Big foot

It turns out that I might be ....the weakest link in my household. We were taking a bit of an audit of electricity usage and as it happens, my heater uses *a lot* of our household electricity. I was a bit confronted by this information, as I think of myself as having a relatively light ecological footprint. I am a vegetarian, for crying out loud! I compost, grow stuff, refuse plastic bags, use public transport where possible and never use a clothes dryer. (Please don't get me started on people who use dryers!!). Surely all that counts for something?

But this situation I find myself in has caused me to reflect on how easy it is to become holier than thou on one aspect of our ecological footprint while ignoring other less comfortable areas.I also wonder whether I am perhaps focusing too much on low impact lifestyle changes and too little on the areas of greatest impact. So I decided to find out for myself which lifestyle choices can make the biggest difference to the environment. Thanks to the World Wildlife Fund online calculator, I have been informed that I am indeed a big foot - I'm using the equivalent of 1.7 planets or almost double my share. The average Australian uses the equivalent of 3 planets.

My ecological footprint results

So, what else did I discover? One of my biggest areas of impact is food. Initially I was surprised. A UN study entitled "Livestock's Long Shadow", indicates that eating meat is the number one consumer cause of global warming, above all types of transport combined. And according to the "What if" section below, if every Australian reduced the amount of animal products they consumed, we could reduce our ecological footprint by 18 million hectares! Yet, food is one of my biggest percentage items. I guess even a vegetarian diet takes a lot of agricultural land. Apart from going vegan or just eating less, which is probably not a bad idea, I can reduce the amount of packaged and imported foods that I consume. If Australians were to reduce the amount of packaging they use, we could reduce our footprint by 14 million global hectares!

My other big area was services. It seems that I am at the same time good (high use of public transport and recycling services), bad (high use of waste services, packaging, and possibly transport related to imported food) and confused (high electricity usage - but if it's renewable is it okay to use more?) which makes it hard to assess whether having a high percentage on the services slice of the pie is a good thing or not. However, given that the amount of land I use for energy is so high, that is one area I can definitely improve upon. If more Australians reduced their electricity usage through more efficient appliances, we could reduce our footprint by 2 million global hectares. If more Australians had solar panels (thereby reducing their *bad* electricity usage down to zero) we could reduce our footprint by 9 million global hectares.

Interestingly, although I travel by plane a lot for work, mobility was not my worst area. The fact that I mainly travel in Sydney by foot, bike, and bus apparently compensates for all the flying I do. Apparently if the average Australian reduced their car usage and increased their use of public transport, we could reduce our footprint by 9 million global hectares. Flights do contribute to 1 million of Australia's global hectares, however, so it's something I need to think seriously about.

Shelter was my smallest slice of the pie, possibly due to the fact that I live in a modest sized house with four others. We can share things that take up a lot of energy like a fridge and also be part of a food co-op. Interestingly, there were not any questions about how many children I have and whether the people I lived with were the result of my own procreation or somebody else's. I felt that should have been asked. An article entitled "The 5 most important things you can do for the environment" lists having fewer or no children as the number one thing we can do. While I take off my hat to those who choose not to have children for the sake of the environment, it's nice to know that my situation (childless, as one friend so delicately put it) lightens my impact somewhat. I'd like to know how many global hectares I'm saving through this sacrifice on everyone else's behalf!!

Interesting to note which areas can have the biggest impact

So while I'm still the weakest link, I probably won't be voted out of the house. They are a very reasonable bunch! But there's plenty of room for improvement. One day I might just have a job where I travel less, reduce my waste and packaging even more, eat vegan and local, and yes, be warm in winter because of my amazingly insulated green house that is heated using passive solar and boosted by as much solar energy to power that heater as I care to use! Ahhh! But until then, I plan to rug up, or take the advice of the student residence in Switzerland when the heating system broke down - go hug a flatmate! 

Swimming goggles, lemons and a clanging noise

During a recent visit to Istanbul, I found myself closer to the action in Taksim Square than I had expected. Although it was just after about a month of regular protests and police involvement leading to some violence, the previous week had been very calm, and the hotel staff assured me that everything was fine. So, it seemed that I was still "exercising extreme caution" in DFAT's terms if I merely ventured across the Galata Bridge and into town to meet some friends at a cafe.

Street in Istanbul pre-gas

Given that Istanbul was the only city on this trip where I literally knew nobody, I was very grateful for the contact, and to be able to hang out with locals. I ordered a lemony drink and began asking my new friends all about their jobs and what brought them to Turkey. As we were talking, I glanced at the shelf behind, and noticed a pile of leaflets announcing a rally to be held the next day. I took a flyer, noted the place and time, but contrary to my usual practice, it was in order to avoid being there. My new friends agreed that I could do more for the cause by staying safe and joining in the online campaign than getting physically involved.

