celebrate my 40-year milestone by celebrating others. 

A daily dose of 'Vitamin Sea'

By Virginia Winder

The sea could well be my lifesaver.

We love watching surfers in action.

Last year I nearly lost my life to depression, but I stayed. For 8 months out of 12, I struggled on as if I was trudging through mud wearing a concrete suit.

I lost days. Many days, to bed, to sleep, to hours lying in the gloom cuddling the dog or writing grim poems. I had stints in the mental health ward, in crisis respite and at the healing haven that is the Taranaki Retreat.

I held on. Because of love and family, support from mental health staff, because of hope, the deep knowing of my purpose as a storyteller, and because I believed, like every wild storm, “this too shall pass”.

Fitzroy on a stormy evening. 

Even after I wrote a story about how to save your life, which was published far and wide, I fell again. Slipped into a dark cave, a hell in my own head, brain defaulting to perish mode.

It wasn’t enough to hold on. I wanted to thrive, not just survive. 

So, on March 11 this year, we turned to the sea.

You see, in 2009, my husband Warren, son Nelson and I, swam in the sea every single day.

It was the New Year’s resolution of a 12-year-old boy that led to a miraculous discovery – I had no bouts of depression that year. We stopped in March 2010, because I couldn’t shake off a sinus infection, which led to passage-clearing surgery.

A decade on, there’s a raft of research coming out about the benefits of cold-water swimming, and, while the Tasman Sea has yet to turn freezing cold, it will. But already our daily dips in the surf are keeping gloomy days away.

A rainbow at Back Beach. 

“Our” and “we” means Warren and me. We are dedicated to getting our every-day dose of “vitamin sea”, which we also refer to as the “saline solution”.

The idea is head to the beach each day, and dive under at least three waves, feel the worries of the world wash away and soak in the glory of nature.

In less than two months, we have basked in sunsets, swum with shags, stepped on slippery fish, been drenched by rain before plunging into surging surf, gazed at rainbows, waded into stormy seas and watched in awe at the dexterity of Taranaki’s many surfers, who have long known about the healing powers of Tangaroa.

Mostly, we swim at Back Beach, but sometimes head to Fitzroy at high tide, so we can walk our dog, Luna.

A Taranaki traffic jam.

During our travels, we have been held up by cows on Beach Rd, Omata, watched a just-dusted Mt Taranaki turn pink at dusk, and been mesmerised by a murmuration of starlings as they pulse and soar at the end of the day over the Sugar Loaf Islands below Paritutu.

We love following a golden path into the sea at sunset and often turn to each other and say: “Look at this place we live in.”

On Star Wars Day, May the 4th (be with you), we invited anybody to join us at 11am on the sand below the bottom carpark at Back Beach. Six women came along on a day when the surf was even and strong and the day was calm.

On May the 4th the surf was even and strong. 

They all loved it.

Each woman came for different reasons – to support me, to improve their own mental health, to find out about this crazy idea of a daily dip and to be together with others.

Afterwards, all six said they would join us again for a monthly swim.

They felt elated following their Saturday morning dip in cool(ish) water.

“(It was) cold, refreshing and great to be immersed in nature,” says Dee Doherty, who felt greatly energised afterwards.

“I love swimming in our cool, clean powerful ocean and feel so invigorated, physically and mentally, afterwards,” says Bridget Fleming, who is a regular sea and river swimmer.

Cloud spires reflected in black sand at Back Beach.

“I went through so many emotions – fear, excitement, being exhilarated, feeling togetherness, relaxation,” Olena Williams says. “After the excitement was gone I felt very tired and had a nap.”

“Today was magic,” Michelle Bent says. “The sea was refreshingly cool, the waves just the right size. Diving under the first wave, you have to steel yourself for it, but once you’ve done it you feel completely alive. Being with a group enhanced the experience for me.”

Afterwards, she felt alive, strong and young.

Laurel Davis enjoyed “the rush of water, light, sound, being right there tumbled in a wave”. Hours later, she was still feeling “bloody fantastic”.

Luna caught in the path of the setting sun.

