Status Updates From Sideways New Zealand: The R...

“You’ve got to go back,” Hana urged over breakfast the next morning at her parents’ modest house in Napier on the North Island, situated on the placid harbor. “You’ll never be at peace with yourself,” she counseled. She leaned forward across the table. “You’ll always be wandering and wondering.”

-Pickett, Rex. Sideways: New Zealand.

"When the haka had ended, the silence that ensued was more profound than any I had ever experienced. Not even death, I concluded, would be this transporting."

-Pickett, Rex. Sideways: New Zealand.

'Jack grimaced when he examined the fresh new damage to the camper van. “I hope Hughie’s got insurance.”'

-Pickett, Rex. Sideways: New Zealand.

"The Coterie is a tall, white, windowless building standing sentinel on a knoll a short distance outside Blenheim in the Marlborough region of New Zealand."

-Pickett, Rex. Sideways: New Zealand.

"We woke in Edenic splendor at the Pegasus Bay Winery guest lodge just north of Christchurch. I had met winemaker Mat Donaldson at a wine event, and he had offered the accommodations if I ever needed a place to stay."

-Pickett, Rex. Sideways: New Zealand

"And then Ashleigh and Shirley—the fangirls Jack and I had come to meet—charged."

-Pickett, Rex. Sideways: New Zealand.

"As the storm clouds whorled and amassed and the skies ruptured black, I glimpsed a fulguration of hope from somewhere in my bleak being, as if there were still new galaxies to be discovered, in tow with Jack, another road trip beckoning."

-Pickett, Rex. Sideways: New Zealand.

"A moment ago the sun was slipping over the mountains and the snow was gilded and the lands were dark, and now it was night and my hand was clasped to my mouth, and I had no words for what I was feeling, what had now shattered the placidity of my newfound sacred aloneness."

-Pickett, Rex. Sideways: New Zealand