Then, as we were wandering down the cobblestone street and considering where to go next, we came across some people running down the hill quite quickly, in the way that I imagined a stampede might begin. I didn't know which way to turn, and was reminded again that I am not good in emergencies. My new friends ushered me into a nearby bar, but not before I was exposed to a faint gassy smell, and my eyes began to water. Police had begun to spray tear gas on protesters again and we were in the firing line.

Once we were safely inside the bar and things had quietened down, my new friends started telling me stories about the situation so far. They lived very close to Taksim Square and had heard the events unfold quite literally before their teary eyes. One guy reckoned he had been gased by proxy about 20 times in the past month. As we sat there, small groups of people walked past the window with mouths and noses covered by gas masks, handkerchiefs, and interestingly enough, swimming goggles. We did wonder where all the swimming goggles were coming from, and whether any suppliers thought it odd that they were suddenly in such high demand. They also mentioned that within a few hours of the first incidents, enterprising street vendors were spotted selling gas masks, lemons and other useful items that one might wish to purchase post-protest, in much the same way that there is always somebody selling umbrellas the minute it starts to rain. 

protest flyer

Stories of creativity and humour started to emerge as well. Apparently the government had been making some comments about people "making noise for no reason", so people had decided to do just that and began clanging pots and pans randomly as they went about their everyday business. Even when people were running past us with tears running down their faces from the gas, nobody turned on each other. There seemed to be an overall feeling of good-will, and I couldn't help being reminded of classes in Nonviolence with Stuart Rees, who talked of historical figures such as Gandhi and King using humour, creativity, and retaining their *human-ness* in the face of oppression or violence.

I spent the next day taking ferry rides and exploring the less touristy parts of town. It was great fun, particularly as Sunday is family day and "day off" in Istanbul, so everybody was out and about enjoying the sunshine and parks. As I reflected on this, I realised why access to a park in the centre of town was so important to people. As the hotel manager told me, the police also have families, and enjoy parks, so it is perplexing why they respond with such vigour to essentially non violent protests about an issue they themselves would most likely support, if they thought properly about it. 

The cuckoo's nest

The other day I found myself on a bus sitting next to a guy whispering "coo coo" into a used macdonald's bag. No, he wasn't crazy. He happens to be one of my closest friends. Actually he had just rescued a baby bird which had fallen from its nest, and was attempting to calm it down. But as I sat there it occurred to me that other passengers might think we were both a bit cuckoo ourselves. I grinned at the thought.

I recently read "Veronica decides to die" - a book about life, death and what it means to be "mad". Veronica is a young woman who doesn't have anything particular going wrong in her life, but decides it would be best to die while she is young and healthy, as getting older she anticipates life only getting worse. She is plagued by the boredom of her uninspiring job and dreary day to day life. This is coupled with the belief that she was on a miserable trajectory where she would eventually marry, have a few children, become lonely, her husband would cheat on her, she would become fat and depressed, would consider suicide but wouldn't have the guts to go through with it, and in any case would have the children to think about. She reasons that it makes more sense to die now, before all that unhappiness unfolds.

In an interesting turn of events, after taking enough sleeping tablets to kill herself, she wakes up in a psychiatric hospital and is delivered the news that her heart is now so frail that she only has about a week to live. She begins to interact with the other patients. Some of them ignore her, some are confronted that somebody so young is waiting to die, and others become a comfort to her with advice about how to spend her remaining days, based on their own low points, regrets and experiences of finally "breaking free" of convention. With encouragement from her new friends, who view "madness" as just a more extreme case of being yourself and living life honestly, Veronica reasons that, since she's going to die anyway, she may as well do some of those things she wouldn't normally do. She slaps a man in the face when she disagrees with him, she gets naked, starts up a friendship with a young man who never communicates with anyone, and takes pleasure in the simple things - playing piano, a beautiful sunrise and seeing the city at night. She begins to see that life is full of choices. She doesn't have to live a dull, normal life. She can be as "mad" as she likes, she can inspire others, and experience the world around her with wonder...regardless of how many days she has still to live.

And so I think of my friend on the bus, and wonder how many of us are too frightened of what others will think to do what comes naturally - caring for other creatures, making a fuss about injustice, and being willing to live our life with integrity, passion and a bit of "madness".

In the eye of the storm

I've grown up going to protests. As a child in the 1980's I have fond memories of the rainbow banners of the anti-nuclear campaign. In the 1990s it was Indigenous rights culminating in the hope and togetherness we felt during the Bridge Walk  for Reconciliation. After 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan I was busily engaged in the anti-war movement and got involved in refugee action groups. Throughout all those years I had never had a problem with the police and generally believed that they were there to protect us... until the other week.

Recent rally in Sydney

I was recently in a picket supporting the National Tertiary Educators Union to call for fairer working conditions. The riot police had been called in, and as soon as any negotiations began to take place between protesters and those wishing to enter the university, the police took it upon themselves to get involved, and quickly set about pushing protesters quite aggressively, and grabbing those who were seated on the ground. I was quite shocked by these displays of what some would call police brutality. I hadn't seen it up close before. There was a look of what I can only describe as hatred in their eyes as they pushed, shoved, and strangled their fellow human beings for nothing more than voicing an opinion and then sitting down at an inconvenient time and place. My impression was that it was also a blankness there in their eyes, as if they had put aside their humanity in order to do their job. I've been told that blank look is in fact part of what they have been trained to do, in the same way that soldiers are taught to kill without emotion.

