LIFE

Some things only make sense years later.

The people we met when we were young, the things that happened, a choice, a few words — they all became part of who we are.

Looking back, you realise those chance moments only happened once.

A student carrying a tape recorder beside his New Zealand teacher on a 1990s university campus

ESSAY INDEX

All Life essays

01 / 04

A middle-aged man and his younger self looking towards the coast

Life · MemoryMeeting My Thirty-Years-Ago SelfA reunion after thirty years becomes a meeting with the boy who could not use Pinyin.Read essay →

A Chinese student carrying a tape recorder beside his New Zealand teacher on a 1990s university campus

Life · Language & MigrationThe Kiwi Teacher Whose Eyes I Could Never Quite Meet AgainA small misunderstanding that echoed from Wuhan to New Zealand across decades.Read essay →

A driveway through autumn trees towards a hunting lodge

Life · FamilyEighteen: The Same Confusion, in a Different WorldA father and daughter reach eighteen in different times.Read essay →

The Green Island brick house more than twenty years later

Life · ReflectionThe Day We Kept Putting Our Hand UpA first New Zealand home, an auction, and the questions we did not yet know to ask.Read essay →