Writing, change, and bloody pen licences.

Tuesday 3rd of March

Today I write, like many days before, and I expect many days to come, I write. 

It’s a funny one the old writing for me, a varied relationship is a reasonable way to describe it. I have strong memories of lessons in spelling and handwriting at primary school. Year 6 spelling challenges that carried over from week to week. Strong students were presented with 16 or even 18 new words to attempt to accurately recreate in their spelling book, a fine challenge. At one time I remember languishing on 4. It still feels distantly painful. 

Handwriting held a similar incomprehensible element. Repeated attempts were required to gain the not necessarily coveted, but absolutely essential, pen licence. A rite of passage that contained its primary significance not in attaining membership into the elite pen club, but in departing from the radically undiscerning pencil mob. ’Slow down Michael’, ‘just print rather than use cursive’.      

Perhaps little has changed on those fronts over the years, however in some ways much has. These days I love the complicated and sensual journey that we can share with words. The way that through a mix of personal endeavour and the synthesis of the swirling language around us we can create little moments of feeling from the written word. A precious moment that you can feel, with an apparatus that is possibly something other than your brain, what is being written or read. 

I love writing, it has granted me much kindnesses and stimulation. Through both personal exploration and probably mainly internal clarification, and importantly connection to my community. 

In the last few years I have written both publicly and privately to a greater extent than at any other time in my life. The jostling experiences that I’ve been fortunate to be exposed to have at times been best understood through writing. 

I know I want to write, I think I should continue to write and I also occasionally find it very difficult to write. For four years I have shared some writing on this blog. For Stacy, and for me. The glory and disaster of it are splashed across the posts. My feeling today is that I won't write on here much more. Today, two years after Stacy died seems like a fair time to say that. 

I made a commitment this weekend regarding writing. A necessary commitment I think which currently I feel very optimistic about. The quantity of writing I’m planning on producing will increase, and the avenues of sharing those words with the community will also hopefully grow. All of our journeys continue in their own way, and so it is with this. 

Thank you for reading, and I look forward to writing again soon. 

ALS. Ice buckets. Challenges. Iceland.

Stacy died almost nineteen months ago, she lived with Motor Neuron Disease for three and a half years. Some moments from her life and struggle are cast in light relief in the posts on this blog. It was incredible and horror filled. 

She lives now by bouncing through the minds and splashing onto the hearts of those who knew and loved her, and those who have heard her story. She continues to have an influence now. 

Certainly in the recent weeks of furious global fund raising, awareness fostering and ice bucketing Stacy's lasting influence has been felt by many. Her name has been invoked by those touched by her journey who are soon to be touched by ice, and perhaps her story has been shared among the many stories of pain and courage drifting around the community. 

I feel a sense of responsibility on Stacy's behalf to make comment, and also have my own ideas and perspective on the conversation surrounding this evocative round of fund dumping and ice raising. Thanks for the challenges, and emailed questions.

My understanding is that you will have experiences in life, and your job is to embrace them with your full range of human receptors. That to me is the main point, face the experiences that are presented to you, don't turn away, perceive what you can. Truly experience. 

Some of these may be horrible, stand and experience. At times you may feel invincible, stay and experience. Life may be stimulating or exhausting, frightening or comforting, invigorating or disconcerting. Feel it, recognise it, experience it. That I think might be a significant part of your life. 

Perhaps the challenge then is to find a way to make value out of what you have perceived. You are of course the only person in the history of the world to have your set of experiences, no one else is as informed as you about your life. If you have been paying attention there might be something valuable you have learned. 

There is a chance this only makes sense for me, however it feels like it might resonate. Be brave and stay with the events, challenges, joys and suffering of your life. Be there and feel it with the spectacular ability you have, then see if there is value. If you can do that then I think you might be living a valuable life. 

So now I say, donate money or don't, encourage others to or don't, film your video and enjoy others or don't. Make sure whatever your experience is you are staying with it and feeling.  

   

Developments, adventures, adventurous developments.

I'm going on a trip next week. In some ways I've been on one for months now. Canberra was probably never going to be a permanent home for me and it seems like that is the way it is going to turn out. 

On Wednesday I'm flying over to Europe to play frisbee for a couple of weeks. There are some details here if anyone is interested: http://www.worlds2014.org/wucc/ I'm playing with a team called Colony, we will be good. 

After that there is a six week Euro trip planned. Italy, Sweden, Iceland, France, some mountains and then Germany. I'll follow that up with a stop off in the US on the way home. I think it will be pretty great. I'm going to write about it, and if any of that seems interesting I'll find a way to share it. 