I have been thinking about this in relation to other protests around the world. I know we are lucky in Australia that, if you're white the police are generally there to protect you. Indigenous Australians have born the brunt of racism, inhumane treatment, incarceration without reason, and death from our so-called justice system for more than 200 years. Palestinian colleagues have told me about the endless Israeli checkpoints they have to go through, even just to get from home to work, and the discrimination that they face daily from Israeli authorities simply for being of a different nationality. I was aware in Turkey that the use of tear gas on protesters seemed an extreme reaction to an essentially peaceful protest about ideals that police would probably themselves support, if they thought long enough about it - access to public parks, and a democratic government.

Flyer in Istanbul

So, with all these situations, I have been asking myself whether some people are naturally evil, or whether these behaviours are just a result of violent structures, inappropriate training and propaganda. The other week, I got into an interesting discussion about the Palestine/Israel situation. A woman was asking me whether the Quaker belief that there is "that of God in everyone" leading to a history of impartiality during wars and conflicts (the Quakers provided an ambulance service to both sides during the first and second world wars) is in direct conflict with our pursuit of equality and justice, particularly in situations of human rights violations. Are we failing to stand up for the oppressed when we attempt to negotiate with the oppressor?

It is a topic I have been considering myself over the past few months, and I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. I think it is possible to call for justice and to stand alongside the oppressed while still believing there is something of God in everyone. There is a Quaker query that asks "Do you respect that of God in everyone though it may be expressed in unfamiliar ways or be difficult to discern?" The belief in this goodness in the 'other' enables us not only to look at conflicts in terms of two or more parties with needs unmet but also to see oppressive regimes as made up of human beings who are capable of good. Speaking to their human-ness, I hope, gives the oppressor the space and opportunity to change their behaviour.

An activist friend who has more experience than me of police interactions through his involvement with the occupy movement was telling me of a time when a protester had spoken so passionately to a line of riot police about the inhumanity of their actions that one of the officers had broken down in tears. While probably a rare occurrence, I think it shows that beneath the tough exterior and emotionless eyes of riot police in Australia, or Israeli soldiers at checkpoints in Palestine or police administering tear gas in Istanbul there is an innate humanity. Perhaps if we can patiently search for that humanity, we can encourage them to see alternatives to violence for achieving their objectives, recognise the humanity in their 'other', and over time, begin to see justice for those who have suffered as a result of violence, injustice and oppression.

Travelling by train

 "No mode of transportation inspires more detailed observation than the railway train" - Paul Theroux

There were a few reasons I decided to travel Europe by train. The first was to impress my nephew, who at 2yrs old is already a keen observer of toot toots in general, and Thomas the Tank Engine in particular. Another was ecological. While flying halfway across the world is a shocking thing to do to the environment, the only way I could justify it was to travel by train once I arrived. The plan was to pass through Germany, Switzerland, France and England all by train. The third reason was romantic. There's no other mode of transport where you can watch the scenery rush past free of road traffic, where your cup doesn't spill during turbulence, and where you can plug in your laptop or phone, read, or chat to the person sitting opposite you.I wanted to experience it for myself. 

So imagine my disappointment when, fresh off a 30hr flight in Frankfurt, and armed with instructions for how to travel by train for 16 euro to Erlangen via Nurnberg, I was informed by an efficient German teller that the only way to do so was to take almost every slow train in Germany, go via every small city and arrive three hours later than planned. With no way to contact my friend with changes to the agreed arrival time, I had to opt for the more expensive route. With a heavy heart, and even heavier pack, I purchased my ticket, found the platform, and boarded the train, only to discover that it was full of commuters. Suddenly aware that I had not showered in two days, I slid my backpack into the luggage rack, and eased myself carefully into the only available seat, next to a rather displeased man in a suit, and tried not to smell too bad. 

Things improved when I undertook my next journey three days later. "You have to book well in advance if you want a good price" they all said when I had been trying to book my tickets a few weeks earlier, which doesn't bode well for somebody like me who isn't good with decisions. I had been staring at the three options before me on the computer screen: 1) cheapest with no flexibility if you miss any of the connections 2) First class for only 20 euros more with officially no more flexibility, although reports indicated they were more forgiving in first class or 3) most expensive, with full flexibility. Eventually I selected option 2. I wanted to see what First Class was like, and after all, the trip was about 9 hours in total, with 5 changes of train. I reasoned that I might as well be comfortable. And it was such a pleasure to step into that empty First Class carriage and settle myself in with laptop, lunch, journal and reading material. As the scenery wizzed past, it changed from German cities to Swiss alpine countryside, and the trains changed from high speed intercity express to cute mountain crawler. I began to feel like I was really on holiday!

