Settling Down Under

The Newtown Flat

            I have spent these past couple days since arrival sharing time and wandering with my cousin Alice.  Alice and I had not met prior to 1995.  She arrived that winter at my parent’ home to share the holidays with us in the wake of her brother Charlie’s death.  He died from a brain tumor at the age of 19.  I never met Charlie, although many stories over these dozen years have provided a quality of animation to the photographic images I have seen and carry in my mind.   

            Alice’s and my friendship has emerged slowly during visits in both hemispheres.  A screenwriter, she has become progressively less self deprecating regarding her craft and gift over these recent years.  I believe her talent is revealed by the fact that now, only in her early 30s, she is able to support herself entirely through her writing, albeit quite leanly this year.  She has written a number of short series for public television, including a piece called the Silence.  The Silence was first picked up by the Toronto and later the Seattle Film festival.  While filmed as two discrete episodes, it was also released in a manner to be presented as a feature length film, as it was shown in these two festivals.  At present, she has three primary projects, two feature length films, and one short television series, in various stages of development. 

            Her days are spent writing in her funky one bedroom apartment in Newtown, a working-class, studenty neighborhood in Sydney’s Inner West. Despite her humble income, she has managed regular overseas visits, most recently passing through Washington last winter en route to a writers’ residency in Sitka Alaska.  Sitka’s location was supportive in development of a script she is working on regarding Alaskan artist Rockwell Kent.  

            As I mentioned in my last post from Europe, Alice and I have shared a number of fantastic road trips in western Washington.  Just yesterday, she recalled with enthusiasm our walk, in the pouring rain, out to the very tip of Neah Bay where we traveled as a part of a 3 day loop of the peninsula in December ’06.  

            Since my arrival in Sydney, we have spent leisurely days with lots of walking which has felt like a liberating gift to the body after my final cold, shuttered weeks in northern Europe.  My first morning we wandered through local Newtown and Erskineville neighborhoods where I had the best coffee I’ve had in 2 months and 3 countries.  I have arrived in yet another distinct and unique urban corner of the world.  Here, of the architectural landscape, I am most struck by the tightly packed one and two story terrace houses.  These small flank sharing homes are commonly painted in a vibrant array of colors, a complimentary and different tone covering the distinct wrought iron grills, gates, and railings.  

            Another day we took a lengthy walk through the Sydney Botanic Gardens which is situated along the harbour, just east of Circular Quay, the tourist swamped area around the Opera House.   Both in the Gardens and in our neighborhood walks, I have been delighted to again see the Australian flora and the avian world which reside therein; ibis, minah birds and there suspended in the trees in broad daylight thousands of fruit bats.  This is indeed a strange land of many shadeless trees, spectacular insects and reptiles, pouched and webbed feet mammals.  My journey in Australia this time will not have me communing quite as intimately with the more peculiar flora and fauna of the continent as I did during my five month stay in 98/99.  Although who knows what we’ll run into when we’re up visiting Alice’s parents in the tropical bush suburbs of Brisbane.  

            Yesterday, our late morning included an exquisite swim at the Redleaf harbour pool.  Tucked into a cove of an affluent eastern suburb, a large swimming area is separated from the mooring boats by a metal arc, a fence of sorts extending down to the harbor floor and above the water line perhaps 15 feet.   Although it initially feels cold to the toes, once in the water is a beautiful temperature.  Later in the day I ventured from Newtown back up into the city center to meet with my 17 year old cousin Hannah.  Hannah having just finished high school is awaiting scores from her big placement exams and deliberating about continuing straight on to university or deferring a year to work and travel.  The nature of my encouragement in that deliberation is probably rather self evident.  Later in the week, we’re having a small family/friend gathering at which I’ll have the occasion to see her mum, my first cousin Chrissie, and Hannah’s two younger siblings.  

 

            In a matter of hours, I will be meeting Ewan at the airport, our second international rendez vous.  For Christmas, my folks gifted us a few days in a holiday apartment tucked just beneath the Sydney Harbour bridge.  We will stay there until our departure with Alice on the 20^th, the beginning of a road trip adventure north to Brisbane for a sultry, languid Christmas.