The kindness of strangers 2

This afternoon after work (after a very bloody good day thank you very much) I drove to Coles to buy cleaning supplies and to restock the Kalotas kitchen so we can leave it in tip top shape.
-Ty called me in the meantime, and I was reminded of what great significance tomorrow will have for him. When we were on the phone he was polishing his medals-
In Coles, I was careful. More careful and frugal than I have been in years. I knew I had $100 and no more. Nothing on credit. Nada.
So I piled supplies carefully, as many home brand as I could find and then made my way to the checkout. The young guy who served me looked uncannily like a young Matt Thomas, and he watched silently my stricken face as I looked at the screen to see the numbers jumping up and up.
In the end I couldn't take everything, so I piled them back for him, but then realised I actually had another ten dollar note. So, ever so patiently, he scanned my left overs, one by one, being careful not to go over, and the end amount was something like $109.40
He made no comment and was as polite as ever. After I had piled everything into the trolley I went down to the carpark and cried. These days are not easy, but boy they are beautiful.

The kindness of strangers

We're moving. Finally a place of our own (well, a rented place of our own)...and we have nought but a new fridge and washing machine (a story all its own) and some things we've collected from the roadside. It's better than it sounds, really. But what's great is that at least three of my work mates have offered help, in the form of espresso cups, and couches and pots and pans. I am humbled and touched by their kindness.

These are hard weeks. But whenever I want to tear my hair and bite my nails (though I do do that anyway) about how poor I am, I think about people who have lost their jobs and have mortgages and kids.

Speaking of mortgages and kids...suburbia. It's my latest love affair. Because let's be honest, even in Cannington/Lynwood there were things to love. Wide front lawns with utes and panel vans, fragrant gardens and mewling cats...

So, here's a little something I have written:

There’s a letter in the inbox. An unexpected letter, one that when I open will probably be full of accounts of travels in Africa and work in Cambodia. But it isn’t. Dan, the great wanderer has become a father. There is just a short note and a beautiful photo. Ines.

On my nightly walk home, which is like a pilgrimage through the flowers, through the knee deep, heady scent of frangipani, I think about suburbia.
The warm predictability of it is like lashings of butter on crumpets. The scrapes of paint on the gate-post, the slight warp of the garage door, and always, stray shoes on the verandah. These details are unchanging, and I long for a regularity that would have me opening the same door, at the same time.
To leave my shoes on the verandah, being careless about homeless spiders and to put my hand on the gate-post, remembering where the paint came from.

Remembering where the paint came from, and who smeared it there, during a summer when innocence was well and truly buried. Remembering why orange work shirts to this day knock the wind out of me. Crushed frangipani flowers, pink not white, workboots and hunks of ice at the bottom of the esky.

Suburbia. The effervescent façade. The never-quite-true ring of our televised lives.
Flashing in neon and the uncertain flare of the setting sun, there are uniform lives that throb on the edge of cities. The lives that own a sizeable back-yard, replete with Hills Hoist and Weber barbecue, chewed rubber balls and a too-happy dog. The lives I look into when I make my pilgrimage through the flowers.
The car-bound, comfortable and safe lives.

I will endeavour to try and keep this blog up to date... time is so fickle and fast and valuable...

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