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wonder

On the road: Gnaraloo Station

Last week I joined a couple of friends for a drive up the coast to Gnaraloo Station. From Perth, Gnaraloo is a thousand kilometres away.

I had a seat in the back, pressed up against sleeping bags, wetsuits, and something that smelled like banana bread. For the two hours before the sun rose, I watched suburban porchlights streak past, all tungsten yellow, then the city lights, giant bug-zappers of brilliant white, then the northern fringe cities with their pale blues and intermittent fuel-station-golds. And then, nothing. Just a comfortable darkness, visited occasionally by a passing car or a stray streetlight.

Nick drove the entire way. For twelve hours he chatted and laughed and shared his stories and listened to ours. Ian is almost twenty years older than me, and engages with others as if we know the secrets of the ages, and just need the time to get it out in words.

My focus drifted from conversations within the car to conversations with the horizon. For hours it was dirt-red, then a splash of canola yellow, forest green, granite and limestone, then back to dirt. It was quite beautiful, an entire palette comfortable with her loneliness.

Gnaraloo is in the middle of nothing. It really is. It's a sheep station, but I barely saw any sheep. Wild goats, though, they were everywhere. They looked down on us with their proud beards and funny tails, like they owned the place, like they were running the show. A people-farm, run by the goats. The locals of Gnaraloo don't dissuade this idea at all: they are wild and earthy and distant, their language is the land and the ocean. People come here for only three things: to surf, to fish and to feel free.

A few mornings in, I asked Ian why he's here. Why it matters to drive all this way, peel yourself into a wetsuit, and take your board out into the hyperthermic waters to ride a few waves. He had just returned from the ocean, and was crunching through an apple, watching Nick finish up his last wave. I got out and leaned on the car with him, and squinted into the glare. Me with my notebook, Ian with his apple.

"Why do you do this?" I asked him.
"Because it's who I am," he replied, then paused, "but only as long as I'm actually doing it."
He talks like this a lot.
"You don't feel like a surfer unless you're surfing?" I ventured.
"No, I still feel like a surfer, for sure. But that identity requires some action, you know? The longer I don't surf, the more I become a person who used to surf, not a person who actually surfs."
I looked at him and blinked twice, and he took another bite of apple.
"It's about identity," he continued, "by doing this stuff, I'm revisiting my identity, empowering it somehow."
"Empowering it?
"Yeah, I'm empowering myself, my belief in myself. It's one thing to become who you want to be in life, but a whole other challenge to stay there. Over time we can start to question ourselves and our abilities, and we can start to doubt ourselves."
"And our identities can lose their way."
"Exactly. Our identities get blurry. And the only way I know to return to clarity is to act. To do something today that reminds me of who I am."
"And who are you today?"
He laughed. "I am a person who surfs!"

Nick appeared on the path just then, and we headed back to the homestead for breakfast.

-

In storytelling, there is always a tension between a character's aspiration and their reality. There is a version of themselves they WANT to be, or that they THINK they are, and then, there is who they REALLY are. It's a gold mine for writers, exploring those gaps, revealing to the protagonist their reality and pushing them off the cliffs that will grow and transform them.

A character can be amazing, but think they are nothing special. Or they can have some serious flaws, but think they are just perfect. In the end, what they, or others, say about themselves doesn't matter half as much as what they do. Like Ian observed: identity needs action.

After that conversation with Ian, I had to ask myself the same question: "Why am I here? Why did I travel a thousand kilometres to a surfing station when I don't surf or fish?" It was an identity question.

While Ian and Nick were revisiting and strengthening their identities as "people who surf", I found myself revisiting childhood memories. Hours of wandering in white-bright sand dunes, playing with shells, drawing in red dirt, watching the shadows from stones stretch out across my bare toes. Being at peace with the nothingness of those places.

By joining Nick and Ian for the trip, I became what I always thought I was, but perhaps hadn't acted on for a while:

A person who seeks wonder and beauty over comfort or progress.

It just took a few thousands kilometres to remind me it was true.

Nook

I recently attended a writer's club in the city. An eclectic group of authors, screenwriters and creatives spend ten or twenty minutes at a time writing things based on a prompt. The focus this week was on past memories, childhood moments, that sort of thing. The idea is that the prompt triggers certain words, that draw out certain memories, that remind us of forgotten experiences, that we can use to discover more about ourselves. It's a kind of narrative therapy, as well as a creative writing exercise.

