THE WEIGHT OF THINGS

Ralph and I are holed up in Blackheath, at a friend's place, as rain pours down with a zealot's conviction. It's bloody freezing and we can't go anywhere. I could claim that to brave the elements would imperil my camera equipment but really I am the one in danger. I am just not yet tough enough to endure this kind of weather.

My walk has been stagnated by the elements, I just have to accept that is the case and feel lucky to have a roof over my head. So, from the warmth of a doona I'll reflect on the thoughts from this first week or so.

Physically it was really difficult manipulating the rickswag through the Sydney streets and around people. Beside that, it is a city I have ceased to know. As I walked past people they averted their faces. I had hoped to find stories even as I passed through the old suburbs but found almost no human contact. One car tooted and its inhabitants waved, and that was a police car. A man in an Akubra with his cattle dog pulling a trolley, so reminiscent of a swagman, resonated with no one. Rather, it was confusing to people.

Many of the suburbs through which I walked were Asian and I couldn't have expected a cultural resonance, but I sensed there was something else in people's response to my strange mode of transport. I wonder if, and this is pure speculation, life is now framed by the four sides of the screen, whether an iPad, iphone or television. Crazy things can happen within the confines of the frame, like a dwarf on The Game of Thrones, but outside the corners it is confusing, uncontrolled. 

The walking was challenging. I have never pulled anything as I am pulling my rickswag, rather I lugged a pack on my back. Hauling the rickswag up Lapstone Hill as I climbed into the Blue Mountains was bloody hard work. It is a very different set of muscles and a uniquely different style of walking. I now know why God created slaves.

I have learnt to balance the load by slightly lifting the trolley arms. That almost gives me some forward momentum as though the weight is pushing me forward. I have too much weight of course and during this period I am working through my gear to try and strip down a little. Maybe I can lose some camera gear, some clothes, maybe a little of everything? 

I remembered when I offered a real Swagman called John, a man who has lived on the road for decades, a gas stove and he said ... Nope .. when you've got nothing you can go anywhere. He was right. The more you have, the heavier the weight you carry. 

Not just things. Everything has a weight. My mum loved her husband, my Dad, for 62 years; a beautiful, loving, robust, energetic marriage but his death was the terrible weight of their love. 

Success, failure, love, loss, wealth, they all have their weight. Everything displaces something even if you can't see it at the time. A shadow that is apparent only when the moon or the sun shines. 

It's early days yet but I am far from the weightless wanderer that I yearn to become. My soul is burdened by so many things, my body hurts and I doubt both myself and the task ahead. I sensed two things as I walked the other day. One was a well of sadness through which I needed to push. The other was a fleeting clarity of purpose. My hope is that the balance shifts from the former to the latter.

Young Ralph is a good boy. Even when he licks my face in the tent at night, or pulls this way and that as I try to keep us moving forward, or forces me to chase him after a long days walk. I guess that's just the weight of having a young friend.