Coming home will be a development as well. The new plan is to head up to Sydney for the medium term. That might be alright, we'll see. 

Canberra has been a really great place to spend the last six months. I've grown very fond of the city and despite its fairly aggressive detractors I think it has lots of positive aspects. I took this photo when I arrived at work a couple of weeks ago. I don't think it captured what I was experiencing at the time, however I'll give you a look and a description and you can decide. 

This place has atmosphere and hidden intensity. It is cosy and available to explore and understand. This requires some wriggling, and maybe some searching though. Beneath the veil that obscures many of its attributes from initial inspection, Canberra is can be a very nice, and very beautiful place to be. I'll miss it in some ways. 

For now though, adventure! 

Bah ba ba, bah ba da ba ba.

Sunday 15th of June

"It is the greatest piece of music created by our species."

That is what I was planning to say if the two Generation Y characters I was travelling with woke up and struggled to understand or accept my choice of driving tunes. 

The road trip had started nearly an hour and a half earlier at 5:35am. Pretty early for a Sunday morning, and impressively close to the planned departure time of 5:30am. Yeah! We headed north out of Canberra on a fresh, rather than freezing June morning. The rain was coming down with diligence, rather than real enthusiasm. The wet highway to Sydney was sparsely populated, and the few cars out there were all keen to enjoy their own piece of it in solitude. 

I knew the boys were likely to slide back to sleep once we were rolling, and when the hoods came up and heads went down around me I settled in for a morning drive with plenty of thinking space in it. Following on from a conversation earlier in the week the thought resurfaced that I should take a luxurious trip through Beethoven's ninth symphony. 

As the beginning stanza warmed to its nearly two hundred year old task, I imagined it simultaneously coaxing the boys off to sleep and accompanying me on my journey. As the kilometres slopped by under the car, the rain slowly relinquished its interest and I slowly increased the volume. By the final movement the outline of hills in the middle distance were coming into view against the steadily lightening sky.

The highway was still nearly empty and the east bound road seemed to be leading us directly into the building sunrise. Our unique country rolled over on its side of the planet, directly towards the warm embrace of the sun that in many ways is central to its definition. 

Daybreak was coming and I was sharing it with a spectacular piece of musical work. The Ode to Joy rollicked around inside the car and the resurgent sun ignited the large bank of low clouds that stretched above the open road. 

The natural and the human shared their brilliance at the same time and I was a joyful witness to the scene. I was happy and grateful to be alive and aware. 

The fire went out in the clouds, the notes fell silent in the car. I rolled into the service station and the young men woke up. "Beethoven was a good choice Mike."

It had been a wonderfully satisfying first half of the road trip. 

Bag End Birthday

As my father so tellingly pointed out in a recent birthday card, "even hobbits come of age at 33."

This was telling in that I am now 33 years old, despite the lack of large under hill housing inheritance, it was also telling in that Chris Neild is now just as Entish as always.

 

"I am honoured by your confidence; but you should not be too free all at once. There are Ents and Ents, you know; or there are Ents and things that look like Ents but ain't, as you might say."


Anyway that is probably enough fantasy for this afternoon. Mum and Dad's card was one of many thoughtful messages of birthday wishes from last week, and I'm very glad to have been the recipient of so much love. Thank you all.

It seems to me that one of the reasons birthdays are significant is that they form a natural point of comparison and marker in life's journey. It can be difficult to compare who I am now, or what life is like currently to who, how and what the story was in the past. We need significant changes to signpost our journey. If you move house, or finish school, these are easy points of reference, phases that can be understood and reflected on, compared.

Without those large events, recurring annual moments provide a natural and effective opportunity to think back, and maybe also think forward. This was certainly true for me this year. My 32nd birthday in May of 2013 was a different time. I was floating around in a loose time and space after a significant life phase, and before any real direction had materialised. I spent last year's event down here in Canberra with a lovely little community and experienced some wonderful, kind support.

It was a strange time, sad and also hopeful. Quite undefined, a space of emptiness that was inevitably going to fill, it was unclear though with what.

A year later I'm still not sure what my space will be filled with, it is however no longer empty. There is plenty going on for me this year and I'm really appreciative of the love and community I've experienced from new connections and old. My 33rd birthday was a happy one, I'm confident it will be followed by a happy year.


Finally, in traditional hobbit form I gave some presents on my birthday. Two lucky hounds were recipients of two pretty large cow bones from the school bone lab I did with some students during the week. It was awesome, enjoy the photos.

