True rewards

A toast-sliced cape seed loaf from Bakers Delight;

both seasons of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, back-to-back;

Eraserhead seen for the first time in a cinema;

emerging from a cinema, into the daylight;

listening to Jaco Pastorius play Charlie Parker’s Donna Lee for the first time;

listening to Jaco Pastorius play anything;

reading the first page of Russell Hoban’s Pilgermann;

reading the other 239 pages;

the opening flourish of New Order’s Regret;

the remaining four minutes of it;

walking up to the copper mines in Coniston, Cumbria;

walking through Mount Eden Village on a summer morning with the woman you
                                                                                                                                                          love;

remembering what it is to be in love;

finding something you have lost;

making everyone laugh at your joke, instead of being the butt of it;

sensing the heartbreaking crush of nostalgia and succumbing to it;

finding just the right word;

creating the right balance of ingredients in homemade babaghanoush;

the smell and taste of a glass of Laphroaig on a winter’s evening;

crushed rosemary on the warm afternoon air;

The Isley Brothers’ Summer Breeze with the jasmine in bloom in the background;

a clean towel and clean sheets;

a cold shower on a humid day;

the memory of the route through a series of interconnected dreams;

the spark that fires the imagination and ignites an idea;

drawing a symmetrical spiral;

the near-death experience of uncontrollable laughter;

the smell of tomatoes fresh from the vine;

wild rabbit loin on a confit of pickled rhubarb and chorizo with red wine verjus;

eaten with a glass of CJ Pask ‘Gimblett Gravels’, Hawkes Bay, 2001 New Zealand

                                                                                                                                                      Syrah;

writing the final page of your novel and knowing it was the final page;

having a beautiful stranger smile at you;

listening to Billy Collins reading one of his poems;

the look of a great poem on the page;

listening to Joe Pass playing anything on the guitar;

the exhilaration of being hit by a wave and pushed back towards the beach;

warming up in the sun after you have been for a swim in the sea;

seeing the dunes at Hokianga for the first time;

and the Pohutukawas in bloom along Cooper’s Beach;

eating bluenose and chips at the Mangonui fish shop;

the idea—like the spicy tang of vanilla incense and the aroma of Christmas baking—

of smoking a Cohiba Romeo y Julieta Churchill cigar rather than actually doing it;

the smell of freshly ground Blue Mountain Coffee from the grinder—

rather than the taste in the cup;

turning the page;

finishing a new poem.

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