FORREST'S FEATHER, A NERVOUS NOMAD AND THE RESURRECTION OF A WORK ETHIC

People ask me how on earth I ended up here, in the big timber country of North America. My son, who is living in New York, has the same experience, he can't understand why people ask "What the hell are you doing in Brooklyn?" Locations that he and I find incredibly exotic, foreign and interesting are seen by many locals as a place for coming from rather than going to...we had a 3-way 'conversation' on instant messenger the other night, he, his brother and me...across a 15 hour time difference, it was a lot of fun...and significant for me to see how well they'd learned from some of my mistakes at their age...I was in my forties before I was as well travelled as they are in their early twenties....all of which has had me thinking over the last few days, how different my life is now in every way from where I came from, from where I was five years ago....how grateful I am to have stepped out of the mainstream, where I had never really felt very comfortable, and made a life of being a wandering sage....if I could only play the lute, I'd have it made...

It's about five years since I stopped planning and started throwing the dice. In 2004 I had a remarkable job for a while, one of those rare jobs where you looked forward to getting to work every day...conducting a review of emergency preparedness for a major metropolitan area...it was fascinating, and I spent my days interviewing emergency service managers and local heads of government and industry, attending local planning sessions and an interesting anti-terrorist exercise at an abandoned factory complex...not many people get to see that kind of thing...and I realised quite suddenly that this job had fallen completely unheralded into my lap...the position hadn't previously existed, and I barely knew that the field existed...and the more I thought about it, the more I realised that the best things that had happened to me over the previous year or two had all just fallen from the sky - often in spite of my planning rather than because of it...I have generally been against the whole idea of Fate and Destiny most of my life, but I started reading more about astrology, synchronicity, Wicca, chance, witchcraft, chaos, spirit guides, shamanism and Norse mythology, to name a few...anything that had a take on what, if anything, effects the path we end up on - and whether or not we can or should try and influence what the Universe has in mind...assuming it does...it's an argument that's easy to get lost in...I think...

I moved from the city to the Australian Outback for a while....after 35 years living in Australia, I got to see for the first time remote Aboriginal Communities across the Top End, from Broome to the Rock....very few white Australians have or will ever see a desert Community, and few want to... to a big-city white boy like me, it was like landing on Mars...I fell in love with the country and a whole new world started opening up....the money was pretty good too, and there was nothing much to spend it on...the idea of stepping further out into the void was becoming more attractive...

I started opening up to the idea that somehow, something had been presenting me with the same sorts of opportunities over and over again...and that although I couldn't see where it might lead, I did have the strong feeling that it had all been, and still is, leading somewhere...and although I don't appear to have any better idea now than I did then, it's an interesting life, notwithstanding that it's not a particularly secure one...in a way akin to quitting smoking, I just decided to forget to worry...so far, it seems to be working...for the most part...

I love the movie 'Forrest Gump', I must have watched it dozens of times....I love the symbology of the white feather, drifting in and out of all sorts of situations, lighter than a duck on a pond, unawed by the immediacy of the moment and unencumbered by plans, present but unaffected....simply, like Forrest himself, floating on the current...it all seemed very Zen to me at the time, and it's become a practice that's served me well...

I look at anchors differently now. I used to imagine a house, in the middle of nowhere, with a verandah all the way around...large Balinese day beds overlooking a body of water - lake, river, even the ocean. I'm not that fussed...peace and quiet and lots of trees...when I think it through, though, as I've said more than once to Fred, if I won the lottery all that would really change for me would be the view...sure, I'd love to see the view from the balcony of a stone cottage overlooking the Mediterranean, but I can guarantee that sooner or later someone would ask "You could live in America, why do you want to live here ?"....hey, don't get me wrong...if you were thinking of naming me in your estate, well, I won't knock it back...but money doesn't always buy you much security, not really....I always feel sorry for the poor buggers who invest their retirement savings in one basket and lose the lot...or those who wait until their sixties to travel and find they're too frail...for five years now, I've spent every penny I've earned....with the exception of my bike, I can still fit everything I need in my backpack, Matilda...yes, I know it's corny and predictable, but it was that or a volleyball called Wilson.... she's a redhead, for the record...

I don't believe in sitting on the couch, bitching about how crap your life is, how no-one could possibly understand how bad you've got it. After the first time - and even then, only if you're buying the drinks - no-one really wants to hear it. I am particularly annoyed by those who see the gate of the cage open before them yet refuse to walk free...I have nothing personal against those more settled, the Cains of the world, to each their own...but, to me, no matter what it is in life, like it, learn from it, learn to like it, or change it...don't whine about what you've chosen...at some level, we have to take responsibility for the particular type of harm of which we choose to put ourselves in the way...

So, this past couple of days I've been getting rattled - I've had a relatively small but clear reminder that, as a direct result of casting in my lot with chance, I'm no longer the master of my own destiny...and it's easy to forget why and how I signed up for this nomadic gig in the first place...a short-term, part-time job that I have been enjoying immensely, has just come to an end, albeit not unexpectedly...a manual arts job that was a great learning experience in a field I want to learn more about...I made a few dollars to buy the odd trinket and I got to make and repair things with my hands, an endeavour I've rarely shown a lot of aptitude for, but to which I'm becoming more and more attached...and it's come to an end, now, and the ground under my feet feels less steady...

I don't need much money these days, I'm cheaper to keep than I've ever been...and the weird thing is, despite my long bouts with ergophobia, I've realised that I actually do enjoy having work to do, regardless of how much I need money...that's something I didn't expect...a great deal of the work I've done in the course of my life has been a means to an end, and I've never had the same job for more than a couple of years...when others around me aspired to promotion, I aspired to win the lottery...and now, all of a sudden, I'm unemployed again, my nest egg is still a few years away, and the cash in my wallet will only last so long....

That lurch in the deck every so often almost always leads to bigger and better things, but it can be scary at the time...the less trodden path means less help, and very little certainty....this morning, the first of September, I sat with my coffee and my treasured old 49ers coffee mug - a favourite portable anchor - looking out my freshly painted window at the gentle sunlight drying this morning's light rain, relishing the onset of Autumn, a season barely noticed in Australia...I have two full northern Autumns behind me now, and I'm more prepared...the house and the garden are better prepared to withstand the cold and wet, and they look like someone cares about them now...there's a different feeling in the air...and I stop and think about my job having ended, and that I'm going to have to be a little more careful with what money I have left...I think about getting into it tomorrow and getting my bike ready for one more long ride before the cold gets crazy.....and I think about an ordinary English kid who lived in Australia for most of his life and wonder how on Earth he ended up here in America, looking forward to the Autumn...and I smile and wonder what's going to happen next...no doubt the Universe really is unfolding as it should...