Afternoons at the Murrumbidgee
The River...."The concept of place is best applied to those fragments of human environments where meanings, activities, and a specific landscape are all implicated and enfolded by each other" (Relph, 1992). A twenty-minute drive from home, we put the dogs in the back, buckle up and drive to our (what feels like a) hidden spot along the Murrumbidgee river. We park on the gravel road and head down to the huge gum tree that leans over the wide stream of running water. We climb up nearer the top, we swing on the flimsy piece of rope hooked on a branch, and on occasion we’ll swim in the auburn coloured water we assume to be fresh. Once content we return to mark the car with our muddy feet and fill it with that prominent wet dog scent, put on the music and off we go. When put into words the experience seems rather ordinary, but there is something about this afternoon ritual and environment that feels like home. This sense of place isn’t an inherent aspect of the river’s identity at all, but it’s something that we have projected onto it. It’s a social and cultural construct of our own, and on a subjective level we develop emotional connections to the tree, the water, the mud, the experience, and it becomes a narrative of our own. So with all that said, here's a picture of my little sister, at the river, (Yes! Taken on my phone!).
Abigail Brill
