Facing the Music

by Jennifer Knapp

  The whole world was plaintively calm, but not silent. Gone were screams of overhead airplanes and telltale sounds of human upward mobility (save us and our beastly four-wheel drive). Instead, we heard the sounds of distant cockatoos and kookaburras, yawning their songs to announce the day. Most mornings, I found myself compelled to step softly. Karen and I had become deft at rising in harmony with the nature that surrounded us, gradually making our way into the light, saying little between us, so as to lend our ears to the waking world around us. We were in no hurry to be anywhere but the present. The plan for the day might have been to make our way to the next camp, but that might be postponed because I had spent the best part of the dawn transfixed, watching a brumby mare grazing her way through the meadow. One day, I sat still enough for one to come within yards of our camp. Any sudden movement and she would snap her head up, nostrils fluming her white condensed breath into the icy air.

  We were the alien visitors to her world. We learned quickly that the best reverence we could offer was leaving our campsite as we found it, seemingly untouched by human footfalls. There were times that we found ourselves in such a remote place that the only sign of the modern world was the narrow, rocky fire trails that led us there.

  Every couple of weeks or so, we’d use a satellite phone to check in with our families. I could have been tempted to stay out there forever, were it not for the approaching winter. The trails that made our journey possible were dangerous enough in the dry days of summer; adding snow to the equation would have been far from wise. We had enough experience already in trying to travel tracks after rain to know that snow could trap us in the back country for weeks. Some passes were so treacherous that missing your wheel placement by a single inch could send your vehicle tumbling down the face of a mountain. Add a little water, and terra firma becomes terra calamitas. If you survive the carnage of twisted metal and timber, you might be stranded for days until help arrived.

  After three blissful months, the rains chased us down from the hills and back to the hustle and bustle of Sydney. I had to admit, it was nice to get back to the luxuries of modernity. I got into the habit of thinking there was nothing unusual about having to dig my toilet every day and burn my toilet paper, but there’s nothing as remarkable as feeling the cool porcelain beneath your backside to remind you that going it rough has its drawbacks.

  Makeshift dunnies aside, I had been bitten by the outback bug and I wanted more of it. There was so much more of Australia to see! Getting back to city life, I was twiddling my thumbs, with little to occupy my time. Three years had passed since I had been counted among the gainfully employed, but my new job was all about soaking up the world. Back home, I was occasionally tempted to pull out my guitar and see what insights strumming might draw out of my travels, but doing so still came with twangs of sorrow. I never lasted more than a few minutes until I grew unsettled, reminded of the life that I missed back in the so-called real world.

  My friends were astonished that I could afford to take such a long vacation. It was embarrassing to admit, but I had nothing to show for my previous life except for money. In those days, all I ever did was work. I bought a car and house and that was about it. I sold those, banked the cash, and tried to ignore the pleasure and the pain of watching my royalty checks come in. Pleasure, because I didn’t have to worry about having to work for a good long while. Pain, because it reminded me of the past I was running from.

  Money aside, my friends reasoned, surely I would get bored with doing nothing. It was difficult to explain, but that the kind of traveling we were doing was far from doing nothing. Though tranquil at times, every day in the Australian bush came with the prospect of a challenging and rewarding adventure. I wasn’t done yet. I wanted more of it.

  On our next trip, Karen and I decided to pull out all the stops and circumnavigate the whole of Australia. As I like to say, I left Sydney and kept heading left until I circled back around. We made our way up the eastern coast, past the highly populated areas that stretch from Melbourne to Cooktown, and up into the northernmost reaches of the continent. Once we made our way through the rainforests that let us know we entered into the monsoon realm of the Tropic of Capricorn, it struck us that we were about to see more of Australia than many Australians ever would.

