Emma Rose | Onehunga
“My name is Emma-rose, and I live in Fort Street in Onehunga. Friendship is very important because I think the problem in this modern age is you’re not as close to your neighbours as you used to be, and you get quite lonely.
I have a few friends, true friends, but I have a lot of like, casual acquaintances, and I think that sometimes people mistake true friendship for people that don’t actually care that much about you. I’ve got a really, really good friend called Berget. I met her at the local park, Jellicoe Park. She’s going to Germany, and she needed someone to look after her dog, Rosie, and she’s basically become like my surrogate mother. She’s amazing. The most amazing, amazing woman. I used to dog walk for her dog, and recently her dog passed away, and it was really nice because she allowed me to come into her home, and we had a nice meal together, and we got to say goodbye to Rosie. She’s getting old, and you know, the friendship was also about the dog as well as her, and it was really, really sad for all of us. My kids were included as well, and that was really nice.
I grew up in a place called Whāngārei. Not a great place to grow up. There wasn’t much happening when was growing up. I remember when we first got a movie theatre. It was really cool. I have two children; Anika who’s 18 and Jack who’s 13. My life revolves around my children. I’ve always been a fulltime mum. I have autism, which makes life a little bit challenging, I suppose. I love doing volunteer work. I’ve done lots and lots of volunteer work. I work at an art gallery as a volunteer. The coolest opportunity recently was going to Tiritiri Matangi as a DOC worker for a week. That was amazing. Greg looked after the kids, and I got to spend a whole week looking at native bush, and flora and fauna. I love studying plants. I love gardening.
Community is not just my neighbours; it’s also the people that live in your area. It’s really cool when you go for a walk, and you bump into people, and you’re like, hey how’s it going, hey how’re your kids doing, you know, how’s that, you know, nice plant? I’ve been plant-swapping with some of my neighbours. It’s really, really cool, and I think that sense of community is vital to a person’s mental wellness. Without that sense of belonging, I think we feel isolated.
Berget; where do I start? She’s got a lovely husband called Stewart, who’s an amateur ornithologist, but we have a love of books, we have a love of going to the theatre together. She likes taking me out for meals. She knows I don’t have a lot of money, and it’s not about money; it’s about doing things together. We’ve taken the kids for a walk on the beach, and all those kinds of things that don’t always cost money but became nice experiences. Walking along Māngere Mountain, having ice-cream in the summer, which is always a good thing. Going for a walk down to Onehunga Mall and having an ice-cream; coolest thing to do. Onehunga was a bit cool I must admit before they took away the Hard to Find Bookshop. Berget also lives down the road from me, so it’s quite easy for me to do dog walking for her. She’s got a lovely garden. She works as a teacher. Not the most appreciated job in the world, I don’t think, and it’s quite nice to have a friend you can kind of bounce ideas of and talk about things, and go through what you’re going through as a person. I think it’s really, really important.”