It was during the journey from Morges in Switzerland to Paris that I made a friend. Finding myself seated directly opposite a young man with a wide smile, it occurred to me that it would be weird not to talk at all for the next 4 hours. He was very willing to tell me, in French, all about Cape Verte, the island where he grew up off the west coast of Africa, the economic and social issues they face, explain about the glass making factory where he works, and show me photos of his eight year old daughter, who lives with her mother in Spain. I have to admit that this level of detail in a conversation was only possible because he was African-Francophone. I can never understand the native Swiss or French because they talk so fast. When the conversation drifted from the status of women in Cape Verte into the question of why a lady so beautiful should be single at age 36, which is charming when delivered in French, I decided to pull out my book and begin to read it in earnest before I gave the guy the wrong idea. 

One of the tricky things about train travel is making sure you catch it. I seemed to be forever running from one platform to another, trying to make tight connections. "Oh, they are very relaxed with the Eurostar" my friends told me. "You can't really miss it, because they let you on even if you're not there the full 40 minutes in advance". Well, it turns out you can! Having only booked it a few days earlier, I had paid a *LOT* for my ticket from Paris to London, and had to travel very early in the morning. We'd spent the evening before having a traditional Parisien BBQ, which means not eating until 10pm, and then doing so at a leisurely pace, so I had only had about five hours sleep when I awoke at 7am for my train. Admittedly, I lingered longer over my shower than if I was heading to the airport, but managed to arrive at Eurostar headquarters together with other passengers expecting to catch the 8:45am train. When I reached the head of the queue for British immigration, a guy in a cockney accent asked me where my arrivals card was. Sorry, what? It turned out they were back beside the check-in desk. "Can I come straight back to you when I've filled it out?", I asked. "No", was the careless reply. So, after bounding over to the arrivals card pile, bounding back, filling it out while progressing again in the queue, getting through immigration, taking off belt etc for security clearance, putting belt back on, misplacing jacket, and finding jacket again, I began to feel a sense of urgency about getting to the departure gate. After a mild panic because there didn't seem to be any clear indication of where to go, I found the departure gate, relieved that I had 'made it'.

"Ticket please", the neatly dressed lady ordered in french, and I began furiously checking pockets and bags. When I couldn't produce my ticket, she calmly closed the departure gate and informed me that I had missed the train. In a total panic, I began pleading with her to help me somehow, and when this produced no positive response, I decided to find the booking confirmation on my phone. Ah ha! There it was, and I raced over with the phone in my hand, jacket sliding out from under one arm, and bags falling from the other. But when I looked at the phone again, I had somehow, in the mayhem, DELETED the exact message that I needed. It all seemed hopeless. But, as I stepped back to assess the situation, I could hear another traveller who had missed the train asking what the cost was to re-book. "Oh, there's no charge", I heard the neatly dressed lady say "we simply book you on the next one". And, buoyed by this new information, I conducted a more careful search and low and behold, there was my ticket in a pocket I hadn't remembered putting it. They changed my booking, and I happily boarded the train, delighted to be finally on my way, and vowing never to tempt fate again!

When I arrived in England, I was exposed to a plethora of trains. There was the underground, overground suburban traings, and of course the regional trains taking me up north. The thing I loved about those English trains was that, as if they are all relatives of our friend Thomas, they seem to have so much personality attributed to them. When the announcement advises me that this train will be "calling at" West Ealing, Ealing Broadway, and West Drayton, I can't help picturing the train as an upper class Jane Austin-y fellow popping in for a cup of tea and a slice of cake at each of those places before reaching its final destination.  

And so it was with sadness that I boarded my final train from Frankfurt am main to Frankfurt Flughafen. I was heading home. But I couldn't be sad for long. Two gypsies got on board with an amplified stereo, and began to enthusiastically sing along and dance to the German version of various English pop songs. They timed the walk-about with the cup for donations perfectly so travellers about to get off at the airport could relieve themselves of spare euros before leaving the country for an indefinite period of time. I parted with about 50 cents before waving goodbye to European rail for another decade or so, and promised myself that I would do more to support the campaign for high speed rail in Australia.

A tale of two share houses

some of the plants

Once upon a time there was a girl who lived in a small room in a large house in the heart of town. She came with a rather large collection of miniature elephants, her eclectic library of books, her edible plants, a worm farm and photos from travels around the world. The girl liked when the sun came streaming into the lounge room and spent her at-home time pottering in the garden, reading in the sun or watching her favourite shows with any willing flatmates. The house was an easy bus ride to work. Life was pretty good. Not perfect, but pretty good.

But then one day, almost out of nowhere, a cloud descended over the house. It was a cloud of mistrust, miscommunication and misunderstanding. Some people were not talking to others and there was resentment about borrowing of cars and parties and loud early morning blending. Soon there was so much unhappiness that the girl spent all of her time in her room or away from the house completely. Soon enough she started to think about what she really wanted in a home and realised it wasn't all this bitterness and bother, so she set off in search of a new home. It would be a homely place, she thought, somewhere that her quirks were accepted and her values shared. She dreamed of a place that welcomed her elephants and worms, where others shared her concern for treading lightly on the earth and where the atmosphere was welcoming to friends and family who might drop by. If it happened to have a bath, that would also be a good thing. 

