Is There a Point to Running into the Wind

Cafe Locked Out: The Deplorables Tour Of Tasmania

The Hall was nothing special. Every town we’ve been to would have one, the only new things here, were the people we had interviewed telling their stories via our projector, as a few locals watched in silence and I sat on the floor of the storage room.

Outside it was dark and freezing and the temperature was still dropping as the wind, that felt like it had travelled up from the Antarctic searched your coats for a passage to your skin.

After the doco finishes I am expected to give a talk, but I doubt that anything I say, with my beard and wild hair, will contradict what the polished people on the TV are selling, constantly.

There seems to be little fight in the people down here. Just networked pockets of those who call themselves awake, and fortunately some of these have been brave enough to talk, adding their voices to a chest of brave voices we keep on various hard drives.

Most people here, like people everywhere I guess, just want to put this all behind them and move on, like an assult victim tidying her dress and undergarments before wiping her mascara, smudged by tears from her silent trembling face.

Should we let them move on?

Should we throw in the towel and then go find a groove in this changing world to make a life for ourselves as best we can without the passport of the “you know what” in our veins?

I’ve met those from our tribe trying to do this. I think they may be concealed everywhere here and their country down here is so beautiful, it’s hard to believe that the narrative, that we believe, that the waves of the totalitarian king tide coming in one, will ever reach here, the way it washed over Melbourne.

In the after speech, I hold up a disposable, wooden spoon that I found in the kitchen, and share with them the advice that the Original Leaders shared with me.

This is a marathon, not a sprint.

But I have expanded that wisdom. To me it is a relay marathon and I’m one of the first runners, not the fourth, and my job is to keep running, no matter the obstacles, no matter this evening’s niggling doubts, until I hand over what this wooden spoon represents, to the next runner, so they can keep running until they reach the third runner and so on.

Hopefully by then they will have already reached our destination. The New Australia that will have the courage to live up to the ideals that this generation betrayed in a heartbeat.

Speech over, we pack up their chairs and our screen until after fifteen minutes or so there will be no evidence that we were even here.

It is now that the woman approached me. Her thick beanie pulled down, her cheap and well-worn raincoat buttoned up to her neck. Her eyes harried like someone besieged who has come to the realisation that the cavalry will never come.   

She told me that she’d come here hoping to share her story. That she was ready to speak.

It was suggested, because we had to leave the hall, that we record it tomorrow, but trying to agree upon a location and time is too difficult, so I suggested we record her story in the storage room where I spent an hour hiding away from this destiny I chose.

This is her story.

After it, I realised her courage had placed a new log in the furnace within my soul. Would her story do the same for others? That’s what she was hoping for, that’s why she spoke.

As we drove away, she was still within me, and yet, personally, I know I have no real answers, and maybe never will. That’s why I don’t pretend to have, instead I’m just trying to be the conduit between those who want to talk and the community that Café Locked Out has attracted and with luck, others who feel that something is dreadfully wrong.

Tomorrow, and soon it will be today, we will again be screening our documentary, these voices of some of our new friends, in the Greek Club in Hobart.

Will anyone come? Will anyone be changed or better still inspired to speak?

There is only one way to know.

The proof is in the doing, and this small hall and small crowd are a part of the marathon.

And in order to complete a marathon you have to train yourself to run, whether the wind is behind you or in front of you. You must learn how to keep running, despite that voice in your head questioning, sometimes silently, sometimes deafeningly, what are we doing, where are we going?

And the only answer that placates that voice, sounds like, especially if you knew my past, like madness too.

For the answer is faith. Despite all the beauty and crap that decorated or hindered my path to here, I now have faith that I’m on the right path, and this woman’s courage was to me, more than a single lonely woman choosing courage over fear, she was also, the noble and defiant voice of God.  

And as we head back to tonight’s home, I know too, that I would rather be here fighting by her side, even if we are destined to lose, than dropping to my knees in the hope that I won’t drown, day after day after long day, in this suppressing and incoming tide.

Michael Gray Griffith  

After spending 115 days circumnavigating the mainland, interviewing people in nearly every town we visited about their thoughts, feelings and experiences about the last two years, Cafe Locked Out’s, Deplorable team are commencing a two week tour of Tassie to complete their tour.
If you’d like to meet up with us, you can find our itinerary here, plus an interactive map that shows us where we are.
https://cafelockedout.com/the-deplorables-epic-tour/
Cafe Locked Out is a self funded, growing community, so if you would like to helps us with fuel and other costs, please donate here: https://cafelockedout.com/donate or https://www.patreon.com/cafelockedout
Michael, Wendy and Kret.