S Sorrensen’s Here & Now: Balance or bust?

S Sorrensen

My place. Tuesday, 3.20pm

When will it run out of petrol?

Soon, I hope. I’m exhausted. But, with steely resolve, I will continue brushcutting until the tank of petrol is finished. This is good work.

I live in the bush. I like it. But, I have grass to keep short. Quite a lot of grass.

I have lived here for a long time. When I first arrived, I set up a caravan among bare rolling hills under the cliffs, shaped a tarp to collect water, and bought a brushcutter. (It’s too steep for a regular mower.) I kept the grass around the caravan short so the kids could play safely and I could play bocce.

Soon, angphora, acacia and eucalptyus, seeded from the cliffs above, sprung up on the hills newly freed from the hard hooves and relentless appetites of cows. In a world where degeneration of the environment was the norm, this was a rare regeneration, a happy positive in a world of negatives. I felt I was doing the right thing: intergrating human activity into a rejuvenating natural world.

Three decades and three brushcutters later, the caravan has morphed into a shack, the bare hills into forest, the children into parents – a success – but I’m still cutting the grass on the same hill under the cliffs. I’m happy to. It’s all part of keeping the balance. Sure, I use petrol – that’s a worry – but I justify that with the many acres of regeneration I’m fostering. (I’m good at justification.)

I brushcut often and always until I use a whole tank of petrol. There’s a lot of grass. Without brushcutting dedication, the grass would win the battle and invade my space. Balance between the growing forest and human habitation is the key to a sustainable new world here on the hill. And on the planet.

I feel it in my hips – that side-to-side swinging takes its toll – and my shoulders. Still, I straighten my spine and push the whipping nylon line into a patch of scotch thistles. This is good work. I believe people and nature belong together. Sure, that may seem obvious, but sometimes we forget.

The nylon line has worn down again, so I hit the brushcutter head into the ground releasing more line from the spool. I use a lot of nylon line. It’s a big, tough hill.

Despite the sore hips, despite the whirring noise that penetrates the ear muffs, despite the odd piece of plant shrapnel that stings my neck, I feel happy because, not only am I creating a healthy human-nature balance at my place under the cliffs, BP has abandoned its plans to drill for oil in the Great Australian Bight. This is good news. There is no longer any justification for extracting fossil fuels. The oceans are in enough trouble – overfishing, acidification, plastic…

Oh dear.

Nylon line is plastic.

I hit the stop switch. (The tank is not empty.) I stand on the hill, a realisation swamping me like the ringing silence: I have been sprinkling this hill with fine plastic particles for years with my brushcutting, seasoning the wildlife’s diet with Mr DuPont’s toxic invention, contaminating the ocean via the creek below – I’m polluting my paradise as I create it.

Oh dear.

Is every action I take condemned to being a polluting one? Is humanity really a part of nature, or, like plastic, an organic toxin derived from it? Is environmental balance even possible or is evolution taking us somewhere else?

I don’t restart the brushcutter.

Sitting on the hill, I think of brushcutters with fine metal chains, electric brushcutters with fine metal chains, wwoofers with push mowers, llamas…

Hmm. I feel like playing bocce.

But I’ll look for my brushcutter blade instead.