Out on the road to Largs, the darkness settles around the car, around everything . . .
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It’s late, and I kind of like this sometime nocturnal pursuit: enjoy the feeling of seeing the town at night - its calm quietness, its restful posture; see the slouch and shadow of a far off ridge at Lambs Valley, see the nod of lights from Morpeth across the floodplain green from Bolwarra, like the lights of a distant harbour.
And in the gloom, the metaphor takes shape. The reach of the headlights is more or less the reach of my vision, fanning out in front, letting me see just enough to feel in control, to feel comfortable with where I’m going, and yet, beyond the arc of the lights, at the limit of their reach, there is darkness, there is the unknown ...
And there, on the road near beautiful Wallalong, I understood the metaphor: that I can’t really see too far off into the future; that at best, I can see just so far as to navigate safely, to enjoy some music and a yarn, a night-dream, and a memory.
And as the road raced up before me and the guideposts blurred in and out my mind and view, like the moments of life, like so much of life, they came and went so quickly. No sooner does the light, ephemeral, give them shape and form – then they go, left behind in the blackness of time past.
So it goes I thought . . .
And the idea developed further as I came down toward Hinton, across that grassy quarter there ...
I felt better as I realised that we’re not on our own in this – that we can, and do, light up the dark road for each other. Our families, our loves, our clubs and friends, our neighbours and fellow travellers, our companions, our comrades, our children, our mums and dads, our institutions, our art, our music, our sport, our memories – they all help light the road dim, they all give succour and, ultimately, give vision.
Across the farms now I roll, and off in the distance, not 5km into the darkness, are the lights of old Maitland. They rise up from the corn and lucerne, up through the night, and they’rer doing what they always did – they’re guiding me home.
And that’s enough. That’s all I need to light the road...
To know that there is somewhere you belong, is a beacon good enough, maybe for all of us.
We wake up in the world from our solitary illimitable sleep; we make our journeys, travel our roads, we find our way and sometimes, as we stumble about in the nebulous circuit of life, we are lucky enough to find a light, to find something and someone to open our eyes to the place where we are ...
And here we are dear reader, awake on the flood plain - in the old river town we are.
And so it goes.
Good morning!