Tumbleweeds

<Ruby Williamson, Hunting for Bush Cats, Minymaku Arts, 2003>

This evening I decided to go on a ride out along the Ilparpa Road.  I rode out a bit beyond the Shooting Complex and back.  Every time I go along the 'other side' of the ranges, where the Ilparpa Rd takes you, I'm surprised by the everchanging beauty of the ranges.  Today, I found myself mentally comparing the Ilparpa side of the ranges to an English rural idyll, with the haze above the banks of grain on the fields making the ranges look bluish (yes, always that colonialist temptation to re-frame the landscape through the lens of the supposedly more familiar Anglo countryside). In retrospect, I'm also surprised by my memory of my initial impression of the Ranges and the road from the airport, which was that the run up to the Ranges was fairly unremarkable and that the Ranges themselves were a bit of an anti-climax -- compared to the beaches at Broome (then my only benchmark of remoteness).   Well, they can be anti-climactic, in certain lights.  Now the whole journey seems alive with detail, and it's always interesting to see how the Ranges will look at another time of day or quirk of season.

But then, there's other details.  Like the splashes of broken glass across the bike path, including the label of a vodka bottle almost crushed into the pavement.   (People at the Cycling Club told me they never used the bike paths.)  Empty boxes from Tawny Port casks drifting about.   And today, a man asleep on the path, a cordial bottle filled with what looked like port beside him.  At other times, I've seen trails of blood on the path, altercations and police attempting to break up altercations.  I've seen people lying in the middle of the road outside the pub near where I live a couple of times, too. 

Territorians, black and white, drink much more per capita than the national average and experience a greater level of accidental deaths and alcohol-related deaths and diseases as a result.  Every time I see one of those Tawny Port tumbleweeds floating about, I'm reminded of this fact.  A couple of years ago, there were some alcohol restrictions trialled here, which had the unfortunate side effect of moving the town's 'biggest bang for your buck' mob away from cheap wines and onto higher-alcohol content cheap port (some would argue that this shift could have been kept in check by the authorities running the trial).  Port's sometimes known as 'monkey's blood' here, and it's believed by some to cause higher levels of aggression and violence.  It definitely causes higher rates of pancreatitis, with dramatic early onset cases now being picked up in 20-somethings.  (It's strange to think of port having such sinister connections; mentally I associate port with such undergraduate activities as playing cards, smoking cigarillos and eating chocolate at a house on Glebe Pt Rd.)

I'm kind of enjoying working close to home now, not because it's only 5 minutes ride away, but because it's in the 'Bronx' or 'Redfern' area of Alice (actually, 'Redfern's' largely been moved to a satellite suburb out west, the 'Mt Druitt' perhaps of Alice).  It's a bit more down to earth than being on the Mall in the 'CBD'.  Maybe a little too down to earth at times...for the past few days, there's been another of Alice's familiar tumbleweeds floating around on the footpath outside my office, a plastic disposable nappy.  The other day, as I was walking towards my office, I suddenly felt something wet slapping against my leg.  I looked down, and saw the nappy wrapping itself around my ankle like a giant kelp.  I shrugged it off, and yes, I'm afraid to say, I was too irked in a Powers of Horror abjection type  way to have any further contact with it, i.e.involving disposal. (The groundsman has clearly felt a bit challenged by this one, also.)

There was a torrential downpour last night, and as I walked towards my office today, I looked out for the nappy, hoping that the winds and rain might have disposed of it.  But no, there it was again, this time curled into a more respectable mollusc in the orange dirt by the side of the path.  No doubt I'll see it again tomorrow morning.

The white plastic Kimbies tumbleweed always says to me: a single, quite probably young Aboriginal, mother has been around.  Someone who's living the inverse life of the gals on Sex and the City, that's for sure.  It's another of those idiosyncratic markers of the presence of poverty (she will quite possibly have gotten the Kimbies as a hand-out from a local organisation, in case you're wondering).

I'm reminded of what the Young Feller said to me when he came back from leave last year: that when he saw all the broken glass again, he remembered that we were living in a tough town.  It's kinda weird to be living here as a 'downshifter' (I originally wrote 'downshiter' there -- great Freudian slip!), partly here for career interests, but also partly to take the pressure off myself for a while, to lead a better life...amidst people who in many cases aren't living a particularly 'good life' at all. 

(And then there were two: there's now another blogger in Alice, as Tjilpi has taken his first steps...)

Comments

[Tjilpi]

Thanks for the mentiion 'elsewhere'. I'll now begin on my collection of autobiographical yarns and short stories, hoping to hone my writing skills in preparation for "The Novel". Isn't that how everyone begins?

[Tjilpi]

Elsewhere, I've had no critical comments at all!! Where is a@a.com. Even a blast is better than being totally ignored!

[elsewhere]

I'm not totally sure how everyone begins...

Um, I don't think I got any comments until I was about a month into blogging, and then they were from kind friends. There are various syndication options you can choose in typepad to put the word out, but I don't know that they're that effective.

But the more you blog (i.e. the more you clutter up the internet), basically the more likely it is that you'll get hits. The post I've done that seems to have received the most hits was one about Helen Garner's _Joe Cinque's Consolation_, so niche topicality is better.

There's also a kind of hierarchy of blogging at work -- like I'm really attached to a cluster of Melbourne blogs (thru the kindness of friends, once again). The NT seems to be a bit of a backwater for blogging, I'm afraid.

[Tjilpi]

Thanks for the reply, e. Today I discovered how to "re-edit" an already posted blog. Great way to tune up a piece. If you read my last two posts you'll see how your topics have triggered some of the content of mine. Tj.

[Tjilpi]

Just discovered the Stats page on TypePad. Apart from yourself, 'Bloglines' seems to have taken a look at my blog. Along with the pressure of trying to write something that I think I would like to read, now I've got to learn about Feeds, XML and OPML as well. Information overload!

I'm really enjoying writing some of the stories I've been telling for years. I've got the title for "The Novel" - My Secret Life as a Blackfella. How Aboriginal History and Culture invests a mongrel Whitefella Life.

Maybe that's a bit long; but it's a concept I've long thought about. I never knew my 4 great grandparents; they were English, Irish, Swedish and French. That's where the mongrel comes from. The dominant inheritance was English and Irish, but there has been a Blackfella inheritance in there as well. It's almost as if I had an equally unknown but equally culturally important Aboriginal great grandparent.

[Tjilpi]

El, how do I find your post on Joe Cinque's Consolotion? Is there any kind of directory to archived stuff? I've just had a scroll thru Troppo Armadillo blog. Lot of serious contributors there. Tj.