Not about Halloween

So yes, the Great Ocean Road. This should be an interesting post b/c it is already 1:00 in the A.M. but I am already falling behind my posting in terms of what is going on here and events are starting to pass by more quickly than I can record them. So, this may not make sense, but at least it will be here. So, as I began, the Great Ocean Road...you'll be pleased to know that all of the landmarks are the same, the rock formations and the water, the waves and sand and bright air and big sky...the kind of endless water that entices you to dream of foreign destinations and adventures as big as the blue on blue horizon. But the one element that was decidedly different on this trip (besides not changing al fresco) was the social element. This time, instead of being with Thryn and a whole bunch of strangers, I was with a whole bunch of people that I knew, or rather, a whole van full of the more familiar brand of stranger. I felt though, that this trip was very good for us as a group. We lead such separate lives here, off in our own dwellings with hardly any contact besides tea breaks, growth groups and these excursions. I feel like in some ways some of the walls were broken down on this trip, perhaps for the first time in our semester I felt like we were a group, and not a conglomeration of completely separate cliques. And then, there was that day at the Gibson steps...

It all started well enough. The Gibson steps are famous, and so we, being good little American tourists, stopped to walk down them. The waves were large and enticing, and though we were warned straightaway that the undertow was fierce, wading ensued. Many lamented the lack of swimsuits (bathers, for you Aussies) and so some (the indomitable Katie O. and Thryn) just decided to go in w/ their clothes on. Well, then other people w/ clothes on were dragged or pushed into the water or splashed until it was just no more use trying to stay dry. I was one of the fortunates who got dragged into the water, fully clothed. It was so much fun though, we splashed around in the water and chased each other and tried to knock each other down and tried to get other people wet who remained dry and ran all around dancing like lunatics and got sand EVERYWHERE and just generally enjoyed life and our temporary liberation from the classroom. We were liberated in a lot of ways that weekend...

Pause for reflection: It is atypical of me to get soaking wet with all my clothes on, and I only find this to be more true the older I get. I think of the consequences, I plan ahead, I go through different scenarios in my head ("Well, I didn't bring a towel, what if I'm too cold when I get out? Will we be going back to our cabin immediately after this? Do I have anything with me that could be damaged by the water?" and etc.). Katie O. put it to me so well this weekend, "Shannon," she said, "you've just gotta stop thinking so much." And so for one afternoon I did, I was in the in-group, the wet crowd, the people who were having fun, the people I would have envied if I had stayed dry on the shore. And the thing of the thing is, that's who I wish I was more often. A little less rational, a little more fun, more carefree, more willing to take chances if that's what's called for in order to really experience life. So here's the question that I've been mulling over ever since. Who am I really? Am I the person that I tend to act like most of the time, reserved, thoughtful, and above all, deliberate? Or am I the person that I act out when I am trying my hardest to be the person that I really want to be, the person that I am working towards inasmuch as I feel myself capable of change? I still don't know...

Anyway, my other favorite part of this second trip was a part that we actually hadn't seen before, a rainforest walk in a place called Melba's Gully. I think I am finally coming to discover that I am, solidly and undeniably, a tree hugging, forest-sprite wannabe nature nut. There is something about being in such a place that energizes me, calms me down and quiets me, no matter what craziness I was mucking about with before. I love to take photos in the rainforest because of the interactions with light and water that take place there. A fern frond backlit by the sun, a tender shoot growing in a rotting log, the slow and breathtaking unfurling of a fern finger. It's like everywhere I look some little nuance of creation is screaming for my attention: "Hello! Can't you see I'm a miracle, right here in front of you?" There is so much variation that takes place even in a short walk through, the changes from full sunlight to murky shadow to dappled path, a wide open clearing with enormous trees framing the distant sky, to a roof of those ferns, lovingly enfolding and shielding, brushing my head as I walk underneath. There is so much life there, even the dead things are already being used to support new life. And of course, a plant can't just be a plant all alone. You can have a tree growing with moss on one side of the trunk, some other kind of prickly foliage on the other and yet another plant growing in the forks of the branches. There was even a sense of new discovery that was pervasive, like maybe I wasn't the first person to walk through here, but it may be that I'm the first to notice how the light hits that little cataract of water or how feathery this one clump of moss looks. This all sounds a bit hippie-esque, but I hardly care. I'm just trying to reflect the experience accurately.

Well, after we got back from our trip it was time for the Halloween party. I was going to say something about that as well, but I feel that it is not quite worthy of keeping me up all the way until 2 in the am, and this post is already quite long enough. But I would like to say, for your sake Katie, that in the decorating I did make a rather spectacular arrangement of post-verdant greenery. That is the most noteworthy thing you can choke out of me tonight.

Aeh-I must go to bed. I have consecrated tomorrow as a day in which work much take place all day long, and I will be subjected to the most fearful sort of ire and rage (my own) if I sleep in tomorrow...goodnight.