6: On the road
The other week, I received a message that brought an enormous smile to my face - “Wondering what you were up to on Easter Long weekend. Want to plan a get the f**k out of the city trip?”
That message came from a close friend, and the phrase has been used as the catalyst for many trips down the south coast, to a daggy little parked caravan my family has in a caravan park down the south coast- known simply as “the van”, an incredibly dear place to me and those that have visited.
As most Australians know, a long weekend or school holiday means a getaway. It also means traffic, and a lot of it. Being on the road and moving away from the city (however slowly that movement may be), allowing the landscape to change has a particular brand of peace to it.
There are the regular journeys, familiar in their roads and comforting in the sense of a “return”. The smells of the ocean as the car moves towards the van or the crisper air returning to my childhood home in the blue mountains. On these journeys, a sense of warm familiarity is present. The van is particularly special in this regard- with no tv, limited phone connection, and a very simple setup, there is time in abundance for reading, eating outside, the ocean, the rock pools and thoughts. It has been one of my favourite places since childhood.
Exploring Mermaids- rock pool at the van . Image take by my friend, KF.
The sensation of this is put perfectly by Alain de Botton, whose book “The Art of Travel” I read earlier this year.
“Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than a moving plane, ship or train. There is an almost quaint correlation between what is in front of our eyes and the thoughts we are able to have in our heads: large thoughts at times requiring large views, new thoughts new places. Introspective reflections which are liable to stall are helped along by the flow of the landscape. The mind may be reluctant to think properly when thinking is all it is supposed to do.
At the end of hours of train-dreaming, we may feel we have been returned to ourselves - that is, brought back into contact with emotions and ideas of importance to us. It is not necessarily at home that we best encounter our true selves. The furniture insists that we cannot change because it does not; the domestic setting keeps us tethered to the person we are in ordinary life, but who may not be who we essentially are.”
Those few days away- this time to the country, were so restful and relaxing. Between the easter egg hunts, being surrounded by beautiful animals, and laughing away with friends- it was a much needed break in the regular rhythms and routines.
Until next week!
AP
Note: Having just moved house again, my scheduling of weekly blogs has been thrown out the window. Hence the “weeks” have been a bit longer and thrown out of routine. Working on this.