Victoria, then the Top End N.T.

rambling off into the wild blue yonder

I leave tomorrow for a two and a half week jaunt. 

I’m feeling excited, now that all the agonising packing-descisions are made. ie. how to divvy-up 20 kg of luggage allowance, because I’m spending half the time in freezing cold Melbourne and the other half in sun-drenched dry season-Darwin/ Arnhemland.

It’s satisfying, getting everything I’ll need for the next  few weeks condensed down into a backpack. I think it’s one of the many pleasures of travel - the simplification, the feeling of living briefly with very little  stuff. 

Lately I’ve been up to my ears in stuff. Clearing out every cupboard of the old beach shack last week in preparation for repairs and repainting. It was like a major archaeological dig. Why the hell do I keep all this crap?

My mother’s art materials, for example - she’s been dead nearly twenty years now. Relics of F’s toddler-hood, wooden choo-choo trains and plastic cars. Dozens of old music cassettes I haven’t listened to in decades. I listened to some of them while burrowing and sorting. Discovered I still like Patti Smith and Neil Murray. And the memories attached. 

But I was ruthless - at least  by my usual clinging, might-need-it-some-day standards. Several large garbage bags-full went to the Lifeline op shop, and as many into the wheelie-bin. I let go of a whole swag of books. Including the ones about ‘raising happy children’ etc. That era is over. Now we’re into ‘ How To Cope With Your Teenager’.

I let go of the little easel chalkboard, the mildewy old red cushions, and several items I’d kept out of sentimental loyalty to the long-lost people who had given them as gifts. 

Ah, the endless theme of what to do with all my stuff. The burden of ownership. I think a lot of us in wealthy countries struggle with this crazy paradox. Trying to weave our way between the pleasure of possession, and the pain of excess. The dusty life of the householder.

Can’t take it with you. When you die, or on vacation. What a relief , what a  holiday feeling, to leave it all behind for a while. 

I’m also leaving temporarily behind my domestic, financial, work, and parenting duties. The last time I left the boys - D and F - on their own for more than a  couple of days  was when I went to The U.S. in 2006.

Frankly, they didn’t do to well without me. F fell off a log at school and broke his arm. D smashed up my new car. Poor babies. I think they’ll do better this time. Bit of father-son bonding. 

I’m squeezing a lot in to this trip. Like I squeeze a lot into my life there’s a five-day residential Gestalt Therapy training, some time with my 94-year old stepfather, a bit of catching up with friends, the Arnhemland field trip.

What I’m most looking forward to is sleeping out in the escarpment country in a swag under a million stars miles from nowhere...

snow

Back at the desk after three weeks away. It’s been a good long school holiday- break.  At the beginning of the hols we went skiing for 5 days with another family. Lots of fun, kids had a ball.  Just try not to think about the outrageous expense, and the appalling environmental impact of it all.

My family used to ski every year when I was a kid. In the very early days we stayed at a lodge with no electricity, only gas lamps. We wore lace-up leather boots, and carried our gear up the mountain in canvas rucksacks. All of which makes me sound ancient. 

But even later on, when we stayed in a lodge owned by the private boys’ school where my brother was a student, accommodation was not flash.

We all used to sleep in our clothes in freezing cold bunk rooms, and the only heating was a log fire in the communal living area. 

In the decades since then, it’s all changed. At Hotham there was heavy equipment at work all night , grooming the slopes. And large ‘snow-guns’ blasting confetti-like snow into the air 24 hours a day. 

Our apartment was centrally heated and comfortable enough. It was also entirely without character, could have been a townhouse in any Australian suburb.  I found myself feeling nostalgic for those freezing bunk rooms, and the raging log fires, and the old  days when you skied on whatever snow was there. Seems like we are all so addicted to ‘comfort’  nowadays, that we miss out on something - the edge of contrast and difference. 

But hey, I’m not complaining. I loved being there, and loved that I can still remember how to ski after all these years, like riding a bicycle. 

The first few days were blizzard and snow storms and minimal visibility. Then the sky cleared and we discovered the view from our unit.