Sue Kelly has also started to swim in the sea daily, when possible, to keep the blues at bay. “I feel the physical sensation of the power of the waves exhilarating. Also, the size of the waves creates a degree of fear that I find mentally challenging. So, when I combat those fears it gives me a great feeling of satisfaction and achievement.

“Physically, I felt my skin tingle and (I was) exhilarated especially as we were in for 20 minutes.”

Sue and I stayed in the longest. I also felt uplifted, but also peaceful and bloody cold. It took me hours to warm up properly, so I don’t plan to stay in that long next time. Three waves are OK by me and, in winter, even that will be tough.

But there is no out. I will be in every day because my life depends on it.

So, like a life buoy, I’m clinging to the wise words of one of my greatest fictional heroes, Yoda: “Do. Or do not. There is no try.”

Taste terror to know you're alive

This weta bit like fire, but I'm rapt with Gene Martin's art. 

By Virginia Winder

I am Wetawoman, hear me roar.

But more than 20 years ago, my catch cry was closer to “see a weta, hear me roar”.

For the first 30-something years of my life, I was terrified of the world’s largest insects.

When I saw one of these giant, armoured, serrated critters I would freak, heart pounding, pulse racing and adrenalin flooding. I was a “get it off, get it off,” howler.

Art changed that for me.

One day in about 1997, I found a dead weta in our art room, and gently placed it on my work table. Then I drew it, immersed myself in its intricacies and noted its bronze shell, long delicate feelers, its jagged limbs and marvellous mandibles.

I transformed this drawing into a stencil for printing on shirts with the words “weta dreams” and one of my male workmates wore it with pride and a grin at the play on words.

The first weta stamp

Next came the stamp, which I carved out of rubber, glued on to a wooden block and still use to print patterns on paper.

I was so in love with these armoured critters that by the time it came to choose my first-ever email address in the late 1990s, it seemed natural to have wetawoman@, which still works today. I’m also Wetawoman on Twitter, Instagram and Spotify.

Not only was I absolutely enamoured by the bronze-brown beauties, but I also discovered my fear had completely disappeared.

Paper printed with my carved designs.

By the early 2000s, I could hold a weta, cradle it in my hands like a delicate bird and talk to it with soothing words without a trace of fear.

I believe creatures know whether we’re frightened, have violent intent or are welcoming and comfortable around them. Animals can smell fear. The weta I held, or those who have climbed up my legs, weren’t spooked and neither was I.

Yes, weta can hurt. They have a bite, which allegedly feels like being nipped by a crab, something that’s happened to my feet umpteen times over the years while standing in the sea. Those pincers give you a fright, but not enough to leave the water.

These critters are all over the house. 

In 2002, my sister and I joined forces to make an entry for the Taranaki Fashion Art Awards. We made a wild creation called Pacific Angel Meets the Wetawoman. My sister wove a curvaceous dress from flax. I dyed fabric to look like the sea and printed it with bronze weta. This flowed out beneath the flax work.

The costume comes to life. 

A brown op-shop dress beneath the flax was covered with bronze-sprayed magnolia leaves, and I made a helmet out of plaster of Paris, sprouting flax flowers, again all sprayed bronze. We used phoenix palm fronds as wings and adorned the wings and a choker necklace with large pieces of paua shell to add Pacific sparkle. 

Made over two days and nights – we went down to the wire – we won the ethnic section of awards.

Over the years, I have accumulated weta ornaments. A gorgeous one by Taranaki artist Laurel Davis graces our bedroom wall, a wire weta perches on the wall in our entrance way, and I have a collection of life-like plastic creatures that sit in places all over the house – in the artroom, below my screen monitor and on our bed end.

Yesterday, a friend gave me a glorious weta paperweight her mother wasn’t fond of. It’s now on my PC motherboard.

Weta sculpture by Laurel Davis. 

But on Thursday my Wetawoman status became more permanent when Gene Martin at Brothers Ink in New Plymouth tattooed a glorious critter on to my right shoulder.

He also etched me with three green ginkgo leaves, representing “the bearers of hope”. That’s another whole story. That tattoo stung mildly.

Next, he added a dahlia flower and leaves to my first tattoo, “This too shall pass;” turning those life-saving words into a stem. Dahlias have been my favourite flowers since I began my “flower of the day” obsession nearly six years ago. The chosen picture was one I took of a dahlia in our own garden. The flower bloody hurt.

