All about the whanau

I'm in my favourite kebab shop in Petone (Kilim), finishing off some teaching work and a mixed doner kebab at the same time - mmm multitasking :)

This morning I distracted cousin Terese at Maori Studies for a while before going to dive into the Alexander Turnbull archive with cousin Katrina Te Punga where we found two fab photos of my great grandfather we hadn't seen before and ordered a whole lot more material we're going to check out on Thursday, possibly with cousin Tamati (right Tama?)... now I'm in Petone, or Pito-one, the place from whichmy relatives watched the first Europeans sail into the harbour. In an hour I'll be picking up Matiu from school. This afternoon I'm 100% Matiu's Auntie Lala and nothing else; I am going to teach him how to do his own hair (I won't be here to make sure it curls right!) and he has put in a special request for nachos which we will make together.

So much family, all the time. Can I do it again? Can I be away from all of this - all of them - for so long all over again?

Te tau okioki is going to be about proximity and distance. I'll be closer to my writing self (the girl I've often known as 'my PhD student self') but further from my whanau. Well, further from Katrina and Matiu and all the gang, but closer in some ways to Hamuera... the major project of the next year will be my book that I'm calling 'Ghost Writers: The Maori Books You've Never Read' and one of the chapters is called 'Family ghosts' and in that chapter I'm looking at Hamuera (and Grandad) as writers. When I'm talking informally about some of the other writers in my project, especially the early ones like Mowhee, Kooley and Te Rangihiroa, I'll often say I'm 'stalking' them... but with the family ghosts it's not exactly stalking; it's just spending more time with people I already know. 

So much family, all the time.