Today, I was struck by an idea, and I could use general comments (I'll end with a couple of questions).
First up - context. When I was 15 years old, I left home. I walked from Brisbane to Sydney. You see my mother was a heroin addict, and the situation .. it wasn't good. It was a case of leave, or die - even if death meant a slow withering on the vine).
Anyway, everything was broken, and that long walk (took about a month, 27 days if I remember correctly, along the eastern coastline, actually ending in Gloucester where I used fifty cents I found to ring my grandmother - my shoes were tatters, I was covered in blisters, and was covered in road dust, sunburn, a real mess). Anyway, she organised a train ticket the rest of the way from there, and I spent the next few years living with her in western sydney - a very happy time, until she died of bladder cancer.
That walk, it helped to define my young life, in a way it was my first big Quest.
So I come to this point in my life, 48 years old, cancer survivor (stage 4 head & neck 2016, was given 6 months to live, 50%ish shot at successful treatment - maybe in the clear now, maybe living on borrowed time). In many ways I'm a shipwreck of a once seaworthy vessel, if that makes sense. Too many problems to list, any one of them solvable, but all together sometimes they feel insurmountable.
So ...
With everything broken, I feel, a strong drive, to do it again. A pilgrimage. A kind of physical and spiritual reboot. Take the dog and a light backpack and ... just walk. maybe just 500 miles (Sydney) or possibly even 1000 (more toward Melbourne). Try and live up to that Proclaimers song, eh ?
I haven't decided for sure, but I'm pretty firm on doing it. I'm actually also (surprisingly) pretty confident that I CAN do it.
It would mean a month or two apart from my family, but I think all in all it could be a massively healthy thing. A kind of return to the baseline, older, (hopefully) wiser, but basically still the same person.
When I got there as a boy, I had an innate weather sense that lasted many years later. I know it sounds bugshit crazy, but I could tell you whether it would rain that day on a clear and sunny morning, and was right without fail. (Because I was sleeping rough and had a few bad drenched nights).
I don't know if my cancer will recur. And I shudder at the idea of wasting 2 months away from my family if that's a biggish chunk of my time.
BUT .. I think I need and want to do this, and I think it will help me survive and press through all these other health and psychological problems that cancer is inflicting on me.
What I wanted to ask:
1) Do you think it's just outright crazy ? None of what I'm saying makes sense and you would urge me to not consider this at all ? Or does it sound like a wild, but ultimately not crazy idea (tribal and indigenous cultures wind that 'walkabout' instinct into religion and philosophy - not just the health and cleansing benefits). What do you think ?
2) I was thinking to just quietly do it. Keep in touch with the family daily (if I can find a power outlet to charge up a phone), but it occurs to me I might be able to raise some money for cancer research if I did it a bit more theatrically - updated my position and progress in an online journal or something. When I was in treatment, my heart broke when I saw kids getting chemoradiation, if I could raise some real money for cancer research (especially if there are entities that focus on paediatric cancer/care), that'd be some kind of legacy I guess, if I don't survive my own cancer, at least I did something useful before the end. What do you reckon ? Would people even care to check it out, maybe sponsor a dollar for every mile walked or something ?
Thank you for your time and thoughts, I know I probably come across as a bit mental, but I'm a serious minded person (kinda, heh) and I think I still have most of my wits about me. I'm not 100% .. but I feel this slow welling of inspiration building up inside me that this is something I have to do.
All the best.
