MUSINGS FROM MIDLIFE
My Stories
If Anything Could be this Good Again
A random Friday off. Awesome. You know where my mind goes straight away. Into the wilderness. The Northern loop, about 120kms out of town in the Cathedral Ranges, it's on my hit list. Not too far, but far enough to feel like I’ve long left city life.
I love driving through the Black Spur, a 30km stint with twists and hairpin turns, to be exact, with enormous gum trees and rainforest ferns awakening your senses as you blow through.
Windows down, the mixed smell of fresh coffee beans and air loft through my car. I listen to the Foo Fighters and feel especially happy as the sound system belts out Everlong, the acoustic version. Cracker of a song.
The Journey
One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice — though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. “Mend my life!” each voice cried. But you did not stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognised as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do — determined to save the only life you could save.