The Equinox
Equal daylight, equal night hours. Whether you are in the north or south, there is a feeling of environmental equity. In Wollongong, the rather warm weather persists, with summer-like harshness of sunlight at noon and at daybreak. The full moon on an equinox evening adds to the alignment of the heavens, earth and the calendar. Catholic and Protestant Easter falling on March 21st this year meant the start of the long weekend in Western countries. I subconsciously await for signs of fall, but only see, with delight, mandarins and Tahitian limes sprouting fruit in my garden.
Autumn normally flags a cooler time, perhaps suited doing the inevitable chore of clothes ironing, but not so far. People do send their laundry to be crisply ironed for a fee, but I secretly enjoy the motion and mindlessness of such a house task. I sip in the rather calming effect of unique tea blends called Morning Flower and Stockholm ( do they grow tea in Sweden?). With more discretionary time, I dabble in a frenzy of cooking, ranging from stir-fried hokkien noodles accompanied by oyster chicken bites to trying new marinade mixtures on meat roasts. I can assume another existence in another world, away from the regime of paid employment and feel like the flora still boisterously growing in my yard.
It may be the supposed season of reconciliation, but I am reminded of the opposite.
A paid subscription to the Sydney Morning Herald sees its delivery cancelled by Fairfax for unbeknown reasons. A sales woman in an aquarium shop in the battler suburb of Warrawong treats me as if I do not exist, even as I was intently looking at some beautiful fishes. However, I view these as minor transgressions, for the overworked check out lady at Woolworths Shellharbour can still manage a smile, a stranger in the queue can chat easily with me ( and I love his Italian accent) and the sales guys at my local Supa Cheap Auto take initiative to ask what I am looking for.
As time whittles away the earlier prospect of five nights and four days on a long weekend, I bury myself with the detail of cleaning the wheel chrome of my car, a current obsession of mine after an advice from a good mate - "never let the dirt grow and nip it in the bud". There is time to catch up on sleep debt and sink into magazines waiting for my attention in the lounge. To underline the significance of cyberspace and computers, I fretted for days on end when my home desktop refused to fire up, but on one miraculous night, the monitor and the cpu decided to come back from holiday.
The evening before the equinox, I had driven to Burwood in Sydney's inner west to attend a birthday party. It was good to start the holidays with friends, and two of them announced an engagement. The Sydney traffic on holiday eve was horrendous to go through, especially with this Australian habit of imposing double demerit points to deduct from your driving license on top of the monetary fines for road offences. However, there was no breath analyser test along Tom Ugly's Bridge on the way back to Wollongong, despite a strong police presence only a week ago. On the night of the equinox, a home cooked dinner spread awaited the fortunate few invited to my Carlingford cousin's home - food galore with lively chats and reunited friends. Like a pause in otherwise ordinary routine, we enjoyed this moment, when the Earth itself as a planet was not tilting as it otherwise does.
Autumn normally flags a cooler time, perhaps suited doing the inevitable chore of clothes ironing, but not so far. People do send their laundry to be crisply ironed for a fee, but I secretly enjoy the motion and mindlessness of such a house task. I sip in the rather calming effect of unique tea blends called Morning Flower and Stockholm ( do they grow tea in Sweden?). With more discretionary time, I dabble in a frenzy of cooking, ranging from stir-fried hokkien noodles accompanied by oyster chicken bites to trying new marinade mixtures on meat roasts. I can assume another existence in another world, away from the regime of paid employment and feel like the flora still boisterously growing in my yard.
It may be the supposed season of reconciliation, but I am reminded of the opposite.
A paid subscription to the Sydney Morning Herald sees its delivery cancelled by Fairfax for unbeknown reasons. A sales woman in an aquarium shop in the battler suburb of Warrawong treats me as if I do not exist, even as I was intently looking at some beautiful fishes. However, I view these as minor transgressions, for the overworked check out lady at Woolworths Shellharbour can still manage a smile, a stranger in the queue can chat easily with me ( and I love his Italian accent) and the sales guys at my local Supa Cheap Auto take initiative to ask what I am looking for.
As time whittles away the earlier prospect of five nights and four days on a long weekend, I bury myself with the detail of cleaning the wheel chrome of my car, a current obsession of mine after an advice from a good mate - "never let the dirt grow and nip it in the bud". There is time to catch up on sleep debt and sink into magazines waiting for my attention in the lounge. To underline the significance of cyberspace and computers, I fretted for days on end when my home desktop refused to fire up, but on one miraculous night, the monitor and the cpu decided to come back from holiday.
The evening before the equinox, I had driven to Burwood in Sydney's inner west to attend a birthday party. It was good to start the holidays with friends, and two of them announced an engagement. The Sydney traffic on holiday eve was horrendous to go through, especially with this Australian habit of imposing double demerit points to deduct from your driving license on top of the monetary fines for road offences. However, there was no breath analyser test along Tom Ugly's Bridge on the way back to Wollongong, despite a strong police presence only a week ago. On the night of the equinox, a home cooked dinner spread awaited the fortunate few invited to my Carlingford cousin's home - food galore with lively chats and reunited friends. Like a pause in otherwise ordinary routine, we enjoyed this moment, when the Earth itself as a planet was not tilting as it otherwise does.
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