If not for you, babe, I couldn't find the door
Couldn't even see the floor
I'd be sad and blue if not for you.
If not for you, baby, I'd lay awake all night
Wait for the morning light
To shine in through
But it will not be new if not for you.
If not for you, my sky would fall, rain would gather too
Without your love I'd be nowhere at all
I'd be lost if not for you
And you know it's true.
If not for you, my sky would fall, rain would gather too
Without your love I'd be nowhere at all
Oh what would I do if not for you ?
If not for you, winter would have no spring
I couldn't hear the robins sing
I just wouldn't have a clue
Anyway it wouldn't ring true if not for you
If not for you, if not for you.
Bob Dylan.
There had been so many heroics. The fire was burning, keeping his legs warm, but otherwise it was freezing at Tambar. Luckily there was some firewood left from his last visit, a mix of ironwood and box, the ironwood providing the best coals and the box the best flame. Everyone knew their wood around here. Burns right to a fine ash they would say proudly of the local yellow box. Nonetheless we were burnt, damaged goods. Taking refuge from the city, a brief respite. The city had become impossible, and belonged to others than him. There was no respite. The traffic was interminable. We made our snail trails and followed them religiously every day, simply for survival’s sake.
If there was hope, there were also backward steps; and some days were one step forward and two steps back. Life was like that. The early dawn tinged the surrounding forest, and this place felt truly his, peaceful, no harm could come here. A refuge had always been important to him, internally or externally. Too often it had been internal. Hidden behind multiple screens, manipulating the surface while staying deep behind, the puppet master, the atrophied, delinquent soul more like. Nothing had grown or matured as it should. Starved of sustenance, the controlling entity had ceased to control, too far hidden to effectively maintain the surface images. The content went awry. It was all artifice.
The time is now, the march master said, and if he heard one more blithering idiot crapping on about their higher power he’d machine gun them. Or felt like it. There was nothing in the external world worth fighting for. Possessions meant nothing to him. As long as he could comfortably survive. The sharman was still in him, those sharmans from long ago, deep in the European forests. He had once been leader of his band. Now he was in an outpost on the other side of the world, renovating an old woman’s house to its former bustling glory. No money has been spent on this house for 60 years, and the feeble efforts of the previous owners to tart it up for sale didn’t cover the ancient neglect. He had returned with love, doing chores that should have been done a long time ago.
A younger, more dynamic man would have had this place sorted long before, he thought, but the new dynamism is now, in total abstinence, in advanced spiritual concepts, in the other worlds that were blissfully shown to him. You can be rescued. You can survive. You can even triumph, at new jobs, at the completion of old projects. At the timely publishing of timely events, projects which sync perfectly with the broader news cycle and with the broader zeitgeist. Thus it was to be a perfectly linked human being, to in effect be normal, in tune with the times. That was his destiny, he sometimes thought, to perfectly reflect the times. And now the times were moving beyond him, the streets full of young people.
Orange smudged the skyline behind the trees, some of that rosy fingered dawn Homer talked about, except here it wasn’t rose, and you could feel the dry Australian bush stretching off into the farmlands across the Liverpool Plains to the low mountains in the distance. The cypress pines, dispersed with eucalypts, were silhouetted against the sunrise. The kookaburras gave their first guffaw of the morning. He had to drive back to Sydney this morning. He could hear the barking of the greyhounds up at the policeman’s house. A bellbird, or something like it, joined in the rising chorus of finches and other birds. The fire subsided slightly, to a bearable level. And he knew life was infinite, there was work to be done, progress to be made, projects to be finished. It was a better state of mind than many others.
THE BIGGER STORY:
http://news.brisbanetimes.com.au/breaking-news-national/im-a-total-idiot-admits-neale-20090719-dpi4.html
I'm a total idiot, admits Neale
July 19, 2009 - 8:54PM
A British backpacker rescued after 12 days in near-freezing conditions admits he was "a total idiot" to venture ill-prepared into the rugged Blue Mountains bush.
Jamie Neale, 19, says he lived off bush tucker, including seeds and weeds, and kept warm under strips of bark when he lost his way during a 10-hour bushwalk on July 3.
After 12 days in the bush, and in apparent good health despite his ordeal, Mr Neale stumbled across hikers who led him to safety.
Mr Neale re-enacted his trek for the Nine Network's 60 Minutes program, which paid him $200,000 for his story.
Neale told the program he was badly under-prepared for the trip.
"I admit I'm a total idiot," he said.
"In the UK you can walk for a day and you'd end up in a pub.
"Out here you can get lost so easily and that. You should respect the fact, be more prepared and think about what you are doing a lot more."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/07/19/2630108.htm?section=world
The Federal Government has updated its travel advice for Indonesia, warning of the possibility of further terrorist attacks following Friday's deadly Jakarta hotel blasts in which nine people were killed and 55 injured.
The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAT) is still advising Australians to reconsider their need to travel to Indonesia, including Bali.
DFAT says it continues to receive credible information that terrorists could be planning attacks and anyone deciding to travel to Indonesia should be extremely careful.
The three Australians confirmed to have died in the bombings at the Ritz-Carlton and JW Marriot hotels are mining executive Garth McEvoy, Austrade official Craig Senger and Perth businessman Nathan Verity.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says the Australian Government will do whatever it can to help the Indonesian authorities track down the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks.
"[It is] a violent barbaric act of murder where three Australians have lost their lives, and others as well," he said.
Local media in Indonesia has reported that metal detecters went off in one of the hotels on Friday after a bomber entered, however security guards still allowed entry.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25804581-661,00.html
DEFENCE confirmed tonight that the fallen Australian soldier in Afghanistan was Pte Benjamin Ranaudo from Melbourne.
Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston extended his personal condolences to the soldier’s family and friends.
“Our hearts go out to Benjamin's family during this very sad time,” he said.
“We will do everything we can to support them as they deal with their terrible loss.”
Pte Ranaudo was serving in the 1st Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment based at Townsville and had been in the Army for three years.
Pte Ranaudo death has taken the number of Diggers lost in the Afghan conflict to 11.
He was killed yesterday by an anti-personnel improvised explosive device, which left another soldier fighting for his life.
Three Afghan civilians, including an 8-year-old boy, were also injured in the blast.
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