Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER
- I live by the river in what was once part of Melbourne’s great green wedge of suburbs. Not quite sure how you would describe it now. The parks remain along with the 60s brick veneers with their lemon trees and cement, and the 80s plaza where you can buy ricotta in four different delis, and somehow get your number plates stolen whilst trying to avoid the tables of old Italian men doing not much, whilst their wives continue to do everything. And there are also the big boxy townhouses and the promise of the new ‘transformational road’ that will cut under the river and the large swathes of bush, that becomes so dry in summer that the air itself feels brown and cracked and weathered.
- On walks by the river, I let my dog loose off his lead, except on the hottest days when the low hill of brown grass carries the risk of snakes. Fellow dog walkers leave handmade signs on poles and benches warning us of sightings ‘(“we saw a big one here at 10am”), and there are also the whispers we share amongst ourselves about emergency vet visits and dogs who are bitten when nosing under the bushes, particularly in the driest stretch of summer.
- I walk in the evenings, always to clear my anxious mind. The kookaburras have multiplied over the last 12 months, and the screech of their laughter will always break through whatever I’m feeling. My smile is open and unconscious.
- When it rains heavily, the river is a chocolate milkshake; thick and moving fast. One year, half the park was subsumed, bridges lost under the water, and it was a wonder. Nature taking the suburbs back. In cooler months, we’ll wonder down and wade in the shallow patches, and every Autumn I’m surprised to find myself warmed anew by all that yellow and will rip branches off to carry chunks of flowers in my pockets.
- I battle with fear in the park. I love the peace of walking at night, and yet now once the sun is gone, something primal kicks in and my racing heart and head take over; I need to get to the road immediately. One time I wore a large torch strapped to my forehead, determined to not let this fear entrap me. Yet on this very night, a man wondered out from the bushes completely nude, and strolled oblivious by my side. My dog was little comfort.
- People feed the cockatoos so that by the middle of the day, the bridge is lined with a guard of puffed up creatures whose pointed tongues terrify me. We had a cocky called Charlie growing up, who loved my dad above anyone. Dad would take him down to the house he was building, gently kiss his open beak, and let the bird drink out of his own coffee cup. When Charlie glimpsed me, he would immediately turn on his foot and charge, carried by swift, stumpy legs, his neck and beak stretched out. His toes would claw across the tiles in a dogged chase.
- In the heart of the park, across the bridge and around many meanders, there is flat plain where big kangaroos lie about, and rise on their haunches and tremendous tails. In the news recently, a woman told how she had been attacked by one and barely survived. I remember she was small and thin and shaking, with muscled arms.
- On a trip to Tasmania years ago, I learnt that wombats (stupendous creatures) are the only animals whose poo is ‘cubic’ in nature; enabling them to mark their territory in little wobbly pyramids. I feel like a proper naturalist, when walking with my children I am able to deftly identify these pyramids of poo. We are delighted to be shared holders of this secret knowledge.
- Every Spring, there is a time when the council gardeners mow over the park’s expanse of glinting yellow flowers, no matter how beautiful. This angers me so much that I fume for days. How do they not realise how that sheet of yellow lifts me each morning in a moment of sublime.
- Sometimes after one lap, my dog will stop at the park’s entrance and refuse to move. I walk on. He stays. I continue to walk. He lies down. We play this game. I sometimes win. Sometimes he does.