The Rest

The sun sets behind the mountain range to the west of Queenstown. It paints the sky with fire, reflecting off the perfectly clear water of the bay. Above me the sky darkens into deep blue velvet that is not quite dark enough for stars. The soft strains of piano drift over the murmur of the crowd gathered at the harbor.

Piano has always been one of my favorite instruments. Drums are for fighting. Guitars are for loving. Violins are for crying. Piano is something else. Piano is for hope. Desperate, wordless, hope. Hope against all odds, all reason, and all logic. This hope is perhaps the best thing there is.

I love piano. And the kid playing it is a master. His sign says he’s self taught, that he’s traveling around with his buddy in a van playing in various places, and that he doesn’t know how old the piano is. I’d believe it. Look up mathiaspianoman.bandcamp.com to find his stuff.

The rest is almost over.

New Zealand was supposed to be some well deserved R&R. A vacation from the vacation. It was, in it’s own way. I’d managed to skydive, bungee jump, see the Franz Joseph Glacier, get destroyed in a dodge ball game, and hike up multiple mountains. Despite all that it was still restful. New Zealand is quiet, laid back.

Tomorrow I take a roughly twenty-hour flight to Istanbul, where I arrive at five in the morning.

I sit on the wall separating the bay from Queenstown boardwalk, balanced precariously on a high concrete wall. This affords me a view of the sunset and the boardwalk, the piano man and the people juxtaposing with the fading light and brilliant colors. As the piano sings the sun to sleep, I muse that this is what other people go their entire lives without seeing: a perfect moment.

Too soon the sun fades and the piano packs up. The wind blows and I shake myself out of the dream.

The rest is almost over. 

-Doug