Love and thanks,

Mike

Good morning

Monday 24th of March

When you are having a good morning, it is pretty clear, you are having a good morning. Things work out nicely, or things kind of go the way they always go but because you are having a good morning it seems like they work out nicely. 

You know what I’m talking about, right? When you wake up you are either warm and cosy and happy with that, or you burst out of bed and get right into it, and you are happy with that. Sometimes you are on time, cruising along and at ease, other times you are late and languishing and at ease. Maybe it is a bustle, a rush, a flurry of activity and that is helping to form a part of your hyped up, pumped good morning. 

Good mornings only really need to have one thing in common, that you feel good about them. 

When I was driving back from the bakery slash coffee spot this morning with a warm drink and two soon to be hot crossed buns I realised that, yes indeed I was having a good morning. This realisation had been bubbling away in me from when I woke up, things were sometimes cosy, sometimes bustling and both seemed to fit in just fine. It was all feeling pretty good. 

Then as I turned from the quiet neighbourhood back streets that I had been enjoying onto the larger main arterial road it all ticked over from pretty good to just strait up good. In accordance to the shift I was about to make in traffic flow, I made a shift in music choice. Back from song 12 to song 7, the heart pumping, beat thumping, steering wheel taping one. Laced with memories of adventure and glowing interpersonal connection. Song 7, whoot. Steering wheel thumb tap tap.

As I approached the intersection that would feed me onto the large main road the traffic in front of me slowed into submission at the behest of a business like red light. I was planning on turning left in the convenient left turning lane and heading on my way unobstructed by the traffic lights, sweet! Wheel tap, wheel tap, foot tap. There was however, a problem. Three cars and a small truck were pulling up to stop in the left hand lane, blocking my turning lane, they were going to wait there for the light to change and then head straight forward on their way through life, and the intersection. Foot tap.

This was not going to be cool for me because song 7 is not a song to sit still to, parked impotent with a full sized car and a half car gap in front. I should have stayed with song 12, nothing wrong with chilling out to song 12 while waiting for three cars and a small truck to pull forward 2 meters so I can flow into the left turning lane and on my way. Wheel brush, light window sill tap. I really did think I was having a good morning, the kind of morning where a slight delay in driving progress just adds to the enjoyable time cruising behind the wheel, yeah. Sill tap, face itch. 

Oh. Oh well. 

Rapidly recalibrating my expectations I clicked on the left turning indicator and did my best impression of a guy steadily slowing to a song 12 stop. 

Song 7 kicked up a gear and refused to join me. 

The driver of the car directly in front of me may have been having a good morning too, I suspect I’ll never know. None the less, good mornings will have their way. With a slight shift forward and a generous adjustment to the right the car repositioned and a good morning making gap appeared in my life. I rolled gratefully through the gap and into the turning left lane, and with an intensity 8 out of 10 ‘thumbs up’ out the window. I blasted onto the main road and deep into a good morning. 

Song 7 pumped, my steering wheel received the rhythmic tapping of a life time and I rolled on home. Sometimes if you let them, good mornings just make themselves known. 

Hey, good morning you lot. Desk tap tap. 

Mike 

Today

Day 0

Monday 4^th of March

I was surprised at how strong my emotional reaction was this morning. In my mind I was prepared for Stacy to pass. I knew that it would be different to anything I could predict, however I have been thinking about today for years and I thought that would partially prepare me. Wrong. 

I experienced the full physical reaction that was beyond my control. It wasn’t immediate, however when I held Stacy something came pouring out with a force that took me by surprise. It was grief, pain, shock and loneliness.

It came in waves for the next couple of hours, when I was pressed closely to Stacy, when I was in the other end of the house, it came and went and surged and ebbed. It was unique to my experience so far. There was a flavour of the feeling that I used to get on a day that Stacy left to go back overseas during the first few years. 

After dropping her off at an airport and returning home to my bed the emptiness inside me would curl my body inward like light around a black hole. Like a leaf drying in the sun, the edges curling in towards the pit in the middle.  The vacancy, the cavity yearning to be filled. 

I saw the sky as the sun rose, it was a beautiful morning. I experienced some memories of Stacy that I hadn’t for years (That strange straight arm on the spot run she would sometimes do).  I was so grateful that the good memories came to me, I didn’t try, they came. She was always so wonderful to be with. I missed her and I smiled.  

That hole of loneliness was familiar, I had been there before, however today there were other things. The shock of change, a change that I still have only a weak understanding of. 

