Dawn chorus

The sound of crashing glass the morning after is a New Zealand classic, a music that strikes a loud, instantly familiar chord in every city and province throughout the land – I heard all of New Zealand gather at my door last Friday morning when I tipped a box of bottles into the rubbish bin after hosting a dozen or so enthusiastic drinkers on Thursday night.

- Steve Braunias

The gathering was unusual, a low-culture event that marked a significant event in my low-culture life. I had launched my latest book at a bookstore that night and invited the hardcore back to mine. But its individual components didn’t matter. It belonged to the great common mass of New Zealanders having got plastered.

The sound of crashing glass the morning after filled me with joy and nationalistic pride. They briefly competed with a dreadful hangover. I was in pyjamas and sneakers at the back of the house beneath the overhead deck where I store the recycling bin and the bin destined for the tip. It’s a dark, cool place, ideal for my collection of hanging vines in pots and painted tins, suspended from hooks and in rows on raised planks. My best self resides in nature. But the racket of bottles of beer and wine and spirits, mingled with the softer thud of cans, returned me to my rightful place as a representative of the best of human nature.