Following lines of communication
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the path we choose to follow. For some people that means following the path to money and all that material wealth can bring. For others, it means pacing yourself, taking some wrong turns, a detour. It means finding yourself in a place least expected. I’ve gone on a lot of detours in recent years.
When I’m in the bush, though, I follow a designated trail. My navigation skills are a work-in-progress so following the path someone else has set out is almost a relief. The animals and plants do not recognise this path, of course. They’ve got their own way of being in the bush. When I was walking at Cooloola last month there were paw prints rushing across the sand blows, and I imagined wild dogs and dingoes roaming about. Whatever and whoever these creatures were, our paths crossed, and for a very brief moment we were connected in time and space.
For a long time I wrote about following the desire line. That is, wandering from the designated trail to one more desired. A desire line is a track worn into the ground by footsteps, rather than bureaucratic bitumen. This line is not the designated path; it is the one most preferred. Writing along desire lines is a joyfully mundane process. It is not glamorous wandering. It does not receive widespread accolades, promotions or literary awards. Desire lines are paths that wear the language of everyday life into the soil. They signal a common ground, but also bloom with difference.
Lately I have been drawn back to the trailhead; I’ve returned the designated path. There are good reasons for this returning. Going off trail, going off-piste, you can lose your way, lose your bearings. You start clomping about in places you have no knowledge of, damaging fragile ecosystems in the process.
Thinking about paths, both designated and desired, reveals that while a line can be many things, it is always a means of communication. For a long time I’ve been trying to understand what my line of inquiry is and why my path has taken so many detours, u-turns and round-abouts. It might be because I am following signals that are like a box of Christmas lights: complex, entangled and hard to set out in a straight line. There’s something to be said for following the path that’s laid out in front of you. Because there’s always the option to wander away now and then, when your heart desires.