A wire weta in our entranceway. 

By the time he got to the weta, the pain had amped up like an annoying neighbour’s stereo at 4am, except I wasn’t facing noise, I was feeling fire.

Gene urged me to breathe through it and I found myself in child-birth mode, diving under waves of pain and clinging on to the black sand below, until the contraction, or in this case the burn of skin-inking, washed over me.

Then it was over; the transformation complete. I am Wetawoman hear me roar.

A paperweight gifted to me by a friend. 

Facing fears, like holding giant insects, jumping out of a plane as a friend just has (to adrenalin-rushing joy), performing your own poems before a large audience (I did that last year at Womad in the Poetry Slam and to my amazement came second) are good for the soul. They make us feel alive. 

Last week, my husband Warren and I saw Nick Cave in Conversation at the Michael Fowler Centre in Wellington.

The Australian musician alternated between answering questions from the audience and singing while playing a black grand piano. It was a bit like the tattoos (yet to come) – a mixture of pain (too many questions began as long I-focused sycophantic preambles) and the pleasure of seeing or this case hearing what he had to say.

Cave did answer questions, but some he ignored, others he promised to come back to but mostly didn’t. His answers were fascinating and profound, funny and inspiring. But he talked about fear and that touched me: “Doing this is to invite the terror back in; to stand in front of you is terrifying.”

Nick Cave says he's not a genius, he's just put in the work. 

It got me thinking about the things I want to do but am terrified about attempting or doing.

I didn’t have to look too far – the answer is fiction writing and, yes, performing poetry in front of a bunch of people I don’t know. I shake on stage, which is damn annoying.

But there’s the thrill of getting up there and sharing words that have been wrenched from the heart, from the soul, from somewhere so deep I don’t have a clue where they come from.

After last year’s effort, I vowed never to do it again. But, like the pain of childbirth – and tattoos – the agony fades until you are left with a beautiful baby or an indelible artwork with a story behind it.

To be a writer you have to write. 

So, I’ve chosen to enter the Womad Poetry Slam again, but don’t know if I’ll be chosen for the final seven. We’ll see.

But the BIG decision I’ve made is to focus purely on writing this year – many feature stories, some news, a pile of poetry and to finish the novel I started about three years ago.

Here, Taranaki’s own Elizabeth Smither and David Hill, plus Nick Cave have the answer – you must be disciplined and do the work.

There’s nothing glamorous about their lifestyles because it’s all about hard graft.

“I turn up to the place I work every morning, the same as any other office worker,” Cave told the Wellington audience.

While he does need to have a flash of inspiration to write a novel, his lyrics come from sitting down and writing; by doing the work, just like our Taranaki word stars.

Time to roar - and write!

So, don’t expect to see me hanging out in cafes quite as often – unless I’m working. I’ll be home, fingers on the keyboard taming the terror of finally facing fiction.

And yes, I will find the art box that’s been turned off and hidden somewhere in a far-flung universe, and with the nerve and verve of a superhero, I’ll fly it home, switch it back on and start creating in my art room again.

Because I know this for certain: Tackling knuckle-white terror shifts something inside, makes you stronger, opens your mind to new ways of being and thinking.

I am Wetawoman hear me roar! 

Try a little kindness....

By Virginia Winder

I’ve gone on about kindness, thrown it around like confetti, at an old-fashioned wedding.

But what does it actually look like? Especially when it comes to mental despair.

I say to those people uncomfortable in the face of depression, anxiety and panic attacks, of bipolar ups and downs, relax, we’re not going to infect you.

There is no superbug of mental illness although depression is proving to be prevalent and tough to beat.

Please treat us the same as someone with a physical illness. Offer to visit and don’t be offended if we say no, but we certainly want to be asked.

If we turn down your invitation to an outing with lots of people, it’s not about you. It’s that social anxiety critter, one that often accompanies a full-blown depressive episode, apt to rear its ugly head during the festive season.

If you know someone’s in the throes of the lows, write a nice text, send flowers or chocolates, post a card and no, we don’t expect or want you to counsel us, but a kind listening ear is a gift. Please keep us in mind because we can’t escape ours.

