i hadn’t felt this kind of anticipation since i was a twenty-six year old going to meredith - an excuse to fall out of my mind, with people
i’m now thirty-three, coming to the end of my jesus-year - the weather was perfect, and getting better the closer we got to the weekend - nothing special, and for no reason - but our plans to head down to wilson’s prom not only excited us, but bonded us, as we sat at our desks and did our work, eyeing the time it came to leave it all behind
i kissed her goodbye and enjoyed a lazy morning of music, salad, a bit of packing, and a beer or two - as my friend picked me up, i was honered and pleased and excited to hear him suggest i sort out the music for the trip - a last minute whip-up to cater for a metal-head, a pop-star and a psychedelic princess - dead meadow, comets on fire, beck
i laughed to myself as i saw my friend just throw individual objects into the boot of the 4wd - his way of packing against my pack-less-is-more mentality - the drive down and the sleepy wrong turns were a long one in distance perhaps, but my mind was buzzing and with a six-pack of beer warming at my feet, it felt like we arrived at the booth in no time at all - the gateway to the prom is significant - even as i kid i could tell when we’d arrived, even though we were thirty kilometers away
looking for a camp site was dire, and a little sad to see so many people camping so close together, as though this was actually camping - i needed an unearthly-piss, and eventually just jumped out of the car and let my friends look for a site as i waddled to a toilet block pretending my whole body wasn’t about to explode with psychedelic-beer-urine - yeah, this’ll do, was the general consensus, as we pitched our tents at dusk
i take my beer and walk down to the river - i feel holy and secure - the wall of trees and mountain that face and surround Tidal River appear to me like art-work in an empty gallery - i sit by the boardwalk, and look at Whale Rock like the philosopher i’m falling into - in my adult boozy perspective, i finally see the whale in Whale Rock
seriously, i had been looking at it wrong, or at lest differently my whole life - i can’t shake it off though
i have potent childhood memories of wilson’s prom, and i have to hold myself back from pointing them all out to my friends - none of these memories involve camping though, and all of them involve the john gregory lodge - as we walk past it for ice-cream im silently joyed to see it hasn’t changed a bit - i get a sense of winter-cold and heater-fed-warmth and wet-rain despite being blessed with the most perfect blue sky summer sun-shine
i let my memories spill once or twice to my friends, relieved to unleash some of them, at least
i get up fairly early after nice sleep, and get ready for run - i plan to run out to oberon bay - i can’t remember ever being out there before - the weather is perfect - deep blue cloudless with the morning still waking up - the first 500m i can feel the 500 beers from the previous night, but they soon fade away - im sore, but i feel myself running somewhere between new and old memories - they’re all streaming by, like the blur outside a train window - i know despite the soreness, and the beer slugs, i could run forever if i allowed myself to - hills, rocks, tight little paths paving their way through and over some world-class earth - i allow myself to stop at some points, just to soak up some scenery - other times i just keep running, shaking my head in disbelief
at little oberon bay i interupt two guys who think they have the place to themselves and are screaming and spashing in the water like they’ve seen too many big-m commercials - they scatter up the dunes after they wave to me - i can’t find my way past little oberon bay, so make the mental plans to head back to tidal river along norman bay and run out to pillar point
the tea-trees still tent and cover the track - i still move swiftly in their shade and make it to the point on the brink of dehydration - i stand in sweat and silence as i scan the scene before me - world class - absolutely - an older man approaches from the bushes behind me and takes in the scene as well - we talk and i do my best to quell the nausea of dehydration - he’s an old retired runner, now just cruising around australia by himself in a van with no sense of time or need - i dig that, and his plans to head down to tasmania next - he wishes me luck on breaking the 4hr mark for my next marathon, and i take off running again - curing my nausea, but eager to get back to camp for a nice cold drink
we all move down the to the beach and my friend asks me if Z, (my daughter), would be old enough to enjoy this - i have to restrain myself from saying - fuck-yes, i’ve been thinking about it all day - we stand in the water as a group of friends and talk and laugh with mindless ease - no-one knows what’s coming next, it all just happens - we drink some beers by the rocks in the shade, allowing the beach before us, and the beer, to intoxicate us into a silly, hilarious, state of mind - i hurt with laughter for the next hour or so as we find inventive and dangerous places to piss
at one point i simply interrupt the two friends next to me and, completely off topic, have to point out that “the amazing thing about wilsons prom is the way those massive rocks are embedded into the mountains” - they agree whole-heartedly, and we continue to drink until it’s time to bbq dinner
back home i read an essay by a hero of mine Robyn Davidson about nomads - i think about how being in the bush - at least a little bit - gives us a sense, and reminds us of what the world was supposed to be - a true sense of place
robyn davidson spoke of the dreamtime as a song, as music, something that tells you something and breaks through past/present/future - the australian land is a spiritual, emotional song, where you have to sit back and relax if you want to hear it properly - and as with every work of art, we hear and see it differently - we just have to remember that our emotional responses come from the same source
a couple of days after returning from the prom, i was on the train home and there was this nut-case on the train home - calling everyone motherfuckers and calling the end of the world because of everyones iphones and eyepods - i imagine he is what i would become if i never got away for some time alone, some days to myself - i smile and laugh at him, because he’s full of shit, and im wearing sunglasses - but mostly i do it to make the mother and preteen daughter sitting opposite him a little more comfortable - they’r sitting opposite him and being polite and enduring his pathetic abusive rant - my smile and shrug comfort them - as it does me
