Chatwin Soaring

From Songlines, 1987:

"I had a presentiment that the 'travelling' phase of my life might be passing. I felt, before the malaise of settlement crept over me, that I should reopen those notebooks. I should set down on paper a résumé of the ideas, quotations and encounters which had amused and obsessed me; and which I hoped would shed light on what is, for me, the question of questions: the nature of human restlessness.

Pascal, in one of his gloomier pensées, gave it as his opinion that all our miseries stemmed from a single cause: our inability to remain quietly in a room.

Why, he asked, must a man with sufficient to live on feel drawn to divert himself on long sea voyages? To dwell in another town? To go off in search of a peppercorn? Or go off to war and break skulls?

Later, on further reflection, having discovered the cause of our misfortunes, he wished to understand the reason for them, he found one very good reason: namely, the natural unhappiness of our weak mortal condition; so unhappy that when we gave to it all our attention, nothing could console us.

One thing alone could alleviate our despair, and that was distraction (divertissement): yet this was the worst of our misfortunes, for in distraction we were prevented from thinking about ourselves and were gradually brought to ruin.

Could it be, I wondered, that our need for distraction, our mania for the new, was, in essence, an instinctive migratory urge akin to that of birds in autumn?

All the Great Teachers have preached that Man, originally, was a 'wanderer in the scorching and barren wilderness of this world' – the words are those of Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor – and that to rediscover his humanity, he must slough off attachments and take to the road.

My two most recent notebooks were crammed with jottings taken in South Africa, where I had examined, at first hand, certain evidence on the origin of our species. What I learned there – together with what I now knew about the Songlines – seemed to confirm the conjecture I had toyed with for so long: that Natural Selection has designed us – from the structure of our brain-cells to the structure of our big toe – for a career of seasonal journeys on foot through a blistering land of thorn-scrub or desert.

If this were so; if the desert were 'home'; if our instincts were forged in the desert; to survive the rigours of the desert – then it is easier to understand why greener pastures pall on us; why possessions exhaust us, and why Pascal's imaginary man found his comfortable lodgings a prison."

-Bruce Chatwin

Postcard From Sydney

Hilary and I landed in Sydney on a rainy Friday morning and within a few hours I was choosing between kangaroo or crocodile for lunch. We had missed Thanksgiving all together, and in midair no less, so I went with the kangaroo. You gotta take it slow in Australia.

I'd never been to this country and I am grateful to my sister for the opportunity to spend a few weeks in a place so far away yet eerily similar to home. Australia is a bizarro America; it's like a warm Canada. I sense macro-familiarity but get lost in the details. They drive on the left in cars the color of toothbrushes. Much of the food seems the invention of Dr. Seuss. Ditto the flora & fauna. Women's dress styles are 1980s flashy and book cover designs are glossy and on the nose, like fakes from the movies. Cafes sell coffee at every street corner, but they pronounce it "cuffee". Australians do things to vowels many Americans would find difficult to abide.

Our hotel overlooks Darling Harbor, near an area called The Rocks for the reason that it sits atop a rocky cliff, like so much of Sydney. It was in The Rocks that I enjoyed my kangaroo burger. In the tiny bookstore I was pleased to browse a book of Australian poetry (who knew?) and discover the existence of one Banjo Paterson, the man with the most envious name in history. Paterson was a 19th century poet and the composer of "Waltzing Matilda", the Australian national anthem and the greatest drinking song of all time. (The second greatest drinking song was co-written by friend Skeely. It contains the line "but when I get so pissed, I don't toss about me fists".)

We walked to Surrey Hills for dinner our first night, along the way passing through a neighborhood I would describe as the Sydney Castro, featuring your full line of rainbow and strap-on whathaveyous. It was here I began to notice how so many Australian men are shaped like Bluto from the Popeye comic strip. Men in Sydney are a tough lot, and I have seen more men with black eyes here than I've seen anywhere in years.

Which brings us to Manly Beach. Yes, that's the name of the place. My photos from our day there are proof that this joke never gets old. There is a Manly Yacht Club, a Manly Children's Hospital, and a Manly Lifesaving Club which is a members only association of lifeguards. The beaches around Sydney are perfect. In addition to Manly, we also biked over to Bondi Beach. When I mentioned how pleasant it was that nobody was blasting reggaeton or Foghat through cheap speakers, Hilary thankfully pointed out the dearth of men in Speedos. Best of all, there was nobody was attempting the swim-&-smoke, one of my least favorite human activities to witness.

The ferry ride back from Manly across Sydney Harbor at sunset was worth the twenty-three hour flight. Nothing can prepare you for the Sydney Opera House. You just have to come and see it for yourself.

I'll leave you with this: there are bats in Sydney's otherwise beautiful Hyde Park the size of German Shepherd puppies. How it is that the entire city has not relocated I have no idea. The most discomforting moment I have had here was watching the bats fly en masse from the cathedral towers at dusk and circle above the trees in Hyde Park, clicking and swooping the way giant bats apparently do. Where I come from a bat fits easily inside your hand, the way it should be, not that you would ever touch one. These Aussie bats are snatch-your-baby-from-the-pram Nightbirds from Hell and I want no part of it.

Tomorrow morning we have a morning flight to Uluru, the giant red rock in the middle of this vast, dry continent.