The pain of all her suffering that I witnessed from the closest of observation points. I witnessed it all and had to block much off. I couldn’t feel all of Stacy’s pain because I couldn’t afford to stop. She needed me to be able to do. At a moments notice, for an entire day. At any time of day and night, despite any other potential distraction, I had to be ready to do. I couldn’t afford to feel it all with her because mine was a task of activity, relentless activity with no control of the beginning or end. Feeling it all with her would have been paralysing. This morning I think I began to feel some of it again. 

The long wait for Debi to arrive was the hardest part of today. Stacy passed at 4:20am, Debi arrived at 3pm. For 11 hours we waited. There were some things to be done, but there was too much that had to hold until Debi arrived, she had to know next. 

Dave and I were standing on the shore of a disaster with a tsunami surging towards us. All we could do was brace for the impact. Once the wave crashed there would be more to do than we could handle, until then it was still and brutal. 

Stacy was so beautiful. Hauntingly still and bright, like a marble statue. Glorious to look at and magnificent to touch. Quiet and familiar, she looked like at any moment she would wake up and ask me to help with something. I found it hard to leave the room because for the last few months we have been in eye contact for 95% of the day. I didn’t want to be away from her, I knew she didn’t need me anymore, but I think I still needed her. I still do. 

It became easier for me as the day went on and we shared the news with Stacy’s world, Debi first and then out across the global community that Stacy has forged with her light. Caring for others is now my comfortable place to be. The thoughts, fears, pain and behaviour of other people is much easier for me to deal with than my own. Through the afternoon and evening I gratefully welcomed the disaster in everyone else’s lives as a mask for the disaster in my own. 

Stacy left the house at 7pm. I didn’t watch the men from the funeral directors move Stacy onto the trolley, nobody touched Stacy. I am the one who helps her, I wasn’t comfortable watching others do it. I haven’t shied away from any aspect of Stacy’s struggle as I have been fully involved with every movement and decision. To not be included was harder than all the exhaustion, frustration and physical and mental pain of the last 3 years. 

She left and I slept. Alone and very poorly. The empty pit returned, I curled around it.

Day 365

Tuesday 4th of March

It was much clearer how to feel a year ago. Significantly more uncomfortable, more distressing and maybe even more confusing, however it was very obvious that was the way to feel. That was the day to be inundated by feelings like that, no question, indulge, submerge, bask in the vast influence of disaster. 

Today I have significantly less clarity in my feelings. There is not so much disaster basking going on, I’m not overwhelmed by the all powerful rush of emotions. It's hard to bask in disaster when much that I experience is good, fun and happy. Perhaps I'm just executing a classic behaviour and looking back at a day in the past with all the clarity of time piled on top of it. Memory is not capable of recording all the doings of a day twelve months gone, so intellect takes over and says things like ‘oh yeah, it was was much clearer how to feel a year ago.’ Good one intellect. 

Today I share in a range of feelings. A nice human range of feelings and i’m glad for the fact. Tomorrow I suspect i’ll try it again. To all of you who read this and also experience a range of feelings today, i’m with you and thanks for sharing it with me. 

I burnt a candle last night. I don’t really know what it meant however it was good to have, thanks for the wisdom Mum.

Lots of love to you out there,

Mike

Birthday

‘Captain Courageous!’ yelled the small group gathered in the outdoor garden. Stacy surged forward into the crowd of her friends from the Starlight Children's Foundation. ‘The party is here!’ responded Stacy, immediately matching the new volume of the night. 

Captains Sparkles and Giggles, Sunshine and Silly were in the pub and living it up like only a group of professional attention seekers can. There was dancing on the tables, telling jokes on the dance floor and impromptu skits broke out in most bathrooms in the building. With enough Starlight Captains in one place a night out quickly ascends into a long running, real life performance piece in which volume and action competing for precedence.  

‘Elle’ girls mixed with Captains, family mixed with friends and Stacy stitched us all together with big smiles and more kisses on the cheek than there were cheeks to kiss. People posed for photos like models, danced like, well maybe models, and definitely drank more than they ate, like, well ok, like a dog might on a hot day. 

It all escalated until Stacy found a long umbrella in a corner and brought it to the dance floor. 

‘Hey, i’m going to do a routine for you.’ she blasted to the room and anyone who was listening. ‘Watch this!’

With the umbrella intermittently swinging around her head and then occupying the centre of Stacy’s broad swinging dance arc she ruled the dance floor. To Stacy there was no difference between people making a little space to watch her dance and people making a little space to avoid being hit by an umbrella. 

The point was people were making a little space, and into that space she poured her joy, enthusiasm and at times pretty fun dance moves. She pulled her friends into the act and the umbrella may have had the best populated dance card in the room. 

