Day 38 - Sydney
After 15 hours of travel I heave myself up steep and familiar streets. The houses sit low and frumpy, riding the waves of the eastern suburbs. There was a mad dash through Guangzhou airport to get the connecting flight. The checked bag, with none of my fleet-footedness did not make it which at least lightens my load up these hills. The streets were flatter in my mind's eye, smooth and reverberating with the sound of my constant footsteps. As I walk I try to remember my life here. And not the prosaic outline of events and people, not the rosy, compressed joy but the feelings. Was I happier? Was I happy? I can't recall. I had expected a wave of nostalgia but there is none. I expected a welcoming ceremony and the keys to the city. But the city doesn't remember me, it's moved on. I own nothing of it and there is no debt to my past residence. Places are memories but they do not have memories. If I search for the familiar and comforting here that is not surprising. But Sydney does not love me, will not embrace me or spoon me at bedtime. It simply is as it simply was and won't be something it could never be. It's blithe indifference to my presence is a reminder that homes are built of people rather than bricks. Maybe that's not a bad thing to remember and that kind of portable happiness is the better kind. But to be wanted and needed is such a powerful drug. When it is withdrawn the comedown is protracted and painful and I seek it again relentlessly, consumed by the idea that things would be improved by an acquiescent touch, a stranger's regard and affection. All the same, familiar faces are welcome and lift the mental burden of solitude. Which is a rather cold way of saying it was good to see friends again.
It becomes clear though that they are all on their own paths and though they may intersect mine at times they will never be the same. I must look elsewhere for that and I certainly can't place myself on their path in the absence of a clear one of my own. For a week though my path is through the rocks to old pubs, up the coast around beaches, bowls and graveyards. Between breweries and gin bars with momentary friends. After othering myself in Thailand I had returned to society and I find I like it.
I stand on a balcony in a cold wind and am reminded of the hot wind that blew me out of the country many years ago. I don't want to leave but I feel I should because, despite my best efforts, I would try to lead someone else's life here. To attach myself to other's happiness as I lack my own. I'm a round peg where there are only square holes. I fit, but not completely. Untied to responsibility and unbound by routine. Time has marched and yesterday's man sits in the CBH bar on a Monday afternoon listening for the wardrums of leisure. But they beat against the current. "Must you go?" I ask myself still. "I must". "Are you positive?"
Yes I am and I will not be going. Not on this flight anyway. There was no mandatory covid test before my flight to Sydney via China. But there is, for reasons best known to the Chinese, on the way back. And I have just failed mine. I can't raise the energy to be angry. Is that just tiredness or something else? As the gate closes another one opens. Opportunity in adversity as those relentless, hustling, annoyingly positive thinkers would say. Covid finally caught up with me and drove an 18-wheeler truck through my plans. Or did it? To my surprise there is no despair at the world's cruelty or a feeling that my lot was a particularly unfair one. There is the familiar acceptance of the situation as per recent years but also a quiet constructiveness that isn't so familiar. I couldn't do what I wanted so I would have to do something else instead. Something better than walking the streets of Chiang Mai getting wet (I would now miss the water festival I'd planned to go to). I unloaded the crippling weight of the emotional baggage I'd been carrying for months. I said sorry for the hurtful things and understood better why I did them. I glimpsed a route to forgiving myself even if, when all is done and all is said, someone else can't. And that, I figure, is how we live. That is how we don't die. How we draw another breath when our lungs are tarred and exhausted by the effort. Our collapsed hearts sprout feathers and begin to lift themselves again. It would be so easily poetic to slip into a lovelorn coma. To have tried and failed at the ultimate happiness and be gently laid down to rest like a glassy-eyed worshipper in a Baptist church. Cupid placing his chubby hands on your neck, your back, your...no he only has two hands, and bringing you down to the ground so softly you can barely feel the impact. But I am standing now and I feel like my feet are touching the floor for the first time in a long time.
After 15 hours of travel I heave myself up steep and familiar streets. The houses sit low and frumpy, riding the waves of the eastern suburbs. There was a mad dash through Guangzhou airport to get the connecting flight. The checked bag, with none of my fleet-footedness did not make it which at least lightens my load up these hills. The streets were flatter in my mind's eye, smooth and reverberating with the sound of my constant footsteps. As I walk I try to remember my life here. And not the prosaic outline of events and people, not the rosy, compressed joy but the feelings. Was I happier? Was I happy? I can't recall. I had expected a wave of nostalgia but there is none. I expected a welcoming ceremony and the keys to the city. But the city doesn't remember me, it's moved on. I own nothing of it and there is no debt to my past residence. Places are memories but they do not have memories. If I search for the familiar and comforting here that is not surprising. But Sydney does not love me, will not embrace me or spoon me at bedtime. It simply is as it simply was and won't be something it could never be. It's blithe indifference to my presence is a reminder that homes are built of people rather than bricks. Maybe that's not a bad thing to remember and that kind of portable happiness is the better kind. But to be wanted and needed is such a powerful drug. When it is withdrawn the comedown is protracted and painful and I seek it again relentlessly, consumed by the idea that things would be improved by an acquiescent touch, a stranger's regard and affection. All the same, familiar faces are welcome and lift the mental burden of solitude. Which is a rather cold way of saying it was good to see friends again.
I stand on a balcony in a cold wind and am reminded of the hot wind that blew me out of the country many years ago. I don't want to leave but I feel I should because, despite my best efforts, I would try to lead someone else's life here. To attach myself to other's happiness as I lack my own. I'm a round peg where there are only square holes. I fit, but not completely. Untied to responsibility and unbound by routine. Time has marched and yesterday's man sits in the CBH bar on a Monday afternoon listening for the wardrums of leisure. But they beat against the current. "Must you go?" I ask myself still. "I must". "Are you positive?"
Yes I am and I will not be going. Not on this flight anyway. There was no mandatory covid test before my flight to Sydney via China. But there is, for reasons best known to the Chinese, on the way back. And I have just failed mine. I can't raise the energy to be angry. Is that just tiredness or something else? As the gate closes another one opens. Opportunity in adversity as those relentless, hustling, annoyingly positive thinkers would say. Covid finally caught up with me and drove an 18-wheeler truck through my plans. Or did it? To my surprise there is no despair at the world's cruelty or a feeling that my lot was a particularly unfair one. There is the familiar acceptance of the situation as per recent years but also a quiet constructiveness that isn't so familiar. I couldn't do what I wanted so I would have to do something else instead. Something better than walking the streets of Chiang Mai getting wet (I would now miss the water festival I'd planned to go to). I unloaded the crippling weight of the emotional baggage I'd been carrying for months. I said sorry for the hurtful things and understood better why I did them. I glimpsed a route to forgiving myself even if, when all is done and all is said, someone else can't. And that, I figure, is how we live. That is how we don't die. How we draw another breath when our lungs are tarred and exhausted by the effort. Our collapsed hearts sprout feathers and begin to lift themselves again. It would be so easily poetic to slip into a lovelorn coma. To have tried and failed at the ultimate happiness and be gently laid down to rest like a glassy-eyed worshipper in a Baptist church. Cupid placing his chubby hands on your neck, your back, your...no he only has two hands, and bringing you down to the ground so softly you can barely feel the impact. But I am standing now and I feel like my feet are touching the floor for the first time in a long time.
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