The good luck elephant

As she pursued her search, the elephants stood by, with their trunks up in hopeful anticipation. Kind people offered her suggestions of households that they'd heard about, and she dutifully checked them all out.  But none was quite right. Some were too far away. Others didn't have the right "vibe" and some didn't feel that the girl would be a good fit for them. She started to feel a little despondent.

Then, when she was least expecting it, and thinking about something completely different, a new acquaintance mentioned she was looking for a person to complete a new household. They were mostly vegetarian, had a beautiful garden, liked to welcome friends to the house and best of all - they not only had a bath, but a spa bath with a duck's head for a spout and peacocks strutting all over the bathroom tiles! So the girl moved in, and they all lived happily ever after!

Old stuff

I recently, and luckily only briefly, lost the Nokia mobile phone that I was given in Kenya six years ago. I was devastated, not just because of the sentimental value, but because I like my stuff to last.

The phone was held together with sticky tape, it was hard to make out the numbers on the keys, and I wouldn't describe it as "smart" in any way, shape or form. But it was functional. I could send text messages and make and receive calls. After all, isn't that what mobile phones are supposed to be about?

Now, I'll admit it. I'm the sort of person who hangs on to things, and becomes attached, whether it's to old friends, old songs, old furniture, or gifts given to me twenty years ago. Which is why I get so upset when people try to convince me to upgrade my phone, get a new bike, or suggest to me that my beloved and reliable car won't pass rego this year.

I find this attitude challenging on a couple of fronts. Firstly, I'm offended on behalf of my "old stuff". My 21 year old car, treated with care by me and my mechanic, continues year after year to serve me well for getting from A to B, and almost never breaks down in public. And my bicycle doesn't just have the vintage look that's so hip these days. It actually is vintage. A friend gave it to me a few years back after it had been sitting in her yard for decades un-used. With the help of friends at Bicycle Garden in Marrickville, I installed a new set of brakes and put a bit of grease on the chain. Now it's as good as new. But I also get offended because I oppose the throw-away society. As soon as something doesn't work anymore we upgrade, whereas in my grandfather's day, people simply fixed stuff and kept using it. The cost to the environment of manufacturing and shipping new cars is believed to be greater than the benefits of the fuel efficiency that is often used as the excuse.


While I have a soft spot for my "old stuff", I do realise that eventually, I will have to reluctantly upgrade. I've already been given a smart phone, and have begun using it to check facebook or map out a journey on the run. And, using mobile "check-in" while still anxiously waiting for the airport train might have been the difference between catching and missing a flight.And I'm told it's more energy efficient to just use a small mobile devise as opposed to turning my entire computer on. One day it might be good to get a slightly newer bike that's a bit lighter to lug around and easier to ride and eventually the car will die and I will have to look at alternative options. But until then, this luddite will persistently continue using the old stuff that still works.

Neurotypical but nice

The other day I was chatting with a friend whose partner has Asperger's Syndrome. While I knew it was a mild form of autism, it was only when she began describing the symptoms that I realised how many people I know might be living with this condition. Misunderstandings and hurt feelings started to make more sense. According to her experiences, and some reading and talking to friends afterwards, I've learnt that people with Asperger's Syndrome (AS), tend to have difficulty in recognising social and emotional cues, and are known to frustrate coworkers and family members with their inflexibility, preference for routine, and sometimes pedantic adherence to rules or logic. But there are plus sides, as people with AS tend to have excellent auditory and visual perception, and are very compassionate and empathic, particularly when injustice has occurred. Sometimes they lack the skills to deal with strong positive and negative emotions and so avoid situations that might bring on these emotions, thus causing others to mistakenly claim they lack emotion and empathy. Some develop a fixation on a special interest, such as train timetables, the natural history of bats, or super heroes. The condition can often go undiagnosed into adulthood, with the person just having a vague sense that they're different.

Naturally, I went home and did the online test to see if I featured anywhere on the autism spectrum, but no, it seems I get the diagnosis of neuro-typical (NT) or "normal", whatever that means. Some female friends who have been diagnosed with Aspergers are not so sure I don't fit somewhere on the spectrum, as females with AS have slightly different symptoms to males, and are diagnosed less frequently. But either way, the discussion caused me to pause and think about how we as humans interact socially, how complex the mind is, how nice it is that people are different, and whether diagnosis is helpful or limiting.

