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From YourSITE.com One Bag at a Time
Sometimes I want to go home so immediately it makes my toes curl. Just as often, however, I’ve found myself wondering how I will ever be able to leave this beautiful city. Driving along the Yarra River the other day, watching the elms pass overhead with their yellow leaves still dangling in the late afternoon light, sun glinting off the water and a lone rower dipping his oars, I could have cried. This place is so far away that Dutch Elm disease never arrived, so the old elms grace several streets in the way that I remember the elms in Denver from my childhood. Not just Dutch Elm disease, but also so much of the corrupt world has never arrived here, it seems. Daryn named it most succinctly. When she was at the height of her homesickness about three weeks ago, I took her out to dinner and goaded her. “Come on,” I said, “you know you’ll miss it here. What will you miss most?” Without hesitation she answered, “How nice the people are here. You know, how they say what they mean and don’t care if you’re wearing last season’s pants.” I had to laugh, but only because it was true. We’ve gotten used to a life without a lot of the BS that we used to take for granted. Here, friends don’t BS friends. I’ve told a number of people here to call me when they get to the states, and that I’d love to put them up for a few days. I’ve been warned time and again that this is a dangerous invitation, because surely, sooner or later, these people will show up at my doorstep. They will take me at my word, and I’ll let them in with an open heart, knowing precisely who is sleeping under my roof. Anyone who knows me well knows that I am a wretched liar. I seem to have missed that gene, and am flawed in this way. I don’t ever expect an untruth, however small, and am always shocked when I come up against the hard reality of how slippery honesty seems to be in so many others, how often it is required to get along in a workplace or social situation, how flippantly people talk without thinking much about it or when they think they can get away with it. Fool that I am, I never think to lie about something till it’s too late, and my penchant for honesty gets me in trouble more often than not. However, in this way, I am perfectly suited to get along in Melbourne. I’ll have to put my guard back up when I get back, but I’ve enjoyed this feeling of being undefended, of not needing defenses. And that is another thing I’ll miss: the sense of safety here. I don’t think I wrote before about the Jack Johnson concert we went to a couple of months ago. It was at the outdoor concert amphitheater in the Botanical Gardens. Gary and I walked over with the girls in the early evening. As we approached, we heard the warm up bands playing and passed many picnickers on blankets outside the amphitheater, enjoying the music for free. We passed through the gates, and entered a lovely green hillside arching around a stage partially dug out in a semi-circle below. We showed our tickets again to get to the area near the stage where we had reserved seats. We were four or five rows from the front and a few people were already standing in front of the stage, swaying to the band. Soon, Kayla said she had a friend in the open seating area above us, and asked for our tickets to bring them down with us near the stage. We resisted at first, but soon saw the row of people near the stage thicken, so we let her bring a friend or two down. Next, Daryn wanted to bring her friends down, so we let her do it too. But we had already seen that this is what everyone was doing, and the standing room only crowd at the front was growing quickly as the bands grew in renown. Xavier Rudd played before Jack Johnson. The sun had set and it was well past eight o’clock. Daryn and Kayla disappeared into the crowd below us, but reappeared occasionally, happily talking with friends, smiling, moving to the music. Rudd plays melodic music that is somewhat folk in character, like someone from the sixties. When Jack Johnson finally came out, the standing room crowd had filled the bottom of the stage and had begun spilling into the aisles to well behind where we were sitting. Daryn and Kayla came back to their seats along with their friends, so we all stood packed together. And that that was what was so extraordinary. Not the music, though it was lovely, but the hundreds of people all so close together. The aisles were blocked and people who clearly didn’t belong in seats around us just slipped right in and smiled. But no one was nervous. No one was upset. Security was nowhere to be seen, and oddly, that fact more than anything contributed to the sense of safety we had. This is one of the great ironies of our time: the more security we have, the more we realize that we have to be afraid, and so we become fearful. This is a cycle that nowhere near stopping. We are so safety conscious and so anxious—and I’ll admit that we have right to be, but I’m glad my kids had a chance to experience a world in which safety is not an issue, where people could just stand together, listening to music, swaying in a one big mass, without fear or dissention. It is turning cold here now. It is raining with some frequency and more often than not, when I go walking around the Tan in the morning, I can see my breath as I step outside. The trees that fell in the cyclone in February were mulched months ago into fragrant heaps around the Tan, but the fragrance has dissipated now and just last week, what remained of the heaps were raked neatly into skirts under the canopy of the remaining trees, the old trees returning to the roots once again. I am having trouble sleeping. Part of this is excitement. The idea that I will be on the Vineyard in two weeks is enough to keep me from sleeping most years. This year, though, it means not just a return to a place I love, but a country I love, and friends I have had for many years, and closer to my family. I leave behind a wonderful place and time, but we will all bring some part of Australia back with us. I expect we’ll have some readjusting to do as a family. Kayla, who has been at Marshmead, cooking, cleaning, washing, doing homework, housework and farm work on her own for two months, will have changed in ways that I cannot predict. Daryn, who has worked harder than I’ve ever seen her, is ready to focus herself for these last two years of high school in order to get where she wants to go in college. She is clear headed about her school life and her social life, and what she wants out of each. Gary has found that he can be committed to a movie and to his family at the same time, balancing both in a way that he has not been asked to do before. I am more relaxed and have made a new commitment to make more time for friends and for walking more often. We will all have to re-adjust a bit, find ways to let ourselves grow and to let each other move into new roles that we’re just now ready for. We have had this sort of tectonic shift in our family before, and while it often is occasion for some upheaval and disquiet, ultimately, we tend to settle into new places with less tension and more room to grow for all. It’s a good process, all in all, and probably necessary. Gary and Daryn will be home in LA this weekend. Kayla comes back to Melbourne next Wed. and she and I will be on a plane bound for LA Thursday morning, then off to the Vineyard Friday the 24th. So this is the last Update you’ll have from me and my Australian adventure. Update me with your news and keep in touch with me via email or otherwise. I hope to see everyone soon! Lisa ******************
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