Jar labelled ‘Australia’

Urban planners refer to the accidental trails created by foot traffic as ‘desire paths’. These are the unintentional routes shaped by the footprints of where humans wish to go, rather than the signposted pathway. They are the barely-there tracks, sometimes right next to the concreted or cobblestone walkway, in quiet defiance of dictated procession. It is a concept ripe for writerly annexation – author Robert Macfarlane calls them ‘free-will ways’ – which journalist Megan Clement does superbly in this memoir of her beloved father’s death told through the desire paths her own life has taken – from a childhood in Stoke-on-Trent, in England, and Zimbabwe to her teenage years growing up in a leftist, working-class enclave of Melbourne and the years she spent flying between France and her dying father in Australia, until the pandemic grounded her in Melbourne, sans fresh air, human contact, and any possibility of carving out fresh footfall.