It is incredulous really that our brains can compute the subtle messages given in body language and facial expressions that convey emotions the person is feeling as well as cues for how to react. As somebody who doesn't struggle too much with reading other people's emotions, I still don't think I could articulate in any scientific way what it is that tells me somebody is annoyed, or sad or offended or bored, or how I detect the nuanced ways that it varies from person to person. And there are times when I get it wrong and misinterpret or make assumptions. One of us gets offended or sad or annoyed and the cycle of guessing emotions begins again. Given how much we rely upon these non-verbal cues, it's quite incredible that any of us manage to get along with one another at all.

When I was an undergrad, I took a unit in "Abnormal Psychology", a term I am pretty sure would be considered politically incorrect today. While I was fascinated to think about all the different syndromes and spectrums and conditions lurking in the psychological etha, I found myself wondering where is the line between normal and "abnormal" as I quietly conducted self-diagnosis for each and every disorder. So, naturally, recently armed with information about this new condition, I began to see myself on the autism spectrum along with just about everything else. Let's see. I am sometimes socially awkward, I experience strong emotions when injustice occurs, I can retreat into my dream world, and obsess about strange things at times, though haven't developed a focussed interest in superheroes just yet. But at what point would I have enough of the "symptoms" to warrant a diagnosis? Luckily the online test put a stop to those musings, but it caused me to ponder how useful a diagnosis is anyway.

One friend adamantly insisted that we are in an age where we over-diagnose. The number of children diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome or ADHD (attention deficient and hyperactivity disorder) is apparently on the rise, he argues, and in most cases only serves to provide parents with an excuse for bad parenting and people with an excuse for bad behaviour. I agree that society seems to be over-diagnosing us with a range of psychological conditions and then racing to find medications that will treat the condition rather than looking to behavoural and cognitive tools. It all seems very passive and slightly dangerous to me. Another friend who works in early childhood believes that it is a welcome relief for many parents to realise that their child is different and their parenting is not at fault. There is a place for diagnosis, she argues, given that awareness and a willingness to change are important steps in the success of behavioural treatments. I agree that, as with many other conditions, the person has to acknowledge that they are struggling, want to make changes in their life, and be given the appropriate tools and support to be able to make those changes. A quick perusal of AS blogs suggests that many people diagnosed are in happy relationships, and living full and fulfilling lives. So, perhaps awareness and developing coping strategies are important. But how does all this affect me?

As one Quaker who isn't fond of labels put it, "perhaps sometimes it's useful to know what works well, or doesn’t work well for people who are a particular way”. I think in my future interactions with the variety of people in my life, (both AS and NT) I will endeavour to be more compassionate and clear speaking. If I want people to know how I am feeling, I can simply tell them rather than expecting others to guess. And I will try to remind myself that, on the whole, people aren't trying to be difficult or rude, and probably don't realise when they have upset me. All of us are really just responding to the confusing, wondrous complexities of life as best we can. After all, who of us is "normal" anyway?

The Overland Track

Walking the Overland Track in Tasmania was a challenge I set myself back around October 2012. You see, I like the great outdoors, I enjoy a physical challenge, and I wanted to set myself a goal, but I'd been finding excuses for not making the commitment. Finally, when I was complaining to my flatmate that I had wanted to do this trip but had nobody to do it with, she said "well, I'm doing it in February, why don't you join me?". And the rest, as they say, is history. Of course, there were lots of preparation dramas - what type of shoes to take, the question of dehydrated or fresh food and discussions about the optimum changes of clothing. And of course there were the training days that I dragged friends and family along to - rain, hail or shine! But eventually the big day, or rather the big five days, came, and I have to say we were blessed with amazing weather, gorgeous people, and delicious food. Here's a snapshot...

Day 1: where we take the path less travelled and still see the same view

It was about 1pm when we finally set foot on the Overland Track at Ronny Creek, after what seemed like an endless series of flights, long distance buses, shopping trips, and pit stops. The easy wooden walkways that I had seen in all the photos soon gave way to more typical bushland, followed by the steep ascent to Marion's look-out, where we were rewarded with beautiful views, the first of many picnic lunches of hummus and crackers, and of course - scroggin!

Setting off from Ronny Creek

Crater Lake

Marion's Lookout with Dove Lake behind

The next challenge was Cradle Mountain, and having conquered Marion's Lookout, we confidently left our packs at Kitchen Hut and eagerly began our climb. As Suzanne raced ahead, I took the opportunity to chat with those coming down the mountain. A clever way, I thought, to take a break without it looking like I was resting! About halfway up I called out to Suzanne, and discovering that she was directly above me, began navigating the rocks as I climbed my way towards her. At times I wondered if I would make it - it was VERY steep and not at all what I would call a "path". When I reached the top, or what I deemed to be "close enough", we took a few photos of the view before commencing the bum shuffle back down the mountain. Halfway down, Ciara was there to greet us, and point out the error of our ways. It seemed that we had taken the path less travelled, while our fellow hikers had opted for a reasonably well signposted, less vertical path to the top. But, as we reasoned, the view was the same, and we did it in half the time!