  The High Country is a cakewalk next to the demands of the Top End. I’d say the Snowies are practically cuddly. Not that I’d want to get into a tussle with an Eastern Grey Kangaroo (newsflash: They can growl like angry dogs and claw out your eyes if you test them), but at least a marsupial doesn’t see you as prey. Respecting nature once you pass Cape Tribulation isn’t just a quaint idea; it’s serious business. Fording a river becomes a test of your courage, knowing that a giant crocodile could see you as a tasty treat. Even a brisk stroll through the bush has the potential of being a deadly affair, if you forget for a moment that this is the land of some of the planet’s most poisonous snakes. It’s not as daunting as it sounds, but it’s not an undertaking to be handled lightly, either. As with all our remote adventures, we did well to educate ourselves about what to expect and prepared our skill set accordingly. At all times we carried with us a working emergency beacon, medical supplies, and, of course, sought specific professional instruction for first-aid care, in case the need should ever arise. The sage advice we had received from our former four-wheel-drive instructor wasn’t just wisdom, it was a lasting gift that served us well.

  The contrast of the slow, deliberate mountains, compared to the hot, rugged roads of the less traveled north, at times, got us wondering what on earth we had gotten ourselves into. The unpaved roads of Cape York, exposed to the hellish wind and monsoon rains, are the most unfriendly, bone-jarring paths I have ever traveled. No matter how much mankind attempts to smooth them, the dirt and rock are eroded into uniformly dispersed channels, similar to those of an old-fashioned washboard. The choice becomes either traveling at a woeful snail’s pace, letting each trench swallow your tires in a nauseating bucking effect, or race over the top at breakneck speed in an attempt to ease the worst of the pain. It didn’t matter to me; each option nearly drove me mad. I opted for the latter, choosing to make the misery of it end as quickly as possible. Kilometer after dreadful kilometer, the journey to the tip of Australia’s northern most point left us parched and bruised, and our dear Mitzi just as battered. We would later discover that the vibrations were so violent that they actually sheered the engine-mount bolts off. It was a miracle that, with all our bouncing, the engine block didn’t bounce right out onto the ground. Cape York definitely taught me the meaning of the Aussie term hard yakka.

  No worries. We just bolted the engine back on and kept heading across the Top. Most of the north was about the miles. Everyday, our work was navigating our way across the long flat plains that sidle up against the Gulf of Carpentaria. Into the Northern Territory, we spent time soothing our weary bones, literally, under the shade of the coolabah trees beside billabongs. In Western Australia, we trekked through the ochre-drenched Gibb River gorges and fished for barramundi in the crocodile-laden, brackish waters of the Ord River.

  WE MADE OUR camp many a night with no other living soul around but each other. The height of extravagance would come on the days one of us would manage to catch a recognizable fish from the ocean. For every barren stretch that seemed to make Australia such a desolate and hostile place, we always managed to find an oasis that made the hardships all the more nobly won.

  There were times when I questioned the wisdom of two petite lesbians going it alone, so far removed from civilization. Beyond coping with our physical limitations, I was nervous that a rural country bloke might not take kindly to our being together. Back in Sydney, being gay is hardly remarkable. But if country folk in Oz were anything like what I encountered growing up in Kansas, I feared that prejudice in such a remote place had the potential to manifest into unwanted and hostile confrontation. For the few times that we were around other people, I tried to ke
ep a low lezzy profile but, every once in a while, questions were asked.

  I had initially avoided the outback pubs, thinking they were dens of respite reserved only for the most hardy of Aussie blokes, but after weeks of lukewarm Victoria Bitters from a can, my lips ached for a thirst-quenching, ice-cold draught beer. Yankee lesbian or not, I wasn’t about to let my nerves get between me and a pint.

  I’ll never forget the first time we walked into a dark shed of a remote pub. Before I had a chance to order my drink, the old dusty cobber leaning against the ancient wood bar looked us each up and down from head to toe.

  “Yooz two togetha?” he croaked from over the top of his brew. You could tell by his tone he wasn’t asking if we were acquainted, he was asking if we were together.

