The People Who Join the Hike

I am on a coastal hike. One of the things I didn’t expect, between cean swims, morning yoga, and kayaking, is the people who join these hikes.

I’m sitting in the lounge room, drenched in sunlight. On my left is a quiet, almost statuette-like woman in her late seventies, reading a book. 

I look at the unobstructed ocean in front of us and think about her.

She had been a Human Rights Commissioner, appointed by Kevin Rudd. She grew up on a farm. As a child, she was struck by a truck and spent years recovering.

Now she has found a small space in the shade on an expensive mint-coloured couch, quietly immersed in her book.

Our group dynamic would not be the same without the plastic surgeon, who keeps himself on the front deck, his naked torso, indifferent to the sun, perched right above the sea.

He made it clear on the day we met that it was them, the five Levines, who made the trip possible.

His wife and three grown-up children had taken all the spots required for the walk to go ahead.

His view of people, I’ve noticed, begins with the nip and the tuck. He seems to know your worth to him the moment you appear, as if he is already sizing you up. Nuance, like excess skin, is something to be removed.

They don't speak much, she and the plastic surgeon. 

But once, over dinner, he asked about the recent appointment of the new head of the Royal Commission.  

When her response came, quiet, nuanced, legally precise, it didn’t match. His dismissal was as quick and sharp as his work.

His cheerful wife, with her nearly perfect looks, was quick to establish that the coast is how they are all connected, which summer house is closest to the best swimming spots, and who sings in the local choir. 

She seemed surprised that I neither owned a shack by the water, played golf, nor knew the names they mentioned.

I was the odd one out.

And yet I sat there, close to bliss, not entirely sure why. 

I listened to the ocean roll into the lodge, the sound filling the space. For a moment, it felt as if the view held us all in the same place, regardless of what we thought we knew.

Those who see complexity, those who need certainty, and those who wonder if the waves mind what we need from each other.