My sister has been on my mind, likely because next week it will be fifteen years since she passed away.
A little context: I very rarely speak about her. It was my birthday a couple of weeks ago and my friends and I were at Duck Island on Cuba Street in Wellington after dinner and I wanted to say something, I had this urge not unlike a stomach ache to make a speech and so I did, right there with everyone gathered around on the bench seats and tiny stools. I told them about how, when I was twenty-five, I decided I didn’t want to be sad about my birthday anymore and that I would celebrate every year because I’m lucky to grow old and experience new things, things that my little sister, my beautiful little girl, wouldn’t get to experience. She should have had two lives, one where she could walk and talk and the one she got, and both of them were taken from her. I have this one and I was determined to live it.
Celebrating my birthday on absolute purpose is the one way I remember her where I’m not also traumatised by the loss of her. It’s defiant, it’s mine. It’s a ritual and I’m the pilgrim. It probably makes no sense to anyone else. To me it’s holy.
I made this vow sitting out on the street at a shisha shop in the early hours of the morning in Auckland Central. It’s almost like I could see them in front of me. All the birthday dinners where I’d take myself out for ramen, or a special brunch, the flowers I’d buy, the boujee pub crawl where we just drank cocktails, even that one time I bought a birthday cake and then had to eat it all.
My beautiful friend Te Aroha told me a couple of days ago that she was honoured to be there to celebrate for me and my sister. Charles said the vibes were impeccable. I think that is the nicest thing you can say about a birthday dinner. I’m grateful to have nice people around me who let me be earnest sometimes. I think I’m earnest a lot, actually. My cousin, Rae, said she was proud of me for talking about her.
Jean. That’s her name. I’m proud of me too.
There’s another reason why she’s been on my mind. I’ve just started a bookstagram account (moonlighting as an author account as soon as I figure out what kind of authorial stuff I might want to post) because I want to read more books in 2025. You’d think that being accepted into a mentoring programme for writers would inspire me to read more last year, yet it did not. There were some pretty big reasons why I struggled to read and do a lot of other things last year, but I’ll save that kōrero for my therapist (therapy is great, please do it if you need someone to talk to).
I’d been averaging around 20 or so books a year for the past few years, and in 2024 I read six books. Usually, my goal is to read 24 books a year, because that’s two books a month. Last year I averaged one book every two months. This year I want to read three books a month, 36 in total.
If I’m not reading it’s a surefire way to know I’m not okay. You know when you stop doing your hobbies and the things you usually love? Writing, knitting, cooking. Reading. Listening to podcasts (not me, because I think podcasts are homework and I don’t want more homework in my life, but most people love them). Gardening (also not me, my plants are currently in the plant rehabilitation centre aka my cousin’s house). But you get the gist, right? If you’re out of sorts you can tell by the things you’re not doing.
Luckily, the fastest way for me to find myself again is through reading. Books are such a big part of my identity… perhaps the biggest part. Or the biggest part of my identity that wasn’t shaped by the love and loss of my sister. I’ve loved books my whole life. Books predated even her. I’m a reader first and then a writer, it’s why I’m a writer, and surely it’s why a lot of people write: because we love to read. Books have quite literally saved my life.
The year my sister passed away I had enrolled in a year of English literature at Waikato University, and a couple of weeks after her tangi I was sitting in a lecture hall listening to overviews about courses with my best friend next to me because she was curious about the English papers. Or she just wanted to make sure I was okay. Or she was procrastinating from writing her thesis. Probably all three. But what the hell was I thinking? Maybe two weeks after the single worst moment of my life, I was taking notes about Victorian literature. It’s completely bizarre to me now, thinking about it. Why didn’t I drop out? Why did I keep going? I guess I just needed something to do. And spending the year reading seemed as good a thing as any.
The other notable event that happened in 2010 was that I got my restricted license, finally, and I had a car, so I could go places! I think the only place I really went was to Rotorua to the plant rehabilitation centre aka my cousin’s house and I did a heck of a lot of op shopping. I bought books. So many second-hand books. Stacks and stacks of them. My room turned into a library. For that hazy year where I didn’t want the world I was living in to be real, I just read books. It kept my head above the water when I otherwise would have drowned.
Books to me are a tohu, a sign. Are you okay? They say to me. Don’t worry, you’re going to be. There’s a pile of them on the floor at the end of my bed because I’ve run out of space on my bookshelf. Books I’ve read at the bottom and new ones I’ve collected or been gifted over the holidays at the top. Another of my 2025 goals is to replace some of the more battered and decaying second-hand books on my favourites shelf with new copies. Heidi Grows Up, which was my favorite book as a kid. Dr Zhivago, currently falling apart. Pride and Prejudice, one of those blue hardback copies you get at a secondhand bookstore as a set with like, Vanity Fair and The Mill on the Floss. There’s Madame Bovary, which I read in 2010. The Bell Jar. Tess of the D’Urbervilles. Can you tell that I got an A+ in Tragedy?
My flatmate has already got me started with a trio of Jane Austen hardbacks from Whitcoulls. They are gorgeous pastel colours. I’m very interested in the tiny classics with gold on the pages that you can also get at Whitcoulls. How can War and Peace be that small? I’m determined to read one and find out. I hope they’re not abridged. I’ve never read War and Peace so I wouldn’t know the difference either way.
One last thing, with the books. I’ve drafted a reading list for the summer (we often get a late summer in Wellington) and the theme is science fiction. I am writing a science fiction novel, after all. Every time I go into Unity Books there’s a few novels that repeatedly snag in my brain. So here’s my summer science fiction reading list:
- The Principle of Moments by Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson
- The Mires by Tina Makereti (does near future count? I’m keeping it on the list)
- Hyperion by Dan Simmons
- Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh
- The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin (my christmas present! I have the whole set!)
- Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
- Turncoat by Tīhema Baker
- Migration by Steph Matuku (actual homework, thanks Tania)
- A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine (deeply obsessed with A Memory Called Empire, 10,000 percent recommend)
- The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin (want to read all the Hainish novels!)
I’ll be reading over the next few weeks, posting on my bookstagram, and writing of course, doing the mahi to remind myself who I am and that everything is going to be okay, and if I’m drowning a little it won’t be for long. There’s things to do.
