In 2005, for a month I lived in Sydney in solitude. I was with our daughter who was undergoing one of the most difficult periods of her life. I was alone in her cozy flat when she would work on weekdays; weekends would send her to explorations in Sydney. It turned out to be meaningful for both of us.
I would wake up to the boisterous morning greetings of the cockatoos, really noisy even sarcastic sounding parrots. But they lifted my spirit. Often smaller birds would perch on the three tall palms in front of the balcony. They tried to keep me company.
April mornings in Sydney were crispy cold but by the end of May it was biting especially to my knees. Nevertheless the tall firs and spruces exuded a kind of warmth that made me feel a special companionship. There was a chubby tom cat from across the street who never failed to cross to my side each morning. Of course, he didn’t know I was watching him. Nature was such a healing mother during my stay in Sydney. My diet was healthy. I had plenty of exercise walking daily to the supermarket through a park with colorful flowers. I never saw anybody tending to the plants but they grew joyfully. In a street across the park I was surprised to see tall adelfas blossoming with flowers bigger than those in Manila. My return trip would be via a different route, shorter because of my bags. I would enjoy stepping and stomping on the brown maple-like leaves of different levels of dryness producing a symphony of sounds.
Daily visits to the supermarket even when I had nothing to buy was exhilarating. I could go around the various aisles without being disturbed by supermarket staff the way they do in Manila. One could examine a product lengthily and not feel pressured to buy. But when a need arises one can locate a member of the staff and ask for help or for information. In 2005, I noticed there was a supply of carabao mangoes not the sweet type we have in the Philippines. Of course, the avocados were readily available. Daily TV would ask, “Have you had your Avo today?”
In the evenings, I often walked to the train station to watch the predominantly green parrots with different patches of color. They had a ritual. Two or three would huddle together on a branch, bid one another good night and they would go off to sleep. I would say a silent prayer for Emil left alone in Manila. I would say a lot of prayers for Julie Anne whether she would be coming home for the night or staying elsewhere. It was agonizing then; my spirituality then didn’t offer much comfort. I had not yet learned to use energy to maximize connectedness.
Definitely I wasn’t worry free. Worries for the daughter most especially but also for Emil who was working on his second proposal for his dissertation. But I knew I wouldn’t relapse into another depression. I knew that no matter how carefully I planned my life, there would be loose ends I would not be able to tie neatly to my satisfaction.
From the balcony, I could see the Korean chapel where singing would emanate around sunset. The worshippers were not Catholics; no matter. I felt the Spirit transcended the limits of religious affiliations. There was comfort listening to the worshippers who were joyful; it made me think of a God who was benevolent rather than angry.
In Sydney I felt safe. Walking alone in Epping was easy even when I covered considerable distances. The pavements belonged to the pedestrians and to nobody else unlike in many streets of Manila. There were no stalls obstructing the pathway of pedestrians. Several old ladies would pass by chirping away with their companions. One particular lady senior citizen would pass by on her motorized wheel chair on her regular trip to the supermarket. I noticed she had a peculiar décor on a stick on her wheel chair. The vehicles, never enough to cause a traffic jam, were driven by ever so polite drivers. It was embarrassing to hobble because they would always let the slow pedestrians like me cross first. There were hardly traffic jams in 2005, because it was more efficient and less expensive to travel by train than by car or taxi cab.
In one of our trips outside the city, our trip was delayed because the driver allowed a wombat to cross the street. Apparently, the wombat didn’t know that the shortest distance from one point to another is via a straight line. It inched its way like a model on a ramp stopping from time to time as if to elicit admiring looks from us.
As a whole the people of Sydney were healthy. I noticed that servings in the restaurants were bigger than the regular orders in Manila eateries. I was saddened when I learned from
a local friend that the Sydney sun had been claiming several victims of skin cancer. As I write this I wonder whether the sun baskers I saw in Bondi and Manly knew the risks they took. Is it by choice that they abandoned themselves to the sun?
London Sept 10, 2011