  “Yup,” I said. His eyes narrowed, pinching back what seemed a retort of some kind. I needed a preemptive strike. I saw there was a small tube television airing the latest rugby league match between New South Wales and Queensland. We were in New South Wales at the time, so I let my patriotism fly. “Go the Blues! What’s the score?” That’s right, old man; I know what’s going on.

  With that his head tilted to the side, as if to readjust the screws that kept his heterosexual brain safely in his skull. Just before my internal tensions reached their peak and forced me to withdraw, he busted out in a huge grin and asked, “Whaddle you two sheilas have?”

  Without a beat, “I’ll have a schooner of Old, thanks!” Home, sweet, Aussie home.

  Life is hard enough without knowing that you belong to someone, somewhere. Just a little bit of knowing that you’re invited and welcome goes a long way to lifting the fog of loneliness.

  The rugged, sweltering isolated interior of Australia managed to give me a glimpse of the difference between loneliness and solitude. There were some stretches of country where the only voice for days, besides Karen’s or my own, was the squawk of a cockatoo. To break the silence with our words, at times, felt irreverent.

  Some days were so hot and the sun so searing that the only thing left to do was to sit quietly, eyes closed, in the shade of a paperbark tree and wait for the stars.

  In the beginning of our travels, so many thousands of kilometers ago, that silence drove me to tears. My mind would race with questions, with resentments and jealousy. Though Karen sat beside me through it all, I wept from a place of gut-wrenching loneliness.

  Loneliness isn’t as quiet as it sounds. For me, it was angry. I shook my fists. I cried. I shouted into every void for a return call of recognition, for acknowledgment. I accused. I judged. I cursed every soul and every little thought in my brain that said I was insignificant. I would have told you I was abandoned, rather than alone. Ignored. Cast out, even.

  I wouldn’t read Henri Nouwen’s book Reaching Out for a couple of years, but when I did, my memories went back to my days recovering in the Outback. I understood him, when he talked about the differences between loneliness and solitude.

  The agony of loneliness has always been the emptiness I experience when I reach out and feel nothing there. It is the desolate place where I am forced to acknowledge my own weaknesses. Whenever I have been frightfully suspended in that ever-widening darkness, I twist and flail, screaming, “I don’t want to be alone!”

  Solitude is different. It is much more quiet and restful. It’s the place where, as Nouwen suggested, I could “claim [my] aloneness” and still find peace.

  One day, under the cool, mottled shadows of the eucalyptus, I noticed those old tensions had fallen silent. I sat there, drunk in the ethereal space between wakefulness and dreaming. I kept my eyes shut and enjoyed the ceasefire.

  I felt warmth cover the top of my hand. Like someone had gently placed their hand atop mine in a gesture of comfort. I smiled and let out a gentle, welcoming hum. I opened my eyes, expecting to see Karen, but there was no one there, only the silhouette of gum leaves dancing across my skin.

  Maybe it was God? The wind? A patch of sunlight? Or maybe just my imagination? I didn’t know and I didn’t care. I was free from my usual compulsion to explain it. Beautiful and serene, it just was.

  With another satisfied hum, I rolled my head back in submission, closed my eyes, and accepted the stillness there.

  twenty-one

  Our Australian expedition would take us six months to complete, leaving only the center and desert country for another time. All told, we had spent nearly three years traveling, and I was finally ready to set up a more permanent camp back in Sydney. I was so very fortunate to be able to afford what Karen called our “midlife retirement,” but I was getting a bit restless. It was hard to admit, but I needed to get back to some kind of meaningful work that offered a sense of purpose.

  I took a job at an antique shop that was within walking distance of my house. It had been over a decade since I’d worked nine to five. The rhythm of it felt good . . . for a while. Each day I’d come home, tired from moving furniture for hours on end, happy to take the aches and pains as a sign of usefulness. As an added benefit, getting amongst the workforce helped complete my assimilation into the Aussie culture.

