Dialogue: Life's just one big sensory exercise

By ROANNE PARKER

I'm standing as far over the edge of the lake as it is possible to be without falling in. The woman who drove the shuttle from the airport told me that I would live no more than 15 minutes should I get stuck in this water, and I decided then to do my best not to.

There is nobody here. The setting sun and scudding clouds are reflecting as an infinity of rippling lights across the surface of the water.

The last rays of sun lie across a desolate band of the peak on the far shore. I wonder that nobody has built a house right there, right in that band of wintry orange sunlight.

It is so cold the air smells like ice-cubes taste. I always thought that taste was a Fisher and Paykel-borne essence, but apparently it is not, because the same taste lingers in my mouth with every inhaled breath.

I'm in Queenstown and I never want to leave. I'm like that, though. Three weeks ago I was in sleepy little beachside Leigh, and as I stretched out in the sun at the wonderful Sawmill Cafe, I decided I would never leave there, either.

I have strong physical responses to my surroundings. A great view gets me in the solar plexus and takes my breath away; the beach lowers my pulse rate and opens my lungs. When I walk into a stand of native forest, the smells and colours cloak me. I pull leaves off the bush and taste them.

I stop to pick up handfuls of whatever is at my feet - leaf litter, sexy cool sand, snow - and rub it between my fingers, weigh it in my hand, sniff at it.

Even walking to the local shops sees me rolling lavender spears between my palms so I can sniff the trace of oils off my fingers.

What makes me happy, truly happy, deep into my soul? Stylish grey gum leaves in Cornwall Park; skidding on pine needles at a North Canterbury beach; lying under a stunning pohutukawa in Northland; blinking back the tears that well in my eyes as the plane streaks over the Southern Alps.

I used to watch one of my children with a mixture of envy and horror as she ploughed through her first year of life determined to learn about the world with all of her senses.

Rather than use a spoon to feed herself as the others did, she just rubbed the yoghurt all over her upper body, experimenting with nutrition by osmosis. While most toddlers would splash feet in a puddle, she would lie down on the footpath and smell it, stare at it, slap it. If she was quicker than I was, she would lick it like a puppy.

There was little I could do to curb her exploration, so I watched and intervened only if she looked like she was harming herself.

What can I say? I was the same and really I still am. One of my earliest memories is the taste of the back of the church pew in front of me each Sunday. I can still recall it vividly - the taste of old lacquered wood and the fingerprints of 100 years of genuflectors.

Mum loves to remind me how I would announce loudly if we visited the house of a friend that this house smells funny. It's true - every house smells funny if you don't live there.

I can tell all of my children apart by their smell, their essence. Any mother would probably say the same.

This scent can be disguised - when my kids have stayed at their dad's house, they smell different because he uses a different laundry powder - but underneath they smell like they smell.

When I was about 12, my leaf-chewing exploits got me into hospital. A prickly holly leaf stuck in the back of my throat, leaving me gagging wildly.

Did it stop me from constantly putting things into my mouth like a demented 2-year-old? No, it did not.

And you know what - no matter how strange I look walking up Mt Eden Rd sniffing the lavender on my hands, I delight in the way that I can immerse myself in this world of ours.

We are incredibly blessed by nature in this gorgeous country, and no matter where you are, life can be a sensory experience. Touch it, taste it, hear it, smell it, and look, look, look. Drink it all in every day.

And let your children at it, too. If you are really worried, keep the poisons hotline number in your wallet.