Walkabout

Since first hearing about it I have been fascinated by the aboriginal rite of passage of walkabout

I have often thought of this is dramatic and epic. But that’s not really true to the rite I think. It was meant as a time for young men to retrace their history and their land, stand on their own. I imagine that each person’s journey would have been epic and dramatic, but not in a blockbuster movie way.

I think now that, like most things it seems, this kind of experience would be in the small details, learning the trails and rites of your people in a private and intimate way. I way more felt than seen.

I have started going on periodic mini-walkabouts in my new home of Vancouver. I will take a few minutes, hours or day and walk. Sometimes I have a general destination, often not.

It’s a great experience to just walk the city, no iPod, looking around, making eye contact, smiling. Connecting with the place I live and the people I share it with.

One phenomenon I have noticed is something I call the forgotten smile. I make eye contact with someone, smile and maybe give them a nod of greeting and for a moment their face is blank, often a frown or a grimace and then they catch themselves, seeming to back into the here and now from wherever they had gone, return the smile and then look around, I like that.