Mid-Autumn 2024 Diary
Easter, live music, and gardens
The morning’s heavy rains have passed, leaving cloud-strewn skies in their wake, and a damp icy chill that had me dragging my thick knitted jumper out of the drawers. It’s a cloudy Tuesday in early April, the middle month of autumn in our part of the world. Summer daylight savings time ended in the early hours of Sunday, that weird blurry jetlagged time in which my body clock has not yet adjusted to the altered schedule. Suddenly the days feel far too short, especially living this far south. The low sunshine glows on the plane trees in a garden on the hill opposite my house, with the first autumn leaves fluttering in the cold breeze.
It's been a busy several weeks, but it’s the good kind of busy. I had far less medical appointments than in previous months, which was a relief and a welcome change in routine. Instead, we managed to cram our calendar full of fun and interesting things. March and early April were so busy that I didn’t fulfil my plan to try to write at least once per month on this Substack. I’ve definitely noticed that I have a tendency to write more when I’m feeling miserable, thus inadvertently giving the illusion that I am perpetually gloomy. I mean, I am often gloomy, but that’s the clinical depression talking, and it isn’t the complete reality. When I’m out and about and enjoying myself, I’m too busy making memories to record them in real time.
I’m doing a lot more things than I normally would. A decade ago, it was simply not within my budget (fiscally or timewise) to go out and about so often. But this year, an improvement in our circumstances, coupled with a tidal wave of local events that interested us, has given my husband and I the chance to go out more frequently this year than normal. I’ve been journalling these experiences in detail, in my handwritten long-form journal, to try to make sure I ponder each event and appreciate it. I don’t want this series of activities to turn into a homogenous blur of activity.
March Diary: live music and Formula One
As March and the beginning of autumn arrived, we went to see the Australian alternative rock-prog-political band COG when they played at the Northcote Theatre. We met up with one of my old high school friends there, and her husband and friends. I haven’t seen this friend since our high school reunion over a decade ago, though we’ve kept in touch via Instagram all these years. And yet, in that moment, as we sung along to the songs and enjoyed the night, we may as well have been 18-year-olds all over again, instead of middle-aged married women in our early 40s. I have happy memories of early 2000s post-high school adventures with her, singing along to CDs in her car.
A couple of weeks later, my husband, son and I made the trek to IMAX to watch the 1570 film screening of Dune: Part Two. I thoroughly enjoyed that. I have tried a few times over the years to read the Dune novels but have never made it past the first couple of chapters. Maybe I will try again.
That same week, the husband, daughter and I went to see the Ukrainian folk-experimental-not sure how to describe them band DakhaBrakha when they performed at Hamer Hall in Melbourne. My husband and daughter have Ukrainian heritage on their paternal side, and it seemed to me that the majority of the audience shared that ancestry with them. A lot of folks were there in their best vyshyvanka shirts. Several of the men there looked like they could’ve been related to my husband, including one guy who was the doppelgänger of one of my brothers-in-law.
The concert was excellent, the songs mixing contemporary instrumentation with folk stylings, including the used of ‘bilyi holos,’ or ‘white voice,’ and the banter in between songs often very funny. My first introduction to DakhaBrakha’s music was, if I recall correctly, the 2017 performance of their song ‘Zamanyly’ with Crimean Tatar singer Jamala, the interval act at Eurovision that year. That song in particular has been on regular rotation in my own playlists.
Later in March, our whole family headed to the Australian Formula One Grand Prix for Qualification Day. Overall it was a good day, though the several hours it took to actually find a coffee van resulted in my having a terrible caffeine-withdrawal headache. (I know it’s not ideal to be addicted to caffeine, but my goodness, doesn’t everyone have a crutch?!)
April Diary: Easter walks and Riverdance
Over the Easter long weekend, we went for a lovely, sunny Good Friday walk around the Dandenong Ranges Botanic Garden. On average we visit there perhaps every two to three months, and there is always something new to admire. The garden changes and evolves seasonally and annually. Thankfully it was quieter in the Dandenong Ranges than usual: the hot weather and long weekend must have propel most folks to take a beach holiday.
On Easter Saturday, my husband and I bought some takeaway soy lattes and enjoyed a nice stroll around a reservoir at the base of Mt Dandenong. That evening enjoyed a family outing with our adult children, dining at a local Mexican restaurant.
On Easter Sunday, my husband and I walked a local hiking trail. It is ridiculously steep (to me, at least) in the first few hundred metres, and I had to make frequent stops along the way. The effort is worth it, though, because beyond the steep section – which my smart watch recorded as the equivalent of walking up the staircase in a 60-storey building – it slopes into an undulating, shaded section of bushland, full of butterflies and chattering crimson rosellas. We then followed the more gently sloping trail back down the hill.
Most recently, my husband and I went to see the 25th Anniversary performance of the Irish dance and music show Riverdance in Melbourne. As I joked with him, if the DakhaBrakha show was his Ukrainian cultural moment, then Riverdance was my moment to channel the Irish part of my heritage.
I have vivid memories of watching Riverdance for the first time as a teenager. Just like how I first encountered the music of DakhaBrakha, Riverdance had its origins as a Eurovision interval act. I also had a VHS tape of Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance that I watched more times than I could count. It was a dream come true to see Riverdance with my own eyes. The skill and storytelling of the dancers and musicians alike was deeply moving.
There’s now a month to wait before the next events on the calendar, which is fine by me. It’ll be a pleasant change of pace to have some quiet weekends. I imagine we might end up going bushwalking at some point, but for now I’m keeping the calendar clear.
It’s probably also an opportunity to check a few obligatory errands off the list. I might even manage a deep clean of the house and garden, that I have been telling myself I’ll do for an embarrassingly long time. We’re coming up to the fourth anniversary (four whole years?!) of when we moved into this house, in the blurry months during the first year of the pandemic. This being the first home (and so far, only home) that we bought after 18 years of renting - and it could do with a clean and refresh. On chilly days like today, I recall just how horribly cold, damp and uncomfortable our previous rental home was, and I feel profoundly grateful for my warm room, my desk, the dehumidifier keeping the mould at bay, and the way this place feels like a good place to come home to. My husband is working from home today, which meant we were able to take a walk around the local neighbourhood on his lunchbreak, to get a coffee and enjoy the weak mid-autumn sunshine and the local trees that are starting to change colour. Oh, how good it was to step into our warm, dry home, after the icy light rain as we strolled!
I have accumulated several new packets of seeds, anemone corms, and bulbs for the garden, too. I am excited to plant those in anticipation of springtime in September. I feel that planting spring bulbs is a tangible, practical act of optimism. It is an expression of faith that the future will arrive. My Friday night ritual with my daughter, now that her weekends are quieter than ever, is to watch Gardening Australia together, and get inspired about the possibilities for our garden, and for her future career options if she continues studying environmental sciences at university. It’s her second year now and she is enjoying it a lot more, now that she knows her way around. I marvel at how much happier my kids are since they started university. Their secondary school was excellent, but with all the disruptions of the pandemic lockdowns disrupting their formative senior years, it was a relief for them to get into university, make new friends, and experience a change of scenery beyond the depressing two years they were stuck with extended periods of online learning.
Well, that’s the update. I have also begun a new journalling project - but I think that it warrants its own separate post!
Wonderful, evocative writing, and beautiful photos! Wow, you did so many amazing things. I'm most envious of your seeing Riverdance of course. :) I'm so pleased about Natalia's interest in the garden and environment. It's great that she's really enjoying uni.
Four years in your new house? Where did that time go? How marvellous that it's tons better than your old, horrid rentals. :)