When security staff became involved in the interest of public safety, Stacy met them with charm and cheek. ‘Hi guys, its my birthday’. Smiling and swaying. With the umbrella proffered handle first, she had the last word with some wit and grace, ‘wanna dance?’

They didn’t, but Stacy didn’t mind. She partied her finest, calling all to her with love and energy. Stacy knew that her friends were a part of her life force and a great source of energy. She loved sharing her time and her spirit with a collection of fun friends and ‘little munchkins’ and this birthday was no different. 

Now

Wednesday 22nd of January

Canberra was beautiful tonight. I drove home after a dinner with the Neild Browns on the south side of town. The sun was setting and the light was delicate. Hills and trees, light and shadow. A brilliant orange sun and the fresh crisp air of a summer evening here in the capital. 

I thought of Stacy on the drive home. I have been thinking about her most days when I have been writing. It is different though, when i’m writing i’m remembering and attempting to record. Driving in the light tonight I thought about her, about her in the context of me. I’m didn’t feel sad tonight that Stacy wasn’t with me, I didn’t feel sad for me. I did feel the pain of her not being able to experience the beauty of an evening drive, a sunset, a summer night. 

She would have loved a night like tonight like she loved so much of life. I wonder what her experience is like right now. Does she experience? If so then I think it must be beautiful. 

I will be well in my life without Stacy. She was so good for me, her journey was a spectacular one and I was privileged to be there for much of it. She marked me clearly, and i’m changed for the better through that experience. 

It was a brilliant ride home, grace filled and beauty touched. 

Merry Christmas to you too

My mother works at the Mater Hospital where the Starlight Children's Foundation have their Starlight room.

Dad and I picked her up to go and see some carols by the river during the week. We stopped to look at the message in the Starlight room widow that mum had noticed that morning.

Merry Christmas to you too Captain Starlight we all thought. 

Writing, right.

Have I told you? I've been doing some writing.

I'm planning on attempting to record some stories from the past 11 years or so. It has been a mixed experience so far and I get the sense it will be a massive challenge. Painful and jubilant, but also grinding at times.

It feels like a valuable thing to me, and as I was reflecting this week I feel really good about having it as a task to build my time around.

I'm currently working on the beginning of 2009 and I thought I might share this little bit with you. It makes me feel good about our girl Stacy. A little easier to remember and feel her presence with some words that might have come from her.

Boxing class started the next week and Stacy got stuck right in. Stacy would meet Leila and the group in the parklands and training would last for an hour. Running, punching, squats, running, sit ups, punching, holding pads, punching pads, running, etc. 

The first time Stacy came home she looked like she had be rung loose after an hour in a washing machine. Her face and body were stretched and squeezed, hot and dripping. She sat on the couch and went quiet for a while, quiet. 

‘Good session Stace?’ I proffered with a grin.

‘Oh my God!’ 

‘Really? What’s the story at boxing Muncher?’ enquired her strangely pleased husband. 

‘Oh my God Mike, my arms! I don’t think I can hold them up anymore. It was hard to drive home’ she said dramatically. 

Having opened the flood gates her description flowed. ‘then you have to run around the…you just have to keep punching the pad until…and there are so many stairs...the thing is Mike, that you don’t stop until everyone is done.’ She recounted the session and basked in the effort and the obstacle. 

‘It is great to see you so pumped up and also so worn out Stace. Go and have a shower and lets eat’ I prompted. 

‘I am so hungry, I want a bowl as big as my head’ she threw over her shoulder, closely followed by her shirt as she headed down the hall. The shirt landed with a slap. Training had begun. 

Hair cut in Brisbane

It has been coming for a while, a post about being home.

Before I left, and at times during the trip away I experienced a feeling of trepidation about returning to Brisbane and more specifically returning to life outside of fantasy.

Finding a job, driving around the neighbourhood, walking the dogs down familiar paths, cooking dinner - for one, visiting friends, Christmas and birthdays. These regular parts of life hold both a simple enjoyment and in part a haunting parody of those same activities in another time.

Towards the end of my travels as I began to look towards returning from a most satisfying adventure, it was natural to consider what it would be like to be home. The reality has been that life here in Brisbane is much the same as life anywhere, challenge and opportunity.

Generally I've had a really great time since I've been back home. When I say back home I mean broadly Australia and Brisbane but also specifically Victoria St with Mum and Dad. It has been really nice to spend time here with the folks, we had a bit of sharing and mutual mourning to do.

In other areas I've sold a few Barbecues, taught a few lessons at school, thrown a few frisbees, scratched a few words out with the keyboard and spent some time with friends.

