It’s been a whirlwind few days in Melbourne. Seeing friends, trying to see friends but missing them, running into peeps at the supermarket that order forgot and generally marking the end of the year with a returned sense of wistful wonder and hopefully soon hope.
On one level, the trip has been marked by a feeling of strangeness – strained family (non)events, some social awkwardness and moments of not quite knowing if I was coming or going. Which is often the case when you come back to someplace you just went from.
On another level though, I was struck at the sheer bike craziness of Melbourne. Mums with a trayload of children heading to the Collingwood Children’s Farm, stylish men in sockless brown loafers rolling ironically rusted steeds, friends rocking up to bars with the flotilla twinkling of spontaneously created bike gangs and many a sweet commuter battling the Christmas shopping crowds. The city was – at least on the days when it wasn’t freezing – cluttered with bikes and people and the nice combination of the two.
I started trying to take snaps of them as they shot by my slow moving pedestrian self, wrestling at odd moments in my backpack which – now that I’m in Brisbane – is where my camera lives. Having borrowed a friend’s bike after Christmas, I even made a few attempts at cycling back after a particularly snazzy speedster had passed me by. I was, gaga for goodness on bikes.
Eventually, however, I developed then unexpected ennui that comes from starting with too much enthusiasm, too much pep, and eventually I just felt kind of overwhelmed. Like a pastoral cousin, come down to the big smoke for some quality shopping and an expedition to see a blockbuster musical at Her Majesty’s, I found myself at some unusually bad cafe, sipping an ice coffee with whipped cream from a can on top of it, and just wishing for a bit of respite from all the stylish Melbourne bike fashion. It was getting hard to get my errands done.
So instead of boring you with the sundry pictures of blurry superstars, I’ll just leave you with this one.
A beautiful Brisbanite who has relocated down south. I want to call her Isolde, but I just don’t think that’s actually her name. Imagine it something winsome and girlish, but with a faint, fun streak of mystery around it.
It’s a beautiful, December day in Melbourne. Your belly is comfortably stretched from Christmas overindulgence but you’ve time to get on your bike, ride down to Gerald’s for just one sneaky beer and a natter with your friend. In the mean time, the light is golden through the awning, and you just know that summers like this are few and far between. The summers between jobs, between decades, between loves, between lights, between friends.
Savour them while you can.
eleanor j jackson 