Patti Miller - The Joy of High Places

The JOY of HIGH PLACES

PATTI MILLER is the author of nine books, including best-selling memoir-writing texts and the award-winning narrative non-fiction book The Mind of a Thief. She has published numerous articles and essays in national newspapers and magazines. She grew up on Wiradjuri land and now lives in Woolloomooloo on Gadigal land. She teaches memoir workshops around Australia and in Paris and London.

To the bird-children

The JOY of HIGH PLACES

Patti Miller

A moving meditation on the way we doggedly court both bliss and death. Though Patti Miller strides the world in her hiking boots, and though her mind ranges through world history, mythology and societies, this danger-defying philosopher remains unmistakably, quintessentially Australian.

Sue Woolfe, author of Leaning Towards Infinity

A clear-eyed celebration of the capacity for joy and risk that makes us human. I finished this book feeling quietly elated.

Delia Falconer, author of Sydney and The Service of Clouds

A true tale of daring and endurance, pain and exuberance, told like a myth, The Joy of High Places is the most transcendental, most spiritual book written by a non-believer Ive ever read. Strange, compelling, irresistible it sings with poetry and wisdom, and keeps surprising to the very end. Creative non-fiction at its finest.

Lee Kofman, author of Imperfect

Each time I opened this book, I felt as though I was returning to a wise and true friend. Patti Miller captures the pleasures of the body, the joy of landscape, the thrill of knowing and being known. More than that, she unpacks the mysteries of memory, and the way we carry our past into our present. I loved it.

Kathryn Heyman, author of Storm and Grace

Patti Miller is a national treasure, who has not only led the way in gently parsing the past both personal and collective in her previous books, but has guided many of us on our own writing journeys. This new book is a delight to read, filled as it is with the soul oval of wild joy that she describes from childhood, a feeling she re-experiences in fleeting moments on her long, questing walking pilgrimages. Its also a moving portrait of a once-strained sibling relationship: a sister bound to the earth; a brother drawn to the sky. In the face of trauma, Miller writes this book to heal old wounds, to truly get to know her brother, and in doing so, she discovers a shared sibling language of joy (in walking, in flying) as well as awe for all that remains mysterious in a loved one who is on the other side of tragedy.

Ceridwen Dovey, author of In the Garden of the Fugitives

A superb, soaring memoir of longing, resilience and delight in the natural world. Patti takes us with her through some of the most beautiful parts of Europe, describing the simple pleasure of walking and how it has held her captive throughout her life. Alongside is the story of Pattis brother finding transcendence in flight, the agony of it being taken away and the determination of mind over body.

Jemma Birrell, Creative Director of Tablo Publishing

A NewSouth book

Published by

NewSouth Publishing

University of New South Wales Press Ltd

University of New South Wales

Sydney NSW 2052

AUSTRALIA

newsouthpublishing.com

Patti Miller 2019

First published 2019

This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to the publisher.

ISBN: 9781742236513 (paperback)

9781742244587 (ebook)

9781742249070 (ePDF)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia

Design Josephine Pajor-Markus

Cover design Peter Long with Josephine Pajor-Markus

Cover image Peter Long

All reasonable efforts were taken to obtain permission to use copyright material reproduced in this book, but in some cases copyright could not be traced. The author welcomes information in this regard.

Contents

The man who fell to earth

O ne day a few years ago, one of my brothers fell to earth and smashed his spine in several places when his paragliding wing collapsed. He believed he was going to die and then, when he realised he was still alive, he thought he would never walk again.

Thats the most straightforward way to begin the story, but, of course, its not necessarily the beginning. Many things happened before that; the dreams Barney had as a little boy for one, flying over the farm where we all grew up, swooping above the paddocks and fences in the night; that could be the real origin of everything that happened to my sensible brother. Or it could be more scientific to start with the weather, the rain damping down the silent grass, the unstable air producing patchy bullets of up-current, the warm pocket of air under a cool layer spinning into the hidden dust devil that brought him down. Or perhaps the real story begins eons ago in his genes, the particular and peculiar combination of methodical good sense and the longing for transcendence that he inherited from his German and Celtic ancestors. How far back would that make the beginning?

And neither is the story all about him and his flying and falling. The year he fell out of the sky, I began long-distance walking, which, in a way, is as absurd a means of getting about as flying under a piece of nylon cloth albeit a lot safer. It is a ridiculously slow method of traversing the countryside, not much happens for hours, feet become painful, you get too hot, you get caught in storms, dogs snarl threateningly. But it is democratic anyone with two legs can walk, it requires no training, once youve bought solid walking boots it costs very little money, and doesnt usually risk anyones life. Walking is fundamental, everyday, without drama.

Flying is faster and more graceful, but it depends almost entirely on what appears to be the random and therefore unpredictable movement of invisible flows of air. It requires a high degree of skill and strength, its dangerous, its otherworldly. Imaginary beings fly angels, dragons, fairies, griffins all soar with feathery or scaly wings above the earth in a detached parallel reality while we who walk, un-winged, two-legged, are down in the folds of the earth with the sights and sounds and smells of the world right under our noses: a grub in a cocoon, the sweet clang of cowbells, sheep poo on the path.