Singing in the Car, the Aborigine Way - Michael Evans

One story that I found very interesting in class was the story of the aborigine who was singing the song with the landscape and was picked up by a man in a jeep. It is the prime example of how nature can bring back memories and symbolize something much more than a place or an object. For the aborigine, the landmarks along his walk were the things that fed the song he was singing. The song was made so that he would be singing about or in reference to a specific place as he approached it. When he got in the jeep, his singing became much more rapid in order to keep up with the landscape that was whizzing by. If he had not sped up, the song would have lost its importance and even its relevance as the places he sang about had long passed. He connected himself to nature through the songs, and he had to do so in a particular way in order to make it all meaningful and to correctly appease what he believed in. There are many places in my life that I can go and a memory will leap into my eyes. The place where I first met my girlfriend is an example. I can be with my girlfriend anywhere, but it’s not the same as being in the lobby of the Hilton hotel in Dorr, Michigan. Likewise I can be in that hotel lobby, but without my girlfriend it lacks meaning. It is the two together that makes the experience, just like the singing of the places while seeing them was the experience for the aborigine. Nature is full of memories, but they can only carry meaning in a specific way.