The plan from here is to follow the pattern of the last few weeks however to follow it in the nation's capital. I'm going to head down there in the first week of January and attempt to delve into recent history through some writing while I delve into the future with some running, and catching (Frisbees).

I feel very hopeful about the planned events of the new year and I'm confident I will continue to enjoy spending time here at home.


Oh and I got a hair cut, it was good.

One Pair of Shoes

Hello folks, Mike here.

I put some pictures of a shoe together, it's pretty sweet. Don't mind the backgrounds.

Walkabout

Well that is it, I'm flying home tomorrow.
Frisbee - done,
Colombia - done,
Italy - done,
Wedding - done.
Montana, Denver, Florida - done,
New York, Detroit, California - done,
Canyons, canyons, Vegas - done,
Trip - done, almost.

I'm flying to Brisbane and then Canberra tomorrow. Make a few connections, play a little frisbee, make some reconnections then head on home.

I was thinking a day ago, as I was completing a great hike in Bryce Canyon, that walking has been a significant part of this trip. I've walked in some incredible physical places and i've walked in some significant emotional states as well.

I walked in Rome, I walked in solitude and in company.
I walked in Florence, I walked in loneliness and in connection.
I walked in Glacier National park, I walked in jubilation and in distress.
I walked in the ocean, I walked in relief and in freedom.
I walked in New York City, I walked in pain and in optimism.
I walked in Zion National park, I walked in positivity and in hope.
I walked in Bryce Canyon, I walked in reflection and in remembrance.

I walked in these, and other emotional states through these and other physical places. I looked at sights and I felt things. My physical location changed and my emotional experience followed. I haven't been on a walk this trip that didn't involve some kind of emotional shift or journey. Some changing slightly, others dramatically. Forwards and backwards, sometimes combining laps of emotions with laps of a city.

I've had some really positive and joyful emotions out here on this adventure and I've felt some exquisite distress. When I look back I can recall various emotional experiences in a similar way to remembering physical destinations. Just like each stop on this fairly long trip has been different, unique and valuable as a part of the whole, so too i think each changing emotional condition has contributed to my overall current optimistic sensation.  

Walking though the world both internally and externally have been excellent aspects of this large and complicated adventure. Some of my treasured moments have involved me, some thoughts and some distance to cover.

The walkabout is over for now as i'm coming home. I have no doubt though that the journey will continue, and i'm very hopeful that I'll take all those great walks along with me as I go.              

Thanks to Shannon and Maggie for some great walking photos.

A big view

What is it about a massive vista that makes the viewer feel so strongly?

The size, the age, the beauty. It's like when you look out onto a landscape that is vast and majestic, almost to the point that it becomes difficult to comprehend, something happens. Something happens within, a change surrounding emotion and perspective.

Perhaps when you realise that a physical space is so large and beautiful that your mind can't really grasp or understand it, peace is found in the knowledge that other incomprehensible issues might be beautiful too. Why do bad things.....? What does it mean when......? How can suffering be so.....? What is the reason for....? Who would deserve......?

The answer to many of these kinds of questions are "I don't know", or something vague enough to actually mean I don't know: "there is a plan", "luck I guess", "everything happens for a reason", "when a door closes a window opens", "I don't know".

It seems to me that some things in life are well beyond our ability to explain, understand, categorise and even really sense effectively. What is love? Why am I here? Where will I go when I die? When will I understand life?

I think there is value in becoming comfortable with not knowing. Accepting that understanding life and the world isn't what it is all about. This is easy in times of happiness and peace. How lovely to say that right now I feel excellent and I don't really even know why. In times of strife however we seem to frantically search for a grasp on the why. This may not actually be helpful.

When I look at an epic view that includes shapes, structures, light and movement I feel a peaceful acceptance that the space before me is too significant, too magnificent for me to ever truly understand. I give up attempting to evaluate and categorise, label and know. Simply the task is just to look and feel wonder, smile and breath in the calm sensation of acceptance.

The lesson is directly before us, parts of the world and my life are clearly beyond my understanding. How beautiful to be able shift all that energy and effort towards appreciation and finding value.

The world is wonderful and terrible, knowing why does not change that.

Impressions, exchanges, travel - Zion

Today was a pumping day with a hike up the virgin river to The Narrows. It is cold and slippery and awesome. As the sand, water and dirt accumulate in overwhelmed shoes, so too the feeling of peace and joy accumulate in the heart. To enter a pure, and in actuality as well as name, virgin place it is difficult not to be internally affected.


