Let the Alone roller coaster ride begin

It’s a year since I started the whole wild, wonderful, crazy journey of applying to be a participant on an insane TV show called Alone, which took place on palawa country, on lutruwita, or Tasmania as we may know it.

A year I have had to keep my big mouth shut about every part of the process. One of the hardest things about this whole experience has been having to out and out lie about where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing, to those I love.

Alone is the second biggest thing that has ever happened to me in my life, after having cancer while pregnant, being told I had to terminate the pregnancy or die, bringing Blaise into the world against all odds and then losing her three years later to cancer. Then the endless wall of grief I’ve been scaling ever since. That was the biggest, hands down. Still is.

She’s been gone almost ten years, and now there’s this. Alone is a wild boot up the arse and into the world in ways I never even thought possible. I haven’t been able to say a word about the process. You know me. I’m all about words. This has been excruciating!

It’s like a modern koan. If Gina puts on 24kg (even though they say 19kg on the show, I'd already put on a bunch before my first weigh in with them), and goes out on a winter survival adventure with five cameras and a small fistful of gear and nobody knows, did it even happen? I’ve had days wondering if it was real.

Now the show is finally airing, and the whole juggernaut is rolling on, and there’s a little part of me that wants to curl up in a ball going fuckfuckfuck with my fingers in my ears and my hands over my eyes. The feeling that my little life is about to change forever. My anonymity blown to shreds.

It’s the strangest feeling. On one hand I’m purely practical, getting my websites in order, FB comments set to friends only to minimise the inevitable trolling. On another it’s an existential move, a feeling of psychic indigestion, of being poised on the edge of an abyss, about to tumble into the unknown.

Spending time out in the wilderness was the easy part. That’s a jungle I am familiar with. This urban jungle of interviews and the court of public opinion scares the bejeezus out of me.

And yet, along with the terror, It’s exciting, thrilling even. I am so glad this is happening in my mid 50’s and not in my 30’s. I have earned these silver feathers and with them, some wisdom.

Which is lucky, cos already I’m learning on the job. Learning not to swear in the press interviews. Learning (again) that my survival mechanism when I feel overwhelmed by people is for my personality to get big, like a puffer fish, and that this isn’t appropriate at a publicity event.

The introvert in me will need to get pretty skilled at finding ways to manage all this attention without losing my centre. I’m learning on the fly.

One of the reasons I did the show was that I knew that in the discomfort of surviving in wild nature I would have to lean in to parts of myself I hadn’t met before, and this is exactly what happened. In the lake of a thousand mirrors I dissolved, died even, and was regrown as a part of the land, no more important than any bird or worm or cloud or tree. It was hard, and cold, and wet and muddy. I fucked shit up constantly. My pride and ego died a thousand deaths.

And it was beautiful. I broke into ten thousand pieces which were scattered across that brutal landscape, and in the spaces they left I filled up with life in all its unfurling mystery. I am forever changed. It doesn’t matter how many days anyone lasts out there, ultimately it isn’t about winning, it’s about meeting the deepest parts of ourselves, finding what’s true under our stories.

Nature breaks us all in the end, and thank goodness for it. It’s a necessary breaking. A breaking open of that which no longer serves so we can finally accept what we are. There’s a necessary humility in that. Learning that we are part of something wonderful.

Nature teaches us who and what we really are. Anything that isn’t nature burns away, and we find, often painfully, that our stories aren’t relevant, because they aren’t real. They don’t serve us. I am still pretty raw from the whole thing, and probably will be for a long time. And so so grateful.

I am so excited to see the adventures of the other Aloners. Kate, Beck, Michael, Rob, Mike, Peter, Jimmy, Duane and Chris. We only met for a week at boot camp, before we were dropped into the wilderness in the middle of winter to try to survive with a few bits of kit and our wits.

I fell in love with them all, we feel like family. Mainly because we are the only ones who have an inkling about what the others went through out there. Shared experience binds like blood. It’s still super weird cos none of us know each others’ journeys. We have to watch to find out. The gag orders are strongest for us.

The first two episodes dropped this week, back to back. I love the Aussie humour that’s apparent right off the bat and am already devastated that some of us won't be going any further, and am so so proud of every single one of us.

I want to watch more. I’ve received sooo many messages from people having ongoing watch parties (please send me a pic of your crew from the night or chuck it on my fb feed). There is such an outpouring of support I feel humbled and blessed by the size of my global family.

I’m taking the deepest of breaths now, in the quiet of this morning with the rain drumming the roof, remembering the sound of rain on my shelter in the inky, icy dark of lutruwita, marvelling at the turns of this life and the huge capacity of the human heart to feel it all. Feeling like I’m at the top of the roller coaster, looking down at the track, hanging on to the bar thinking how the fuck did I get here and knowing the only way through is though. Waiting for the sickening rush as my stomach tries to climb out my ears.

I know I’m going to fuck parts of this next bit up, as the carriage drops and it’s going faster than I can map and really I just have to hang on and figure it all out on the fly. And that when I do, fuck it up, that is, spectacularly at times, you’re going to be the shoulders I lean on, so thank you already, beautiful humans.

Those pride and ego deaths I went through out in the winter wilderness will see me in good stead for this next part, as I meet new places in myself, probably gracelessly in moments. You’ve been there for me through my whole journey of losing Blaise, your arms are long and your hearts wide as the sky, and I feel you here now for this wild ride. I know I’m not alone. Thank you from my bones.

I'm about to start recording some Alone videos, commentaries and Q&A, and interviewing awesome rewilding humans, and generally getting my youtube channel launched, so keep an eye out and if you feel to, when it's up like it or subscribe or whatever it is people do with youtube. I have no bloody idea. I just tried to do it and somehow deleted one of my existing channels and now can't even access youtube at all!!! So yeah. Send me back to the jungle where things make sense :D

Holy shitballs, this is happening.

With deepest gratitude for the incredible generosity of spirit of our palawa teachers and wisdom keepers going in to this experience, and to palawa custodians going back 60 000 years.

You can watch alone on SBS on Demand Wednesday nights 730pm