MOSAIC. Boroondara Writers Inc
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INTRODUCTION
More than any other genre, life writing is created by people speaking about the human experience from their own perspective and their own lived experience.
The thirty-one contributors to this book have each chosen to share an aspect of their lives. Some of these writers are Australian to the core, others are migrants from Europe and Asia. Some consider the small personal minutiae of life while others touch on some of the world's most significant upheavals. Some are novice writers and others have some experience, but they all offer us insights into their lives and by sharing allow the reader to connect with them and to recognise themselves in the sharing.
Every life is unique, yet despite differences in opportunity, age, ethnicity and experience, we discover through our stories how similar we are to one another in our fundamental humanity: our need for companionship, for family, for belonging, for understanding, for recognition.
Each participant in the Mosaic Project has contributed a story tile which, when combined with the other thirty tiles, creates a mosaic which illustrates both the unity and the variety of people who make Boroondara the place it is.
Caroline Carruthers
Coordinator, Boroondara Writers Inc
Melbourne September 2019
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
On behalf of Boroondara Writers I must thank both the City of Boroondara and the Rotary Club of Balwyn for their finanacial support through the community grants scheme, and also Grill'd Camberwell for a grant from their Local Matters program.
I must give my personal thanks to Tracey Martin, manager of Canterbury Neighbourhood Centre for supporting my suggestion some three years ago that we should produce a collection of life writing.
I also wish to acknowledge the support of Surrey Hills Neighbourhood Centre in the grant process.
Patty Trajkovska, the tutor of the Basic Literacy and Numeracy class at Alamein Neighbourhood and Learning Centre, was kind enough to invite me to address her class about the project and encouraged class members to participate.
And, of course, thanks to all the individuals who chose to submit their recollections for our enjoyment, to everyone who helped in the completion of this project.
SEASONS FOR CHANGE Narissa Leung
Weekends were made for long runs through the eucalypts and ever-changing foot tracks in the bushlands on our doorstep. Laurie and I believed (and still do) that there was no greater pleasure in life than running through the bush together after the rain, the crisp smell of clean air and renewal cleansing the mind and soul. In spring, the gum trees played second fiddle to the striking golden wattle blossoms. In summer, it was the somewhat unwanted arrival of spider webs which were inconveniently constructed across popular running tracks that always made an interesting addition to our long runs. And winter? Well, it was marked by frozen grass and the smell of log fires from the surrounding houses.
I’d grown up with the bush around Bendigo. Many a foot, hoof and bike tyre had carried my five siblings and I across the tracks and through the scrub at Lightning Hill in Eaglehawk. I’m sure the remnants of our cubby huts, hideouts and bases (always with a spyhole in case of danger) are still dotted throughout the bush today. In my adult life, various trail-running shoes lugged me, usually struggling for breath, up the appropriately named ‘Heartbreak Hill’ in the bushland of Strathfieldsaye. Whenever my life had lost its rhythm, the eucalypts and muddy trails always acted as defibrillators, getting me and my life back into our proper pattern.
I had to wonder then if we were crazy to be giving up gum trees and golden wattle and replacing them with a life of concrete and car fumes in Melbourne? Could I ever find rhythm and pattern in a place so far removed from the heart and soul of the bush?
The list of requirements for a new house included: a shed for all our bikes and sporting equipment, an extra loungeroom to hold my many hundreds of books and a backyard for our two cavoodles, Georgie and Lola. We looked at many houses that fit the criteria, but none of them seemed right. The final requirement was only realised when I saw it across the road from our new place: wide-open space and trees. The winning house looked out on to Macleay Park, with its ovals and walking track and, most reassuring of all, its eucalypts.
The backyard of the house was modest, and it was the first time in many years we’d been surrounded by neighbours on all three sides of our yard. Another novelty for us took the form of a relic standing in the backyard: a Hills Hoist. After 15 years of ‘clotheslinelessness’ (due to an unfortunate ‘kids-swinging-on-the-clothesline’ incident back in our old house) an outside line was something to look forward to in this house. (Our daughter had grown up so it was unlikely the clothesline swinging incident would ever be repeated.)
As I sat on the backstep on one of those first evenings in the house, I was startled to hear a loud, slow and rhythmic whoosh, whoosh, whoosh belonging to a set of giant bat wings flapping over me in close proximity. Looking up, I could see that as the summer sun was setting, the sky was filling with hundreds of silhouetted bats flying out from the city, across Balwyn and onwards to the outer suburbs. The sight of bats wasn’t new to me, there was an entire unwanted colony of them living in Bendigo. (They’d moved into the gardens before Easter one year, ‘temporarily’ the council had said, ‘permanently’ the bats had decided.) I hadn’t seen them in such numbers though, nor so large! Our Bendigo bats were small and insignificant. Flying rodents. These bats, these Balwyn bats, were awe-inspiring. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh! They came back each night in summer, always reminding me that despite what may have happened in my day or in my life, the bats would return, and the world would continue to turn. And then Autumn came, and the bats unfortunately started thinning out.
Burnt orange leaves in the surrounding streets announced autumn’s arrival, and they brought the game of baseball with them. The Macleay Park ovals were flooded with light as teams practised pitching and batting, balls going every which way in the night. A stray ball was a novelty find at first, but soon became an expectation on my nightly walks with Laurie and the dogs. The floodlit ovals, the feel of the crisply fresh air and the smell of slightly damp grass at this time of year, reminded me of the many evenings I spent training as a teenage boundary football umpire in Bendigo. One of my older brothers had introduced me to football umpiring, ‘you get paid for running around and staying fit’ is what he’d said. It never crossed his mind that 99% of the umpires were males; he thought that if he could do it, so could I. About four years of stinky men’s change rooms, white maggot jokes and requests for a date from the sidelines had followed. The crowds were always shocked when they realised it was a girl walking on to the field to umpire. “What’s she doing there?” “What would she know about football?”
The men I umpired with were the loveliest and most protective group ever, they always looked after me and they pushed me to run further and harder than I ever knew I could. Training with those boys and men is what started my relationship with running (albeit a love/hate relationship at times).
Autumn also provided glorious dog walking weather. Deciduous trees in various states of undress provided the perfect backdrop for daily dog play for Georgie and Lola. I’m sure they missed their regular runs through the Bendigo bushland as much as I did by this stage, but they seemed to think this daily off-the-lead gig was proving to be an ok replacement. Maybe city life could be achievable?
Winter’s frosts plastered themselves thick across the grass in early June. Her cool mists blanketed the Macleay ovals at the start of each day; a breathtaking sight as I reversed out of my driveway every morning. The oval’s morning activities and routines slowed at this time of the year as New Year’s resolutions slid deep underneath warm doonas. Football season. My walks with Georgie and Lola were now punctuated with the alluring smells of hot pies and sausage rolls and the less alluring smells of Deep Heat and sweaty bodies. I noticed that unlike the summer cricket season on these ovals, the rain didn’t halt the football, rather, it brought a tide of puffer jackets, umbrellas and closely huddled bodies. The cold wet winter days in my umpiring career were always the ones when I questioned if the money