North, north, ever north?

How my angst swirls and swoops when there’s another Covid outbreak. So near, or not, anywhere we go perhaps, masked and wary. Checking in and often forgetting to check out. Hands momentarily wet from sanitiser. Glasses foggy, sometimes moving blindly, step, stop, check. Yet another layer of feeling to add to the nervous excitement ahead of travelling. I’m almost sure that when I was younger it was only excitement I felt before a trip, a new adventure. I don’t remember experiencing that strange mix of nerves and excitement, like when meeting a new person, or just before a performance, knowing that it would mostly drop away once encountered, once I enter from side stage and the lights catch my cheek. A familiar fear I would tell myself. You have chosen this. Step up and into the light!
Yet here I sit scribbling again, having just decided to postpone my trip north to Darwin and Maningrida. Unwise and probably irresponsible to seek to enter a community in Arnhem Land, having arrived from a Covid outbreak in Sydney. Let alone to sit on a plane for four hours, surrounded by passengers whose noses peek above their masks, or sit under their chins like strange blue beards as they eat and drink on the flight. No space or time for my cavalier spirit in these days of Covid. No, I won’t be travelling north just yet. And as I write, layers of angst slide away, like a silken cloak slipping from my shoulders… I sigh. I will embark on that adventure though, as soon as I can. I may miss djabba’s funeral, though like so many cultural ceremonies, that too may be postponed. Time will tell, and Covid will swirl and swoop like a bird of prey, circling for its next meal.