I go for a run up and up into the Port Hills. Tired legs. Sparkling late winter. From the edge of the crater, the roads appear as grids, straight and even compared to the crooked curves of the caldera. (Great word, will take any excuse to use it). From afar, I see wind shields glinting in the sun.

Shreyas and I go to a friend’s house for dinner. They’ve recently bought a house in a far flung suburb, somewhere they could afford. Things that come up: length of commute (an hour and a half in traffic). The height of fences. Fuel efficiency of the new car. Where good parking is in the city. A minor neighbourly dispute over a garage. Cars, cars, cars.

I am borrowing a car for a reporting trip, and I am so, so grateful to have the opportunity. Everything-gonna-work-out kind of feeling. First, though, it has to be filled, at the petrol station I pass almost every day when I leave my house. It takes at least ten tries to get the car at the right angle, and the right side, to fill. No-one is waiting for me, annoyed or even amused, but I try to laugh at myself, imagine relaying this anecdote at a dinner party. The diesel costs much, much less than it would to get a series of buses that would take me in the general direction I’m going and not get me all the way there.

In Tāmaki, I am trying to cross the road to get to Brie and Joe’s house. Great North Road feels aggressive even though it’s mid-afternoon, not even rush hour. Four lanes of fast vehicles. Pedestrian lights require me to go at least 200 metres in the wrong direction and this peeves. Eventually, heart rate slightly accelerated, I trudge to push the button. The cars keep going while I wait.

On my reporting trip, I meet someone with a pet albino pigeon: happy, cooing, well behaved. The pigeon can fly, but its biggest journeys are in the car, nuzzling her neck while she looks at the road.

My grandmother, who taught me to drive, wants me to repeat again examples of how it’s helped me in my career, despite how much I complained about having to drive around the suburbs, useless and trapped. “It’s so good I had time to teach you that year, and you could come with me twice a week for your lesson.” She is convinced learning to drive has improved my life, if not my person. I am grateful, but I wish I hadn’t needed to learn in the first place.

My flatmate thinks the house rattles so much because it is built on soft, wet earth which was once swamp. I imagine the soil under the asphalt bouncing and vibrating when trucks go past.

I am so proud of parking outside the cafe, hour five of my drive, that I almost take a photo to prove how close I got to the footpath.

A local government candidate says he doesn’t support bike lanes on busy roads, as it’s too dangerous. I think he has missed several points about the cause of busy roads and what makes biking dangerous.

I notice the wind as an SUV vrooms past, all the turbulent air molecules twirling. I have felt this many times before, and forgotten it was caused by the force of these aluminium and glass boxes burning ancient algae.

As we approach the airport, my hands firm on the steering wheel, I am reminded of Lizard and Snake by Joy Cowley, children’s books where the protagonists (a lizard and a snake) are terrified of the dark river at the edge of their territory. Monsters dwell there, faceless and senseless. They do not stop for you. In the evening, moon out, the taillights of the cars look like eyes.