here's my perspective on it

As per your request, Fran, here's another anecdote from the road. You may have heard it before...

 Last night, as we sat by the fire on the banks of the Murray River, the stars twinkled overhead and the kids bellowed at each other while leaning on us, roughing up our hair, tripping over our legs. In short, they were most definitely inside our bubbles of personal space. During a lull in the bickering, Shea quietly said to me, 

“It’d be so quiet right now, if we didn’t have the kids. What would we talk about? We’d be so bored…”

In the darkness I couldn’t read his expression to tell if he was being facetious or not. But it made me ponder, if he was serious, how far from my truth was his attitude? At the end of the day, when my executive function is drained and the dishes are done, I feel I can finally settle and take some Camille-time. I hunger for the peace and idleness of a quiet mind and quiet environment. And it’s rarely my reality. It’s usually the time of day when I lose my cool at the kids and just tell them to STOOOOOOOOOOP, in a petulant whine. Playing a board game with me at the end of the day is no fun at all. But then I ask you, why can’t we simply play quietly? Why must it be the most rowdy of affairs with no-one actually sitting in their dang seats?

 

I do try to change the lens through which I view the affair, I really do, friends. These times, I remind myself, are fleeting. Grasp them with both hands and savour them. But then someone will kick over my mug of tea and I’ll swear in frustration and we all bear witness to Mum slipping off her lens’-of-tolerance and slapping on the lens’-of-irritability-and-beration. 

 

I am aware how much my perspective can impact my experience of a moment. I tried so hard to draw on that idea during my cancer treatment and to not allow it to take over, but instead, have cancer remain simply a portion of my otherwise rich and glorious life. Harder on some days than others.

 

Perspective, and the lens in which you choose to view your world, was driven home to me a few weeks ago during this trip. It was just before I uploaded my last blog post. The event was too fresh yet to speak of, but I feel I am ready. Because it really is about perspective. You see, usually, in my run-of-the-mill day-to-day life, I view human excrement as necessary but unpleasant. Now that I no longer have nappies to change, or other human butt’s to wipe, I feel I am even more pleasantly removed from its realities. Flushed down the loo and done with. Thank you, modern sanitary conveniences. Bush toileting is a bit more confronting, but I pride myself in dealing with it efficiently, without fuss and in a way that is sensitive to nature. No loo paper blowing about the bush after I’ve been through, thank you very much. 

 

So, when we pulled up into our campsite in Exmouth, (having reversed in with helpful contributions from only one neighbour), and there were flies buzzing around the door of our trailer where a trickle of foul smelling liquid oozed, the moths of anxiety fluttered in my belly. We’d spent the previous week in a remote site in Ningaloo, a site that we’d gotten bogged twice to get into and rattled and bumped our way down the most nastily corrugated road for a couple of hours. At these remote campsites you must be self-sufficient and use your own port-a-loo. There is a dump station to empty these at within the campground, but, as Mountain Dad pointed out, we did not have a hose with which to clean it out. Better if we take it to a commercial campground in Exmouth and deal with it there. There was a lot, after all. Five days worth of our family using this port-a-loo. The first time we’d actually used it. To be cautious, we popped the loo into a huge garbage bag. In case anything leaked. 

 

Well, dear ones, leak it did. Though my family will accuse me of exaggerating, I’d say that by the time we reached Exmouth, more of our waste was OUT of the port-a-loo than inside it. The garbage bag had done nothing to contain the foulness and it had slopped happily around the floor and cupboards of Cubby for a good half day. In Exmouth, with flies buzzing round us in joyful delirium, we opened a small hatch at the back of the trailer and a river of excrement ran out onto the ground.

“Oh, no….” muttered Shea as I took in the situation. 

 

Friends, have you ever stayed in one of these commercial campgrounds? They’re huge affairs, with a nod at trying to make the camping experience pleasant with a few tree’s planted about, but on the whole they are organised to cram as many people and vehicles and caravans in as small a space as possible. A metre behind us, an older couple sat outside their caravan with their evening wine. On both sides of us, people were setting up camp and preparing dinner. It couldn’t be long before the repulsive stench that was now wafting around the site would be identified as belonging to us.

“Close it up!” I hissed to Shea, “We cannot deal with it here. Move!”

 

And so away we went, driving ever so carefully now, to the camp dump-station where there was a hose. We half unpacked and removed shoes, boxes, bags, mats, beer cans and a plethora of other items that have been stashed around the cupboards of Cubby for our trip. I’m not saying they were covered in faeces, but even the smallest amount was enough to repulse me. Shea took off his thongs and valiantly climbed inside. He was barefoot and brave. Mopping up the sludge that seemed to be endless. We used a couple of rolls of paper towel and a whole bag of wet wipes. We hosed and wiped and marvelled and tried to keep the horror at bay. I honestly thought about leaving Cubby there and then and booking a flight back to Newcastle.

 

But here’s the funny thing. After an hour or so of dealing with poo, it came to be less disgusting. The smell, less abhorrant. The revulsion, less pronounced. It became just another job that we had to deal with it. And isn’t that where perspective is amazing? I could never have predicted that wading barefoot through an inch of human excrement would be something I viewed as matter of fact. That I could joke jovially with others who came to use the dump-station, apologising laughingly as I moved our shoes and accoutrements from the space. One man had a special pair of gloves with which he doned to clean his loo-cannister. I observed this as I pushed hair out of my eyes with the back of my hand, hoping to not smear my face with poo as I did so. 

 

Perspective. 

 

This, I thought to myself, will make one hell of a blog post. 

 

Perspective. It can help you view a camper trailer full of shit as something mundane and slightly funny. After a month has passed. 

Shark Bay 

Woollen Station

How we sort out life on the road 

I look super saggy but I'm so super happy. The snorkelling and swimming was soul-filling. 

 

Shell Beach at Shark Bay and resting on a hike in the Flinders Ranges

Hand of Lox and print of emu

Woollen Station

Cooking French Toast at our camp at Woollen Station and exploring the shearers quarters.

Ballard Lake sculptures and red, sand

Trying to fix our flat tyre with some concoction that my uncle calls dog-turds

At Kalgoorlie

Cave on the Nullarbor

Edeowie Station, South Australia

Brachina Hut (Edeowie Station) and Finders Ranges gorge into Wilpena Pound

Super mining pit - Kalgoorlie, WA

Flinders Ranges, South Australia