Dance Gran!perch.<br>
<br>
There wasn’t any point going home between my night shifts this week. Too far, too loud, too distracting for W and the baby. <br>
<br>
Staying inside the windowless, stuffy warehouse station for three days was depressing. <br>
<br>
I packed up my tarp and spent the days sleeping locally. <br>
<br>
First I slept beside the interchange of the Hume Freeway and M80. Dozing in a snake-y field, I thought hard about the sounds. Intensity wise, birdsong was around a 60% and the traffic about 35%. The traffic was mostly consistent, a white noise under grass rustling, tarp flapping, minor birds yapping. <br>
<br>
The next day I slept on the Edgars Road freeway off-ramp. Here I thought about fear, the thing that kept waking me up from micronapping. The closer I got to sleep, the more my imagination woke up. What if an off lead dog found me? What would I say to the owner? What if it bit me? I think, if a council worker finds me, I should smile as they walk over. Could I lie to the police, maybe I should practice now. Those were the kinds of thing that made me open my eyes, and check for anyone approaching. With practice I started to calm myself; if someone found me and wanted to talk, they’d wake me up then. No point worrying any sooner. <br>
<br>
It’s ironic that freeways, so inhuman, built for machines, built for transient visitors, gone in a split second, are the easiest places to camp. To lie under a tree in private, to get sniffly from grass seed, to be still and really see what suburban birds are up to. Because these places are a repellant.<br>
<br>
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