The Map is Not the Territory: Two Lessons from the Road

I’m writing to you from a bush retreat in Yamba. Lach almost stepped on a snake yesterday - a shock for both parties involved - and luckily it merely slithered reproachfully off into the trees. 

A few nights ago in Murwillumbah a huntsman spider crawled all over Lach and I while we slept in the trailer until Lach sat up and in his sleep daze hit it with the nearest thing he had at hand - ironically a copy of ‘For the Term of His Natural Life’. 

It’s day 46 of our tour/trip and we’ve already done so many things that would have scared the pants off past-us. 

Lach’s Lesson: It’s ok to be a help-ee

For Lach, the biggest learning curve has been that it’s ok to ask for help and it’s ok to stay with people when they invite you to their house. This would have filled him with “phantods” before, like he was asking too much of people and they would secretly hate and judge him the whole time. 

But we’ve found, when done right (with plenty of caveats), asking for help can actually benefit both the asker and the helper. I know when someone asks me for help, I feel bigger, I feel like I have something to offer to the world and the meaning of my life is enriched.   

By the way, folk music is the nicest genre of music, it’s an intergenerational sharing without the posturing and sarcasm of rock and without the hierarchies and perfectionism of classical music. By far the highlight of the trip are the folkies we’ve met - who have made us meals, offered us beds to sleep in or just chatted with cups of tea for hours on end. 

Erin’s Lesson: The map is not the territory 

For me, the one who spent most of this year planning the tour and researching the heck out of every location on the way (remember the database of 628 towns?!) I’ve had to shift from creating the map to living the reality of the map. 

I love planning. But I have a habit of getting far too attached to the romance of my plans and then just annoyed when life doesn’t follow my lovely plans word for word. How rude of life. 

This is what had me feeling anxious on a tropical island paradise in Cairns. I was too annoyed that the reality of the day trip was different to what they promised with pictures of gorgeous women in bikinis frollicking on calm beaches they had all to themselves and swimming with turtles. 

The reality was a damp stinger suit (because of the jellyfish that will kill you) and choppy waves meaning no boats were going out (and no turtles). I was attempting to see the reef but was only seeing gray ocean slush. I peeled off the thick suit in a huff and sat reading my book on a rock instead (has anyone else been there, sulking on a rock next to a beach?) 

Lach came up, annoyingly excited, “I found the reef! It looks just like Finding Nemo”. He convinced me to put the suit, flippers and snorkel back on and it was lovely in its own way. 

Gazing at the crayon-box coral, I made up my own axiom, perfection only exists in the wording of a promise or, as a famous Borges one-paragraph story put it, the map is not the territory.