Tony | Carterton, Wairarapa

“I think in a fairly mundane way, there was just a much more general acknowledgement of people you live around, but don’t usually see or even actively acknowledge each other.

Just in a neighbourly sense, people were much more willing to ask after you and check if you’re okay and I think you felt very unconsciously motivated to do the same.  So, that’s what springs to mind in a sort of very recent sense. 

There was a friend who was living alone who sort of struggles with mental health issues, and I think just with lack of connection they were finding it really hard to get by and even do some simple things like feed themselves, and so we took some food around and just left it in their letterbox, and that was something. It was hard, because they probably just needed a hug or just some connection, but I think that a lot of people struggled when the one thing that you couldn’t really do was that. You had to sort of try and find other ways to help.

I think the thing that’s happened lately has really shone a light on that breakdown of community in terms of discrete individuals and suddenly it just showed what great importance there is in having that connection or concern beyond yourself. I think that tends to be what I think, when I think of kindness, doing something good for someone else, even just the right thing, even if no-one knows you’re doing it. I hope it only continues in the future, to be honest.

I grew up in Manawatū and immigrated to Australia when I was six with my family.  I grew up in rural Queensland, sort of in the middle of nowhere for a long period of time and I came back to New Zealand in my late-20s. I’ve since been living in the Wairarapa. I enjoy living here. I enjoy the quietness, but I think having moved around a lot as a kid, or even as an adult, I don’t ever really connect with a place in a deep way. I’m always thinking about where to go next. I feel quite transient, as opposed to being someone who’s very rooted in one spot.”