Memories and Dreams

Daylight savings says it's one time but my body says it's another. The morning light is clean and new and I'm sad about saying goodbye to the little things, now. The way light spills through the lounge room window in the morning, giving everything a glow. The sounds of neighbors getting up and into the day with slams of dustbin lids, back doors and shuffling along the back fence we three neighbors share.

Empty Henley Square at 5.30pm Grand Final Day

I've awoken with my dreams still lingering as memory, rising like the curls of steam from my morning cup of  tea. A dog barks blocks away. I don't want to miss a thing in these last 48 hours in this my neighborhood of 2 and a half years. I dreamt about walking around a large outback lake with other walkers following us. Becky Hirst was leading the way and I was worried our friend Katie wouldn't find us because we were so far 'back up the track'.

In the dream, it was hot. I had peeled old colourful paint off the side of an old 19th century building, I wondered if it was a film set? And then I was laying long pieces of stripped paint on the floor wondering about outback trade across Australia 200 years ago, and would 300 yards of muslin really cost six shillings to transport across to Perth, as the writing below me said?

Back in Somerton Park, through my front window I see a walker waiting for his dog wait at the end of my street, deciding which direction to go in. They turn and walk away from the beach. A girl rides by chattering to her dad, enjoying the morning's adventure.

I'm grateful to be alive, to want to get into every minute of every day. I'm nervous about the unknown, of course, but hope I can hold onto this love for life and a sense of belonging in a neighborhood. It amazes me how a life can fit into boxes sealed up with sticky tape - I expect them to burst open and get on with living the way this move has taken 4 weeks to happen from an idea to a reality.

This move is sponsored by Lenswood Apples

It is amazing what a person can get used to.

Neighborhood watch

Coming home from the last committee meeting I'll ever attend, I turn off the car radio and darken the dash board lights. Streetlights flick over and above me.  I just want to hear the sound of tyres on Anzac Highway headed west for Glenelg. Don't want the distractions of radio noise, or to think anymore. This month has been too big for my tired brain.  I think of  a good friend of mine, Casey, diagnosed with depression and hallucinating at work. Her brain ceased to function. Just could not work out how to move her hands to move the damn computer. She couldn't believe she had 'depression', more like complete malfunction.

I cruise in the silence, blissful. Breathing, quietly the sound of my breath soothing me. Shoes kicked off and air coming in through the windows. My body gears down one more level. Head for Holder St to find my tree. I've navigated my neighborhood by this massive gum tree; it dominates west Hove, towering above houses with branches reaching an forking out  30 metres and more.  It's the granddaddy of trees, stretching elegant, tall and silent. My ritual is to drive slowly underneath it with my headlights turned off, just to see the silvery bark glow in the darkness all above me, moving gently like octapus arms, watching over the neighborhood.  I love that tree.

I do it again, one last time.