I stand with packing list in hand

two pages, neatly typed

by my executive function earlier in the week

It seems wise

if a little over-done

And the font is all business

and not at all whatnot

which is what an actual packing list is.

I’ve avoided this point

the begun

Where it all becomes very real

It’s exciting but there is a great deal of pressure

to not forget “things”

and the absent mind professor part of my brain

that has for the last three days

been buried in writing night and day

is fighting

the urge to go back to bed

instead of tracking down all the things on this list

and neatly putting their cords, chargers and

back up batteries –

everything necessary to run a small town

of technology that MUST not be forgotten

into the too small bag it’s allotted.

Why so much stuff I will mutter?

But I already know the answer

because on the road the artist will be in residence

but not behind the wheel

she has already been banned from that seat

which requires firm focus, concentration and actual

map reading skills

because unlike forays into urban areas

paper maps are still preferable to whatever Google has termed

the Outback

Where a squiggly little goat track is supposedly a four lane highway

no it’s not Google

The artist will instead ride shotgun and is permitted to yell

not too loudly

“Over there – I want a photo of that”

and fuss around under a tree in the middle of nowhere

while the rest of the crew loll in the ute and wait

and wait

for Kate to get her framing and her light all the while writing

poetry in her mind, and probably actually in the dirt with the toe of her boot

Which is why the artist does not drive

she arrives

with all the rest of her having done the packing, the tracking

the driving and the sighing

Right now she has left the professor in charge

probably not the best contender but at least as a right-brain thinker

can be relied upon to follow a list of important things

While the artist

is writing

the all necessary update

and rambling.

It’s going to take all-day

but the bags are out

piles are building on the mat in the middle of our dining room

where all packing is done

because it is halfway to the door and once a bag is full

it can’t be missed on the way to the car

and into the boot

goes all of the things

half of which

will probably not be used

but are nevertheless necessary

And from the laundry is the smell of fruit

dehydrating

and Trangia recipes are assembling ingredients

and the always-forgotten towel

and actual convenience

are probably slinking away to hide where they can’t be seen

because it’s always that one important thing

that is never where it should be

but I won’t blame the professor

because tip-toeing over crunchy frosty grass

just to go to the toilet

at 2am

will have the professor in enough of a jam

and the internal fighting

of all the crew

will be quite frightening and loud

“No I’m not busting yet, I’m staying in bed”

will be echoing around and around in my head

only to be suddenly silenced by the view

of a million stars scattered in a sky so black it is all-absorbing

on the way back to where I am just arriving

at 2.10am

Oh!

and it is all so awe-inspiring

that it will keep my motor running

for the next six weeks.

*Run to awe over ordinary. Always. Yes, there is inconvenience, there is cold and dirty feet. There are trips to a vague outline in the distance that is the amenities block in shared camp grounds. And missing things that were important – why didn’t they make it onto the list?

There will be internal arguments and dissent but every single part of me agrees that these little things are minor events

When compared to the scale of adventure that solo travel in uncomfortable but beautiful places brings. They rewild us. Make us wander off the side of maps, off the side of the thinking that has been honed by numbers and spreadsheets. The sort of thing that remind us we are mere human, just another species in the animal kingdom.

In the coming trip I’m spending time in national parks, outback sheep stations and by rivers and lakes that themselves have recently rewilded themselves by spilling their banks in catastrophic floods. And I’m camping on the ground (well not on the actual ground – hopefully the professor is packing the comfy things that are three sets of bullet points down that list..)

I leave tomorrow – my SubStack newsletter posts then – on Sunday morning. If you are a subscriber, thank you – it will fall into your inbox. If not – you can check it out by going to my profile and then tapping into the Reveries newsletter.

But thanks to the dodgy service and general lack of Google knowing where I am (an event worthy of remote travel at the very least) Updates will be few and far between until next week-end.

Love

PS Just a note on SubStack.

On SS there are subscribers and then there are followers. If my space had a paid gate keeper system, then subscribers would pay and followers would not. But my site is free either way.

Followers, I have found, do not automatically receive newsletters but do get updates on the notes function within SubStack itself.

So, if you would like to receive the weekly newsletter and are wondering why it is not happening when you are a follower – that is why.

Sorry, I’m still finding all the quirky bits of SS myself. And no, I will never leave my blog here for SS. It is just a different form of writing and reading over there. This blog athousandbitsofpaper, is my natural home for writing – everywhere else are places I visit, rather than inhabit. There is a reason it has been going so long and that is because it is my listening mouth and my speaking ear for writing.