Musings & the Suburbs
I’m sure
what I did last weekend would be sentence one, paragraph one, chapter one of
Stupid for Dummies 101.
I decided to
make the most of my fabulous new, local surrounds and go for a trail run. And
before you ask; no, I’ve never gone on trail run before but don’t worry - I was
wearing sunscreen. Unfortunately, I forgot my phone, didn’t bother with water
or the small matter of consulting a map even at a glance to see where I was
going.
There is bush
land around where I live and there are trail walks throughout. And like any
adventurous little antipodean I thought I’d give one a burl. It was all going
well until I started following a track that, in hindsight, seemed a little
narrow but eventually narrowed into no track. And then it started bucketing
down rain so hard I could hardly see a couple of metres in front of me. Lucky I wore that sunscreen
(phew!)
So, what began
as a pleasant jog though the north western Sydney scrub, became a tearful
version of Tough Mudder. My legs were caked in mud and my arms were scratched
to smithereens from passing branches. Gradually, I lost my sense of direction
and eventually, my sense of calm.
I started
out OK. I knew I was lost but tried to keep a cool head and focus on where I
was going. The more the rain fell, the clearer it became that I had lost all
bearings of where I was and where I’d come from.
As a last
ditch resort to remaining chilled I mentally composed the day’s gratitude list:
a trampolining centre has just opened up five minutes from my house; my new
bright pink lip gloss; that the West Memphis Three were released from prison (I
just read a book on the case); finding my long lost Jurassic 5 and Roots CDs;
olive, feta and cucumber salad … oh my god, what was that?! Snake?????
I’ve never
been one for panic, but it was intimidating and frustrating. The more I trudged
on the more fearful I became of my unfamiliar surrounds. As I marched on, so
did time and step after step, I got nowhere fast. As the rain fell, my clothes became
saturated and heavy and insects descended from out of nowhere, freaking my face
off and my frustration became angry fear.
I had to
keep going. No choice. I was on my own and no one knew I’d even gone running.
Who was there to tell anyway?
I moved
without thinking; it probably wasn’t even instinct guiding me because my head
was racing so fast. The anxiety smeared my clarity. Who knew where the universe
was taking me. I couldn’t see much beyond my next step so what hope was there.
No logical thought processes to save me. And where was bloody Bear Grylls when
you needed him?! He’s on Discovery channel every other program … if only I’d paid
more attention to what he was saying than to how he looked while he was saying
it!
But, I
couldn’t stop. I had made the choice to embark on this foolishness, and I
couldn’t go back. Well, I would have, had I had the vaguest idea which
direction I had come from.
The
lightning wasn’t helping matters either. It kept striking overhead, causing
temporary blindness. I kept twisting and turning trying to outsmart that
menacing storm. At one point I felt worryingly dizzy until I realized it was
because the fear was causing me to take a step, stop, turn and step in a new
direction over and over again. It was like when, as a kid, you would spin
around and around, except back then the whole objective was to get dizzy and
fall over, this time it was an unintentional panic spin.
And then I
saw it. A slight clearing leading to rubble. It was once a church? It was a
church that had crumbled to the ground in secluded neglect? Out here, kilometres
and decades from human contact. “Don’t be stupid, Nat,” I told myself out loud
(by then I’d reached the point of audibly admonishing myself). “You’re probably
500 metres from a main road and a Shell service
station. You are not in the jungles of Belize.”
I walked
towards what was left of the church. Or was it once a house? Or a brick
barbecue? Before I reached it, again my attention was diverted - this time to a
track canopied by a tunnel of trees leading to a wooden gate. And behind it a
backyard and a house.