  I loved the Aussie bush. I was a pro at cooking snags (sausages) on the barbie (BBQ grill). I fell so in love with Aussie cricket (the sport, not the insect) that my friends affectionately called me a “cricket tragic,” a term reserved for only the most die-hard of fans.

  And my Yankee twang had softened. After much teasing from friends, I realized that I’d started calling bananas, bah-NAH-nas, and that was it. The only thing left was to seal the deal and finalize my Australian citizenship.

  Clocking in, clocking out. Life wasn’t exciting, but it was good.

  One day, I got an email from my mom. She was excited about the fact that I was releasing a new record. I had no earthly clue what she was talking about. I went to the Internet to see what she could have possibly meant.

  It turns out that Gotee released what I call a posthumous album of my live performances from the Back 40 Tour of years gone by. I had been off the grid for so long that no one had even bothered to get hold of me to let me know about it. I wasn’t ready to call anyone back in Nashville, so I downloaded it from iTunes to have a listen.

  I had all but forgotten that I had ever sung a note. Normally, I hated listening to my own records after they were finished, but I’d never heard anything but rough board tapes of my live shows, so I was curious as to how it had all come out.

  Karen found me at my desk, headphones on, crying as though someone had died. I could barely speak. Tears streaming down my face, I pulled the headphones out of the jack and let the music spill out into the air.

  “It’s good.” I trembled. I didn’t want it to be. I needed it not to be.

  She listened quietly for a while, reminiscing. “It is,” she agreed. “Why aren’t you doing that anymore?”

  “I don’t know.” I was too dizzy to remember, but something in me sparked.

  Not long after that, I had walked into a scene at work that would add fuel to fire. One morning I found my co-workers gathered around the front-desk computer, grinning and nodding their heads in an odd synchronized fashion. I could hear the faint sound of music that sounded strangely familiar. When they saw me, they all started to giggle.

  “What are you guys on about?” I asked and walked around to face the computer screen.

  To my horror, they were watching YouTube clips . . . of me! My face was red with embarrassment. “Stop it! Stop!” I scrambled, trying to take control of the mouse, but I was blocked.

  “Why are you embarrassed? You’re good,” one of them said with sincerity and surprise. It wasn’t exactly a secret that I had a career once upon a time back in America. Humiliatingly enough, I had little more to put on my résumé when I had applied for my job. Now, it was coming back to haunt me.

  “What on earth are you doing here? Why aren’t you playing?” The lot of them stood there loo
king at me like I was a complete idiot.

  By now, I had my story down pat. As if by rote, I gave them my usual spiel about how I had drunk the American Christian kid Kool-Aid for a while, that I sang about it, and, now, had outgrown it and gotten on with my life.

  “Yeah, but you’re good.”

  “Play normal music, then,” they all piped and interjected.

  “Even if I did go back,” I explained, “it’d probably be too hard to get fans when people figure out I’m gay,”

  “Yeah, I dunno mate, seems like an excuse to me.”

  I was fooling myself trying to make it seem like the years I had spent putting my heart and soul into music was frivolous. Few were buying it, least of all me. No matter how far I ran away, no matter how I tried to paint a picture to myself or my new Aussie friends that my former career was a just a fun, idle little adventure of the past, I could never shake the feeling that I was avoiding what I knew I was made to do. Maybe being a Christian rock star wasn’t ultimately the best fit for me, but the voice inside me that longed to create and connect through music had never eased up. There was no measure of distance I could put between myself and the calling to sing that seemed sufficient enough to render it silent. It started to become clear to me that it was a lie for me to say that I didn’t want to do it anymore. The drive was in me. I had made work of denying it for nearly five years by insisting that I wasn’t interested, when the truth was that I had lost my courage.

  I had lost the courage to be myself.

  Whether it was music or even my faith, these things were a part of me, even if I didn’t have clarity as to what to do with them. Whether I liked it or not, I lacked the fortitude to admit aloud that both had added to my own life’s journey and made me the person I am.