Walking directly up the river has the powerful affect of creating a feeling of connection with the environment, possibly even a feeling of change. Each visitor is not simply strolling by, or walking over a track or mountain. To enter the Virgin river is to enter into a mutual interaction with the country. Water rushes into shoes and over shorts, rocks press and roll beneath searching feet. The walls close around heavily occupied vision and the river pulls at invigorated skin.

Striding up the canyon into the Narrows takes the traveller away from civilisation and into nature. The river claims the attention and the canyon walls surge forwards to earn it back. Small sandy banks and islands become as a forgotten home or a long lost friend. Sanctuaries from the relentless cold reach of the rushing water.

The river is at one moment an enemy to be avoided and escaped as soon as possible, then quickly transforms into a companion. A fellow traveller moving through the ancient rock kingdom. Briefly enjoying the mighty scale and inspiring shapes of the canyon walls, then hastily flowing on to new sights and furthur turmoil. It doesn't flow alone.

With every step a stone is turned or rolled, sand is kicked and scattered, water is splashed and shifted. The river and canyon are permanently altered by the awkward stumbling presence of human visitors. Each new passage slightly changes the pristine landscape.

It is however highly likely that the affect is repaid in full with the river leaving its cold, sandy and magnificent impression firmly on its fast moving and temporary canyon companions.  




I was a willing and joyful companion yesterday. The word spectacular describes more than Utah's Zion National Park, today it reaches to describe my buoyant spirit and fast flowing sense of optimism.

Beyond me, but maybe not Walt

I'm nearing the end of a week in New York City. It has been a wonderful time as I revisit and rediscover this city that at times feels familiar and for the majority seems beyond my comprehension and recollection.

I suspect my remaining five days will continue to delight and propagate development.

It truly is an amazing city and I'm thankful for the opportunity to visit here with exellent contacts and friends, both old and new. This man seems to have a fair handle on describing an almost undescribable city;

"It avails not, neither time or place—distance avails not;	20
I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence;
I project myself—also I return—I am with you, and know how it is.
Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt;
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd;
Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh’d;	25
Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood, yet was hurried;
Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships, and the thick-stem’d pipes of steamboats, I look’d." Walt Whitman

Mighty Montana

When I arrived in Montana I was ready for a rest, I didn't get one. After running around Colombia and Italy I was yearning for a home, a quiet place for a little while. What I got was a raucous wedding week.

Liz and Jeff's wedding was excellent and for me full of flower preparations, suit hunting, mountain climbing, memory sparking and wine drinking action. It really was a great time and i'm really glad I was able to spend some time with the bride and her attendants before the wedding. It was also an excellent college and high school reunion. I didn't attend the University of Norther Colorado, or Great Falls High however the people from both places feel like a home away from home to me, Go Bison!

After the wedding I found the nest I was craving by heading up to Great Falls to spend a couple of weeks with Dave and Debi and the rest of the GF community. It was a really good easy going time. I meet up with folks, organised my semi circumnavigation of the States, visited some memorable spots and explored some brand new corners of Montana.

I appreciate how familiar and comfortable my time in Great Falls was, I wanted a home and that is what I found over here.

I'm off now on the next section of the trip and leaving Great Falls feels like at step away from a home and the beginning of a journey home. I'll still be over here for five weeks, however it feels like i'm back on the road and that now i'll just follow my toes until I find myself back in Australia.

I remember when I booked this trip I wanted to make sure that it was long enough to begin to engender feelings of hope and enthusiasm at the idea of being back in Australia. I was afraid of being back home trying to live a life too early. I don't really know if that plan has been or will be effective however I know that i've had some great times and some sustained feelings of happiness over the last nine weeks.

I do feel optimistic about the future and about returning home in some ways. I think that internal journey can't help but be influenced by the external journey that i'm experiencing. I'm open to it taking me where it will, flowing smoothly, jolting aggressively, sharply changing direction or pushing against resistance. I don't have the fear and feeling of dislocation that I did in March and April anymore. I've never been short on positivity however I think that constant has been joined by an extremely comforting sense of optimism that is new and encouraging.

Travel on.


Here are some photos from my time in Montana. It was spectacular. Truly spectacular.

 

Lunch in the West

Every time the heavy glass door swung open and rattled closed again on its metal frame it was clear another person had entered the restaurant. Like a pair of timber saloon doors in an old hall in the Wild West, slamming or creaking open to mark the grand or meek entrance of the next customer. Upon entry every new patron is greeted by a slight hushing of the old western piano and a cessation of verbal violence across the saloon as games are held and evaluations are completed.

Most times life goes back to normal, most times.

