On the Magic of a Messy House

Marlon Williams and a year on the ‘stack

marlon knows

Our house is messy. Our books seem to like the floor. Clothes, too. Come proper winter we quit folding the blankets on the couch. It’s comfy in here, though, and just warm enough. Most days I see in the chaos a nest of life, ideas, and jackets. Other days all I see is failure. I snap at family and self alike. You gotta press a vision on the world, kids! You gotta hang up your jacket!

And so it was with delight that I listened to the RNZ interview with Marlon Williams the other day. His beautiful new album, Te Whare Tiwekaweka, is sung entirely in te reo Māori; the album title translates to House in Disarray, or Messy House. The album’s rollout has been a bit of a cultural moment here, by which I mean

Hinemoana Baker

has already written a great poem about it. Here’s the clip where Marlon explains the title:

It’s sort of the rumblings of new creations. It’s that chaos—it’s the chaos and being witness to it, and watching the way things are talking to each other, before you impose your very human order on things. It’s the most magical part of the process.

Chur, bro. This is a classic trust-the-process gem my brain claims to know and my gut never remembers. But I’m out here learning.

I jumped into this boat last April. I’ve now written some 50 letters, and drawn a nice crowd who kindly teach me as I go. I’m more grateful for this community than I can ever write down. The letters themselves feel like a proud pile of pages scattered in the wind, as maybe all art should? Are they even art? Chaos and process, certainly, with magic in there somewhere. But this I know: the magic only happens when the words get read. Thanks, y’all, from the bottom of my heart. Let me repay you with Marlon singing Aua Ata Rā, the album’s first single, to a sheep:

marlonwilliamssings

A post shared by @marlonwilliamssings

And here’s your back-of-the-house tour: I’ve been writing these letters as part of a PhD in creative writing at Te Herenga Waka / Victoria University of Wellington. I set out to figure out how one might write to two national audiences at once, in New Zealand and America; I’ve since found myself happily working a third online-only room, Substack’s ever-growing House of Expat. I’ve tried to rotate my targets week to week (here they are, sorted by addressee.) As a result I’ve grown a subscription list that’s evenly split between readers in the US and NZ, with another chunk from countries all over the world. I think this symmetry is pretty cool! But why, exactly?

Last week’s letter on the weirdness of American expat power feels, now, like a turning of the wheel. Funny how a year spent writing about a place makes one feel less an outsider, or perhaps just less inclined to bang on about it every week! I began the year vowing to go deeper into the green mountains, metaphorical and otherwise. I’ve plumbed the mysteries of home and leaving it; of distance, speed, war, and rugby; of kiwis in red and green bowling lawns. But I don’t know quite where on the map I’ve ended up.

I’m an American in Aotearoa—this still sounds pretty cool to me, all those A’s. I’m tauiwi, a gringo, an American writer and an ever more Kiwi dad. We contain multitudes, right? Aua ata rā, as Marlon sang to the sheep. The line means doesn’t matter, or even better: oh well. That’s a shot from the video up top, our man adrift on a raft. Te ama ka tau kei atu nei, he sings. Roughly: This boat is falling apart. Aua atu rā.

Going deeper from here, I think, requires shaking things up.

Going deeper personally: I owe my thesis a good whack of non-online writing—such a thing still exists!—and I will tighten up these letters to make room for the work.

Going deeper publically: I’m working up new ways to further the discourse between the two nations I love. More soon. Watch this messy house!

Marlon’s line carries another meaning, too.¹ In his RNZ interview, he explains that Te Whare Tiwekaweka also reflects “the messy house of New Zealand national identity.” Ah, that’s the good stuff! It’s a Māori country, it’s a Pākehā country, it’s a distant land of newcomers like me. One Monday every June a cafe here in Greytown puts up giant cutouts of the British Royals, to celebrate the birth of a distant King born in November. From

Hinemoana Baker

’s poem: New Zealand / is that hired pot-plant in the corner / office, over-watered, bloat-leafed / and anyone can see with just one look / it's planted in entirely the wrong soil.

crowded house / thx jenny!

I love this image. Not the royals, the messy house. I’ve never heard it said about America. We’re a melting pot or a chunky stew or some wild, golden chorus. Or we were. Even in brighter times we never saw ourselves as cozy or confined as a house, much less a messy one. A city on the hill sweeps its dust under the rug.

To my ear a messy house implies both awkwardness and comfort, aspiration and limits. That we may yet make something new, together—yes. It won’t ever be perfect—no. Repeat. Apply to dreams as wide as a nation and narrow as a newsletter. To a writing life, or just, y’know, a life. On we go. Thanks for coming with me.

My son cleans his room every Saturday we remember to ask. He diligently clears up the books, Legos, Pokemon cards, and marble runs, then calls me in for an inspection. Together we consider the floor, empty as it was the day we arrived. Well done, I say.

I’m still in the hall when I hear the toys tumble out again. He’s busy. He’s got things to make. //

1. Listen to Aua Ata Rā or even just watch the interview. See if you can resist going first-name-only with the man.