I’m going to be truthful - the past year has been a mixture of heaven and hell.

Heaven was three weeks in Kerala, India.

Hell has been inside my head, with a touch of back pain thrown in for variety.

But the pain from a prolapsed mid-disc is entirely different to mental agony.

A back injury can be captured on an MRI, it can be defined, solutions found and a healing timeframe offered.

The Taranaki Base Hospital team are nearly as good looking.

You’re of so much interest to the orthopaedic surgical team, there is usually a Grey’s Anatomy learning moment at the foot of your bed each morning.

Throughout the day, you’re asked to score your pain out of 10. If you’re teetering on the upper limit or less you are given strong pain relief.

Yet depression is undefinable. There is no way to find its cause - physiological or psychological? Or both.

Research is linking depression to gut health and also inflammation.

I’m not expected to find answers for my prolapsed disc, although I do always google to get a mental picture of what’s happening.

But on the mental health front, I feel I should’ve earned a doctorate by now.

The mental health practitioners who care for me, do their best and are exceptional.

But it was me who had to do the research between menopause and bipolar. The stats are alarming because they show that depressive episodes double for menopausal women living with a diagnosis of bipolar.

Yay! A definitive moment.

Yes, that’s a distressing answer, but at least it explains why, in the past few years, my mood has spiralled down and down.

But I want to be well, in control and living a full life, one where I don’t end up in hospital, crisis respite or need to seek space to breathe at the Taranaki Retreat.

I’ve decided 2019 will be a year of healing, learning, giving and gratitude.

Did you know that doing a kind act for someone else is the quickest way to receive a boost of the feel-good hormone oxytocin?

Weirdly, I have a rule, taught to me by my mother, never to tell people if I’ve done something kind. It’s not about accolades, it’s about the act.

And we’re back to kindness.

Please reach out with warmth to those who are suffering, particularly those living with mental despair, often hidden.

And there are those of us who live with ongoing episodes of depression that we work so damn hard to avoid, but still they come again and again. That’s despite using mindfulness tools, brain-based therapy, self-compassion, CBT, DBT and ACT - oh the acronyms I know, the books I’ve read, the magazine articles I’ve consumed, the research papers I’ve mulled over.

The inflammation and gut-health theories are under scrutiny in our household right now, so you will be offered easily digestible information on these topics soon.

In the meantime, never presume that those of us living in the lows aren’t doing our best to carry on like nothing’s wrong or using every tool possible to get well.

If someone you know is dogged by depression, reach out or be receptive.

You never know when a lovely message may be a turning point for someone feeling hopeless.

None of us knows who is hurting, or having a day gone from bad to worthless, so be kind to everyone.

You’ll get an oxytocin hit and add colour to someone’s grey day.

Tattooed by You

By Virginia Winder

This tattoo, inspired by a Dr Who quote, isn't etched on me yet.... 

When photographer Peter Peryer died, I felt like one of the constants in my life was gone. I saw him nearly every week at Ozone or about town. He had touched my heart a dozen years ago and stayed there. But he's one of a thousand people - probably way more - now part of my inner landscape. Men, women, dead, alive... you're all there. This poem entered my head at Peter's funeral, but poured out this evening.

Tattooed by You

I’ve fallen in love with dead men

Celebrated women of guts and grace

Absorbed the lives of the living

For more than three decades

I’ve stood in your shoes

Slipped into your souls

Looked through your eyes

And seen the world your way

I’ve let you all in, barriers down

Soaked in the essence of you

And you and you and you

Until I’m forever changed

By every single person

I’ve pinned down in shorthand

Arranged with coloured felt pens

And then poured out

Through racing fingers

On to a white screen

Calibri font, size 11

Printed in Times New Roman

Well mostly.

I’ve slept with others

Yes – this much is true

Those recorded over the phone

Have been taken to bed

One earplug retelling your tale

In the dark of the night

The dog snuggled by my feet

Gentle snoring at my back

Then you’ve been released

At first light

By a woman in a red dressing gown

Who has hung on your every word

Delighted at each anecdote

Felt every pang of pain

And so, your tales

Are now part of me

Still yours, always

But every single story

Is written inside my mind

I’m tattooed forever

With the shape of your lives.