“For many years, I have been moved by the blue at the far edge of what can be seen, that color of horizons, of remote mountain ranges, of anything far away. The color of that distance is the color of an emotion, the color of solitude and of desire, the color of there seen from here, the color of where you are not.” (Solnit, 2006, p. 29).
Looking out at Taranaki on the horizon I am transported to a kitchen where the mountain hangs like a huge painting in the window, breathtaking and close, framed by pongas and clouds. Taranaki is the backdrop for a cup of tea and a friendship I feel at home in.
Standing and looking out across the distance from Ruapehu to Taranaki I think about that blue of longing. I know that from over there Ruapehu will be cloaked in the same mysterious blue of distance and I feel the longing like a thread that ties the two places together.
Though I can imagine myself in that other place, what I’m feeling isn’t a yearning to be elsewhere, it is a yearning to belong here in this place, on this mountain, Ruapehu.
Rhubarb Pyjamas 