Jumping Back In
In which Brett Robin jumps off the Back Creel Bridge and swims with the current of the New Year
Went to a little Aussie coastal camping oasis. I discovered the camp ground a couple of years back. I was driving along the highway and I felt a pull to take a turn off. Not a figurative ‘pull’ but a visceral, actual pull in my guts to turn off at the next exit. When I hear others speak of profound, somatic callings I am usually sceptical. I live in my head a lot, and so gut feelings come few and far between. Which perhaps made it stand out all the more. I followed the instinct to the coast and along to the… secret location.
The bubble
This week’s song and delve is a celebration of replenishing holidays. Soul renewing stuff. Losing track of what day it is and losing count of how many swims you have. Kids riding bikes around the campsite, helmetless and free. Falling into that book you’ve been waiting to come out for years (Jim Butcher’s steampunk fantasy series ‘The Cinder Spiers’ book 2, finally out!)
Our little campground was a bubble. Unplugged from the technology. Plugged into the natural world, portal to the soul. Perhaps more than portal. Perhaps soul itself. I’m romanticising. Camping is also demanding. But overall this trip was a liminal paradise. Somehow born of all the earlier camping trips and trials that were so humbling and instructive. Like the time I forgot to pack the sleeping bags. Or the time I bought gas bottles from Bunnings thinking they we pre filled, only to find them empty, and so couldn’t cook for my family (the ultimate masculine camping failure!). Those times were grist for the mill. I (we, as a family) came through them. I learnt to tie various knots and how to rig a tarp. We got equipped and made lists (and checked the lists so that we brought what we needed.) And so, this summer’s camping paradise arose from years of previous effort and was all the more beautiful for it.
This song is a celebration of holidays. Also a lament (for I grieve the end of holidays). Also a contemplation of the gifts that are brought back from holidays and can live on, informing and sustaining the move back into the working world.
The Leap
Ah, the age old Aussie summer rite of passage… jumping off the bridge or jetty. Climbing over the railing and onto the platform looking down at a 20 foot drop. The primal churning in the stomach. The leap. Or not (maybe you’re not ready this summer, or maybe this particular rite isn’t for you.) The cheers of encouragement from below. Perhaps some teasing but no cruel jeering with this tribe. The thrill of the stepping off in a pin drop fall. The wallop of the water on the soles of the feet and the embrace of the current ushering you away from the next jumper.
On the highway, headed home, I remembered these things and wrote the song in my head, then plucked it out on the Ukulele as soon as I got home. Now I stand (figuratively) on the bridge about to jump into the working world of 2024. My stomach is churning.
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Bonus - Song Lyrics & Chords!
Back To Work
The wheels on the highway, murmur through time
A soundtrack to the memory of the holiday left behind
Pictures of summer, float across my mind
Highlights of adventure from this beautiful life of mine
Chorus
Now it ’s back to work
Time to shift gear
Tap into the river of faith
May it run through the bedrock of the year
I’m thinking of the back creek bridge and the line of girls and boys
Faces all lit up with bravery and joy
Cheers of encouragement called up from below
The heat of the thrill of the jump into the cool rivers flow
Repeat Chorus
I’m thinking of the big waves I dived through with my daughter
And the little Pipi shell farm at the edge of the glimmering water
Falling into pages of the book I’d been waiting for
The kooky crabs at sunset scurrying across the shore
Repeat Chorus
I’m thinking of the cricket played with the neighbouring camp site
And how our kids played together well into the night
Peace around the world has not yet been found
But we got on famously in that seaside camp ground
Repeat Chorus
Verse Chords
F#m Em
F#m Em
F#m Em G
F#m Em
F#m Em
F#m Em G A
Chorus Chords
D F#m
Em A
F#m Em G A G D