An Ocean Road

 The coast road was hacked out of the bush by returned soldiers. Using pickaxes and shovels they cut man’s clarity out of the dense fogs that sent ships to the sandy soil of the ocean. Lighthouses dotted the coast and eery rock formations rose out of the surf.  The road followed no track, just the circuitous route from the edge of one bay to the next. It was to be the epitome of the civilised scenic motor tour. Flies, flood and drought came and went, but the precipitous cliffs fell to the sea, again and again, blanketed by the dense rainforest with the mist over-hanging like a shroud. Those morning mists rendered the strong smell of the eucalyptus visible to the working men, and they knew they were home. Those men made small by war became once again great, as they stooped and stretched with the giants of the forest. The strong, round branches of the manna gum spread open confidently to their sky, like hands striving to contain the openness, their washed out greens pasted against the blue. The mountain ash stood like soldiers in silent file, still and giant in their vertiginous height, grey trunks wreathed in fog. And the myrtle beech were as gnarled and twisted as some deep, dark prehistoric secret that men see only to disturb their age old slumber. The loamy ground buoyed them up, and I imagined they rested on the ground littered with fern fronds, discarded leaves, and strips of bark, lying and listening to the call of the birds. The peeps of the honeyeaters, fantails in their looping flight, treecreepers, rosellas as streaks of colour, currawongs falling clumsily from branch to branch. The green, almost edible looking ground ferns sheltered tiger snakes and white-lipped snakes. It was a forest different from others, a forest of deep leaf litter, of fleshy-fruited plants and of very large trees. It was a great winding road that would send you on your way west if you wanted it. Where, now, once past the bustling summer villages bursting with swimmers, with their snorkels and thongs, with their buckets and boogie boards, most turned back to Melbourne where the lights always remained the same. For those who just came for the sun - the road could seem too long.For her, the road is neither long nor short - it just is. She is set up to face them, those so busy in their packed vehicles, the wind from their passing engines buffeting her soul about, blowing it wide open, until I can see her there and so small on that familiar road where we once were. The three of us in our Dad’s car. Our brother between us, his ringlets brushing our sun stained arms. Our singing, with our swinging brown summer legs making us giddy with ourselves and our eternal togetherness that cannot be recovered. 

Sequoia

Our brown car roared north up Highway 1, winding our way past gum trees and sheep until the 1 merged with the 101 and we were in redwood country. Straight into the midst of the California fog belt where during the summer the fog moved off the sea and on to the land. It hung above the black sand beaches like a white veil devouring the redwoods, as the trees in turn absorbed the fog and it dripped, dripped down from the foliage to the earth laden and made silent with the redwood needles. Sequoia sempervirens; the forever living, or the forever green. Unlike the Australian bush where noises sparkled, leaves shivered, birds swooped. In the redwood forest, the world was quiet, the branches reached up to the sunlight through the mist away from the unseeable, dark below. Up above at the sunlit crown, the needles were short and narrow and female, where the cone produced the flowers. While underneath, breathing the cool, dark air of the forest the needles were long and wide and male.  Reaching for the sunlight, turning the fog to water as they came into contact, majestic, immortal, physical manifestation of the vertical. We reach for the sun, turn our faces towards the sun, arms up in the silent forest, living above the ground.

We arrived in the late Sunday afternoon, in time for the volleyball match. We drove up to Cassidy’s yurt to see if the boys were still there. As we rounded the final bend in the old chevy nova, a jeep came bouncing round the corner, Raleigh’s grin out of a window -all smiles. Backs were slapped, cheeks grazed. Our wheels cracked the dirt, the gravel spat beneath the tyres as the car twisted and turned to follow them deeper into the forest. Our seats were low in our old car as the evening fell outside and the trunks turned to the opaque yellow of just before dusk. Our car parked in the mud. Out of the redwoods came people of all ages, from all countries. The noise of a generator grumbled and a volleyball court was lit up by great white lights, reflecting on the sand. I slung the bota bag around my neck, the goat skin heavy against my hip while Jacob grabbed his black guitar case and a bottle of whiskey hidden beneath  the seat. The game was on. Jacob could always hide behind his guitar, and immediately began tuning up with Raleigh. My old navy duffel coat was worn at the elbows and helped me contain myself as sofas lay strewn about and I stretched out, my legs long in front and rolled cigarettes.The game began, people rotated on either team, people changing on and off. I knew what I didn’t want. Jacob loved games of any sort, and he wanted me to play. He felt I would enjoy it if only I would let myself, but I did not want to feel loose, out there, on the open court, alone amidst the others, comfortable with others. So sat listening and smoking, stretching and unstretching on our first night. There. Those interactions, those expectations. I saw my face pull into a grimace as I lunged for a ball and stayed where I was.We had the music. And they came to us. People from all times. Any time. To keep to our time was irrelevant. To remember what time we were was to be too clear, to be conscious of where we were. Clothes traced decades, music traced centuries, minds were anywhere, everywhere. To own that moment to our time was selfish, it was all time and all music, and all gypsies and all transients, all travelers, those who don’t step into what is expected, those who do want they want, go where they feel. And play where the music is. Mandolins, guitars, mouth organs, harmonicas, and sweet georgia brown.The drive home was drunk, Jack Daniels drunk, with the red wine and beer and spliff, the car’s shocks cracked and bounced as the road was lit up, part of our world for a moment as we sped past and then left an inky peace as our lights already bright on the next bend. The road rose and fell the car bottoming out, the dirt scraping the side.The road, dirt dusty, curved, seemingly going nowhere, just endlessly following a trail through the dark trees to some light somewhere, deeper and deeper. Sometimes a gate lining the road, no cars at all for at least the whole half an hour.Car bouncing, airborne at moments, but we and the car were invincible, drunk and warm, cigarettes glowing, somehow holding the road, catapulting forward, I didn’t even know who was driving. Gravity pulled us on.