Borneo

Hey Sam,

That's you.

Behind the leaf.

And yeah I know what you’re thinking, that’s a big leaf, bigger than your face!

It’s the kind of leaf that only grows in places where it's hot,

and humid,

like the tropics.

And that would be correct because that photo was taken in Kuala Lumpur, in Malaysia.

Whereas this one…

…was taken in Borneo. In Gunung Mulu National Park to be exact.

You know, as a kid, I dreamt about travelling to Borneo, anywhere with jungles really. I’d open our Encyclopedia Britannica Atlas and look for the pages where they dialled up the green. I was searching for a vastness of not knowing. I’d trace my finger down rivers that wove intricate patterns through jungles that could hide whole civilisations from the rest of the world.

Borneo, Congo, Amazon, I could almost taste the words as I sounded them out. For some reason these places all seemed to have big ‘o’ sounds, like a giant snake swallowing a goat. When I tried them out it felt like I was speaking another language and discovering something previously hidden from me, my finger a small wooden canoe travelling places no white person had ever seen.

Ok, I know it all sounds a little colonial now but at eleven it’s safe to say I was just curious. And I guess that fascination has always stayed with me, even now when we head up to Springbrook National Park and go rock hopping in the creek. There’s a bit of that eleven year old alive in me still whenever I try to get you interested in the life cycle of a strangler fig.

And to be honest, I’d like to tell you that the idea for posing with big leaves in front of your face was yours, but the truth is I forced you to do it. I was planning a whole leaf series, thinking that perhaps I would start a blog that would become an internet sensation and set us up to travel the world for the rest of our lives, writing, taking photos, sponsored by Patagonia…

But by the second leaf you made it pretty clear you weren't into my journey and I had to shelve all of our future goals for more short term ones, such as enjoying our holiday.

Which we did.

Here are some of the reasons we picked Malaysia as our travel destination:

Laksa

Bearded pigs

Giant caves

and cat museums

in case you missed it,

Cat Museums...

Anyway, let's just say there were a lot of reasons I wanted you to see Malaysia. Cat museums weren’t on the list when we started but it’s important to improvise when you’re travelling or else you might miss something...

But in truth, one of the main reasons we went had nothing to do with tourism, it was about masculinity.

You've just had your first year of school and we’ve noticed you've started to change your ideas about gender. You grew up among artists and it’s fair to say you were exposed to a lot of options about what it means to be a boy. You were always highly emotional, your hair was long, you loved Frozen and you often preferred to play with girls because they played the same kinds of games as you. Now you're in school all bets are off.

One day as I was walking you home you said this to me:

Boys are strong,

like King Kong.

Girls are weak,

chuck them in the creek.

We talked it over and after a bit you agreed it was unfair to claim girls were weak and even more unfair to want to throw them in the creek, so after a bit of a think you changed the lyrics to:

Girls and boys are strong,

like King Kong.

Doors are weak,

chuck them in the creek.

I'm not sure what you have against doors but I decided to let it go…

After that your Mum and I decided it was a good time to travel again, to show you the possibilities of other cultures, because the world around us is much bigger than we believe it is and our beliefs shape the way we are. When I visited Malaysia for work a few months before I felt like there was an alternate version of masculinity on offer. Men really looked me in the eye and smiled warmly and affectionately. They held my gaze and I was moved by it, because in Australia, I have to say, it’s rare for men to look at each other like that.

Since we left Malaysia Australia has burned and Coronavirus has shut us all down. In Borneo I asked a taxi driver if the sky was always hazy and he said yes. he said it was because the jungle was being burned down to clear it for palm oil plantations. Now Borneo has less than half of the forest it had when I was a kid. The Atlas I used to look at would now be totally wrong.

As we flew home I was grateful for the pristine natural world on our doorstep but within a week of landing the sky at home was filled with bushfire smoke and it stayed that way for more than three months.

And now sitting at home all day I remember my naivety, thinking we were somehow immune to what was happening on our planet. I look at you and wonder what it will hold when you're an adult. Will Borneo still have forests for you to find giant leaves in?

I hope with all my heart you can have a sense of adventure, the feeling that the world is discoverable and timeless. I can’t really bear to think about any other options for you but I have to consider them, because if I don’t then maybe I am not being your father, I’m just pretending to be a boy with an atlas, my fingers tracing images of a world that no longer exists.

It’s a hard thought for me and I’m not sure I know how to balance knowledge of the world with hope. I’m not sure how those two things fit together anymore, but I know you make it worth the attempt, because in your eyes the creek is a jungle that has no end.

I don’t know how the world will turn out or indeed how you will either. I can only hope for futures I can’t see, that are hidden, like the hope that you will get to keep the part of you that loves Frozen, and that you become a man who feels things deeply and who cries when he’s upset. I hope you get as many possibilities as you can and I also hope Frozen 3, 4, 5 and 6 live up to all of our expectations.

Love,

Ragnar.