So too at the Chinese restaurant in Great Falls Montana this afternoon. The Wild West is a bit of a stretch, although we are out in the west and at times it does get a little wild out here. The 'New Peaking Garden' is not a western saloon of the 1800s. The creaking floor boards, rowdy atmosphere and burnt black steaks have been replaced by industrial easy clean carpet, popular PG music mixed with family conversation and moderately over sauced vegetables and tofu. The plants are synthetic, the wontons are packed to bursting with cream cheese and the waitress used up all of her best material hours ago.

Dave, Debi and I came in after the lunch rush and were expecting a nice quiet meal in the near vacant restaurant. Only two other tables were occupied and the restaurant provided a gentle and cool respite from the baking and dusty summer day. We'd been riding all day, our horses were dry and our saddles were sore.

On most days and in most States a lunch at the local Chinese would climax with a full belly and questionable fortune, I'm still waiting for my "important email", I checked right away like it said. Not this day, not in this State. Immediately after a large plate of fried wontons crackled down on our table the familiar sound struck clearly. The front door opened firmly and blew back like the wind on the prairie.

Restaurant life stilled just slightly as a new man in town entered the New Peaking Garden and Wild West saloon. A lone man, a hard man, the kind of man you wouldn't want to rustled up a posse and have to ride out after. A man of few compromises, who knows what's right and that he is it, a man who doesn't wait in line, unless there is a sale on camoflague back packs.

Hard ridin', eye squintin', pink lemonade drinking. A baby faced bandit with a heart of gold. When he sits down to eat, he already knows what he wants, when he stands up to leave he just needs one hitch on his jeans. A legend in his own lifetime, thirty winters hard and thirty summers soft, a free man in a wild world.

As he strode through the entryway he was behind my back and not in my view. Dave game me the look, the head nod, and the sly grin. I knew I was in for a classic Montana sight. It could have been anything, a family all wearing overalls, a woman carrying two dogs, four punks, four hats, all backwards. My mind raced and I inclined my head in anticipation.

Blue jeans: fit - slightly baggy
Hat: baseball cap - camo
Shirt: T - slogan, "same shirt, different day"
Flip flops - oh you better believe it
Belt - Knife on one side
Pistol - Six barrel revolver

I've lived a fairly sheltered life with only a few dicey situations, perhaps I'm being naive. When I get to the point that I think I need to bring a Dirty Harry style revolver into a semi deserted Chinese restaurant at 2:30pm on a monday afternoon then perhaps things have gotten a little out of hand.

Dave and I asked ourselves if we were feeling lucky, and as it turns out we were so the pistol jokes flew through the air above our small cups of hot Chinese tea and the world seemed like a slightly crazy but also pretty fun place.

Lunchtime in Montana, the west is alive, classic.

A brush with Life, and Rome

I began to walk with a solemn countenance, understandable for a man wracked by past terrors and present torment. I hit an emotional trigger this afternoon and it all got pretty gruelling for a while. The past few weeks, in fact this whole trip so far has been wonderful, I've been happy. This afternoon it hurt a bit.

With a splash of water to the face, a pair of trusted and comforting companions on my feet and a fresh piece of fruit in hand I embarked.

The brilliance of life in our world assailed my mood and I almost ruefully smiled and shook my head, 'right you are existence, you are joyful'. I passed many sights on my walk east across the Tiber and into the old city. The vision that shook me to light was a family of four desperately manning their defences against an attack of gelato.

Each person was tested their full measure by the heaping cone of delicious Italian ice cream that was occupying their resources. The distribution of gelato to cone surface area was bold to say the least, one could almost describe the exuberant portion as reckless. Once combined with the presence of the warm afternoon sun the ice Cream pressed its advantage and this content family of tourists found themselves in the most serious of afternoon treat situations.

Licking was combined with leaning, biting with bending and as cameras, maps and day packs treacherously wriggled in their already heavily occupied grasp the only option was to surge forward with bold heart and broad lick.

This snap shot of a wonderful family scene pierced my mildly melancholic mood as I continued to move through the city and my own emotional complexity. I was grateful for the irrepressible magnificence of life that has repeatedly presented itself to me recently.    

I walked onward to one of my new favourite locations. On the back of a small hill, looking down at a long ago drained swampland. I sat and thought, thought and looked.

I am forced, thankfully forced to accept that to live here, in our world, is something that will be a source of joy and pleasure as well as occasional distress and disorder. I can expect the full variety, and importantly I suspect that if I'm open to it, the ice cream episodes will resolutely continue to follow the melancholic moments.