For me, this exercise was a reminder of how I synthesise my thoughts and ideas. It's embarrassing to admit, but I honestly feel like my head is perpetually empty. A clean slate, or a holding space. Until I speak a word, or write a sentence, my mind is entirely blank. When I form the words, my brain then catches up - it's quite backwards to how I imagine most humans think.

I've gotten used to it over time, but it's still scary: To do or be anything in life, I have to somehow trust that my emptiness is fullness, and then I have to speak myself into being.

Anyway, below is a piece I wrote in the writer's club. You might see a progression from "empty headspace" to "childhood memory" to "what really matters to me."

(The prompt was "cosy nook" incidentally, and we had twenty minutes.)

----

I like freedom. I do. Wide open spaces, and open skies, and all of that. But they are not my favourite places. What I love more than anything are smaller spaces. Snuggle spaces. Cosy nooks. When I’m in the wide open, my mind reaches for the ceiling, it stretches to the edges of sight. I take in as much as I can reach, and it’s hard to process it all. Writing in a field is not easy for me.

No, what I love are loft spaces. One desk and a rainy window. A rug, a heater, a chair and some whisky. Constriction of the physical space, so that my mind can relax, strip down to it’s togs, and dive into the deep well of internal space.

When I was a kid, we moved houses a lot. I didn’t think it was anything unusual, but eventually I learned that no, most families had more than one Christmas in the same house. Most kids had treasures, and stuff from years ago, whereas we always arrived at a new house a box or two lighter. It was the moving company that lost the box, Dad would say.

But here’s the thing. As far as childhood memories go, my most fondest ones involve those cardboard boxes. When we were getting close to moving day, we would have rooms piles high with boxes, pushed up against the walls and the windows, three or four high. I would get lost in the beige cities of the spare bedroom, spend hours snuggled in a corner, the towering boxes on my left, and the window to the garden on my right.

I don’t ever remember the garden though. I never saw outside the glass. My world was two feet wide and as deep as my 10-year-old body, and it was wonderful. I had books to read, a cat to pat, and nothingness to stare at. It was the late afternoon light that really got me. Everything just glowed, and I would focus my attention on a space three inches in from the window, on the fine cloud of haze, dust and cat hair that spun in lazy golden circles. It was eternal time in that space.

No, writing in a field is not easy for me. I would need to build a barn.

On the road: NoMad, Manhattan New York

The beauty of Jack Kerouac’s book “On the Road” is in the details. He travelled all over the place, and had a notebook with him, and just took tiny notes of what he saw, how he interpreted life. When it was time to write, he could connect the story with so many micro-moments of meaning, because those moments had their own tiny factoid.

I don't do that very well - take notes of the tiny moments in each day - but below is a quick story where I try to pay attention to the littlest things, just to see how it writes. This was from our time in New York, pre-Covid, and the plot is nothing at all - I just leave the hotel to get coffee...

—

When I step out of the elevator, the lobby is quiet. The coffee station is bare, the concierge mostly asleep. I say “mostly” because his eyes are open, but his mind is clearly elsewhere. Across the foyer, there is a sliver of sunlight on a couch, the only indication at all that it isn’t still nighttime. New York City has always struggled with catching the sunlight this early in the morning. Too many buildings too close together, I suppose.

I zip up my coat, and push through the glass turnstile doors into the street. Now there are others sharing my morning. The palette out here is all greys and browns: dark coats and hats, leather briefcases and satchels, functional umbrellas and scarves. The streets are still glassy from the night rains, each puddle a portal to an inverted world of skyscrapers and pastel skies.

My hands are deep in my pockets, my shoulders hunched against the chill. I’ve never been good with coldness - even as a kid, I would get cold so fast, and it would always feel like an icepick sinking into my spine. I take the three steps to the pavement, and join the murky grey stream of city regulars.

Honestly, I don’t know why I’m even out here. The hotel bed is warmer than this street corner. I tell myself I’m searching for beauty. Being new in a place allows a certain fleeting naivety, which sometimes leads to wonder, and so I’m walking the streets freezing my toes off for the wonder of it all. So much wonder, I try and convince myself. An umbrella up ahead just blew inside out, and my teeth are chattering.