View from Cradle Mountain

Rocks soon became the dirty word for the day, with the rest of the path offering what seemed like an endless scramble over more horizontally positioned, but equally challenging rocks before a final steep, rocky, wet descent into Waterfall Valley. Somebody commented that 80% raised wooden walkways that the Overland Track boasted may have been an exaggeration. It was 8pm when we finally arrived at Waterfall Valley Hut. It had been a long day, but the worst was still to come. Tomorrow would be the longest day. But it didn't matter, as there was enough room for me to bunk up in the hut, we had changed into warm clothes, and had made a start on dinner. Things were looking up.

Waterfall Valley Hut

It was as we were settling in that I overheard somebody mention that he hadn't realised you had to bring your own toilet paper. Oops. I did spare the odd thought for that guy over the next 5 days. Apparently he was a little anxious about his situation. But to be fair, everyone has a packing fail (or quirk) of some kind. We encountered a guy with solar panels covering his entire backpack, which he used to charge a radio, another man carried 27kg just so he could have all the comforts of home, and there was a group who were rumoured to have not brought any tents, thus forcing them to rise at 4am each day to ensure they arrived first and secured enough spaces in the huts each night.

Day 2: where I "hit the wall" and made some new friends

With a fairly relaxed air, we boiled the billy for breakfast tea and porridge, what was to become our morning routine for the week. After the others packed away the tent and I packed away the stove, we were ready to depart for Day 2 - a half marathon with 15kg packs on our backs! We covered the first section to Windermere Hut fairly easily and enjoyed a relaxed lunchtime swim at Lake Windermere before turning our attention to the 6hrs of walking still to go.

Lake Windermere from a distance

About an hour into the afternoon, with five still to go, I began to hit a wall. We were traipsing through scrubby forest on the side of a hill and the tree roots and muddy pools that needed to be negotiated seemed endless. As I plodded on, I tried various mind games to keep myself motivated, and began to wonder whether, if a woman falls in the forest and nobody hears her, does she make any sound? Towards the end of the day, I began imagining myself walking repeatedly from my parents house to the train station and back, knowing that it's about one kilometre in distance. When the hut finally came into view I was too exhausted to be relieved. Again, we were the last to arrive, I was hungry, in pain, and somehow I had dropped my sun hat along the way. I was not a happy camper.

Mt Pelion Hut, at long last

As I made a start on dinner, and the others set up the tent, a couple of other walkers who had finished their dinner began showing an interest in the workings of my fuel stove. It had belonged to my friend David, and Lisa had recently given it to me. I treated it with the respect such a gift deserved, but was also apprehensive about how to use it properly. After 2 hours of anxiously watching youtube clips at my sister's place and pressing pause while attempting each stage before returning for the next segment, I had managed to figure out how to light the stove, which way up it should go, and how to regulate the temperature. But there was still the odd moment when the orange flames were rather scary, and I did manage to singe the hairs on my fingers during one of the more "oh-my-god-I-think-I've-caused-a-fire" type moments. But once the onlookers saw the end product - my pasta a la broccoli, mushroom, spinach, cheese and condensed milk, the mirth turned to twinges of jealousy as they compared my dinner to the "modest" portions of the dehydrated lamb curry they had earlier consumed. With a few panadol to relax the muscle pain in my legs, I slept quite soundly that night.

The infamous fuel stove in all its glory

Day 3: where we deal with blisters and my shirt gets a new lease on life

I received lots of advice about walking the Overland Track. Some was unsolicited, and some contradictory. For me, shoes were the biggest worry. Some people said you definitely need ankle support and the best brand of hiking shoes, others said that you can walk the track in dunlop volleys and it will be fine. After many hours agonising in the company of patient and not so patient outdoor store staff, I bought a pair of Salomon boots and a pair of Vasque boots, proceeded to wear them both around the office for two days to get a feel for which one I preferred, repeatedly asking the advice of long-suffering colleagues, and eventually decided upon the Vasques. Yet, having worn them on a few practice bushwalks, I decided they were giving me too many blisters, and finally opted to take my no-name hiking shoes (so no ankle support, and apparently not even gortex) which at least I knew did not give me blisters. And guess what? They were absolutely fine. I didn't get any blisters at all, didn't twist my ankle, and was not clomping around in heavy boots for five days.

One solution to the blister problem

But others were not so fortunate. Suzanne developed such painful blisters that when we arrived at Kia Ora Hut early on Day 3 she decided to just bandage her entire feet. There was another lady with gaffa tape holding her boots together, and others were making repairs using super glue or needle and thread.

The other great thing about having a short, fairly easy day, was that there was time to take a dip in the icy cold river, and wash and dry my ONE hiking shirt. Yes, that's right. If you notice that I seem to be wearing the same clothes in every photo, well I am! Another flatmate, whose advice I valued immensely since he hikes regularly in New Zealand, culled me down to one shirt for the whole week, reasoning that it didn't matter if I smelt bad, and that since the shirt was "quick dry" it would dry quickly if wet. A good idea in theory, but all the same, it was great to put on a relatively clean and dry shirt the following day.

