Here's the newest article, special column exclusive to The Carolinian, available for reading a good seven or eight hours before anyone else will read it. This is crucial, as my column is clearly the only important news out there, right? (Much of the content is new to followers of the blog, but offers a different take of the hard data already recorded.)
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17 February 2009
Urgency, urgency. A mere three days after departing from Sydney by bicycle, I was stressed and worried; my ambitious scheduling was staring me in my sweaty sunburnt face, and self-imposed deadlines grabbing me by the throat. Bushfires were burning out of control in the region I'd planned to cycle through. Before leaving the states I had thoroughly planned every leg of my voyage with excruciating detail, mapping my projected mileage goals for the day, precise routes, and rest stops, with Google Earth, geographical maps and Lonely Planet as my guides. I made sure there was no room for error; and it never quite occurred to me that exorbitantly-detailed, rigidly-structured itineraries were the exact opposite of wandering, which was what my journey was all about. I was blind to the absurdity of my antithetical methodology - and I would've stayed that way, but for solitude and the sea.
One cannot properly speak of, or comprehend, the word power until witnessing the mighty Pacific dash against a sea wall. The explosion of foam, the salty surf hurled into the air; tossing, plunging, roaring... never ceasing. The sun precisely positioned in the sky so that the surf's eruption creates for the briefest moment an iridescent rainbow; disappearing just as quickly with the vertical plunge of the water's return. What beauty, what glory to behold! Perhaps a glimpse of infinite, comprehendable at last - if only microcosmically - on a craggy outcropping on the other side of the world.
I'd been in Wollongong only a day and already I was going to miss it. The lazy afternoons, the salty breeze, the friendly laughter with the evening sun... time stands still here, I wrote in my journal. Gives a man a chance to breathe, to think; to collect his thoughts, to perhaps jot down a sonnet, or read a book, or simply relax in the shade. No hurries, no worries... just a man in the shadow of nature.
The seagulls... they know nothing of deadlines. What cares have they? "That's why seagulls don't rule the world," one might reply. "NASA didn't get to the moon by napping on a rock by the sea." Aye, perhaps, but what of the heart and the soul? In the end, what good is ambition as a means to its own end? Give me beauty and a pen and I'll find my way to the moon.
Why do we find this so hard to embrace in our everyday lives?
Days later, I have found new life in my journey... I am no longer hurried, no longer a details-man. I have slowed down. I have skipped rocks in a harbor in Ulladulla, sketched the view of the Pacific coast from the rolling Kiama highlands, ukulele-jammed with a German on holiday; read French philosophy in Melbourne and searched for conch shells in a rocky alcove. I sold my bicycle, and with it my plans. I'll take it as it comes, one day at a time. Rivers Cuomo said it best:
Don't bother to pack your bags
Or your map
We won't need them where we're goin'
We're goin' where the wind is blowin'
Not knowin' where we're gonna stay
I think he's onto something there. So who knows what I'll do next... maybe learn to surf in Wollongong, or hitchhike to Adelaide. Maybe I'll skydive over Brisbane or kayak in Cairns. "Wherever the wind blows" is my refreshed journey philosophy... and I'm feeling a breeze.
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