Bruce Chatwin brought a stack of Moleskin notebooks. Paul Theroux purchased a rifle. Lonely Planet recommended a tow rope. And the optimistic but broke girl with a one-way ticket to Australia stuffed her backpack with hard candies, bug spray and the sweat-stained pages of all these books.
Because there isn’t a packing list to go walkabout.
Until Chatwin’s travelogue, The Songlines, was published in 1987, a walkabout was defined by Webster’s Dictionary as “…an occasional interruption of regular work.”
But the English author assumed there was more to this cultural behavior than disinterest in holding a permanent job. Gathering information from various tribes, Chatwin reshaped the concept of the indigenous walkabout into a necessary ritual passage.
Though my modern, Western version relies less on spiritual survival in the desert – and more on earning enough cash for the next destination – certain elements remain the same. I left behind the essential comforts of home for an indefinite, indefinable sojourn. Like this ancient practice, I departed suddenly, without adequate preparation or well-organized luggage. Only, this time, I’m getting paid to keep on moving.
You might say that I didn’t go walkabout, so much as go workabout.
From experience, a contemporary workabout should begin something like this:
1. Spend the last $1,000 in your checking account, including the funds set aside for: car, graduate school and general future.
2. Max out your credit card, conveniently forgetting every warning issued by concerned parents. Convince yourself that a credit rating is only important if you plan to settle in the United States.
3. Realize you have no plans to settle anywhere, quite yet.
4. Book a one-way flight to Australia, on a second credit card. Don’t post this jubilant information in a social networking status until you have created the appropriate explanations for misunderstanding family and friends.
5. Apply for a working holiday visa online. Pay the fees on a third credit card.
6. Toss Chatwin, flip flops, resume copies and a snake-venom removal kit into your old backpack.
7. Go workabout…
“What I learned there… seemed to confirm the conjecture I had toyed with for so long: that Natural Selection has designed us – from the structure of our brain-cells to the structure of our big toe – for a career of seasonal journeys…” –Bruce Chatwin
~Until the next adventure! ~ Kelli