Day 4: where we see waterfalls and encounter wildlife of the slithery kind

Day 4 took us through more foresty areas, with charming moss-covered tree stumps and butterflies and birds. It was quite magical and I almost expected to see a faun appear at a fork in the road and lead us to Aslan. But with no mythical friends to be met, we settled for three optional side trips to waterfalls. I ended up visiting two of them, and relaxed in a clearing while others visited the third one.

D'alton Falls in the sunlight

Many of the huts along the Overland Track are visited by possums and wallabies, Australian wildlife that I don't mind encountering at night. Snakes, on the other hand, I'm less inclined towards. Because I was walking most of the track on my own, being slower than my companions, I encountered 4 snakes; 2 green and 2 black. We were told that the black ones were tiger snakes, a venomous variety, which Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife insist are not all that keen about wasting their venom on humans unless provoked or accidentally trodden on. Their website adds that, in fact, we are more likely to die from an ant bite, peanuts or by the hand of our spouse than from a snake bite! Still, I hurried past them, nevertheless.

Sign cautioning not to tread on snakes!

Day 5: where we cross the finish line and reflect on the week's adventures

It's hard to get much sleep in the huts, by the time you deal with muscular aches and pains, snorers, and early risers. But on the last morning, a group departed before dawn to try to catch the early ferry and were particularly loud as they packed up all their gear. (Later accounts suggest they missed the boat and had to catch the midday ferry anyway). Anyhow, we arose, packed everything up for the last time, served up our last breakfast, and departed for the easiest walk of all - a gentle downward slope towards Narcissus Hut, where our walking ended. It was another glorious day, with hardly a cloud in the sky.

The final hours

Crossing the finishing line, with Narcissus Hut behind

As we waited for the ferry to take us across Lake St Clare to the Visitor's Centre, I felt a sense of achievement, but it was a quiet one. I was going to miss the people who had become family for the past few days, staggering in and out of our lives as our different paths crossed, sharing tea, fuel, card games, toilet paper and stories of crazy people they'd met or near-death experiences had along the way. Now they would return to their lives and we to ours, in some cases not even knowing each other's names, just bonded by a shared experience. As I sat at the back of the ferry with march flies swarming around my head, I allowed myself to plan for the next adventure. Perhaps I'll do that pilgrimage in Spain next, I thought to myself. But for the moment, there was normal food, showers, a massage, and time with family to look forward to.

Lake St Clare, waiting for the ferry

Footprints and songlines

'I have a vision of the Songlines stretching across the continents and ages; that wherever men have trodden they have left a trail of song; and that these trails must reach back, in time and space, to an isolated pocket in the African savannah, where the First Man shouted the opening stanza to the World Song, "I am!"'  - Bruce Chatwin

The songlines, as Bruce Chatwin describes them in his book, are the pathways trodden by the ancestors in ancient Australia. They represent the perimeters of land navigated by different tribes as well as being a means of passing dreamtime stories to the younger generations to explain the existence of certain mountains and rivers and to give colour to the history of those lands and journeys. It is possible to recognise exactly where a person is from in Australia by the song they sing. Inflections within the song represent mountains or rivers.

Bruce Chatwin is an English man who travels through the Australian outback seeing connections between Aboriginal dreamtime songs and stories and his own thesis about song as the origin of language. He explores the paths trodden by humanity's ancestors as they migrated from south eastern Africa to Australia. He intersperses anecdotes from his encounters with memorable outback characters with quotes from his hundreds of notebooks on related topics including enjoyment of walking, nomadic travel, the origin of our species, and human migratory practices and songs.

I've been thinking about the songlines of my own ancestors. My family are newcomers to Australia. Four generations ago we began treading on this land. Before that our footprints mark pathways in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Our songs and stories are of challenging journeys by boat, establishing themselves in a new land, and time spent in country Australia as farmers or church ministers. My grandfather used to tell of getting up at dawn to milk cows, and walking barefoot to school, insisting the journey was uphill both ways. Dad has tales of spiders in the outdoor dunny, playing tricks on teachers, and other Tom Sawyer-like adventures in country New South Wales. He  remembers the Aboriginal People living in settlements outside of town in the 1950's, pushed out from what was once their place. It is a reminder that we are literally and metaphorically treading all over other people's songlines.

As I walk the streets of Newtown, my current home, there are more family footprints that were trodden before. My parents owned a house in the next street, and it seemed like we visited almost every  second weekend to do repairs when I was a kid. And my older cousin Ben lived in Newtown up until his death in 2000. While I was too young at the time to understand his illness or have a meaningful relationship with him, I feel strangely connected to him now. I picture him walking the same pathways, perhaps sipping coffee in some of my favourite cafes, and finding inspiration for his art in the interesting characters and colours of the neighbourhood. It's comforting to think that wherever I might go, other people have trodden before, and now it's time for me to mark out my own path, treading lightly so as not to trample upon the ancient songlines, and probably singing my own verses about walking, nomadic travel and migratory practices, as well as continuing the chorus of "I am".