What I really want, right now, is none of the wonder, and none of the beauty. I just want to return to my room. It’s warm there, and it has Rach, all asleep in a cosy bed. I could be under those covers right now, instead of shivering past another block of morning commuters. No one is looking up, and there’s a kind of eerie silence behind the dull city roar. There are engines running, brakes screeching, traffic lights tick-tick-ticking, a million clopping footsteps on the footpaths, but no voices. No birdsong. No faces.

I trudge along Madison Avenue with the grey coats and black umbrellas for another block, and turn onto East 27th. Somehow the ice-wind can turn corners, and it follows me all the way to the door of Birch Coffee, finding all the chinks in my armour of warmth and dropping little daggers down my spine. I push myself into the coffee shop wishing that I had never left the hotel.

“Welcome to Birch, honey.” Her eyes crinkle in the exact places that make it seem like she means it. “There’s a bit of a queue today, but try this while you’re waiting.” A small paper cup is pressed into my hands. It’s steaming, and it thaws my fingertips. “Single origin, Honduras, twelve days from roasting - we think today is the sweet spot!” And she’s off with a wink, sashaying through the bustle with her little tray of espresso cups and a smile for everyone.

I sip the coffee, and it runs through me like a lit fuse, like some delicious lava, heating my bloodstream and closing my eyes in overwhelm. The rest of my senses awaken in response - waves of conversation and laughter wash over me, the dull scream of the coffee grinders, the swoosh and hiss of the steam in the milk jugs, a Broken Bells song playing from somewhere in the ceiling. The fruity caramel notes in my cup mix with the rich nutty aroma of the store in a way that makes my mouth water.

I look up to a grid of golden sunlight stretched across the back wall, behind the baristas and their machines. Reflected light from the windows of the dark buildings down the street, a single warm beam that clearly wanted to be part of this morning with the rest of us. The customers have shed their coats, revealing bright reds and corporate blues and excellent silk greens. A rebirth of the human palette. Everyone here has faces, too. Faces that are seeking other faces, strangers that are connecting over the shared experience of frosty mornings and the nine-to-five battle ahead.

In this fractional moment of the day, Birch Coffee becomes a bottleneck of meaningful experience, a pinch in the hourglass between the cold dark morning and the discontented workplace. I can see all the frail human vessels being restored, filled up, tempered for what lies ahead. There is no status in this space, no labels or titles or hierarchies. Just faces, open and inviting and validating the human struggle. I am feeling warmer.

The door bumps into my shoulder as another cold soul presses in from outside. Face as grey as the street, hands shaking full with his umbrella and briefcase, eyes on the next step forward. Just trying to get in, or away, or above, or out. I reach for the door, swing it wide, makes some space and take his arm.

“Welcome to Birch.” I say with a smile, and he lifts his gaze, pale blues through rain-dropped bifocals. “You should try the the single origin - it’s Honduran, twelve days from roasting.” He raises his grey brows high, a slight smile.

I lean in conspiratorially, “I think today could be the sweet spot."

Tonight the sky is exploding

Tonight the sky is exploding.
Trails of fizzy light erupting in spectacular bouquets of pink and green and blinding white. There's so much smoke, we can’t see the stars anymore. Below our balcony, there are heavy grey ghost-clouds just yawning their way through the city, like ancient spectres roused from slumber, and already bored.

I love fireworks, but not for the usual reasons. Celebrations like these are always monstrously expensive, and often just bring out the worst in us. Thousands of humans massing themselves on the foreshore and shouting drunken patriotic slogans at each other all night. I don’t care about that at all. But tonight, I'm only seeing the lightshow in reflections: glimpses in the bathroom glass, the kitchen chrome, the bedside lamps over Rach’s shoulder, and the tiny starfalls in her moon-earrings.

She is watching the sky, and I am watching her. She’s telling me stories of festivals back in her hometown, back in New Zealand. Her face lights up with every firecracker, and in her eyes are sparks of experience, little explosions of whimsy in the deep pools of her memories.

It reminds me of the first time I brought Sebastian to a firework show.
He was barely two years old, and he sat in my lap and laughed at the sky. His tiny hands reached out, grabbing at the fireflies, his face awash with delight and glory.

This is why I like fireworks. It’s the soft splashes of wonder on all the faces.
The droplets of eternity on our lashes.