A Twenty-Year Dance with Melbourne
Time flows at an exceedingly slow pace in Australia. I feel like I can take each second and weave it into the tapestry of a day, thread by thread. Perhaps it is the lifestyle here making it so, for people are just so laid back. It is in here that I am able to appreciate the minuteness of time, pruning life for its freshness, being aware of its very essence, and having the leisure to reflect daily, sometimes even half-a-daily. I have, after so many years away, come to embrace the Melbournian way. My heart beats in the same rhythm, my walk the same rate, as if merging unto a transformation that is measured, assured and deliberate.
In the Southern Hemisphere, life seems to operate at a complete reversal from that in Hong Kong. Besides the seasons being reversed and requiring adjustments, the amount of time I spend in solitude is in opposite proportion here. I stay with my family, and so I must make special effort in order to spend time alone, whereas in Hong Kong solitude is the default way of life. I am unsure whether I like this constant companionship, with people caring about the most insignificant things such as what I am having for breakfast, but this condition being temporary does put things in perspective for me. I am able to appreciate it for what it is worth, and to be honest I am happy here.
My only excuse for time alone is work. I divide the day into a few sessions and usually I am at a coffee shop for the morning session, and I can easily extend this solitude to lunch. Then comes afternoon and I make myself available at home to see if I may be of help. I am determined that this is a work holiday and I must be helpful to my aunts somehow. That includes fixing a stubbornly stuck LED light in the kitchen, or a car remote that has been out of battery, both of which was service that I have satisfactorily rendered.
I do remind myself every now and then that the priority here is to spend time with my grandmother who is at the very senior age of ninety-three this year. She has trouble walking now. As she takes every step with difficulty, it hurts me to see the expression of an undeniable old age, that the one who once took one hour journeys to take care of me when I was young would be at the time in life that five minutes of walking requires a half hour of recuperation. Yet I know that she does enjoy life despite all the infirmities that come with age. And she is happy that I am here. Her happiness in turn brings me a sense of contentment that I struggled to have in the oh-so-many-times I have been in Australia. Her happiness keeps my restless self at ease. And I do not miss the busy-for-nothing lifestyle in Hong Kong, well at least not for the past few weeks.
For two times each day the aroma of steamed rice greets me in the apartment that my grandmother lives. It is a distinctly Chinese memory, yet only in Melbourne does this smell strike me as extraordinary. For it is not just rice, but more so it is my grandmother’s Australian rice. When my aunt carries the pot and sets it on the table, the presence of this staple food, cooked in my grandmother’s way, permeates my senses. The way it looks, smells, tastes and is remembered triggers a flux of emotions in me. My grandmother is very strict with her food. They must be prepared in a certain way that allows for little deviation. She can taste the difference if not enough water was put in the vegetables. Therefore the presence of her food contains her very person, with eight decades of cooking behind her.
As dusk befalls I clear the sofa and line up three chairs as an extension to make a bed. At that moment I find simple comfort in the fact that I shall be resting this night in the company of my family. I often stare at the skyline of Melbourne City as I lie down, seeing in plain view a modest (the neon lights here do not compete for attention) yet assured (the buildings attest silently to Melbourne’s booming economy) display of its success. Melbourne has been known for being the most livable city of the world and I come up close to the heart of commerce that defines one aspect of Melbourne. At some point I fall asleep. Perhaps in my dreams this view of the City lingers, and becomes the peeping hole of the twenty years of personal history that began when my family first migrated here. There has been a sea change in Melbourne since I first set foot here. There has been an incredible growth in my life since I left a year later. And when I wake the next day to the sunlight of the southern hemisphere, shining evermore warmly, I am reminded that Australia is as much in me as I am in it.
